05-14-24 FULL SHOW - What the Property Tax Fix Did and How To Fix It For Real

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm your host for the next threehours, Mandy Connell, joined by just
Jeff in for the vacationing Anthony Rodriguez, and he will help keep us on
the air. How long do Ihave you till today? Two hours?
Today? Two hours and then we'llget Coover in here because the great uh
it. You know, these guyscan't put up with me for the whole
three hours, so we have tomake it easy. We have to drug
a rod to get him through thewhole show, but he's okay with it

(00:22):
apparently, Jeff and Coover like,I'm not being drugged to work on that
show anyway. No, I've hadone of those mornings that's challenging. But
I'm here for you because I'm atrained professional. Let me just have a
moment tell you about my day.So yesterday Fixed the twenty four to seven
came to my house and kicked usout of it because they have jack hammered

(00:42):
through the floor of my basement,my finished basement. By the way,
lest you think that this was anunfinished basement without carpet and flooring and a
toilet and a shower and a vanity, because it is a it is a
finished basement. It was. Butuh, when the dream from your you
know, your house to the connectionto the sewer disappears because it's cast iron

(01:07):
and it just rots away without youknowing it, there's not a lot of
options. So yesterday we get bootedout of our house. We find a
really nice airbnb near my house,which was great, and went there last
night, spend the night, gotup this morning and realized I didn't have
my laptop with me, so Iessentially can't do anything. And FYI,
my office in my house is onthe other side of the basement drain and

(01:32):
completely shielded with plastic right now toprevent any kind of you know, contamination
into that space. So I haveto come to work. But I get
up, I'm like, you knowwhat, I'm just gonna make the best
of this. I go to Doug'sDiner, which I love. I have
my breakfast because they have great coffeethere, and really I choose my breakfast
locations based on the quality of thecoffee. So I go to Doug's Diner,
I have breakfast. I go tostand up from the table at Doug's

(01:53):
Diner and manage to spill most ofmy cup of coffee onto my person but
I'm so enamored with the fact thatI've spilled coffee directly so it looks like
I pete on myself in my pants, that I don't miss the fact that
my shirt is covered with coffee untilI go to get out of my car
here at the office, and Ilook down and I realize I am wearing

(02:16):
most of my cup of coffee onmy white shirt, primarily white shirt.
So I do what all rational peopledo. I walk into that we have
a small gym in our building that'sjust for the people who work here,
and I walk into the gym.I go into the ladies' locker room,
which honestly is the nicest bathroom inthis building, in case we're wondering,
they have a shower in there.I take off my shirt. I washed

(02:37):
the front of my shirt with soapin the sink and the shower, and
then I take some paper towels,and I blought it, but it's a
nice kind of a lightweight cotton shirt, so I knew it'd be dry.
Quickly put my shirt back on,sat down to do my blog at my
desk. I took a plastic bagthat I had some soda weight loss bars
in and I put that between myshirt and myself because the cold shirt was

(02:57):
very cold and I didn't want tosit there wearing a culture lo and behold,
the entire plan worked. I'm nowmostly coffee free. I mean,
there's like one little spot, butif I didn't tell, you wouldn't know.
But that's how my day started,Ladies and germs, That's how it
started. So whatever happens today iseither going to be the same, in
which case you probably want to listenbecause it could be a trade wreck,

(03:21):
or it's going to be way better, in which case you probably want to
listen because it's going to be waybetter. So either way, you people
are winning today. You are winningthe day. Let's uh, the blog
is joinormous too, so the blogis used. Let's jump right into that.
Find the blog by going to mandy'sblogdot com. That's Mandy's blog dot
com. And no, there's notan apostrophe in that, not because I

(03:44):
don't know good grammar, but becauseyou cannot have a character in a URL.
Okay, so Mandy's blog dot com. Then look for the headline that
says five fourteen twenty four blog whatthe property tax fix did and how to
fix it for real. Click onthat and here are the headlines. Will
find within. I think you're theoffice half of American allerships and clipments and
say that's going to press plant todayon the blog. When does a property

(04:08):
tax cut not cut taxes? Isthere a push to ban hunting? There
will be a ballot initiative with realproperty tax reform on the ballot. Mayor
Mike creates a new office of gobbledegook. Whatever scrolling, We're number three.
Jared Polis's expensive gas is right aroundthe corner. Denver teachers protesting over pay,

(04:28):
protecting free speech. The early warningsigns from around the world. They
don't make me stop this car leadershipat local campuses. Wyoming is coming for
our cops. Just what passed inthis legislative session. There's a whole bunch
of crowns being given up right now. Christineome is over Here, come the
Miller moths. What do dying peopleregret? Don't expect a rate cut anytime

(04:49):
soon? Why young people can't buya home? Mom mad a vet won't
see her son the cat. Alawsuit over vaccine damage has been filed America
and support abortion rights? Is thisthe end of cheddar Bay biscuits in Colorado.
US docs are not using good scienceon transgender care? Where are the
best stakes in Denver? Tired ofbad dates? Let AI handle them?

(05:14):
This guy can't be real. Thoseare the headlines on the blog at Mandy's
blog dot com. And for theperson who just hit the Common Spirit Health
text line with the following text message, WHOA what T shirt contested? KOA,
That is not what happened. Thespill was much lower. It was
below the boob area, and Iam such a skilled remover of stains that

(05:38):
I did not even get that areawet, thank you very much. And
it's rather a heavy cotton shirt.I don't think you'd get much of a
show anyway. So there you go. That is not a thing that's happening
right now now. I promised RossI would get into this story right away,
because you're still sitting here looking atme. But I can't believe you
didn't talk about this. We nowhave a new office in the city of

(05:58):
Denver, and it's office that Iam sure everyone in this listening audience has
been clamoring for. If you hopeyou can almost hear the clamor from here,
if you just oh, they're theclamor. I can hear it.
No one was clamoring for this,but nonetheless, Mayor Mike has now announced,
let me find the name here soI make sure that I get it,

(06:20):
the Office of Social Equity and Innovation. You heard me right. The
Department of Public Safety is having elevenmillion bucks shaved off of its budget to
give it to the newly created Officeof Social Equity and Innovation. Now what

(06:41):
exactly is this going to do?Well, let me share with you the
gobbledygook from the denver Isette. SoMayor Mike announced that the office will tackle
public safety, but with a pronouncedshift away from law enforcement and an emphasis
on racial and social equity. Thenew Office of Neighborhood Safety brings together four

(07:04):
major city programs, including the StarTeam, which is I actually like the
Star Team and I think it hasit's very useful. That is the group
of people, maybe a social workerand some other people that are sent out
to calls that are non violent butmaybe someone's having a psychotic break, or
maybe someone is having they're in distressbut they're not necessarily dangerous. They then

(07:27):
send the Star Team to handle thatcall instead of police which I think is
a great thing. So there aregood things, but that was already in
a different office, and now it'sbeing moved over to this office. They're
also moving youth safety programs and theyare trying to help communities safe in ways
that don't require law enforcement. Now, the entire crux of this new department

(07:49):
is based on two legs that Ican see. Okay, so it should
be easy to push over, butthere's two legs that I can see.
Number one, the first leg isthe progressive that we don't need police.
We just need more social programs tohelp people who would become criminals except they

(08:09):
have the opportunity to play basketball atmidnight. They're not going to become criminals
as long as we have an afterschool program to keep them straight and flying
right, they're not going to becomecriminals if we have whatever social program the
progressives can come up with next.Now, I'm not going to say that
those programs don't have value for somepeople. Right there are some people that

(08:31):
are going to engage in those programsthat are going to have success in life
because they were not let down apath of criminality. But since the beginning
of time, there are scumbags whoare going to break the law. And
there are scumbags that you can givethem every opportunity to do the right thing,
and they will still choose to dothe wrong thing for a variety of

(08:54):
reasons. So it gets even better, though, it gets even better.
They've talked to Ben sam Executive directorof the Office of Social Equity and Innovation,
and this is what he had tosay. You cannot create a safer
city without clear commitments to racial andsocial equity and justice. For generations,
we've lived inside of realities where communityhas said, why don't we just take

(09:16):
some of what's in the Department ofPublic Safety and move it so it's closer
to the community so they can helpfix some of what's happening. I'm proud
to say today that we're doing justthat. Now, here's my questions for
this new department. What are yourobjectives, how are they measured? And
how will you know if you werea success? Because as far as I

(09:39):
know right now at this moment,in the city of Denver, we don't
have laws on the books that arediscriminatory based on race. As a matter
of fact, we have a crapton of laws that are based on race,
but only to tell you you cannotdiscriminate against people based on race.
We don't just have one that says, hey, you can't discriminate against people
based on race. We have lawsabout housing. We have laws about loans,

(10:03):
we have laws about redlining. Wehave laws about housing discrimination. We
have laws about employment discrimination. Wehave laws about pregnancy discrimination. We have
laws about every single kind of discriminationyou can possibly imagine already on the books.
And now we have an office towell derace or de racism or deraceify.

(10:24):
What is the how do you howdo you unracist something? How do
you walk the racism back? Whenwhen it seems to me that we've already
done a lot of stuff to makethat happen. Now the mayor says that
it's just a quote strategic reallocation ofresources, And all I could think of
was, didn't we just clip fifteenpercent off the police budget? Didn't we

(10:46):
just do that? Aren't we alreadyunderstaffed at the Denver Police Department. We're
not at full capacity right now.And the worst part about this is the
people that are disproportionate affected by highcrime are minorities. They live in neighborhoods
where they are more likely to bevictimized, they go to schools where their

(11:09):
children are more likely to have issues, and we're telling them we don't need
more cops when polling data done inthese neighborhoods overwhelmingly shows in every city that
I've ever seen polling data four,the people that live in those neighborhoods with
high crime they want more police,not less police. You have a handful
of activists who think that the policeare the devil and they are the problem,

(11:33):
while ignoring the statistical reality that,especially for black people, they are
far less likely to be killed bya police officer than a police officer is
likely to be killed by them.Statistically, that is a real statistic that
has been born out. I thinkit's eighteen percent. Police officers are eighteen

(11:54):
percent more likely to be killed bya black person than the other way around.
So they want more police in theirhigh crime neighborhoods. And now we
have the mayor who's going to createthis new department of kittens and rainbows that
is supposed to, you know,make sure that we have social equity and
justice. What does that mean?What are the metrics? Where's the rubric

(12:18):
to grade this? Because you know, my daughter's in high school and every
time she has a project, there'sa rubric where the teacher literally hands them
a piece of paper that says,if you do this, you will be
given this high score. If youdo a little bit less, you'll be
given this score. If you doless, you'll be given this score.
If you don't do anything, you'regoing to fail. It's a rubric so
the kids can actually look at itand see what do I need to accomplish

(12:39):
in this project to get the bestgrade possible. There's no rubric. There's
not even any clear definable goals.They're just nebulous. We need to make
it better in Denver, it's insane. I've got to find my favorite quote.
As a matter of fact, Igrab it for the blog so I
can just look there. My favoritequote in this article from the Denver Gazette
is Sanders, who is one ofthe new people. She is one of

(13:03):
the heads of something something I don'teven know anymore. I don't even care
what these departments are called. Shesaid this. Sanders claimed that Denver is
a city where race and other socialidentities predict someone's outcomes in life. So
basically, what Sanders is saying isif you're black or brown, you are
limited in Denver as to what youcan become because of the inherent racism of

(13:28):
our city. I'm assuming that thisperson never met Mayor Michael Hancock, who
is I don't know if he wasborn here, but I know he was
raised here, or Wellington Webb orother black mayor of the city of Denver
who moved here when he was thirteenyears old and was reared in Denver for
the rest of his life, andyet managed somehow as a black person to
become mayor of Denver. This kindof stuff is just incredibly stupid, and

(13:54):
what frustrates me is nobody presses andsays, hello, can we get an
example? Can you just give meone actual example of a child in school
in Denver public schools who is blackor hispanic that is being told you cannot
achieve because you live in Denver,this inherently racist city. You're never gonna
get ahead because you are black orbrown in Denver. Where is that happening?

(14:18):
Because I'm tired of this. Wejust need to do something about justice
and equity. Okay, great,give me an example of what you are
going to do. Give me onesolid thing, one solid metric that I
can measure at the end of thisoperation to find out if you were successful
in any way, shape or form. And here's the thing. They're going

(14:39):
to point to programs. They're gonnasay, look, we did this after
school program, We did this,but they can't ever say if it was
effective. That's the thing. Theyjust assume, Well, we don't have
this, or or if we didn'thave this, it would be way,
way worse. There's no hard wayto measure this stuff. And anytime we
have an entire department that is puttogether for so justice, it for me,

(15:01):
honestly, just feels like a grift. Like everybody who works in this
office doesn't have any clear goals.I mean I have very clear goals.
Ross has very clear goals. Weknow what we need to accomplish to be
successful in our roles here, andif we don't accomplish it, they will
show us the door. It's verysimple. Hi, guys, you're not
performing, You're not doing what you'resupposed to do. Thank you very much

(15:22):
for your time. You can gowork somewhere else. But that doesn't happen
in a city department. It's absolutelynuts. Now, the mayor said Armando
Saldate, I'm going to say Saldateinstead of Solidate, Executive director of the
Department of Public Safety, a championthe transfer resources from his agency and the

(15:43):
creation of a new office. Thecity describes the mission of this Social Equity
Office as overseeing efforts to and thisis a quote, eliminate social inequity and
race and social injustices by evaluating institutionaland structural government systems and practices to dismantle
racism. Great, I want alist of what you've dismantled this time next

(16:06):
year. I want a list ofthe bills that you rescinded. I want
a list of the laws that youwent after. I want a list of
the people that you have accused ofracist behavior and what their racist behavior actually
was. But none of this willhappen because that in and of itself would
be racist, because God forbid youask for results. God forbid you say
I want to know the actual thingsthat were accomplished with his eleven million dollars,

(16:30):
because if you ask that question,well, that just proves you're a
racist. It's like this this insanecircular argument where you can't ever win,
and you can't get out. It'slike the Hotel California of arguments. If
you dare to ask questions about theAnti Racism Department, you are therefore racist.
Trust me on this, mark mywords. That is exactly what will

(16:51):
happen. Oh, thank you Andy. How could I forget Fredriko Pania as
a mayor of Denver. Obviously thesethree men were so limited, so limited
by the intense racism that existed inDenver that they managed to become mayor.
What a couple of decades ago,now, when was Pinia, he was

(17:11):
like eighties, mid eighties. Gosh, we must have been way less racist
then. We've just gotten way moreracisty since then. And what's pretty about
this is, thank goodness, ourdemocratic mayor is taking the lead on this,
so he can unwind all the racistpolicies that have been put in by
all of other Denver's Democratic mayors.Because I don't even know the last time

(17:37):
Denver had a Republican mayor. Idon't think I can go back that far
in the way back machine in myhead. So all of this racism has
been baked in by the Democrats whohave run Denver for decades. That's the
only part that makes me happy tothis texter on the Common Spirit health text
line, don't you know only intentionsmatter, results don't, And that,
my friends, is exactly right.Get back. We're gonna have a conversation

(18:02):
with Kelly Cawfield from the Common SenseInstitute that property tax relief bill does nothing
of the sort. We'll discuss that. Next. Joining me now is Kelly
Cawfield. She's the executive director atthe Common Sense Institute, to talk about
the alleged property tax relief that waspassed by the legislature last week. I

(18:26):
didn't think it did what they saidit did, and after reading the Common
Sense Institute report, I am certainthat it did not do what it's being
sold as. Kelly, Welcome tothe show. Thanks so much. Nice
to be here. So why don'tyou give my listeners who have not had
a chance to read the report,though it is linked on Today's blog at
mandy'sblog dot com. What did youguys find when you started doing an analysis

(18:48):
of this alleged property tax relief?Thanks so much. You know, this
is a hugely complex issue rushed throughin the last few hours of the legislative
session. And I heard what youheard. I heard that we were going
to get significant relief from the legislation. But the bottom line is you and

(19:10):
me, we're going to see anincrease in property taxes from what's being paid
today, and this is coming ata time when our taver refunds will be
decreasing. Happy to talk about thatmore, and we can't forget inslation.
Coloradin's are spending twelve hundred dollars moreper month compared to twenty twenty. So
this just comes at a tough time. It's a huge burden for Coloraden.

(19:33):
So it is being sold and Ihad representative Lisa Frizelle on the show,
and I really like Lisa. Ithink she's, you know, a great
conservative. Barbara Kirkmeyer's been out talkingabout this as well, and I think
she's a very strong conservative. Theyworked on this property tax reform and they
were both trying to sell it asa property tax cut. And when I
asked Lisa directly if this actually wasa cut or simply a reduction in future

(19:57):
increases, she admits I did thatthe latter was true. That is just
a reduction in future increases. Isthat what you guys found as well?
That's right, because I think whenyou know, your average person is trying
to understand even a simple policy,nevertheless a more complex policy. You want

(20:18):
to look at what am I payingtoday and how is that going to look
in the future, so that weuse that as our baseline, Mandy,
we wanted to analyze sen At Billtwenty four to two thirty three based on
how will this compare from what myproperty tax bill is today versus what it
will be in the future. Andas your viewers can see and common Sense

(20:42):
institutes full report on your website thinksfor linking to it. You know,
we show it all. We showwhat would be the increase or decrease under
the current rates that we all currentlyhave for our you know, assessed rate
assessment rates and our property tax rates, and then we also show what would
it have been under current law.And that's really just if the special session

(21:03):
relief would have sun setted, whichit would have ended at the end you
know, of this year. Sowe thought the baseline for really looking at
whether or not this is a cutor not should come from our current rates
that we all experience, and itis an increase from our current property tax
rates. There's really no other wayto say it. This is incredibly disappointing

(21:27):
because when people were being told we'reworking on property tax relief, I think
everybody assumed that they would be workingon rolling back either the forty percent increases
that most of us have seen orlowering the overall property tax rate to mitigate
the damage that we are all experiencingthis year. But they didn't do anything

(21:48):
to fix this year, did they. Good, you're right, we are
locked in to these hugely apilating rates. And you're right, you know,
we saw those property assessment value FIKEsomewhere between thirty and forty percent, depending
on where you're living in the state. And under this legislation, which I

(22:10):
don't know if it's been signed intolaw yet, but we'll be soon here
if it hasn't already, you're lockedin whatever you are currently paying here in
the year twenty twenty four for yourproperty taxes. In twenty twenty three,
you're locked in to that extremely highrate that is truly cutting into the Colorado
household budget for next year there isnot release. And then in twenty twenty

(22:32):
five, when we go through ournext reassessment period, property tax rates increase,
so we are setting Colorado's up foranother increase and their property tax bills.
This U this is so infuriating,Kelly. And this all goes back
to the debrusing of the Gallagher Amendment, you know, repealing the Gallagher Amendment.

(22:56):
When people were told that we hadto do this or governments were going
to start and properties, you know, businesses were going to leave, and
those of us who knew what wasgoing to happen, said, look,
there may be issues with Gallagher,but we need to tweak it, not
repeal it. And I think noweverybody's like, how is this happening.
Well, we voted for it,and that's what's so frustrating. But I
know that there are two ballot initiatives. We're going to talk to Christy Burton

(23:18):
round from Advanced Colorado about them alittle bit later. But I mean,
this is this is just there's nothingthe voters can do. It sounds like
you're right, Mandy. There aretwo measures that we know. Fifty has
already been certified for the ballot,and I know that one O eight is
in the signature gathering process. Incommon sentence to you, we want to

(23:40):
do the same thing we did lastyear. We found prop age, eh,
you know, with complex as wellright, and that took all of
our taper refunds, and we thoughtit was important for voters to understand how
would they be impacted by age ehSo, I think what's next for us
is digging into the details of oneO eight and fifty and two thirty three

(24:00):
and setting up a calculator so thatColorados can go to it themselves and better
put in their address and better understandwhat is the best deal for me and
what would be the impact. Ithink that will be hugely important. You
know something else, Mandy, Idid just want to mention, you know,
our report talked about, you know, is this really you know,
a long term fix, and whatwe heard when this legislation passed or you

(24:25):
know, yea passed and was votedon, they kept saying, hey,
there's this five point five percent cap, but we think it's important to uh
it was true limitation. Wait tostop, you said, you said you
started to say something about the cap, then you cut off, So repeat
that. Sorry, Mandy. Sure, the legislation has a proposed five point

(24:48):
five percentage cap, and I justwanted to say that we think that has
true limitations because it seems like alot of entities are exact from this five
point by rights CAB, I meanto be clear, school districts which represent
over fifty percent of the tax spacewould be excluded from this CAB home rule,

(25:11):
governments which there are many are exempted, and other revenue sources like oil
and gas operations and new construction.So we'll be digging into that more.
But whenever I hear this has anactual cap and some long term relief,
I question that because I think there'sa ton of exemption to this cap.
I don't think it's real. Iagree, and you know, I realized

(25:32):
that property tax is hard to understand, and I have a real issue with
that. I think it is setup in a way that makes it really
difficult for people to feel like theycan make, you know, a cogent
argument against the property taxes because it'sso complicated that it is difficult for a
lay person to even figure out howwho they're paying taxes to, what their

(25:55):
property, you know, the rateis there, how much goes to that
person. There's got to be away to streamline this to make it easier
for taxpayers to understand, and Ithink then it would be a lot easier
to defeat some of this stuff atthe ballot box. If people understood what
the whole system was. I thinkyou're right, and the property tax challenges

(26:15):
of Colorado, it only exacerbased ourgeneral housing affordability. Yeah, common Sense
had you know, a variety ofindustries that we look at our competitiveness.
That's important. How are we comparingto other states? Amandy, I think
you know this, but we're sSteve first in home affordability and the state
of Colorado property taxes, it onlyexacerbates this huge challenge for us. Well,

(26:37):
Kelly Caffield from the Common Sense Institute, When you guys get those those
calculators up online, I would behappy to amplify them for you, because
we need voters to make educated choiceswhen it comes to these ballid initiatives because
they didn't get a chance to makean educated vote or you know, the
choice on this that what was alreadyshoved. But they can push back by

(27:00):
voting for some of these ballot initiatives, and I can only imagine what is
going to be said against them toget people to vote. Know, so
we need to let people know exactlywhat that looks like for their own personal
economy. So when you guys comeup with these calculators, please let me
know. And thank you for doingthis report. It is a hard report
to read, going back to howcomplicated property taxes are. But I think

(27:23):
you did as good a job ascan be done in simplifying the overall pictures.
So I really appreciate that. Thankyou, Mandy. You do your
best when you have a few hoursto analyze legislation that impacts every single person
in the state. We appreciate whatyou do at common sense. Kelly,
thank you for making time for metoday. Thanks Mandy. All right,
thank you, and we will beright back. But he reposted something that

(27:48):
our governor posted, and I justwant to run this by you guys to
see if you have the same reactionthat I had, which is confusion.
There is a big this is thegovernor's post. First of all, there's
a big graphic, right. Thegraphic says promises made results delivered a stronger,

(28:11):
safer, more affordable Colorado Governor JeryPolis. And then he added a
little bit at the top, fromfully funding education, cutting property taxes and
saving Colorado's money to creating more housingand making Colorado safer. We've got the
pieces in place to ensure this powerfulvision for Colorado's future is becoming a reality.

(28:33):
So I just want to ask you, guys, and I'm trying to
think of the best way to askthis question. I just want to ask
you, guys, how much lessyou're paying now in Colorado than you were
when the governor took office? Howmuch has your cost of living gone down?

(28:56):
Now? We all know this isa trick question because the Democrats who
have controlled Colorado completely since twenty nineteenhave done nothing except make everything more expensive.
They have passed a series of rulesand regulations that make everything from oil
and gas to being a landlord costsway more than it did before. And

(29:19):
this is what kills me about politics. And this isn't just a Democratic thing.
Republicans do this too, where ifyou don't like their actual track record,
let'll just create a new one andjust pretend like what they did didn't
happen, and like you're the crazyone for remembering that it didn't used to
cost a fourtune to live here,that you could actually buy a house that

(29:44):
was affordable. Maybe, hey,you know what, maybe even buy a
new built condo, remember those days? Those are long gone? Or maybe
you could live in a Colorado whereyou didn't have to worry about your car
getting stolen. I mean, theflip and Mayor's car has been stolen twice.
So go ahead and text me fivesix six nine zero to the common
Spirit health text line five six sixnine zero. Text me if you are

(30:08):
the person who is paying less tolive in Colorado now than you did when
the governor took office, everything theydid in this last legislative session is only
going to make things more expensive.The one thing that they were working on
that could have actually done something toaddress our housing crisis, they didn't do

(30:30):
because they couldn't get the construction defectsreform reformed, good gravy. Somebody said,
I think this ex post is thedefinition of gas lighting, and that's
that is what I thought. Ithought. Okay, am I the lunatic
here? Am I just not realizingall of the wonderful things that have passed,
have been done that are making Coloradothis utopian nirvana that the governor seems

(30:55):
to think we live it. Well, of course, the governor thinks that
he lives in Bolder. He's completelysurrounded by bodyguards. He doesn't have to
worry about that whacked out guy ondrugs crossing the street to try and harass
you when you're walking down it.He doesn't have to worry about that.
Ah yeay, yay. This personsaid about one thousand dollars less. Good

(31:18):
for you, Texter. Hold on, they continue when June first shows up
and we all have California gas.Mandy, zero zero zero zero lazy,
stupid argument, Mandy. Global inflationis global. But I'm not talking about
inflation, am I. I'm talkingabout the cost of energy because Colorado Democrats

(31:41):
passed rules in the legislature backed byExcel that allows Excel to continually raise the
rates on ratepayers to pay for thegreen dreams of Democrats. That's not inflation.
That is the reality of the legislationthat was passed with the help of
Excel, allowing them to continue toraise rates. And in this last legislative
session, Democrats made it even easier. Now Excel can raise the rates without

(32:02):
even asking the Public Utilities Commission forpermission. I'm talking about more rules and
regulations on landlords that are inevitably goingto drive up the cost of renting.
I'm talking about the inability of theDemocratic led legislature to pass construction defects reform
that would actually allow low income andmoderate income housing and condominiums to be built.

(32:24):
Again, none of these have todo with inflation, not a single
one of them. I'm talking aboutthe new rules and regulations on oil and
gas that have done two things.Number one, driven oil and gas manufacturers
out of the state, costing usjobs and tax money, and also increasing
the cost of production, which maynot make it more expensive here right now,

(32:46):
but in the future, as yourwill. How about the fact that
we haven't even talked about this yet, we are about to have to pay
for California gas. You know whywe have to pay for reformulated gas because
in twenty nineteen, our Democratic governorsent a letter to the EPA withdrawing the
waiver request that John Hickenloper had alreadysubmitted and telling them he welcomed more enforcement

(33:10):
because he wanted the opportunity to cleanup our air. So all of these
things have nothing to do with inflation. Text, and I hope you understand
now how dumb you look, andwe're going to take you right up until
three o'clock. I want to addressa couple of text messages that just came

(33:30):
in if you're just joining us.In the last segment, I was sort
of asking about a text that thegovernor put out, where in it he
says promises made results delivered a stronger, safer, more affordable Colorado, and
I pointed out the numerous ways thatdemocratic leadership has just driven up the cost

(33:50):
of living here in Colorado. AndI love it when I get text messages
that say things like, let mesee if I can find it right now.
Let's see, let's see. There'sso many people texting in that I'm
having trouble of finding it. Here'sa thought this texter said, don't like
what's going on in Colorado. Leaveyou won't be missed, says this texter.

(34:15):
The reality is is that I movedhere because I loved this state.
I loved it the way it was. I didn't come here like an outsider
transplant trying to change everything. Ithink the only significant change that I advocated
for was allowing wine sales and grocerystores, like literally, that's the only
big change that I've supported. Icame here because I thought this state was

(34:37):
the coolest state in the Union.I came here because it was the one
place where politically you could see onthe back of a car a Sierra Club
sticker on one side and a SecondAmendment sticker on the other side of the
same bumper. I came here becausethe people were chill. Nobody messed with
you, nobody bothered you. Yourneighbors didn't care what your politics were because

(35:00):
they were just nice people and youjust had friendly relationships with them. I
thought the state was run incredibly well. I admired the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights
TABOR, and how it had restrainedthe size of government successfully for so many
years. I watched Colorado from afarafter the two thousand and eight crash,
and I saw how quickly Colorado's economyrecovered because the state was not allowed to

(35:22):
overspend trying to course correct during thattime. That's why I moved here.
And since I've been here, whathas Colorado become. I've only been here
almost eleven years now, So inthe eleven years that I've been now here,
now, this is what I've seen. I've seen our major city,
Denver, Colorado, the capital ofour state, be allowed to be overrun

(35:46):
by people who painted obscenities on thesides of monuments, on the sides of
the Capitol building while breaking windows anddestroying businesses as they were doing it.
I watched that happen. I watchedour beautiful, clean downtown be overrun with
homeless drug addicts and massive encampments fullof homeless people be allowed to be set

(36:07):
up during that time. I've watchedthe legislature continually go after law abiding gun
owners while not raising the penalties oncriminals who actually use firearms. I've watched
them change zoning laws that make itso now the state is forcing local municipalities
into approving high density housing whether theywant to or not. I've watched the

(36:30):
state allow municipalities to further restrict gunrights while not allowing municipalities to unrestrict gun
rights. I've watched Democrats take overboth houses of the legislature, and of
course they've been in the governor's mansionfor a long time. But since all
of that has happened, do youreally think that Colorado has gotten better?
And I'm asking you that genuinely,if you are a Democrat who's mad about

(36:52):
me going off on this stuff,do you really feel like Colorado is in
a better place now than it waseleven years ago? And if I didn't
love the state. I wouldn't careif I didn't love this place. But
here's what's going to happen, youguys. All of these new grandiose plans
that have been passed by the Democratswith temporary funding, the massive expansion of

(37:15):
school funding that is not funded beyondthe second year, free preschool, free
lunches, all of this free stuff, new tax credits that are gonna eat
up our taper refund. I mean, you guys, all of this stuff,
all of these bills are going tocome home to roost at some point,
and you know what's gonna happen,is going to go just like this.

(37:37):
If the same Democrats are in charge, they're going to start doing this.
We're going to have to fire firefightersand cops and teachers if we don't
get more taxes from you guys.And they're gonna have to ask for a
massive tax increase because they can't paythese bills that they have already written the
checks for. So I'm here onyour behalf, fighting to keep your money

(37:59):
in your own wallet. And ifyou think that that's a reason for me,
like I should leave so I canleave you here to clean up all
those messes and pay all those exorbitanttaxes yourself without anybody fighting on your behalf.
Okay, if that's your choice.But all I'm doing is i can
see where all of this is headed, and I'm trying to help people understand

(38:22):
where all of this is headed,because there's a lot that's already happened that
it's too late to course correct.Right, we can course correct on property
taxes. Then we're gonna hear fromChristy Burton Brown in about an hour and
twenty minutes. She's working on twoballot initiatives that will be earth shaking if
we can get them past when itcomes to actual property tax relief. So

(38:43):
if you don't want to course correct, if you want to keep going down
the path that has led us tobe number three in the country as one
of the most violent places to livein the United States of America, then
yeah, I'll shut my mouth.We can talk about the Kardashians all day
long. I don't care whatever youfeel good about. Do you want to
talk about the Oscars or the CountryMusic Awards or what's happening on whatever Netflix

(39:08):
series I'm watching right now, Wecan do that too. I mean,
I don't know what you guys expectfor me. But the reality is is
all of this stuff is coming downthe pike and they are making Colorado a
place that is going to be tooexpensive for anyone to retire in, regardless
of how long you've been here.I can't tell you how many text messages

(39:28):
I get on a regular basis thissay I have lived here my entire life.
I just sold my house and I'mmoving to some other state because I
can no longer afford to live inColorado. That's the reality that we're facing.
And it's all happening because we havea democratic legislature with not enough Republicans
to even stop anything, let aloneaffect real change. So yeah, I'm

(39:54):
going to keep reminding you of thisstuff. I'm going to keep reminding people
that all of these elections have hadcon sequences, and the consequences are we
now live in a state where thecost of living is dramatically increasing while the
quality of life is going down.You can't tell me that the quality of
life for people living in downtown Denveris remotely as good as it was when

(40:15):
I moved here eleven years ago.When I moved here eleven years ago,
we loved going to stuff downtown.We'd go to dinner, we'd go see
a show. We do. Wespend a lot of time in downtown Denver.
And now I mean now I'm drivingto the Springs to do the same
thing because distance wise, for mein Douglas County, it's the same distance.
But I don't have to deal withworrying about is my car going to

(40:37):
get stolen? Is my car goingto get broken into? Am I going
to be a constant on the streetby some guy whacked out on drugs?
So if you're upset about this,if you're upset about me talking about this,
then find another show. There's lotsof talk radio out there. You
can find another show where they presentyou with rainbows and sunshine and don't talk

(40:59):
about any that's going wrong. Soin ten fifteen years you can be completely
blindsided by the kind of tax increasesthat I'm pretty sure are gonna come down
the pike here, So there yougo. I mean, I'm not sorry,
by the way, and please don'ttake this as any kind of mail
kulpa, because it's not. It'sreally an invitation to turn the station.

(41:21):
And for the person who said I'mcheer your advertisers who had lafetain. Now
you're driving people away. I'm notdriving people away. I'm just driving you
texture away because if you can't handlethe truth, this is the wrong show.
Let me just give some of thetext messages that have just come in.
As I went on this diatribe afterliving here for almost fifty years and
seeing how this state has really changed, my wife and I will be leaving,

(41:43):
probably within the year. Affordability,politics, and safety are the main
reasons that from Greg to the textwho said just leave. My family came
to Colorado in a covered wagon,and I love this state like a family
member. I may be forced toleave. Mandy. I wonder how long
the person who's lived in Colorado thatsaid if you don't like Colorado, just
leave. I bet they haven't livedhere that long. I have lived here

(42:06):
sixty four years. When a personlives in Colorado since birth, these radical
changes are analogous to a frog putin a pan of water on the stove
and the temperature turns up to aboil. There you go, Mandy,
it does not matter. Cali ranCalirado, Cali rado meaning California, Colorado

(42:28):
is toast thirty two years looking tomove. So there you go. Oh,
thank you for this person who letme know that el Woods would be
returning to Netflix. We'll get righton that, right on that. Don't
forget the paid leave they passed that. We are all paying right now.
How long will it take that costto go over? And to be clear,

(42:49):
the voters voted for paid family leave. That was the voters that did
that. I can't even blame thaton the legislature. I'll blame them for
a lot of stuff, but Ican't blame that. I'm the legislature at
all. The voters did that one. Let's see here. See, absolutely,
it is a much better place.Your middle class, white, privileged

(43:10):
view of the world is very clouded, Mandy. I wonder if anybody else
agrees with that. Does anybody elseagree with that? Like, is it
a much better place? Because Idon't think so. Yeah, that's not
a thing. This used to bethe West, Live, play and die
hard, and now it's California,been here since ninety eighty and it's been

(43:30):
downhill since. There you go.Oh, Jared Volter just pointed this one
out, and I love this,Mandy. I didn't realize the governor is
celebrating my favorite holiday opposite day.Yeah, that's true. So it's my
complaining about Colorado comes from a placethat I love this state, and I

(43:52):
just am sad to see the wayit's going. And we've got to do
something. And I'm not going torun out and tell you to vote for
every Republican and give the Republicans themajority. And I'm not insane, right
like, I'm not begging you togo out and vote for people that you
disagree with for whatever reason. Butwe have to restore some balance to our

(44:13):
legislature if we are going to pullthis state out of the ditch. Now,
if Republicans took control, it wouldbe great. It would depend on
who the Republicans are they took control, because some Republicans have great ideas and
some have mediocre ideas. But Iwould love it if voters paid more attention
to those Republicans with great ideas.I would love it if the state Party

(44:36):
could actually raise money to support Republicanswith great ideas. So there you go,
Mandy. It is continually frustrating tome to hear how Colorado is a
solidly blue state and then look atan electoral map that shows this little pocket
of population that's blue, and otherwisethe entirety of the state is mostly read.
I understand that, but those urbancenters far outstripped the rural areas when

(44:59):
it comes to popular and it's likethat in many states. We're not unique
in that way. There are manystates that are red because of their population
centers. Excuse me, blue becauseof their population centers. Got that backwards
for a second. Ah, Mandy, Mandy, laughing my blank off?

(45:21):
Whoever said white middle class view.I'm a twenty nine year old black construction
worker in the Springs, and Iagree with you, sir. The next
time in the Springs, I wouldlike to buy you a Mountain Merry cookie.
You ever had the Mountain Mery cookies? Jeff, you ever go?
Do you ever go down to theSprings? I haven't had those. I'm
not a big cookie person like Idon't. I'm not gonna run out to,

(45:43):
you know, any of the bigcookie places. But Mountain Mary's cookies,
holy cow, they are delicious andnot overly sweet like those other cookies
from that place that sounds like tumbleJust throwing that out there. I'm gonna
move on from this, but Ijust wanted to make that point. If
you think that I love complaining,there's nothing further from the truth. Don't

(46:05):
get me wrong. It's fun,but that's not how I live my life.
If you knew me in my personallife, you know I complain about
very little. But we've got toset this state right. We've got to
move it in the right direction.We've got to fix the massive government overreach
that we see growing and growing andgrowing. And this is my biggest frustration
about people who believe that our governoris a libertarian. He has exploded the

(46:30):
size of government under his watch.We have so many more government workers now
than we did when he became governor. It's not even funny. And that
alone should disqualify him from ever beingdescribed as a small l libertarian because he
is not, not, in anyway, shape or form, this person.
Some people are saying Colorado is better. I'm a native fifty six years

(46:52):
old, and I think it's muchworse. Can they list the ways that
it's better? That is a greatquestion. So to the two tech who
are texting me that Colorado is better, please take this texture up on the
challenge. I will come back tothat when you text us in because you
guys, I can see your phonenumbers, so I know when they're going
to text back in so i'll know. So just text me a list of

(47:15):
the way things are better in Coloradonow than they were. We're just gonna
say ten years ago, how arethey better now than they were ten years
ago. I'll wait for your textmessage and I'll move on. Got a
whole bunch of good stuff on theblog today, but I will say this
one more comment on the student protesters, these pro hamastingbats at DU and at

(47:38):
the Araria campus. In all honesty, nobody has anyone to blame except the
leadership on these campuses. Now Universityof Denver, where it cost sixty thousand
dollars a year to go, theyhave now their own encampment. You know

(48:02):
what's funny about this. I thoughtabout this the other day. I wonder
how many of these kids that areout there on the green in their tents
have ever actually been camping like inthe woods, you know what I mean?
Have they ever gathered up firewood?Have they ever slept under the stars?
No? I don't think they have. But now they're camping on deu's
campus. I want to share withyou a paragraph about this from the Denver

(48:24):
Gazette because it sort of made melaugh a little bit. This is by
DU Chancellor Jeremy Hafner, provosts MaryClark, and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Todd Adams in a statement. Thisis what they said, despite our best
efforts to promote free expression, freeexpression, engage in listening, and maintain

(48:45):
safety, the situation has continued withintentional disregard for university policy and a troubling
increase in reports of unacceptable behavior,including anti semitism and disruption. Now you
would think we now know anti semitismis happening at DU, there would be

(49:05):
strong action. Well, good news. They are considering, maybe possibly some
discipline, maybe possibly perhaps just maybethey're thinking about it. They don't want
to get out of the ahead oftheir skis right. They want to make
sure that these little young skulls fullof mush have the opportunity to experience what
it's like to protest safely. I'msurprised they're not bringing snacks in. Officials

(49:31):
went on to say our ability tomaintain campus safety is dependent upon everyone's compliance
with university policy, and then asa reminder, this is where it gets
really tough. Wait, only geton my toughest voice that I have,
well, my toughest university voice,which sounds like this. As a reminder,
non compliance will continue to result inimmediate referral to Student Rights and Responsibilities

(49:57):
or the Office of Equal Opportunity Titlenine as appropriate for thorough review and appropriate
action, which can include interim suspensionas warranted. This is this is the
equivalent of don't make me stop thiscar parenting, or even better, even
better, Jeff, don't do this. Don't do this. Jeff is a

(50:19):
newer parent, he's got a babyat home. Don't be this parent,
Jeff, don't be the I'm gonnaccountto three one, two, two and
a quarter, two and a third, two and a half, two and
two thirds, two and seven eighths, and you never get to three because
there's never any actual action that isgoing to happen. I have friends who

(50:45):
parented like that, and now we'reolder and I can see how that turned
out. And guess what, thosekids are not the best adults. They're
not the best for a variety ofreasons. The reality is is that these
kids know that is not going todo anything that Metro State's not going to
do anything that the University of Denveror Colorado Denver is not going to do

(51:06):
anything, and therefore they can justsit it out because these administrators. This
is how you handle the problem.If you want to solve the encampment problem
right now, you send out fouror five administrators and you walk around and
take pictures at every single protester andsay we're going to go back and we're
going to search the database, andthen we're going to come back in about

(51:27):
two hours, and if your tentis still here, you are expelled from
the University of Denver. So atthat point, you're trespassing and we're going
to have you arrested for trespassing,and you are expelled from the University of
Denver. I mean, imagine imaginethat they'd only have to do it to
a few kids. Imagine that thatwould be amazing. Same thing Metro State
says, you know what, ifyou're a student at Metro State, you

(51:50):
have two hours to clear out oryou are expelled. And once you're expelled,
you are trespassing and we will haveyou removed. This is what they've
done in Red States. This iswhat they've done on every single college campus
in Florida under the direction of Ronde Santis. There are no there are
no tense cities, and nobody's beenarrested in a way that has ended with

(52:13):
their their their great harm. Ohmy god, oh my god. If
you follow me on Twitter, ifyou follow me on Twitter, you have
to go look at a picture thatI retweeted earlier. It is unbelievable.
It was four photos. Let melet me find it really quickly because I
posted it this morning and it isfour photos from some doctor, doctor Mercraham

(52:37):
a Zadi, who says I haveseen several patients with injuries yesterday and today
at my clinic. Please see thepictures that have resulted from police shields,
button batons, punches and kicks fromCalgary Police Services excessive force on peaceful student
protests. You guys like I havedone more damage to myself running into a

(53:00):
doorway. Then they're like one guyhas too tiny, like barely there,
like almost a freckle, scratches onhis hand. Somebody else has like a
rugburn. Remember how you used todo the Indian burn thing on your arm
where you twist your arm and youdo the Indian bur That's what it looks

(53:20):
like. And they're putting this uphere like these these people are victims.
Oh my god, it's crazy.Go find me on Twitter at Mandy Connell
on Twitter. Trust me, youwant to see it. We will be
back with Dan Gates. There's anattack on hunting, hunting of all things
in Colorado. We'll talk about thatnext. I am not a hunter,
but I do like to feast onthe result of hunting. And I grew

(53:45):
up hunting, and I grew upwith a hunting dad in a hunting culture,
so I can appreciate it from theperspective of what it brings to the
hunter. But it also brings atremendous amount of money to the state of
Colorado. And there's a ballid initiativethat I think is the beginning of an
attack on hunting throughout the state.And joining me now from an organization called

(54:06):
Colorado's for Responsible Wildlife Management, DanGates, Dan, welcome back to the
show. Thank you very much.Andy, appreciate the opportunity. So let's
talk about the Mountain Lion Hunting Bandthat I believe. Is it already on
the ballot? Have they already gottenthe signatures they needed? No, they're
actually in the process of gathering signaturesas we speak. So they've got until

(54:29):
July fifth to turn those signatures inand if they're so successful to do that,
then it will be something that thevoters of Colorado vote on November fifth.
This makes me very nervous, Dan, because the same people that voted
to bring wolves back are probably goingto be the same people who vote to
man mountain lion hunting. I'd lovefor you to give my audience kind of

(54:51):
a picture of what the current situationwhen it comes to mountain lion hunting is
in Colorado, to give them anidea of how all this is already regulated.
Yeah, So with mountain lions andbobcats, both which are both going
to be on the chopping box,so to speak, they are highly regulated
by color Deparson Wildlife. There's requirementsthat you have to have when you want

(55:15):
to purchase a mountain lion license.There's a test that you need to take,
and as far as once you're successful, if you are, which only
nineteen percent of the people are,then you have to have that lion checked
and then the CPW does their pregnantinformation that they do for data collection and
so forth, so they can appropriatelymanage mountline populations in the state, not

(55:38):
only just for the lions themselves,but for all the other ungulate species that
the lions feed off of, andto kind of curtail human animal conflict and
provide a resolution to that depending onhow many hunters are actually in the field,
how many lions are harvested, andthen what the intent is to make
sure that there's an even balance inthe ecosystem. What happens if they don't

(56:00):
call the mountain lion population if youuse the historical president of what like California
has done where they quit a lionhunting by public hunting years ago, that
the lions are still being killed,they're not being harvested because harvested is a
method of take for management for hunting. But there's state and federal employees that

(56:23):
are taking those same numbers of mountainlions off the landscape, and so now
the taxpayers are paying for it asopposed to part of a regulated system of
biological science and the North American modelof wildlife conservation. And I think that
what most people don't understand is thatthere's an even balance of all species that

(56:46):
need to be appropriately managed in whatevercapacity The government agencies determined. In Colorado,
for instance, we got nine hundredand sixty one species of wildlife,
but only seventy eight of those aregame species. Mountain lions need on a
lot of those depending on what theywant to eat, but mostly ungulates like
deer, an elk and antelopen theircorn, cheep and moose and so forth.

(57:07):
Parts of my life is the experts. They've got three hundred and fifty
biologists and scientists within that agency.They should be the ones making the determination
of what we do and how wedo it when it comes to our wildlife
and natural resources. Well, andhow much? Not that it's all about
money, but I know that huntingis a huge boon to our economy here
in Colorado. What does that Whatkind of impact does that have? Because

(57:29):
you're talking about the mountain lions aregoing to be killed. It's just what
are we going to make money byselling licenses and tags and allowing hunters to
do it? Are we going topay for somebody to go out and do
it? So let's just start fromthat proposition right there. What kind of
income, what kind of revenue doesthe state of Colorado get from hunting overall?

(57:49):
Well, the entire trickle down effectis over three billion dollars when it
comes down to the to the actualbenefit that Colorado gets off of hunting and
fishing licenses, sales right creational opportunitiesfor people in the field pursuing game.
The license purchases are somewhere in theneighborhood of about two hundred and fifteen two
hundred and seventy million dollars, dependingon what time of year and how you

(58:10):
cap calculate the data that is compiled. But you know, the game agency
that we've got is Colorado Parks andWildlife. Now it used to be formally
the Division of Wildlife, but there'sa component there that the recreation side,
the park side, is managed differentlylegitimately than what the wildlife side is.
But the license part of what comesinto managements and objectives and the models and

(58:34):
the statistics and the data, thoseare the wildlife side of the agency.
And it's substantial when you get intonot only the trickle down economic benefit,
but the rules economies and what theydepend on for management in their geographical area.
For elk and deer which mountain lionseat, For big horn sheep and
moose, which mountain lions and wolvesboth eat. I mean there's a component

(58:57):
there that you know, it's hardto say say what you're going to see
before you can actually see it.Well, we know it's not going to
be better than what we got ifyou turn around and take the harvest off
the table and turn it back overto some sort of government agency to be
able to turn around and go outand do the exact same thing that licensed
buying sportsmen and women do. Sodo you think that this is the beginning

(59:17):
of more attacks on hunting and fishingin Colorado? It absolutely is. And
if you look at the VAALID initiativelanguage of how they intentionally misguide or maybe
even lie to the general public throughthe language. And the reason I say
that is this started out to beas trophy hunting band. While we fought
the initial stages through this in October, November, December, and January,

(59:39):
and starting in the February through thetitle board the Supreme Court, we actually
got trophy hunting out of the titlebecause trophy hunting is defined in the measure
as intentionally killing, wounding, fucking, pursuing, or entrapping a mountain line
or a bobcat. Well, Idon't know about you, But intentionally killing
is hunting. It's not trophy hunting, and there ain't no former trophy hunting

(01:00:01):
in the state of Colorado or anyof the state. Because we have to
harvest the meat, we have toutilize all the other parts and pieces.
If somebody wants to turn on takea picture, or mount something on the
wall, the biggest thing is they'reharvesting that animal for the meat product,
and all the other stuff is byproductsthat can be utilized in whatever form or
fashion that individual harvester seems necessary.So you think that the language in this

(01:00:24):
was intended to cast all hunting inthe same light as being as being trophy
hunting, because trophy hunting, Ithink just offends the sensibilities of a lot
of people. Does it misguides peoplebecause they don't know what trophy hunting is.
Right, my son harvested a twopoint buck the first time that he

(01:00:45):
ever hunted. To him, thatwas a trophy. Whfe harvested a dough
to her, that was a trophy. He's going to be bastardized for being
able to do that. So toget the general public, the voter to
understand about the difference between a definitionand a statutory definition or an interpretation.
You start talking about intentionally killing,room, being stalking, pursuing, or

(01:01:07):
in trapping, that's hunting. Andthat's what we do to turn around and
pursue wile game, whether it's apheasant, a mountain, lion, or
a one last question, Dan,that I got to take a break.
Who is behind this ballot initiative.There's a group called Cats Aren't Trophies and
they also are funded by the AnimalWellness Action and then also at the Center

(01:01:29):
for a Humane Economy, both ofwhich have connections to Wayne Pacelli, the
former CEO of the Humane Society ofthe United States. Okay, so it's
some usual suspects. I mean,I don't Yeah, I mean it's the
same old, same old. It'sanimal rights people. Dan, I appreciate
this. We'll get you back onwhen we know if this is going to
be on the ballot. But Iwanted to bring it to everybody's attention because

(01:01:50):
you know, everybody gets accosted attheir grocery store. Now, will you
sign this petition? Just don't signthe petition if you believe that hunting should
be protected in Colorado dates with Coloraden'sfor Responsible Wildlife Management. I appreciate you
making time for us today. Thankyou very much. Man, I appreciate
the time. All right, youhave a good day and we will be
right back Koa. This is aweird story. This is a weird story.

(01:02:14):
And I realize that I don't spenda lot of time talking about pageants,
beauty pageants, because do they reallymatter. No, But this story
is turning into something that I feellike the underlying story under all of this
story is where the story is.But nobody's talking about what the real problem

(01:02:35):
is. You may not have heardthat in the last week Miss USA and
Miss teen USA twenty twenty three haveboth stepped down and turned in their crowns
and Noelia and Uma Sophia. Theyare Miss USA and Miss teen USSA.

(01:02:58):
They wrote some information on social mediathat said, look, I just have
to prioritize my mental health, butthey did not say what the problem was.
Well, now, Arianna Lamus,who was crowned Miss Colorado USA last
year, has resigned from her roleand she is calling for reform within the

(01:03:21):
Miss USA organization. So here's theproblem. Nobody is actually saying what the
actual problems are. They're just sayingvague things like we need refull them in
the system. Now, let mejust say this, And I have seen
it, like a smidge of experiencein this from way back in the day

(01:03:45):
when I was part of the MissAmerica pageant system. I actually came in
first runner up in a pageant,and I was happy because I didn't want
to have the crown because there's alot of well, I mean, I'm
trying to think of a way tosugarcoat this. You have to do a
lot of boring public appearances and shakea lot of hands and schmoozs with a
lot of people you don't care about. And you got to go to rotary
club luncheons, which I actually likedRotary Club luncheons because I knew everybody in

(01:04:08):
the Rotary club. But you haveto do a lot of stuff as the
queen, and after you've competed inthe next level, like Miss Colorado competed
in Miss USA and did not win. Miss Usa went on to Miss Universe.
I think that's the pageant system shegoes she did not win, So
you still have to do all thethings right after you compete. And I

(01:04:30):
have a real issue with people comingout and issuing vague statements about why they
were leaving or why they're stepping down, because that's not how you get actual
change. You get actual change bysaying, here are the things that are
wrong with the pageant system, andthese are the reasons that I am stepping
down, and none of that stuffhas happened. Ariana Limis put out the

(01:04:54):
following statement, I stand in solidaritywith Noelia and Uma Sophia, former Miss
USA and Miss teen twenty twenty three, as I step down from my role
as Miss Colorado USA. Nuelia andUma Sophia's voices have been stifled by the
constraints of a contract that undermines theirrights and dignity. These remarkable women serve

(01:05:14):
as a poignant reminder of the urgentneed for reform within the Miss USA organization.
So the contracts that they sign arelimiting. You can't take to social
media, you can't express yourself ina way that could bring shame or embarrassment
on the pageant. There's a lotof people that sign those same contracts.

(01:05:35):
Anyone who works in television news hasto sign those kinds of contracts. I
don't actually know if it's still inmy contract when I first signed out with
iHeart, there was basically a moralityclause that if I did anything that could
bring embarrassment or reflect poorly on iHeartMediaand my personal life, then I could
be fired for that. It's partof the deal, right when you're out

(01:05:57):
representing someone, they have the rightto kind of put limits on what you
can and can't do. If youdon't like it, then you shouldn't have
been in the pageant in the firstplace, or you shouldn't have signed the
contract, and you shouldn't have youshould have just given back the crown right
then. This unfortunately feels a littlebit and again I don't know the underlying
story, so there could be awhole lot to the story that we don't

(01:06:19):
know, but no one's talking,which is incredibly inconvenient. But this almost
sounds like these young women don't wantto follow through with their commitments after they
make them, and why would theywhen they're They're of a generation that expects
other people to pay off their studentloans. They don't expect to have to
pay back things that they contracted todo. They don't expect to have to

(01:06:39):
fulfill their requirements. So I don'tknow what's going on. But you know,
miss USA is just out of control, or maybe they're not. We
don't know. This person said theyhave an NDA NDAs are the devil,
and it's gotten to the point whereit's like, wait a minute. If
you want me to sign an NDA, what are you hiding? What do

(01:07:01):
I need to not talk about beforeI sign an NBA. It's absolutely ridiculous.
And if they've dropped out, well, I would say let the pageant
sue me. Go ahead, letthem sue me. They're going to sue
a young woman with no money fortrying to bring wrongdoing to light. If
it's truly wrongdoing, sign it.Just sign it and let the chips fall

(01:07:25):
where they may. Anyway. Wewill be back after this, and when
we get back, we have thetwo minute drill. I got a bunch
of really cool stories for the twominute drill today, and then a little
bit later in the hour, we'vegot Christy Burton Brown from Advanced Colorado to
come on to talk about ballot initiativesthat will do what this alleged property tax
relief didn't do and how you cansupport them. We'll do all that when

(01:07:50):
we get back. Yes, whattime it is? It is Miller moth
time. If you're new to Colorado, get ready for the annual infestation of
the world's most annoying moths. Now, the good news is they don't eat
your clothes. They just fly intoyour nostrils whenever you don't want them there.
And if you're not ready, letme just give you a little pro

(01:08:11):
tip. Do not turn your garagelight on at night, or don't open
your garage door with the light on, because the Miller moths will come into
your house and you will never getrid of them, at least for months.
Don't ask me how I know.Now. The Miller moths are born
on the plains, but they don'tlike hot weather, so they migrate to
the mountains for the summer. Imean, I guess they all have summer

(01:08:32):
homes there, So get ready.Miller moths season should be here in about
a week ish, if not sooner, and remember garage lights off for the
foreseeable future. The drill it too. If you're sitting on the sidelines waiting
to make a big purchase because you'vebeen waiting for Chairmen of the Fed Jerome
Powell to drop interest rates, wellyou're gonna be waiting a little bit more.

(01:08:58):
He told a group of bankers inAmsterdam that the inflation readings are higher
than he said I think anybody expected. He obviously doesn't talk to Steve Moore,
who's been talking about this for years, But what that has told us,
he continues, is it will needto be patient and let restrictive policy
do its work. Translation. Nointerest cuts coming anytime soon. So if

(01:09:19):
you're thinking about buying something, goahead and buy it now, and when
those rates finally drop, you cango ahead and refine whatever it is you
financed at that higher rate. Drillit too. We have our first lawsuit
in the United States of America abouta vaccine injury, but this one is
kind of interesting. A Utah teacherwho signed up to be in the Astrazenica

(01:09:44):
trial for their vaccine has been leftpermanently disabled from the Astrosenica vaccine. Now,
to be clear, the Astrosenica vaccinewas never approved for use in the
United States, but this woman sayswhen she signed up to be part of
the trial, AstraZeneca promise that anyinjuries that resulted from the vaccine trial would

(01:10:04):
be taken care of and that theywould pay for her ongoing care. Well,
she has been diagnosed with peripheral neuropathyall over her entire body, and
it has rendered the forty two yearold mom unable to do anything and including
care for her children or engage inany of the athletic activities that she engaged
in before the vaccine trial. Sheis suing because she says AstraZeneca has backed

(01:10:30):
out of their responsibilities of her ongoingcare. This is going to be very
interesting to watch. Now. Weall know that Pfizer was given immunity by
the US government, so don't expecta whole slew of those lawsuits for vaccine
injuries. But at least this onemay have some kind of, you know,
positive outcome. The two adrilla too. Is this the end of cheddar

(01:10:53):
Bay Biscuits in Colorado? Not quite, but four Denver Red Lobster restaurants have
quote temporarily closed. Now, ifyou live near the restaurant in Lakewood,
wheat Ridge, Loane Tree, orDenver, I would not get too excited
about these restaurants opening back up becauseRed Lobster is being run by a group

(01:11:14):
of drunken monkeys who do things likecreate and all you can eat shrimp program
that put them in the reds sobadly that they're now seeking bankruptcy protection.
And this one kind of bums meout because when I was young, and
when I was a child, RedLobster was like a fancy night out right.
You go, you'd get one oftheir little drinks that came in one
of the fancy glasses, even ifit was just a Shirley temple. So

(01:11:36):
it's sad to see what this oncegreat company has become. And you know
what, I still like it.I still eat there. And if you
don't love cheddar Bay biscuits, wecannot be friends. Drill it too.
More bad news for the pro lifeside of the United States. Pew has
been doing some polling since the overturnof Roe versus Wade, and more Americans

(01:12:00):
than before now support the right toan abortion to be legal in all or
most cases. Six in ten Americansthink that abortion should be legal in all
or most cases. Now, I'vesaid this before. I think it's really
easy to say that your pro lifewhen the chance of Roe v. Wade

(01:12:20):
being overturned was very slight. Butnow that it's gone, people are faced
with the reality of blocking access toabortion, and even if they themselves feel
like they are pro life people are, They're loath to make that decision for
someone else. That's the problem.The overwhelming majority of people who identify as

(01:12:42):
Democrats eighty five percent and Democratic leadingindependents say abortion should be legal in all
or most cases. Republicans and Republicanleading respondents were far less to say abortion
should be legal in all or mostcases, but still over forty percent of
Republicans said are pro choice. Thepro life movement has to change the hearts
and minds before they can change thelaw. And finally, if you love

(01:13:10):
a steakhouse as much as I lovea steakhouse, coover you a steak guy?
Do you like a steakhouse? Iam, I'm a big time steak
guy. What's your favorite steakhouse inthe metro? Do you have one?
I like Shanahan's. That's probably myfavorite. I like Shanahan's as well,
but I love Del Frisco's for avariety of reasons, not the least of
which is the Del Frisco salad thatcomes before the steak. But we are

(01:13:30):
wrong in that we do not likethe number one steakhouse according to yelp,
that would be Jack's on Pearl,but I have a list of the top
steakhouses in Denver if you want togive them all a try. And I'm
ashamed to admit there are a lotof places on this list that I've never
even heard of, let alone visited. So I just want to say this
challenge accepted that, my friend,I love it when karma happens. To

(01:13:55):
fix that, and then I justmessed it up again, just keeping undertas
Michael Cooper, keeping you on yourtoes. That, my friends, is
the two minute Drill, and youcan find all of these stories linked at
the blog, although I have stoppeddoing a section called the two minute Drill
because I realized that sometimes stories thatare in the two minute Drill I wanted
to talk about and then I kindof boxed myself in a little bit.

(01:14:16):
So now I'm just picking the storiesthat I want to put in the two
minute Drill, so they're not ina specific section. But you can work
your way through the blog and figureit out. Now we're going to take
a quick time out when we getback those of you who are out there
in the dating world. First ofall, bless all y'all's hearts. Just
bless all y'all, because I couldnot do it based on what I read.
When we get back, if you'retired of a miserable first date with

(01:14:41):
a person that turns out to benot at all right for you, there
may be an option soon to sendsomething in your stead. I'll explain what
that something is when we get back. When we were talking about how things
are not going great in Colorado anda listener said things are going great for
me, and I said great,tell me how he did. He works

(01:15:02):
in the aerospace industry and the governmenthere, the Democratic government has used a
ton of tax dollars to woo moreaerospace industry to Colorado, which is a
net benefit because these are good payingjobs. And I just wanted to let
him know. I'm talking about hiscomment on the air, so his world
is better because of those tax credits. So that's one thing. One well

(01:15:26):
done, sir, well done.So if you're dating in Denver and you've
ever have you ever heard you haveyou been married since the whole dating site
thing happened to Cooper? Were youever part of that like online dating situation?
Which online dating situation you referm?I mean any like the dating apps?
Okay, I mean like Ashley Madisonor something. Because I've been married

(01:15:49):
since the dating apps have come back, Like, I've never had to deal
with, you know, any ofthat, the Bumble, the tender,
the whatevers I've matched, I've neverhad to do any of that. All
right, Well, I've been marriedsince seven, so that's what sixteen seventeen
years. So there were apps backthen, obviously Yahoo, Match, e,

(01:16:10):
Harmony, Right, things like that, but they were more website.
They weren't the swipe right, swipeleft. Well. Bumble is a dating
app that used to only the allcontact had to be initiated by the woman,
which you know, I guess womenwere just getting inundated with like gross
things from guys and so Bumble wasset up. Now they're changing that.

(01:16:31):
But that's not what I want totalk about about Bumble. I want to
talk about the CEO of Bumble istalking about they're working on AI and let
me just read this because I can'teven explain this right. The Tech Entrepreneur
defended the dating apps AI feature onThursday in San Francisco. This is the

(01:16:54):
dating concierge feature of Bumble. Sheeven envisions a future a person's your virtual
dating profile could handle the dating processfor them. She said, if you
really want to get really out there, there's a world where your dating concierge
could go on dates for you withother dating concierges. So let me explain

(01:17:15):
this to you. Your dating conciergeis an artificial intelligence that is built into
Bumble, that is supposed to sortthrough the thousands and thousands of people on
Bumble to find the right matches foryou. But that doesn't go far enough.
Pretty soon you'll be able to sendout your little AI avatar dating concierge

(01:17:35):
like I would put my I wouldwant my dating concierge to look like me,
only better looking, right, Imean, you want to put your
best foot forward, So why notmake your avatar slightly better looking than you
actually are? And then another person'sdating avatar would then go on a date
virtually with your dating avatar. Idon't know if they'd have coffee, or

(01:17:56):
play badminton or maybe go ax throwing. I don't know what you do on
a virtual date with a virtual avatar. But then your dating concierge would come
back and say, oh God,he was boring, or all he did
was talk about himself or whatever itis, and your dating conzierge would basically
take the hit on the first datefor you. This is the worst idea

(01:18:16):
I've ever heard in my entire life, because what about chemistry. You cannot
test someone's chemistry from an online photofrom sending your avatar to them, because
chemistry is one of those intangibles thatAI cannot possibly understand, replicate, or
recognize. Right, this sounds awful, But then again, I'm not in

(01:18:41):
the dating world. So if you'rein the dating world, maybe this sounds
like a great idea. Maybe you'vehad enough rotten first dates that you're like
anything to take the pressure off anythingat all. What is this new for
all the robots that are on thewebsites? I have no idea. Like,
man, now your avatar is datingthe robot, I have no idea
what happens there? Like, isthat a mixed marriage if your avatar and

(01:19:03):
their robot get married? Like whatyou know? Because I always used to
believe that half the women that wereon these websites when I was on them
back twenty years ago, that theywere robots. Yeah, well, or
they were you know, men sittingin a room in Nigeria trying to figure
out ways to builk c out ofyour fortune, that kind of thing.
That too. Yeah, this isthirty eight year old male, just got

(01:19:26):
divorced after being with my ex wifefor twelve years. I'm back in the
dating pool, and it is sohorrible, that's what I've heard. I
mean, people don't just go outand meet people in bars anymore, the
old fashioned way. You know,you get a little liquored up, you
go talk to people, you makeout with some people. That's how one
night stands happen. Well, youknow what, But that's also how many

(01:19:48):
people do you know met their spousein a bar? Though, because I
know a bunch. I'm fifty fourand I know a bunch of people that
met at a bar. I Ithink they're out numbered now by the people
who have met on websites. Peoplethat have met on websites have no and
I know a lot of people whohave met on websites too, And there's

(01:20:09):
nothing wrong with it. I don'twant to make it seem like there's nothing
wrong with it. But this whereyou're outsourcing the first date to like an
artificial intelligence. This sounds awful.Oh it does, I agree with I
mean, really awful, Mandy,My virtual avatar would hook up on the
very first date with a hot virtualavatar. So you have a bit of
a slut. That's what you are. You have a slutty avatar. There

(01:20:30):
you go, And you know what, as long as your avatar doesn't knock
up someone else or get pregnant,you're fine. Right Who cares hook up?
A sexually transmitted disease would be av STD, A virtual STD.
There you go. Steve is offeringup his services. He said, I
have a better idea. I'll volunteerto be a human dating concierge, lots
of free lunches and drinks. Idon't think that's how it works, Steve,

(01:20:51):
but I like your moxy. Whenwe get back, Kelly Krik Kelly,
Christy Burton Brown is going to joinus. She's with Advanced Colorado to
talk about a couple of ballot initiativesthat would bring real property tax relief.
We're doing that next. I'm tellingyou the truth on KOA. Joining me

(01:21:12):
now from Advance Colorado. Christy BurtonBrown, who many of you know from
her former work as Colorado Chair ofthe GOP. Christy is now with Advanced
Colorado an organization that is working todo just that and that is advanced Colorado.
Christy, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much, Mandy,
glad to be here. I wantto start out with something totally unrelated with

(01:21:33):
what we're going to talk about,But I would be remiss if I did
not at least ask this question.During a certain interview with certain people who
have named themselves the arbiters of allthat's good and holy in the Republican Party,
there was some aspersions cast in yourdirection about the way you left the
party when you left as the chairmanturned it over to now chairman David Williams,

(01:21:58):
and they're alleging financial impropriety, andI just want to ask you to
address those accusations about financial impropriety andwhere the process is, as far as
you know, in following up onany of those accusations. Sure, that's
a great question, Mandy. They'vethrown around those accusations ever since Stave Williams

(01:22:18):
got elected. I actually recently puta whole thread on Twitter that anyone can
go look at. It gives abunch of evidence for what I'm about to
say. But Dave Williams's own treasurerfiled to report with a Federal Election Commission
showing that I left them with overone hundred thousand in the bank when I
left. They even edited that reportabout three months later to make a couple

(01:22:40):
adjustments and did not change that partat all. So according to their own
treasurer and their own reports to theFederal Election Commission, I did leave them
with money in the bank. Ithink they also like to claim I took
a bonus of absolute faults. Iwas actually offered it twice and declined it
because I thank you do your jobas the chairman, and I didn't want
to take a bonus. I don'tknow what all else they like to claim,

(01:23:02):
but I could just say that wholethread on Twitter actually details with evidence
how their claims against me are actuallyfalse. Okay, that's where're going to
leave that, because I assumed theywere idiocy, because it's only idiocy that
comes out of that operation. Movingon, Advance Colorado. What do you
guys do in an advanced Colorado?We were doing a whole lot this year.

(01:23:25):
We actually have five measures, hopefullygoing on the ballot in November.
One is already approved. We collectedsignatures and a record amount of time for
a cap on property taxes. Theother four measures we are collecting signatures for
right now. In addition to allabout measure work, we also do a
lot of research policy work reports basicallyfinding ways to improve Colorado or average people

(01:23:46):
who live in communities all across thestate. What would you say the political
bent is of advanced Colorado? Ialready know that if I look at my
text line right now, it's goingto be on there. Like, how
would you if you do claim anysort of political bent, what would that
be? Sure? I mean we'reconservative, We make may We don't hide
that at all. We are conservativeorganization. The issues we focus on,

(01:24:08):
chiefly our public safety. We're runningtwo crime related ballot measures, one for
truth and sentencing, keeping violent offendersin jail for eighty five percent of the
desime that their sentence gives them insteadof an average of forty three percent,
which is what they serve right now. With Jared Bols's parole Board. We're
doing another measure to support law enforcement, funding for more recruitment and training of

(01:24:28):
officers as well as death benefits.And by the way, that doesn't raise
taxes on people. It forces thelegislature to spend money that's already in the
general funds to do this. Wealso focus on education school choice. That's
another ballot measure. We have theright to school choice in the state constitution.
And we focus a lot on TABOR, protecting tabor, and then cutting
taxes, which is what we're doingwith property taxes this year. So let's
talk about the first measure that isalready on the ballot. This is Initiative

(01:24:51):
number fifty and this says, thisconstitutional measure has already approved for the twenty
twenty four ballot. It will permanentlycap in increases in state wide property tax
at four percent annually unless voters allowthe government to keep more. It's basically
tabor for property taxes. That seemspretty straightforward. It really is. And

(01:25:14):
when we pull this idea among votersof all political stripes, they all love
this idea, or I shouldn't sayall, you never get all people,
but a huge majority love this idea. Something simple to solve the crisis of
property taxes in our state. Sopermanent cap goes in the state constitution four
percent increase a year, so it'seight percent over an assessment cycle. And

(01:25:35):
you know how popular a Tabor isMan Dey. Voters love it. We
love to have the choice to givea government more money or not in Colorado.
But we need to apply that idea, that Tabor principle to property taxes.
That's what this initiative would do.And in fact, it actually set
a record collecting signatures the fastest inthe state of Colorado that a constitutional amendment
has ever done. That that's howmuch people just love this idea. And

(01:25:57):
it's so much more proactive. It'ssolution. Unlike with the legislature passed at
the end of the session, whichdoesn't actually help avert toone owners. This
would and so that's one reason it'sso popular. So let me just be
clear. Does this cover every organization, every home rule city, every school
board? Does it cover everybody whodips their toe into the property tax revenue

(01:26:20):
stream? It covers all of them, it does. It's this proper tax
across the state cannot rise by morethan four percent per year eight percent an
assessment cycle. And so yes,that would include every district that taxes you,
and there's a whole lot of themacross the state of Colorado. We
don't think different districts should get specialtreatment. I will say, in our

(01:26:41):
other measure, Prop one O eight, we do specifically protect education, but
this cap applies to all districts.So is Prop one O eight is that
the property tax rollback measure? Yeah, so the rollback is the combination of
both, and we're actually calling itthe citizens tax cut. That's what this
is is citizens getting behind an ideathat would actually solve the crisis. Because

(01:27:03):
we saw the legislature they failed todo that. They didn't give a tax
cut to average home owners across thestate. And so citizens are going to
step in. We're going to getit done. And it is a package
deal together because not only do youneed to cap, but in fifty offers
you need an actual cut. Likemaybe I can't tell you how many people
have talked to us and said,Okay, that's great, you're going to

(01:27:25):
cap it for the future so thatwe don't have a property tax spike.
Again, well, what about whatjust happened to our property taxes? Are
you going to cut that? Areyou going to take any of that back
from the government. So that iswhat prop want to weight will do is
give people that cut that they wantin their taxes right now. There is
that is my biggest frustration and Republicansthat I respect a great deal around here

(01:27:45):
talking about how this legislation is aproperty tax cut, when in reality it's
just a cut in the future increases. There's no relief for the forty percent
increase that we saw in this lastreassessment period. And I see stuff on
my next store. You know,next door is where people go to vent
their spleen where you know, Ilive in a neighborhood that's kind of has
a lot of older residents, andthere were older residents saying my monthly mortgage

(01:28:10):
payment just went up five hundred dollarsa month, and that is a huge
sum of money between property taxes andinsurance, and they need relief now.
They don't need a relief from futureincreases because they're getting crushed. Now,
now let me ask you this question, Kelly, because this is how it's
going to be demagogued against. Isthis going to gut the Colorado State budget?

(01:28:31):
What happens if this passes to thebudget that was just passed by the
legislature. So what it does isit does require the state legislature to take
three billion dollars from their budget andgive it to local governments, because basically
the state government is the one thatreally created this property tax crisis. When

(01:28:53):
the Gallagher Amendment was repealed, thatthe legislature made the promise like, oh,
we're going to solve this, we'regoing to fix it. We're going
to do a new formula actually makeproperty taxes reasonable in Colorado. They didn't
do it. If for legislative sessionsto fix it, they failed to.
They did a temporary relief, let'sstudy it. They didn't do any actual
permanent fixes, and so they createdthis this monster that's affecting everyone's life.

(01:29:15):
And so what our cut would dois give people the break in property taxes.
Right now, you pay an effectiverate of six point three percent in
property taxes. Prop One A weightwould take it down to five point seven
percent. That's a real cut.What the legislature did is take you from
six point three all the way upto six point eight. They would have
gone to seventy point one without it. So yes, absolutely a decrease in

(01:29:36):
the increase that conservatives did push forthe legislature, but that's not a property
tax cut. So what this woulddo is say you're going to cut the
property tax rate down to five pointseven percent, but then require the state
to backfill local governments so that yourfire department, your local police, your
teachers don't take a cut from that. The state government has grown exponentially over

(01:29:57):
the last six years. They canafford three billion dollars for local services.
Well, what's interesting about this,Christy, is that for the longest time,
I was like, why doesn't thelegislature want to fix this property tax
situation because they don't directly benefit fromour property taxes. And then I realized
now that they that local governments havethis influx of our money, they don't

(01:30:19):
have to back fill any local governmentroles, and that means they could go
on a spending spree this last legislativesession that they have and create all these
new lanes of spending. So ofcourse it was about them not having to
give money to local governments, sothen they have more of a slush fund
to work from. Well exactly,and they're operating with a forty two billion

(01:30:43):
dollar budget that has grown by billionsover the last six years, way higher
than like, our wages have increased. And so that's one basic principle that
really fits this citizens tax cut isthat government's wages shouldn't grow faster than ours
and right now they are. Stategovernment is growing so much faster than our
wages are growing. So to tellthem, hey, you need to slow

(01:31:04):
down and you need to actually,instead of spending money on your own pet
projects, give this money to localservices that are actually benefiting people like my
police officers actually help me in myfamily. Our fire department answers the calls,
our teachers are actually educating our children. What does the state government do
for out I think a lot ofpeople have that question, and so that's

(01:31:24):
where we have a lot of peopleacross the state say hey, yeah,
we're happy to cut the state budgetand we get the property tax and our
local governments still are benefited so thatthey can provide the services we actually need.
Christy Burton Brown from Advanced Colorado ismy guest. Christy, I just
got this. My monthly mortgage paymentis going up eight hundred dollars a month
in the next month. So theseare the people that need to sign Prop

(01:31:46):
one zero eight. You're gathering signaturesnow, I assume so that's what you
said, Yes we are, andpeople like that should absolutely call or email
us. You can go to AdvancedColorado dot org. We are collecting stories
like that so many across the stateof Colorado of people who can't survive these
property tax hikes. And yes,one way is outside of grocery stores,
as well as the ore other ballotmeasures. So sign up, make sure

(01:32:09):
it gets on the ballot, andtell everyone you know that this is the
way that citizens can solve the propertytax crisis. I love the fact that
you have already taken the talking pointout of we're going to have to let
go of police officers and firefighters andteachers, because that's always the first thing
that government that politicians talk about.It's never we're going to cut the fat

(01:32:30):
in all of our various agencies thathave grown exponentially under Jared Poulis's leadership.
It's we're going to have to cutthe things that matter. So you guys
have essentially neutered that entire argument withthe way this is written. Well,
absolutely we have, because you dohave to consider which services actually benefit people
on a daily basis, and thoseservices do need money to operate. But

(01:32:50):
cutting the state budget is something thatso many Colorados are a big fan of.
That's one of the reasons we loveTABOR because it keeps the state government
in check, so tabor for propertytaxes and holding the state government responsible for
the mess they created and past theysend them a message and saying you failed
to solve this for us. Youput it on the backs of the people.

(01:33:10):
You told the local governments they wouldjust have to deal with it.
You told the people, we justhave to deal with it. We're going
to put it back in your cornerand say, actually, we're taking a
tax cut, We're going to takecare of our local governments, and you
figure this out, you cut yourbudget. Christy burn Brown from Advanced Colorado,
I appreciate what you guys are doing. I'm going to vote for both
measures. If I see anybody witha clipboard, I'm going to walk up

(01:33:31):
to them before they can walk upto me outside the grocery store and ask
them if they're doing Prop one Oeight so I can sign it to get
this on the ballot. And Ihope that all of my listeners do the
same. Again, if you havea story like the one that we just
shared where your mortgage payment's going upeight hundred dollars a month, reach out
to Advance Colorado because all of thesestories will be incredibly powerful when they are

(01:33:51):
working to convince voters to pass thisafter it gets on the ballot. So
I put a link on the blogtoday to advance Colorado's website and a direct
link to the property tax rollback measuresso you can read about it. And
uh, to Kelly, I'm Christy. I don't know why I keep calling
you Kelly because I used to workwith a woman named Kelly Burton and it's
just stuck in my head. Butyou're KBB Christy Burton Brown, and I

(01:34:15):
know that, so please forgive me. I appreciate you making time for us
today, and we'll check in aswe get closer to November to kind of
remind people about what you guys aredoing. Excellent, Thank you so much.
Mam. All right, that isChristy Burton Brown, not Kelly Burton
Brown. And uh, I hopeyou guys would would sign this. We
have to get it on the ballot. It must be on the ballot because

(01:34:35):
ultimately, this is like the ultimatemiddle finger to government. Because she's absolutely
right. They had two legislative sessions. They had a special session when they
could have fixed this problem, butthey wanted the money more than they wanted
us to have the property tax reliefthat we need. That's the reality.

(01:34:58):
It's just so so that'll all beon the ballot and in November. So
do that. I'm checking the blogreal quick to make sure that I got
the high point. Well, letme do this one fun story before we
leave. So Wyoming has caused alittle bit of a kerfuffle. The Laramie
County Sheriff's office in Wyoming is runningbillboards. They've got one billboard up now,

(01:35:25):
and Sheriff Brian Kotsa Kozak stands byhis decision to cross state lines and
pay twenty five hundred bucks to putup a message on a billboard at Pekoas
and Federal Oak's Peakos and Alameda andall it says. This is so,
it's so good. All the billboardsays. I mean, I don't know
if it's all of it says,but the main message is work in Wyoming

(01:35:47):
where breaking the law is still illegaland cops are funded and it's working.
It's working. He's wooing cops fromColorado to come to Wyoming where they still
all fund the cops and they actuallyenforced the law. Kozak said he's heard
from many frustrated Denver officers and deputies, and he's not shy about taking full

(01:36:08):
advantage of it. He said.One of the things you get to do
is your job here, so youget to enforce the laws here. We
try to look where officers are nothappy with the political environment. We try
to promote our culture here in Wyomingwhere it's more of a conservative area.
Like I said, the community supportslaw enforcement. Yeah. Mayor Mike Johnston,

(01:36:28):
who literally just cut the police budget, said the Denver Police Department's budget
was carefully crafted with safety leaders andMayor Johnston to ensure there would be no
impact to the department's public services.To say that Denver is defunding the police
as a wilful mischaracterization of the budgetreductions in which they cut the budget for

(01:36:49):
the police force. I added thatlast part just to make it clear.
There you go, There you goanyway. Joining me in the studio now
he's Ryan Edwards. Everybody, Hello, dude, No, I'm great.
I was just trying to see howI follow that up. But just do

(01:37:11):
this last story. That's the storytoday, that's the kicker. I got
the kicker story right there. Kickerstory today is not going to be the
Avs gang. No. Well,I mean it is the story because of
Valence Schushkin, but not because youwant it to. Yeah. Yeah,
are they going to get it done? Ryan? Are they win the series?
No? But are they? Arethey gonna fight like hell tomorrow night

(01:37:33):
and maybe steal game? Yeah?I made they could do that. I
can see. I see the situationgalvanizing the team. But it looked lifeless
last night. Yeah, it lookedlike it hit them hard. Also,
Devontave's not being out. There wasone of their defensemen that the guy that
was stubbing in got two penalties earlyon. It was just a mess.

(01:37:53):
And I mean I don't blame JoedBetnar for saying it was one of the
worst games he's ever seen. Imean it's really what it is. You
could put lipstick on a pig,but it's still a pig. It just
it just felt like that nothing wasgoing right when Cale mccarr is making mistakes,
and I mean, it just itwas as It was a mess,
so tough, tough for the homefans especially. It's one thing to lose

(01:38:14):
a game like that on the road, Yeah, but then you lose a
game like that in front of yourhome fans. It's wah wah wah wah.
Anyway, now it's time for themost exciting segment on the radio of
its kind, Ello of the Day. Bryan Edward's on fire with the of
the day. What is our dadjoke of the day, please, Michael

(01:38:35):
Cooper. Our dad joke of theday is what did one toilet say to
the other? You look a bitflushed? Yes? Oh I got two
in a row. Dad jokes?God, ah, kill it right now
with the dad jokes. What's ourword of the day, please? You're
going with this? One took caveat? Oh uh oh. This is one

(01:38:55):
of those ones that I know.It's like a there's a caveat. It's
a it's an accept shit or oran exception of whatever you're talking about,
or or a yeah, it's theword. It's an exception, it's an
it's like a requirement or what isthe actual definition? All right? A
caveat is an explanation or warning thatshould be remembered when you are doing or
thinking about something. Okay, I'myeah, I think I know how to

(01:39:20):
use the word properly. I justcouldn't define it. Probably life. I'm
just like here's a caveat for us. Yeah. What is the capital city
of Costa Rica? I know thisone because I've been there. I should
know this. San Jose, beautifulcity, is it? Yeah? They
have a gold museum there. Yeah, it's a museum with just gold,

(01:39:41):
like Mayan gold. It's very cool. It's like five stories below the ground,
no windows or anything. Very secure. Okay, yeah, they'll it
sort of has to be right.You'll knock you down if you try and
steal stuff. There'll be no followup questions about how I know that?
Anyway? What's our jeopardy category?Our jeopardy category today is you know?
You know? All these answers willbegin with the letter you Okay? Whether

(01:40:06):
fast or is slow? How theball is pitched in softball? What's underhand?
Correct? This character told the talesof plantation life that became the basness
of the movie What's Uncle Tom?No? Oh no? Became the basis
of the movie Song of the South. I know it too, I'll say

(01:40:26):
it the answer when you don't guessit? What's Uncle Remus? Yes?
What about time? This organization isheadquartered at First Avenue and forty sixth Street.
Man name, what's the United Nationscorrect one front piece of real estate
for a garbage organization. In nineteenfifty six, US pilot Carmine Veto became
the first and only man to flyone of these over Moscow. Ryan,

(01:40:50):
Yes, what is uh A?It's like you or you bomber or like
A I can't, I can't,I have no idea? The U two?
Oh, okay, And finally thisbone runs from the wrist to the
elbow. Manny, what's the ulna? Yes, there you go. Dominant.

(01:41:11):
Dang it, Uncle weenus, notUncle Tom. Dang it. It
was your your category. Sometimes they'relike that stupid. Anyway, what's coming
up on the KOA Sports show that'sabout to start. Well, obviously,
we'll talk a little bit about valetChushkin in the abs, and then we'll
talk about the Nuggets big game tonight, the game tonight, they win this
one and boy, they could reallykind of make a run here, So

(01:41:32):
we'll get to that. Obviously,some more thoughts about the Broncos rookie camp.
We gotcha schedule comes out what tomorrowtomorrow six o'clock only station in Denver
that's giving away Broncos tickets. We'rethe only ones so you know what,
because we're the best stations, arethe best station, and then again it
sounds like we're biased. But again, you go anywhere else, Yep,

(01:41:53):
are they giving away Broncos? They'renot. The answer is no, Hey,
Ryan, are they giving away Broncostickets on any other station other than
from all the research I have done, and I've done a lot of research
on Google. The answers no.All right then, so if you want
to win tickets, you're gonna wantto listen to that coverage starting here at
six o'clock tomorrow night. And rightnow you can listen to AOA sports coming up next