January 6, 2025 • 28 mins
THIS IS WHY WE DON'T TRUST GOVERNMENT It's almost like government doesn't understand that there is a whole new wave of empowered citizen journalists who are working daily to hold them accountable. What else could explain JeffCo Public Schools laissez faire response to the firing, investigation, and subsequent suicide of their Chief of Schools? Why weren't they honest with parents from the beginning that David Weiss was being investigated for possession of child porn? Jimmy Sengenberger writes about the latest kerfuffle here and new demands to do away with the Trusted Adult designation championed by the guy being investigated for possessing child porn. Jimmy may be joining us at 1 to discuss.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Bill and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers. No, it's Mandy.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Connell and Don Knee FM, god Way, Canny Gray by Connelly.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Sad thing.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
That that's the call the Dreams, Jimmy singing live in
to the studio.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's like a It's like the bat signal, only with
blues music. And and look here he is, hi Jimmy.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Yes, indeed, good afternoon, Mandy, Happy New Year, Happy New Year,
you too.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I brought you in for a very valid reason and
we're gonna get to that in just a second. But
you know, when we talk about newspapers dying and we
talk about journalism being gutted because they've run all of
their audience away to somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's my view on it. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
One of the things that is the most disheartening to
me is that we got the newsroom and then there's
no one to cover school board meetings, and there's no
one to cover shenanigans when they arise. And I just
want to give you a little credit through your column
in the Denver Gazette.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
You're doing a great job.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Casting a light on some of the areas that the
school boards around town would rather you not cast a
light too, So I really appreciate that. I appreciate you
paying attention and continueing to talk about it, because when
you look at the school systems across the country, it's
very difficult to have an extremely successful urban district.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's just hard. There's too many people in poverty.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Again, I understand that, but when you start to look
at school districts, especially in suburban areas, those are the
school districts that are going to determine whether we get
new businesses, whether people relocate.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Company headquarters here. The quality of our.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Education matters a ton from that perspective, and of course
it matters because we are teaching next generation of young
people how to read, write, do arithmetic and all that
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
But man, have we lost our mission? We have lost
our mission?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And now this this, I mean, this story is honestly,
it's like a lifetime movie. It's unbelievable. And I'll give
the thumbnail sketch of the story. At the beginning of December,
a rather terse announcement was made that Chief of Schools,
who was number three in command of jeff Co Public Schools,
David Wise, had been fired and that was it. There
(02:31):
was like, oh, yeah, we fired it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That does not happen. Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
If someone is being investigated for wrongdoing, they are put
on leave and then the investigation unfolds, much to the
frustration of people who know whatever happened happened.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No, there was none of that.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
David Wise has been fired no longer with the district,
and everybody's like, what what is happening right now? Then
it comes out that he's being investigated for purchasing child
sexual assault materials, so child pornography is what talking about.
And then like a week later, he is in Maryland
visiting family and commits suicide.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Apparently what you.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Would think, you would just think, Okay, the district has
to get out in front of this at some point,
right you got to, especially if he's being investigated for
child sexual assault possession. Wouldn't the next logical question be, oh,
my god, what if some of our children were victimized?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
What I mean what that? To me?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Would be the natural response and the best way to
find out if there are more victims is to go
public and tell people what happened, so you can say,
if you have any concerns about this, bring them to
the district. We will then all of these things would
be very rational choices. So, Jimmy, what did Jeffco Public
Schools do in this situation?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So there's a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
That is just what you would not be teaching in
crisis management one oh one for sure. And it begins
actually on December nineteenth is when the firing took place,
and it was within twenty four hours of that that
the news went out in a release from the district
to the media saying, hey, this happened, there's an investigation.
(04:13):
Nothing about what the investigations right entailed, anything of that sort.
But no notice of any kind went out to the
parents and families of the second largest school district in Colorado,
which is Jefferson County Schools at that time. It wasn't
until after New Year's Day the next day, so January
tewod that the district put out a statement where they
(04:37):
and an email blast to parents and families and put
an email blast out to staff and what have you,
acknowledging some the details about this and letting the parents
and families know in the community, hey, this is what
this investigation entailed. And here is a sort of some
of the basic outlines of the timeline. Not showing compassion
(04:59):
for the fa family is not really expressing any concern.
It was coldly bureaucratic, as I write in my column yesterday,
and I'll just add, I think that the big reason
that this even happened of any kind of note is
because on New Year's Day, word came out and was
confirmed by a sheriff's office in Maryland, where David Wise
was visiting family with his family for the holidays, that
(05:22):
he had died and what we now know is an
apparent suicide. And that statement from the Maryland Sheriff's office
is what first confirmed this investigation was about child photography.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So it didn't come out before that. I thought it
came out before that.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
The word had been traveling on my Twitter feed. There
was conversations about this. I mean, there was people that
knew what this investigation was about. Here's here's the problem
for me, so many problems, but the main problem for
me is that I believe that school districts are so
(05:59):
a firend of being sued, of being whatever because of
things like sexual impropriety with a child, which happens in
schools far more than people know. I mean it is
pervasive in the school system at least.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Three or four times, including this one, in Jefferson County
schools that we know of in last year alone twenty
four how many times at least three or four different
publicly known cases of some allegations of sexual propriety by
staff members in Jefferson County schools just in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
But the wrong way to handle that is is to
hide it.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
The only way that a school district gains credibility with
parents is by making all of these things known and
making sure that parents understand that if there's any a
question of any sort of impropriety, they must be brought
in immediately so they can take immediate action. The most
frustrating thing about this, Jimmy, is that.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Maybe I'm just getting old. I don't know, but I
am now very close to be.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
One of those people who doesn't ever trust anything that
anyone from any branch of government tells me. And it
feels so wrong because jeff Co, more than anybody else
that I'm aware of other than Boulder Valley, has leaned
in to the trusted it. Dunt we know better than
(07:21):
your parents. Oh you want to change gender? We won't
tell them that you want to change gender. We'll just
call you whatever. We'll just let you use the boys.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I mean, the level of.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Intervention between the schools and parents has been next level,
and I understand this guy was actually a big part
of some of that.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Basically, as chief of schools, he was essentially responsible for
implementing the trusted adult policies of the district.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
What are those policies that people don't Well, basically, look
at it this way.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So when we were kids, we might get along with
the teacher, trust them, We feel comfortable.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Confiding in them on certain things. We're having a rough
day or what have you.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
We know that teacher, Especially when you're in middle or
high school, there are some teachers that you will feel
comfortable leaning on. I talk about one particular instance in
middle school where I had that, and it was a
natural development, right, and that's what should happen. You find
a trusted assult naturally.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Instead, what the.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
District is essentially doing is saying, we want you to
find your trusted adults.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Sometimes let us know. They have surveys, They.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Have all kinds of different ways of putting kids in
the position of picking and identifying trusted adults and they
may not have those kinds of relationships.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So there's a big difference.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Between the natural development as it should be, of trust
that has earned and institutionalizing trust by saying, Oh, this
person's a teacher or a staff member, so you should
find them and trust them, and then you basically have
the I think it's litensey Dad Goo of jeff co Kids.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
First, I quoted my column.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Saying that Dave Wise was the trusted adult of trusted
adults because.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
He was overseeing the implementation of these policies, and not
for nothing. And this is not to disparage any wonderful
teachers who signed up to be a trusted adult and
mean it and really want to be there for the kids.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
But damn, if I'm a pedophile in the schools, what
do you think I'm going to do?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Oh, I'm going to put that little trusted adult sign
right up on my desk, Because the kids that are
going to come to you who need that trusted adult
are they going to be the easiest to victimize. So
we basically created a feeder system for pedophiles in the schools.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
It's a big concern that a lot of folks have
along the lines of the trusted adult might be that
person who will say, you know what, if you feel
like you should be questioning your gender, maybe you should
be and guide them in that process as the trusted adult.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And as you.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Mentioned, Jeff co has been notorious for these kinds of
things of keeping from parents the teachers' union, Yeah, collaborating
on there on the Facebook in a private group of
couple of years back, being like, Okay, what are ways
that we can dodge with the school board?
Speaker 3 (10:04):
How can you take a survey without taking a survey
to find out which one of your kids is trans?
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I mean, it's so gross. And the trusted adult thing
after an incident at my daughter's school. I don't remember
what the incident was. It wasn't like that big a deal,
but they had one of those conversations like who is
your trusted adult in the.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
School, and my daughter was like no one, Like what,
no one? But she was put on a spot.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I was very annoyed by that. To your point, I
think that's a great way to put it. We all
had teachers that we felt we could talk to and
we could gravitate towards, and I was lucky to have
one in high school that I called when I was
in college to ask how to write a paper about Shakespeare.
I mean, you know those are the best teachers. Yes,
But I think your point is spot on that to
artificially decide that someone is going to be your trusted
(10:52):
adult is just that it's artificial. It reeks of performance
rather than depth.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So the big problem here, Amandy, is not just that
you have the trusted adult program that clearly needs to
go without question, and this is the latest example of that.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
In Jefferson County schools alone.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
There was a recent case I wrote about a couple
months back of a school social worker. Middle school social
worker named Chloe Castro, who had a legations against her,
was arrested for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a
fourteen year old boy. And that was a Jefferson County
School District employee. So they have these big problems. But
(11:35):
then you have the issue of if the district is
trying to hide the ball up. Yes, if the district
is not being straightforward, they're not showing that they even
understand where we're coming from. That means I can't trust
the district because they're not being honest. But it also
indicates that the district isn't trusting me, the parent, with
this information.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I don't think it's even that thoughtful. I think it
is you have a group of people, and I truly
believe Tracy Dolan is a terrible, terrible leader of jeff Cos,
super absolutely terrible, and they have their little cabal of
people and they believe they are doing God's work.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
They believe only they know I have agree for your children.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I think the impression for a lot of parents is
I don't trust you with all of this, and you
know what, I don't think you trust me either. I
think there's a lot of a feeling of that that's
like that for a parent, They're like, we can't stand this.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
What's going on. It's it's a.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Big rot in Jeffco's schools, and especially when they're trying
to control information as they have been, then that indicates that,
you know what, if you had some trust in the district,
maybe in fact that was misplaced. I mean, crisis management
one oh one requires you to be forthright and honest
as much as you can, and to show some semblance
(12:55):
of sympathy, if not empathy for.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The people that you are speaking on.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Behalf you know, I think that for this situation, and
the point I was making at the beginning of our
conversation Jimmy, is that they don't think anyone's going to
ask questions. They don't think anyone's going to ask for documents,
they don't think anyone's going to follow up, they don't
think anyone's.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Going to come to the school board meetings.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
They just don't think they have to be accountable. And
that is like the jeff Co's school system. You could
look at that, you could look at so many governmental
organizations who have decided they don't need our input, like
please sit down, shut up, we know what's best. Yes,
And that I think is one of the reasons that
the country started to move right this last election cycle.
And I always want to say, keep it up, keep
(13:40):
it up, because people are starting to pay attention. I'm
not hopeful in Colorado that Jefferson County is going to
vote in more conservative board members than they have now.
I'm just I'm not confident about that. It's unfortunate because
I think their school district is sliding backwards as this
current leadership situation continues. But they they show such disdain
(14:02):
for the parents, for people in the community, for people
who are worried about this stuff. That that, to me
is is how it comes across. It's like, you know what,
we can't be bothered to reach out to the parents.
But you said something in your column that there was
like a meeting for teachers or something was there were
teachers given some kind of support or something.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
So what they had sent out in a blast email
to staff.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Was something that in part said, we have emotional support
and gathering spaces for you.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
We know that this is quote unsettling and challenging.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
The situation is we have to reground ourselves in our
why so they were putting out all of these like
we want to compt in your staff, and you know what,
I don't have a problem with that in and of itself,
because look, there are a lot of people who have
worked in the district and work in the district now
who've interacted with David Wise. He was one of the
(14:56):
two liaisons to the district accountability committee for je So
a lot of parents and community members are involved in that.
So I don't have a problem with showing some of
that sympathy. But you need to show that for the
parents too and say Okay, here is our understanding, show them.
We understand why you're concerned and you're fearful. Here's what
we know and can share. Now here's how you can help.
(15:19):
You made a very important point earlier. Yeah, when you
were like, wouldn't you say, here's the way. If you
have any information that you can share, please go.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Ahead and do that.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That seems like the obvious thing that you would ask
people to do, and yet nothing of the sort.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
From Jeff Coo. More parents need to use CORA requests
with schools.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
You, guys and Jimmy, you've gotten CORRA requests back. You
have no idea what comes when you make a CORERA request,
because if it's something an organization really doesn't want to
share with you, they will bury you in a thousand
pages of crap that doesn't really matter to get to
the one page that you need. So the core request system,
(16:02):
I think is being abused by governments and I think
that needs to change. I know it can be time
consuming for people to gather, but especially older documents that
are not digitized. But if we're talking about pulling an
email that takes twenty five seconds, now you may have
to sort through the emails to make sure, but it's
very frustrating the way to the same point I just
(16:23):
made the disdain that governmental organizations show to people who
just want to find out.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
What actually happened.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Well, when we've seen this in Denver Public schools on
the school safety issues, where the district even to this
point when they made some changes to their discipline policies,
they still were woefully inadequate, and they've shown disdain for
parents who have been outraged at how the district has
been handling in Denver, how they've been handling school safety
issues and disciplinary issues, and thankfully parents really stood up
(16:53):
made some changes to the school board.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But even then, and I write about this in Tomorrow's
still Numbers that they're still so out number.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, the Denver situation, there needs to be about three
or four more school board members knocked off. And then
they've got to get rid of Alex Morrero. I'm floored
every day that guy still has a job.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Floored.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
He is terrible as superintendent. He has deserved to go
for a long time. And yet I think that the
board is very reticent to find themselves in another superintendent search.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And soanic Man, So we don't want to you know,
we don't want to do that.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
I mean it is the blowback that they would get
from that, as well as the because they could find
somebody else if they wanted to go the DEI routes specifically,
they could find another person to be superintendent, but.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
They are I know this for a fact. It's been
an issue for.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
A couple of years in DPS that the board has
been very hesitant to find themselves in another superintendent search,
in part because who the heck wants to work in
DPS is a superintendent.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I will tell you my experience with people who want
to work in larger urban districts. They fall into such
a hard left category anyway that anyone willing to take
this job for this ward would not.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Be an improvement. I don't think on Alex Morrero.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Unless we could get somebody who said, you know what,
one person improvement in student achievement is not good enough
for me.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
If only Gosh superintendent would say that, yeah, go figure
who mar Those are the good old days.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Those are the good old days when student achievement was first.
Instead of adults trying to protect themselves from difficult conversations
from people they make mad because they want to do
better for kids, so incredibly frustrating. Mandy, look up the
case of Imagine. You were ewe r you.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Ever heard of this?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
She and her mom worked for Jeff COO's schools and
were suspected of theft by many. Then Imagine was caught
red handed with stolen chromebooks. She was let go, but
then re hired within the district. This past year, she
was arrested for having a sexual relationship with a student.
Her mother, if I remember correctly, was caught embezzling from
the school she moved to. Now, because I don't know
(19:03):
anything about this case, I don't want anyone to think
that is accurate because I don't want to disparage or anything.
I don't know anything about that. So Texter, we will
look into it, and if we find out that you
are right, then we will revisit that. But Mandy, this
text are said. After personally being involved with multiple Colorado
school districts for the past three decades, including jeffco I
(19:27):
found school districts hide all kinds of information, i e.
Teachers on special assignments that hides administration numbers from their communities.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So uh yeah, yeah, Mandy, this is interesting. Wait a minute.
Hang on, let me get this right, so I get
the full thing.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
A custodian gains a lot of trust with students as
he she doesn't pose as an authority figure along with
bus drivers.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
There are good folks out there.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It seems that teachers and principles are the bad guys
at time, and they are sometimes they are not always.
I mean, a vast majority of teachers and principals do
a great job.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
I remember I happened to get along with why multiple
teachers that I got along with when I was in
high school. I'll remember getting along with a couple of
the security guards. Same when I was at regious University.
We happened to think alike politically, so that certainly helped
a little bit. But there is and that is actually
an important point too about trust. Leaning on the SROs
at schools or leaning on a security guard can certainly
(20:27):
make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
This dexter said.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Thankfully, I'm a cop and get super specific in my
tons of CORA requests for Denver. I like to think
my specific requests were a piece that hit two to
three principles relieved, or that got two to three principles relieved.
You never know, keep it up, people, Jimmy Singeberg, good
to see my friends. Do you want to stick around
and talk about some other stuff for a minute. Yeah,
(20:50):
I got a few minutes too. I got two things
I want to talk about in the next half hour.
And they're two editorials by the Denvers Is that they're
both so good, so so good about two separate things,
but similar and somewhat connected in some circumstances. I hope
that's a vague enough tease for you. Find out what
I'm talking about next. Yeah, okay, let's get into this
before you have to go. There's a great editorial in
(21:12):
the Denver Gazette about churches helping house homeless people and
working towards affordable housing solutions. And you know, when you
think about it, we have a situation in Castle Rock
where I understand that the Rock Church wants to house
people on their property in RVs and they feel like
this is their missions as a church, and I have
(21:36):
to agree with them. I don't know if any faith,
and maybe there are faiths out there.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Maybe Buddhism is sort of like, you know, let everything
happen the way it's supposed to happen. But every single
faith has a command to help those in need, right,
That's a tenet of every form of religion. And we
give churches tax exempt status because of the things they
do in the community.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I'm not saying every church has to open their doors
and start housing people in their you know, saying to
you know area.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
But we should encourage and assist and smooth the process.
If churches say we would like to work to you know,
give or provide affordable housing for people, we should one
hundred percent support that because they don't have.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
A profit motive, so there's no profit motive attached to it.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And don't get me wrong, I don't mind a profit motive.
But building a home in Colorado has become so expensive,
mostly because of government regulations, that it's no longer profitable
to build affordable housing.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
It just isn't. What are your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Should we make it easier, streamline the process, support churches
in and encourage them to work in this space if
they have the ability.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
It's really interesting to consider this.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
First of all, I would say it is inherently better
than government providing housing correct without a doubt, And we
can see for example, and I'm Catholic. The Catholic charities
do a phenomenal job at providing services for the poor
and providing shelters for the homeless, and that's something that
really I don't think there's any other private organization that
could really hold a candle quite to what the Catholic
(23:14):
charities have been able to do. And that's from so
long of being at it and trying in so many
different ways. But when I look at this, so what's
obvious much better to have this than the government. I
do wonder about how you approach that from a government standpoint.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
As far as the property, that is, does the government
need to.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Sell some property to the churches in order for the
churches to them manage that property, or do the churches
need to go and do the real estate deals themselves.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Will they do that prefer the latter.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
And here's why me too, because whenever you get government
involved in any sort of situation in a collaborative way,
then you run the risk of government making rules and
or more importantly, preventing you from enacting certain rules.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And I think that one of the reasons that church.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Based charity has worked so well throughout our entire existence
is when you are taking food from a food bank
at a church, you're going to stand face to face
with a volunteer, and there's a very personal nature to
that transaction that does not exist when this nameless, faceless
government does X y Z. You have no connection to
(24:28):
the money where that money came from. But when you're
standing in front of someone, or you're getting rental assistance,
or you're getting some kind of help from a church,
churches do this stuff all the time, there is a
personal connection there that I think makes it you have
a sense of responsibility. Maybe some people they're always going
to be people whose suck, right, I mean, they're going
to try and work the system and never do anything constructive.
(24:48):
I'm talking about everybody else who's just in a bad way.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, you know, I agree with that.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
My concern even with that, though that might come up
and I have to think about this more, is I
do worry about distortions the private market that could happen
that if you say, have Catholic charities or some other
church entity that decides, you know what, we're going to
go ahead and buy up a bunch of real estate
properties and put them up for this kind of what
(25:13):
the impact could be could still have some similar ripple
effects in the market to a government coming in and
doing something. It'd be better than that. Because I agree
with you on what you just said, I won't repeat it.
But I think there are always a little bit of
a concern that you might have about distortions of the
private market.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But I think that can be addressed.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Well enough to justify churches to take this action themselves.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
I think the distortions are mitigated simply by the nature
of the limits that are inherent on donor based housing
or you know. I mean Catholic Charities is about to
open a new property, but they have a finite set
of resources. They can't just go to all of their
parishoners say yeah, we're going to need an extra hundred,
maybe a thousand bucks from each of you.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's not how it works.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
So there are natural limits on how much of this
point can be done. But you know, I'll know for
any kind of creative solutions. I heard Ross had a
couple of guests on his show because Littleton is trying
to upsize certain parts of Littleton and neighbors are pushing back.
I think that when a charity tries to do something
to increase affordable housing. You may have pushed back from
(26:23):
mediate neighbors who are laboring under the impression that somehow
this is going to be you know, horrible, But I
think they can get it done in a quieter way.
I hate to say it like that, but in a
quieter way that by the time everybody goes, oh, we've
got you know, two families living in this now duplex
or whatever, it's kind of the neighborhood can absorb it.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
I would say also, one thing that is in favor
of more of this kind of involvement from churches is
that I think one of the reasons that we have
seen over the decades such an expansion of the welfare
state is because many churches have sort of hold back
and thought, you know what, the government is willing and
able to do more of this, so we'll let them.
(27:06):
And then that causes all kinds of problems that you
don't have when churches people of faith are providing services
for the poor.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
One of the things that people may not know about
the United States of America is that as a as
a country, the people of the United States of America
donate more money to charity than the rest of the
world combined combined. Think about when the tsunami hit in Indonesia,
Americans dipped into their own pockets and donated more money
(27:37):
to that cause than most other governments sent. Because they
rely on their government for everything, so it doesn't occur
to them that they should be there to pick up
the slack. And that's one of the things I love
about Americans. They show over and over time and time
again that when the government fails us, your neighbors, your friends,
the people in your community, they're going to be the
ones that are going to solve the problem. And that's
(27:59):
why I think this would be a fantastic idea. Obviously,
not every church is capable. Some churches are very very
small and they operate on very thin margins. But I
would love to see more of this. I would love
to see it made easier for churches and you know,
the faith based nonprofits or even other nonprofits to peaces saying,
you know what, we're gonna throw up some affordable housing here.
(28:19):
We're gonna run this ten unit apartment complex, and we're
going to make sure that it stays where people.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Can pay for it. Jimmy Segenberger, good to see you,
my friends. Thank you very much, Mandy. I'm sure we'll
see you again as we continue to talk about the
dumpster fire of the school situation I know more. Thanks
for stopping me
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Bill and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers. No, it's Mandy.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Connell and Don Knee FM, god Way, Canny Gray by Connelly.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Sad thing.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
That that's the call the Dreams, Jimmy singing live in
to the studio.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's like a It's like the bat signal, only with
blues music. And and look here he is, hi Jimmy.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Yes, indeed, good afternoon, Mandy, Happy New Year, Happy New Year,
you too.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I brought you in for a very valid reason and
we're gonna get to that in just a second. But
you know, when we talk about newspapers dying and we
talk about journalism being gutted because they've run all of
their audience away to somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's my view on it. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
One of the things that is the most disheartening to
me is that we got the newsroom and then there's
no one to cover school board meetings, and there's no
one to cover shenanigans when they arise. And I just
want to give you a little credit through your column
in the Denver Gazette.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
You're doing a great job.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Casting a light on some of the areas that the
school boards around town would rather you not cast a
light too, So I really appreciate that. I appreciate you
paying attention and continueing to talk about it, because when
you look at the school systems across the country, it's
very difficult to have an extremely successful urban district.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's just hard. There's too many people in poverty.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Again, I understand that, but when you start to look
at school districts, especially in suburban areas, those are the
school districts that are going to determine whether we get
new businesses, whether people relocate.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Company headquarters here. The quality of our.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Education matters a ton from that perspective, and of course
it matters because we are teaching next generation of young
people how to read, write, do arithmetic and all that
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
But man, have we lost our mission? We have lost
our mission?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And now this this, I mean, this story is honestly,
it's like a lifetime movie. It's unbelievable. And I'll give
the thumbnail sketch of the story. At the beginning of December,
a rather terse announcement was made that Chief of Schools,
who was number three in command of jeff Co Public Schools,
David Wise, had been fired and that was it. There
(02:31):
was like, oh, yeah, we fired it.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That does not happen. Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
If someone is being investigated for wrongdoing, they are put
on leave and then the investigation unfolds, much to the
frustration of people who know whatever happened happened.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
No, there was none of that.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
David Wise has been fired no longer with the district,
and everybody's like, what what is happening right now? Then
it comes out that he's being investigated for purchasing child
sexual assault materials, so child pornography is what talking about.
And then like a week later, he is in Maryland
visiting family and commits suicide.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Apparently what you.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Would think, you would just think, Okay, the district has
to get out in front of this at some point,
right you got to, especially if he's being investigated for
child sexual assault possession. Wouldn't the next logical question be, oh,
my god, what if some of our children were victimized?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
What I mean what that? To me?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Would be the natural response and the best way to
find out if there are more victims is to go
public and tell people what happened, so you can say,
if you have any concerns about this, bring them to
the district. We will then all of these things would
be very rational choices. So, Jimmy, what did Jeffco Public
Schools do in this situation?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So there's a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
That is just what you would not be teaching in
crisis management one oh one for sure. And it begins
actually on December nineteenth is when the firing took place,
and it was within twenty four hours of that that
the news went out in a release from the district
to the media saying, hey, this happened, there's an investigation.
(04:13):
Nothing about what the investigations right entailed, anything of that sort.
But no notice of any kind went out to the
parents and families of the second largest school district in Colorado,
which is Jefferson County Schools at that time. It wasn't
until after New Year's Day the next day, so January
tewod that the district put out a statement where they
(04:37):
and an email blast to parents and families and put
an email blast out to staff and what have you,
acknowledging some the details about this and letting the parents
and families know in the community, hey, this is what
this investigation entailed. And here is a sort of some
of the basic outlines of the timeline. Not showing compassion
(04:59):
for the fa family is not really expressing any concern.
It was coldly bureaucratic, as I write in my column yesterday,
and I'll just add, I think that the big reason
that this even happened of any kind of note is
because on New Year's Day, word came out and was
confirmed by a sheriff's office in Maryland, where David Wise
was visiting family with his family for the holidays, that
(05:22):
he had died and what we now know is an
apparent suicide. And that statement from the Maryland Sheriff's office
is what first confirmed this investigation was about child photography.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So it didn't come out before that. I thought it
came out before that.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
The word had been traveling on my Twitter feed. There
was conversations about this. I mean, there was people that
knew what this investigation was about. Here's here's the problem
for me, so many problems, but the main problem for
me is that I believe that school districts are so
(05:59):
a firend of being sued, of being whatever because of
things like sexual impropriety with a child, which happens in
schools far more than people know. I mean it is
pervasive in the school system at least.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Three or four times, including this one, in Jefferson County
schools that we know of in last year alone twenty
four how many times at least three or four different
publicly known cases of some allegations of sexual propriety by
staff members in Jefferson County schools just in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
But the wrong way to handle that is is to
hide it.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
The only way that a school district gains credibility with
parents is by making all of these things known and
making sure that parents understand that if there's any a
question of any sort of impropriety, they must be brought
in immediately so they can take immediate action. The most
frustrating thing about this, Jimmy, is that.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Maybe I'm just getting old. I don't know, but I
am now very close to be.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
One of those people who doesn't ever trust anything that
anyone from any branch of government tells me. And it
feels so wrong because jeff Co, more than anybody else
that I'm aware of other than Boulder Valley, has leaned
in to the trusted it. Dunt we know better than
(07:21):
your parents. Oh you want to change gender? We won't
tell them that you want to change gender. We'll just
call you whatever. We'll just let you use the boys.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I mean, the level of.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Intervention between the schools and parents has been next level,
and I understand this guy was actually a big part
of some of that.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Basically, as chief of schools, he was essentially responsible for
implementing the trusted adult policies of the district.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
What are those policies that people don't Well, basically, look
at it this way.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So when we were kids, we might get along with
the teacher, trust them, We feel comfortable.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Confiding in them on certain things. We're having a rough
day or what have you.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
We know that teacher, Especially when you're in middle or
high school, there are some teachers that you will feel
comfortable leaning on. I talk about one particular instance in
middle school where I had that, and it was a
natural development, right, and that's what should happen. You find
a trusted assult naturally.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Instead, what the.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
District is essentially doing is saying, we want you to
find your trusted adults.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Sometimes let us know. They have surveys, They.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Have all kinds of different ways of putting kids in
the position of picking and identifying trusted adults and they
may not have those kinds of relationships.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So there's a big difference.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Between the natural development as it should be, of trust
that has earned and institutionalizing trust by saying, Oh, this
person's a teacher or a staff member, so you should
find them and trust them, and then you basically have
the I think it's litensey Dad Goo of jeff co Kids.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
First, I quoted my column.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Saying that Dave Wise was the trusted adult of trusted
adults because.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
He was overseeing the implementation of these policies, and not
for nothing. And this is not to disparage any wonderful
teachers who signed up to be a trusted adult and
mean it and really want to be there for the kids.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
But damn, if I'm a pedophile in the schools, what
do you think I'm going to do?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Oh, I'm going to put that little trusted adult sign
right up on my desk, Because the kids that are
going to come to you who need that trusted adult
are they going to be the easiest to victimize. So
we basically created a feeder system for pedophiles in the schools.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
It's a big concern that a lot of folks have
along the lines of the trusted adult might be that
person who will say, you know what, if you feel
like you should be questioning your gender, maybe you should
be and guide them in that process as the trusted adult.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And as you.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Mentioned, Jeff co has been notorious for these kinds of
things of keeping from parents the teachers' union, Yeah, collaborating
on there on the Facebook in a private group of
couple of years back, being like, Okay, what are ways
that we can dodge with the school board?
Speaker 3 (10:04):
How can you take a survey without taking a survey
to find out which one of your kids is trans?
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I mean, it's so gross. And the trusted adult thing
after an incident at my daughter's school. I don't remember
what the incident was. It wasn't like that big a deal,
but they had one of those conversations like who is
your trusted adult in the.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
School, and my daughter was like no one, Like what,
no one? But she was put on a spot.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I was very annoyed by that. To your point, I
think that's a great way to put it. We all
had teachers that we felt we could talk to and
we could gravitate towards, and I was lucky to have
one in high school that I called when I was
in college to ask how to write a paper about Shakespeare.
I mean, you know those are the best teachers. Yes,
But I think your point is spot on that to
artificially decide that someone is going to be your trusted
(10:52):
adult is just that it's artificial. It reeks of performance
rather than depth.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
So the big problem here, Amandy, is not just that
you have the trusted adult program that clearly needs to
go without question, and this is the latest example of that.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
In Jefferson County schools alone.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
There was a recent case I wrote about a couple
months back of a school social worker. Middle school social
worker named Chloe Castro, who had a legations against her,
was arrested for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a
fourteen year old boy. And that was a Jefferson County
School District employee. So they have these big problems. But
(11:35):
then you have the issue of if the district is
trying to hide the ball up. Yes, if the district
is not being straightforward, they're not showing that they even
understand where we're coming from. That means I can't trust
the district because they're not being honest. But it also
indicates that the district isn't trusting me, the parent, with
this information.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
I don't think it's even that thoughtful. I think it
is you have a group of people, and I truly
believe Tracy Dolan is a terrible, terrible leader of jeff Cos,
super absolutely terrible, and they have their little cabal of
people and they believe they are doing God's work.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
They believe only they know I have agree for your children.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I think the impression for a lot of parents is
I don't trust you with all of this, and you
know what, I don't think you trust me either. I
think there's a lot of a feeling of that that's
like that for a parent, They're like, we can't stand this.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
What's going on. It's it's a.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Big rot in Jeffco's schools, and especially when they're trying
to control information as they have been, then that indicates that,
you know what, if you had some trust in the district,
maybe in fact that was misplaced. I mean, crisis management
one oh one requires you to be forthright and honest
as much as you can, and to show some semblance
(12:55):
of sympathy, if not empathy for.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The people that you are speaking on.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Behalf you know, I think that for this situation, and
the point I was making at the beginning of our
conversation Jimmy, is that they don't think anyone's going to
ask questions. They don't think anyone's going to ask for documents,
they don't think anyone's going to follow up, they don't
think anyone's.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Going to come to the school board meetings.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
They just don't think they have to be accountable. And
that is like the jeff Co's school system. You could
look at that, you could look at so many governmental
organizations who have decided they don't need our input, like
please sit down, shut up, we know what's best. Yes,
And that I think is one of the reasons that
the country started to move right this last election cycle.
And I always want to say, keep it up, keep
(13:40):
it up, because people are starting to pay attention. I'm
not hopeful in Colorado that Jefferson County is going to
vote in more conservative board members than they have now.
I'm just I'm not confident about that. It's unfortunate because
I think their school district is sliding backwards as this
current leadership situation continues. But they they show such disdain
(14:02):
for the parents, for people in the community, for people
who are worried about this stuff. That that, to me
is is how it comes across. It's like, you know what,
we can't be bothered to reach out to the parents.
But you said something in your column that there was
like a meeting for teachers or something was there were
teachers given some kind of support or something.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
So what they had sent out in a blast email
to staff.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Was something that in part said, we have emotional support
and gathering spaces for you.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
We know that this is quote unsettling and challenging.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
The situation is we have to reground ourselves in our
why so they were putting out all of these like
we want to compt in your staff, and you know what,
I don't have a problem with that in and of itself,
because look, there are a lot of people who have
worked in the district and work in the district now
who've interacted with David Wise. He was one of the
(14:56):
two liaisons to the district accountability committee for je So
a lot of parents and community members are involved in that.
So I don't have a problem with showing some of
that sympathy. But you need to show that for the
parents too and say Okay, here is our understanding, show them.
We understand why you're concerned and you're fearful. Here's what
we know and can share. Now here's how you can help.
(15:19):
You made a very important point earlier. Yeah, when you
were like, wouldn't you say, here's the way. If you
have any information that you can share, please go.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Ahead and do that.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That seems like the obvious thing that you would ask
people to do, and yet nothing of the sort.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
From Jeff Coo. More parents need to use CORA requests
with schools.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
You, guys and Jimmy, you've gotten CORRA requests back. You
have no idea what comes when you make a CORERA request,
because if it's something an organization really doesn't want to
share with you, they will bury you in a thousand
pages of crap that doesn't really matter to get to
the one page that you need. So the core request system,
(16:02):
I think is being abused by governments and I think
that needs to change. I know it can be time
consuming for people to gather, but especially older documents that
are not digitized. But if we're talking about pulling an
email that takes twenty five seconds, now you may have
to sort through the emails to make sure, but it's
very frustrating the way to the same point I just
(16:23):
made the disdain that governmental organizations show to people who
just want to find out.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
What actually happened.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Well, when we've seen this in Denver Public schools on
the school safety issues, where the district even to this
point when they made some changes to their discipline policies,
they still were woefully inadequate, and they've shown disdain for
parents who have been outraged at how the district has
been handling in Denver, how they've been handling school safety
issues and disciplinary issues, and thankfully parents really stood up
(16:53):
made some changes to the school board.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But even then, and I write about this in Tomorrow's
still Numbers that they're still so out number.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, the Denver situation, there needs to be about three
or four more school board members knocked off. And then
they've got to get rid of Alex Morrero. I'm floored
every day that guy still has a job.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Floored.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
He is terrible as superintendent. He has deserved to go
for a long time. And yet I think that the
board is very reticent to find themselves in another superintendent search.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And soanic Man, So we don't want to you know,
we don't want to do that.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
I mean it is the blowback that they would get
from that, as well as the because they could find
somebody else if they wanted to go the DEI routes specifically,
they could find another person to be superintendent, but.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
They are I know this for a fact. It's been
an issue for.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
A couple of years in DPS that the board has
been very hesitant to find themselves in another superintendent search,
in part because who the heck wants to work in
DPS is a superintendent.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
I will tell you my experience with people who want
to work in larger urban districts. They fall into such
a hard left category anyway that anyone willing to take
this job for this ward would not.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Be an improvement. I don't think on Alex Morrero.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Unless we could get somebody who said, you know what,
one person improvement in student achievement is not good enough
for me.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
If only Gosh superintendent would say that, yeah, go figure
who mar Those are the good old days.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Those are the good old days when student achievement was first.
Instead of adults trying to protect themselves from difficult conversations
from people they make mad because they want to do
better for kids, so incredibly frustrating. Mandy, look up the
case of Imagine. You were ewe r you.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Ever heard of this?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
She and her mom worked for Jeff COO's schools and
were suspected of theft by many. Then Imagine was caught
red handed with stolen chromebooks. She was let go, but
then re hired within the district. This past year, she
was arrested for having a sexual relationship with a student.
Her mother, if I remember correctly, was caught embezzling from
the school she moved to. Now, because I don't know
(19:03):
anything about this case, I don't want anyone to think
that is accurate because I don't want to disparage or anything.
I don't know anything about that. So Texter, we will
look into it, and if we find out that you
are right, then we will revisit that. But Mandy, this
text are said. After personally being involved with multiple Colorado
school districts for the past three decades, including jeffco I
(19:27):
found school districts hide all kinds of information, i e.
Teachers on special assignments that hides administration numbers from their communities.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So uh yeah, yeah, Mandy, this is interesting. Wait a minute.
Hang on, let me get this right, so I get
the full thing.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
A custodian gains a lot of trust with students as
he she doesn't pose as an authority figure along with
bus drivers.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
There are good folks out there.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It seems that teachers and principles are the bad guys
at time, and they are sometimes they are not always.
I mean, a vast majority of teachers and principals do
a great job.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
I remember I happened to get along with why multiple
teachers that I got along with when I was in
high school. I'll remember getting along with a couple of
the security guards. Same when I was at regious University.
We happened to think alike politically, so that certainly helped
a little bit. But there is and that is actually
an important point too about trust. Leaning on the SROs
at schools or leaning on a security guard can certainly
(20:27):
make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
This dexter said.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Thankfully, I'm a cop and get super specific in my
tons of CORA requests for Denver. I like to think
my specific requests were a piece that hit two to
three principles relieved, or that got two to three principles relieved.
You never know, keep it up, people, Jimmy Singeberg, good
to see my friends. Do you want to stick around
and talk about some other stuff for a minute. Yeah,
(20:50):
I got a few minutes too. I got two things
I want to talk about in the next half hour.
And they're two editorials by the Denvers Is that they're
both so good, so so good about two separate things,
but similar and somewhat connected in some circumstances. I hope
that's a vague enough tease for you. Find out what
I'm talking about next. Yeah, okay, let's get into this
before you have to go. There's a great editorial in
(21:12):
the Denver Gazette about churches helping house homeless people and
working towards affordable housing solutions. And you know, when you
think about it, we have a situation in Castle Rock
where I understand that the Rock Church wants to house
people on their property in RVs and they feel like
this is their missions as a church, and I have
(21:36):
to agree with them. I don't know if any faith,
and maybe there are faiths out there.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Maybe Buddhism is sort of like, you know, let everything
happen the way it's supposed to happen. But every single
faith has a command to help those in need, right,
That's a tenet of every form of religion. And we
give churches tax exempt status because of the things they
do in the community.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I'm not saying every church has to open their doors
and start housing people in their you know, saying to
you know area.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
That's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
But we should encourage and assist and smooth the process.
If churches say we would like to work to you know,
give or provide affordable housing for people, we should one
hundred percent support that because they don't have.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
A profit motive, so there's no profit motive attached to it.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And don't get me wrong, I don't mind a profit motive.
But building a home in Colorado has become so expensive,
mostly because of government regulations, that it's no longer profitable
to build affordable housing.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
It just isn't. What are your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Should we make it easier, streamline the process, support churches
in and encourage them to work in this space if
they have the ability.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
It's really interesting to consider this.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
First of all, I would say it is inherently better
than government providing housing correct without a doubt, And we
can see for example, and I'm Catholic. The Catholic charities
do a phenomenal job at providing services for the poor
and providing shelters for the homeless, and that's something that
really I don't think there's any other private organization that
could really hold a candle quite to what the Catholic
(23:14):
charities have been able to do. And that's from so
long of being at it and trying in so many
different ways. But when I look at this, so what's
obvious much better to have this than the government. I
do wonder about how you approach that from a government standpoint.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
As far as the property, that is, does the government
need to.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Sell some property to the churches in order for the
churches to them manage that property, or do the churches
need to go and do the real estate deals themselves.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Will they do that prefer the latter.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
And here's why me too, because whenever you get government
involved in any sort of situation in a collaborative way,
then you run the risk of government making rules and
or more importantly, preventing you from enacting certain rules.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And I think that one of the reasons that church.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Based charity has worked so well throughout our entire existence
is when you are taking food from a food bank
at a church, you're going to stand face to face
with a volunteer, and there's a very personal nature to
that transaction that does not exist when this nameless, faceless
government does X y Z. You have no connection to
(24:28):
the money where that money came from. But when you're
standing in front of someone, or you're getting rental assistance,
or you're getting some kind of help from a church,
churches do this stuff all the time, there is a
personal connection there that I think makes it you have
a sense of responsibility. Maybe some people they're always going
to be people whose suck, right, I mean, they're going
to try and work the system and never do anything constructive.
(24:48):
I'm talking about everybody else who's just in a bad way.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, you know, I agree with that.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
My concern even with that, though that might come up
and I have to think about this more, is I
do worry about distortions the private market that could happen
that if you say, have Catholic charities or some other
church entity that decides, you know what, we're going to
go ahead and buy up a bunch of real estate
properties and put them up for this kind of what
(25:13):
the impact could be could still have some similar ripple
effects in the market to a government coming in and
doing something. It'd be better than that. Because I agree
with you on what you just said, I won't repeat it.
But I think there are always a little bit of
a concern that you might have about distortions of the
private market.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But I think that can be addressed.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Well enough to justify churches to take this action themselves.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
I think the distortions are mitigated simply by the nature
of the limits that are inherent on donor based housing
or you know. I mean Catholic Charities is about to
open a new property, but they have a finite set
of resources. They can't just go to all of their
parishoners say yeah, we're going to need an extra hundred,
maybe a thousand bucks from each of you.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's not how it works.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
So there are natural limits on how much of this
point can be done. But you know, I'll know for
any kind of creative solutions. I heard Ross had a
couple of guests on his show because Littleton is trying
to upsize certain parts of Littleton and neighbors are pushing back.
I think that when a charity tries to do something
to increase affordable housing. You may have pushed back from
(26:23):
mediate neighbors who are laboring under the impression that somehow
this is going to be you know, horrible, But I
think they can get it done in a quieter way.
I hate to say it like that, but in a
quieter way that by the time everybody goes, oh, we've
got you know, two families living in this now duplex
or whatever, it's kind of the neighborhood can absorb it.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
I would say also, one thing that is in favor
of more of this kind of involvement from churches is
that I think one of the reasons that we have
seen over the decades such an expansion of the welfare
state is because many churches have sort of hold back
and thought, you know what, the government is willing and
able to do more of this, so we'll let them.
(27:06):
And then that causes all kinds of problems that you
don't have when churches people of faith are providing services
for the poor.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
One of the things that people may not know about
the United States of America is that as a as
a country, the people of the United States of America
donate more money to charity than the rest of the
world combined combined. Think about when the tsunami hit in Indonesia,
Americans dipped into their own pockets and donated more money
(27:37):
to that cause than most other governments sent. Because they
rely on their government for everything, so it doesn't occur
to them that they should be there to pick up
the slack. And that's one of the things I love
about Americans. They show over and over time and time
again that when the government fails us, your neighbors, your friends,
the people in your community, they're going to be the
ones that are going to solve the problem. And that's
(27:59):
why I think this would be a fantastic idea. Obviously,
not every church is capable. Some churches are very very
small and they operate on very thin margins. But I
would love to see more of this. I would love
to see it made easier for churches and you know,
the faith based nonprofits or even other nonprofits to peaces saying,
you know what, we're gonna throw up some affordable housing here.
(28:19):
We're gonna run this ten unit apartment complex, and we're
going to make sure that it stays where people.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Can pay for it. Jimmy Segenberger, good to see you,
my friends. Thank you very much, Mandy. I'm sure we'll
see you again as we continue to talk about the
dumpster fire of the school situation I know more. Thanks
for stopping me
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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