11-07-25 FULL SHOW - Jimmy Sengenberger Fills In

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
No, it's Mandy Connell and Don.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
M got way.

Speaker 4 (00:18):
Ken nicety three.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
And Tonal Keeping SADDA.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Good afternoon TGIF.

Speaker 5 (00:30):
Jimmy Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell today on a busy,
busy week, especially in the wake of Tuesday's elections. And
I know that much has been said on this station
and everywhere else about the election results, but that's where
I want to begin today.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Specifically on the school board races that were so.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
Significant in this election, because that's what happened in the
odd years. It's basically city councils, school board races, and
then you have different ballot measures that are on the ballot.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
Usually they're more local.

Speaker 5 (01:08):
We did have LLL and MM on the ballot, which
unfortunately but not too surprisingly, were passed by voters. We
had three A in Lyttleton dealing with high densities zoning
and the voters saying, wait a second, we don't want that,
and putting the kebash and.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
The movement in that direction. But the school board races are.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
Ones that don't get nearly enough attention in a lot
of ways, and I think the takes generally speaking on
those election results are missing a heck of a lot.
And that's why I wrote about it in my column
in the Denver Gazette today, where, of course, as investigative columnists,

(01:55):
I published Tuesdays and Fridays Todays entitled school bull board
Races showed unions outsized clout And the fact of the
matter is that the unions won, at least on paper,
one big and that would be the regrettable yet unsurprising

(02:16):
big story from Tuesday's results that teachers' unions still reign
in and around Denver.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
But here's a thing they are not.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
Impervious union endorsed candidates win seventy percent of the time.
That's from a report of the Denver Gazette reporting on
a report that had been published about union success in election.
So seventy percent of the time when the teachers' union
endorses a candidate, they win. Now, the interesting thing about

(02:49):
Colorado is oftentimes even fewer than a third of a
district's teachers are often union members, for example in Jefferson
County schools, and this is confirmed.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
By the.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
HR associate head.

Speaker 5 (03:11):
I think his name is Scott Barnes in a letter
to the school board saying only thirty percent.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
Of teachers in Jeffco Are in the union.

Speaker 5 (03:22):
Then the estimates for other districts, for example, Douglas County,
another district that we will talk about, only twenty percent
of teachers are in the union.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
And yet the union backed candidates.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
Now have a seven to zero majority, or will come
end of this month beginning of next month, have a
seven to zero majority on that board. Denver Public Schools
is different. I've heard it's around seventy percent of teachers,
which isn't particularly surprising. The union has always been very
robust in Denver. But it's very telling that most school

(03:59):
district in Colorado do not have a majority, nay, only
a minority of teachers are in the union, which is
where we get that term outsized clout or a massively
outsized impact.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
Now.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
Nowhere, of course, is this clearer than Denver Public Schools,
which is the state's largest district. All four candidates backed
and funded by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association the DCTA won.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Now it's interesting because two.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
Years ago voters flipped three union seats after back to
back shootings at East High School and an illegal closed
door executive session. Voters were also fed up with disgraced
ex board member Tay Anderson, whose antics constantly outrageous and

(04:57):
tone dev statements or something.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
That voters were sick and tired.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
And in twenty twenty one there was a misconduct investigation
that resulted in his censure for attempting aggressively attempting to
date come on to young students, multiple students using social
media platforms.

Speaker 4 (05:22):
Just astonishing when you read the report.

Speaker 5 (05:24):
Tanked all of those things, tanked his approval down to
nine percent and sent him running from reelection. But here's
the thing. Two years ago, it took a galvanizing jolt
to beat the machine. This year, there wasn't that same
unifying spark. Even Mayor Mike Johnston, who is of course

(05:50):
not particularly popular right now, even his endorsements couldn't slow
the juggernaut, which I don't think they hurt non union candidates,
but they didn't help.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
But here's the thing.

Speaker 5 (06:06):
The publics discussed that the previous four years of dysfunction
still worried the union to the point that incumbent Scott
Esserman and Michelle Quadobaum were so damaging to the school
board's image that even the DCTA again, that's Denver's teachers
Union abandoned their reelection bids after supporting them the first time.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
That's classic buyers remorse.

Speaker 5 (06:34):
Now they say it's because of teacher pay and a
couple of the things I would object to that I
don't think.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
I think that is cover.

Speaker 5 (06:44):
The reality is that these two people were dragging things
down so badly they had no choice. In fact, the
duo of Esserman and Quadobaum allied with Tay Anderson during
their overlapping so their first two years Anderson was on
the board together, they waged culture war battles, They drowned

(07:06):
the board in an ending drama, and they crippled progress.
To me, it's no wonder that Esserman and Quadobaum hired
Tay Anderson to run their campaigns both cycles. The first time,
even when all the stuff on misconduct and the report
and the censure came out, they still had Anderson on

(07:26):
their campaign, and this go around hired him again to
run their campaigns.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
They had to go and the union.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
It was so obvious they were so bad that the
union recognized they couldn't back them again this time. Now,
they did stick with Soci Gaetan, an incumbent who won big,
likely because she wasn't a flashpoint like the other two,
and at times when she was board president a few
years ago, she even tried to rain them in. I

(07:59):
think she'll leave union majority, which now has three other people.
Let's see Monica Hunter, Amy Klein Moulk and Dj Torres
are the three other Union backed candidates who won. It
was a clean sweet but it was only made possible
by clearing up, curing their buyers, remorse over essermon and Quadbam,

(08:23):
dropping them, and bowing to the public's demand for as
I write in the Denver Gazette, less theater, more governance
by cutting off Esserman, Scott Asserman and Michelle Quadalbaum. The
real question, though, with this new union majority, will the
new board deliver and finally focus on academics and safety.

(08:47):
Stay tuned to find out. Honestly, I wouldn't hold my
breath if I were you, because me as me, I'm
not even holding my breath now in Douglas County, where
I am, Union backed, progressives swept that right Laning County. Now,
for the past four years, we've had what I call

(09:08):
a refreshing non union majority, leading doug Co to become
the Metro area's top rated district that recovered learning loss
ahead of its peers and pushed politics out of the classroom.
They also hired Aaron kin Well, I think is an
extremely competent superintendent, which, by the way, is a is

(09:32):
a massively sharp contrast to Denver's failed superintendent, doctor Alex Morrero.
In the case of doug Coe, they'd be wise to
keep Kane. In the case of Denver, Morrero must go.
That is so unequivocal. Now Douglas County swing, though, honestly,
isn't surprising.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
That's my view. I don't think it's surprising.

Speaker 5 (09:54):
It's unfortunate, it's suppressing, but it's not surprising because we
have seen that county regularly flip from reform to union
beholding majority can it majorities on the board? Four years ago,
as I mentioned, voters tossed a union majority. In effect,

(10:14):
this is another turn of the wheel in a right
leaning county, but one that look Douglas County is still
following the trends of the state, which is more leftward.
It's hard to say, it might be hard to accept it,
but it is true. It also helps those points helped

(10:34):
to explain how the union could have a victory when
only twenty percent of Douglas County teachers or members are
in the club. And by the way, the district hasn't
had collective bargaining in Dougcoe since twenty twelve. Denver and

(10:55):
Jeffco to other districts we're talking about, both have collected
of bargaining. They're both unionized. Douglas County is not, by
the way, in Douglas County, speaking of unionization, the four
new members just would not give straight answers to the
question on that whether or not they support it unionization.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
So I think you can watch for.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
A push to revive collective bargaining even though less than
a quarter of teachers or members and frankly, notwithstanding the
union win, there is an appetite in doug Cooe for
the unionization trap. Now, then let's go to Jefferson County Schools.
That's Colorado's second largest district. They, as I mentioned, collectively

(11:36):
bargained even though only thirty percent of their teachers are
members of the union club. The union there in jeff
Co is the Douglas or the Jefferson County Education Association,
and they kept their majority, but they lost the seat.
More on that in a moment, because the union would say, oh,

(11:58):
we didn't lose a seat, but they'd be lying to you,
or at least at least deceptive and hiding the ball.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Now, I've seen a lot.

Speaker 5 (12:08):
Of news coverage crediting the union and saying voters ousted
the board's president, Mary Parker.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
But quite frankly, Mary Parker was the union's candidate last time.
Whether she dropped them or they dropped.

Speaker 5 (12:24):
Her, it's again more buyer's remorse from the teachers' union,
which allows the union to posture as they were opposed,
as though they were opposed to the current board which
they installed. In fact, how unpopular, how unpopular is this

(12:45):
board right now, so much so that the union outfit
students deserve better, which by the way, is backed by
eight hundred and thirty thousand dollars in cash from the
Colorado Education Association from two different entities of the.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
CEA.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
So you will often hear and this is what the
union says, Oh, we overcame all the dark money in
Denver public schools or this race or that race. The
union doesn't exactly have dark money, but they have layers
and layers for the money that they have. So you
got the Colorado Education Association. They have multiple different arms
that engage in funding under different names, and they have

(13:29):
people who are the registered agents without actually.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
Saying this is the CEA or what have you?

Speaker 5 (13:35):
All layered tracing back to the union, which to me
is honestly this is a discussion for another time, maybe later.
But even worse than the idea of dark money the
games that the teachers' unions play, and here's an example
of the game. So that group students deserve better of

(13:57):
the CEA put out glossy mailers that screamed with no
confidence in all caps, claiming that Superintendent Tracy Dorland puts
kids at risk while.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
The board stood by and did nothing.

Speaker 5 (14:11):
Well, guess what, a majority union board hired Tracy Dorland,
and the current board is.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
The union's board.

Speaker 5 (14:22):
All five members of the board right now in Jeffco
Public Schools were elected by the union and they are
attacking the board as though that never happened. In fact,
the mailers named Parker Mary Parker, the board president, and
three other candidates who aren't even members.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Acting like they are members of the board. You can't
make this stuff up.

Speaker 5 (14:47):
Parents in jeff cup and you've heard it from me
and from time and time again from Mandy doing great
coverage of this. Parents are just fed up with the
endless sexual abuse and misconduct cases in Jeffco's schools that
are enabled by trusted adult policies that I've always had
fuel a culture of secrecy. But perhaps the most infamous

(15:11):
example here is the former Chief of Schools, David Weiss,
who died by suicide at New Year's while under investigation
for child pornography. In fact, the parent group jeffco Kids
First and Lindsay Dadco There have identified over thirty other
cases of misconduct in just the last.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Few years in jeffco.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
So in that climate, the Union was forced to yankeet
support for a candidate named Michael Yoakam, a twenty six
year old after public revelations that he had a sealed
juvenile sex offense record, which he had admitted and recorded.
Yoakam was endorsed by the union and his original campaign manager,

(15:59):
Case Winner, also ran the other two union campaigns in
jeff COO.

Speaker 4 (16:08):
Yet it sure looked like they still wanted him to win.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
In fact, the Union gave him ten thousand dollars in
cash donations. They gave him another twelve hundred or something
for research in non monetary contributions. But if the ten
thousand dollars that they donated in his campaign, they have
not asked for it back, there's no indication that they
have or that it's been given back. And they conveniently

(16:33):
left Yoakam off of their well financed attack mailers. His
name was not among the non union candidates, even though
they'd pulled their endorsement of them. Unfortunately, a former educator
named Deneen at Chavaria won that race about sixty five
to thirty five, resounding, and now she becomes Jeffco's second

(16:57):
non union backboard member in over a decade. The the
other one that they've had in over a decade was
Susan Miller on the Jeff cost School board. She was fantastic,
she left the board.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
And now this is.

Speaker 5 (17:12):
The next non union candidate to be elected on jeff
Co's board.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
So let's be clear.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
Jeff Coe's mess is the union's mess, and the district
must clean up its sexual misconduct crisis, a scandal that
Yoakum's so called union vetted.

Speaker 6 (17:28):
Candidacy really just epitomized.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
They kept two seats. The union kept two seats.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
But if the union's cleanup crew, as they called it,
that's what they introduced, the mass oh our slate is
the cleanup crew originally including Yoakam, is serious about cleaning house.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
Then his defeat signals.

Speaker 5 (17:49):
A day one mandate to do just that. Will the
board take it up? Unfortunately, I don't think they take
it seriously enough. Maybe they will, I hope, so again,
hold your bread.

Speaker 7 (18:02):
Now.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
In my column in the Denver Gazette today, school board
races showed union's outsized cloud.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
I close the piece with the following conclusion.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
Tuesday's election underscored how teachers' unions still dominate Colorado school boards,
even where few teachers belong to the club. But it
also exposed an obvious pattern. Unions win, then defend the
indefensible until voters force a correction. We saw that with

(18:33):
the Escerman and Quadebaum. We saw that with Yolkum. In
a sense, we may have seen that with Mary Parker IWO.
But buyer's remorse always catches up. The only question is
how much damage has to come first. Checking my column
in the Denver Gazette today breaking it all down. I

(18:55):
don't think the Union should be doing the same kind
of victory lapse that they are doing right now.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Now.

Speaker 6 (19:00):
Yeah, take the win.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
Of course you won, but there's a lot more to
it than what they are wanting you to think. I'm
Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell, just getting started
right here on KOA, So glad to be with you.
But look, Tuesday's elections were bad for Republicans.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
Of course that's a given.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
What's really interesting is when you hear President Trump talk
about a lesson from this is that we need to
kill the filibuster, which of course is a protection for
the minority to slow down legislation and require sixty votes

(19:47):
in order to move forward with legislation. Here's President Trump
in a meeting I think he was yesterday with US
senators on the filibuster, encouraging them.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
Look, you got to get rid of this thing.

Speaker 8 (20:03):
If I thought that they weren't going to pass the philibuster,
I wouldn't even bring it up. They're going to pass
it within the first hour if they take power, and
it's more likely that they take power if we don't
do because we're not going to be passing any legislation,
not going to approve anything. We're going to go three
and a quarter years. There won't be one bill that
we're going to pass because the easiest thing to pass
is exactly right now what they won't pass. And they'll

(20:27):
do that and they'll recavoc but let's assume they get in.
They're doing it anyway, so it wouldn't matter they're doing
it anyway. But the biggest thing is the filibuster. We
have to get the country going. We will pass legislation
at levels you've never seen before, and it'll be impossible
to beat us, by the way, if they do, they're
going to do it anyway, and they are going to

(20:49):
immediately do the filibuster.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
Well, so he says, look, if the Democrats take control,
they're just going to get rid of the filibuster. Which look,
first of all, you need to have enough in the
Senate to do that, and they need to take back
the Senate, not just the House.

Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well, I'm getting ahead.

Speaker 5 (21:08):
Of myself, because Trump goes on to explain to the
senators what key fears will happen if Democrats take charge
and the filibuster is not eliminated.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
They're gonna pack the court.

Speaker 8 (21:20):
They're gonna make DC a state, and they're gonna make
Puerto Rico estate. So now they pick up two states,
they pick up four senators. Okay, you think you have problems.

Speaker 6 (21:32):
They're gonna do all of the things.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
They're gonna pick up electoral votes.

Speaker 9 (21:35):
It's gonna be a very very bad situation.

Speaker 6 (21:38):
And it's done.

Speaker 9 (21:39):
It's done as soon as they attain power.

Speaker 8 (21:41):
Now, if we do what I'm saying, they'll never they'll
most likely never attain power because we will have passed
every single thing that you can imagine that it's good
and all good for the country, and there'll be no
reason to it. If we don't do that, people say
they're not doing much and they're in power.

Speaker 5 (22:02):
There are so many things running through my head as
I hear those clips of Trump.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
One he says, look, if we don't.

Speaker 5 (22:09):
Pass the filibuster now so we can ram through our agenda,
then the Democrats are gonna win because we didn't do enough.

Speaker 4 (22:18):
And then they're gonna win, and they are immediately.

Speaker 5 (22:20):
Gonna get rid of the filibuster. They're gonna make DC
and Puerto Rico US states. They're gonna pack the Supreme Court.
Now we know that Democrats have those have their eyes
set on those objectives without a doubt. That's something particularly
with DC and Puerto Rico that they want to do,

(22:41):
and with packing the Supreme Court. We've heard them talk
about them. But first of all, those are not easily
done tasks and to just act like that is inevitable
if we don't get rid of the filibuster.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
Now that's his logic. We need to get the filibuster
now so we can get.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
Things done, so we can beat the Democrats and they'll
never win again, which of course they're gonna win again.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
That's the cycle of politics. And when they do it
and the filibuster is.

Speaker 5 (23:12):
Gone, then it's gonna make it easier for them to
ram through those changes that Trump's just talking about those
other things, But then he also says something I think
that is significant in and of itself, just at the
very end.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
There they're not doing much and they're in power.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
That's the presentation that Trump is saying will be the
words that will be said about Republicans. They're in power
and they're not doing much. He's got this mindset of
we need to do do, do but there's a problem
with that. Actually, there are multiple problems with that. One
of them is he's doing a lot this year, and
it's actually dragging down Republicans to some extent the pace.

(23:55):
I'm not saying necessarily that the things he's doing are bad,
although I would think some of them are, like terrorists
for example.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
We'll get to that at the top of the hour.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
But when you have the perception that so much is
happening so fast, it gets people thrown off, and it's
not necessarily a positive because they're feeling like it's boom.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
Boom boom, boom boom, just rapid succession.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
And some people support us of Trump will like it,
say oh, yeah, he's getting things done Trump or others
will be like, no, I'm not a fan. This is
too much, or I'd like a lot of the things
that he's doing, but it's all happening so fast and
we're not catching a breather. And I think the political
implications of that are a challenge for Republicans. But then

(24:51):
you also have Trump making the claim we need to
do stuff, so he's doing a lot. Now, well, you
get to a certain point where your hands are because
Congress maybe fell to the Democrats, and they have the majority,
or maybe it's just the House majority, but that's enough
to stop Republicans for making gains and getting legislation through.

(25:16):
But then, how much more can you actually do yourself
by executive order at a certain point, because you've done
so many things, is there that much more that you
can do? Trump wants to keep the perception for four
years that things are getting done consistently at a rapid pace,
and that's not possible. It's also not healthy for the republic.

(25:36):
One of the things about the filibuster that's beautiful is
that it is one of the last real vestiges of
federalism and limited government that we have in this country.
What do I mean, Well, until the progressive amendments to
the US Constitution, like the seventeenth Amendment in particular, United

(26:05):
States senators were chosen by the state legislatures, at least
most of them. There reforms that some states had done
where they allowed the people to do it. But in
essence and the structure of the constitution is that the
state legislatures would elect who would be the two US Senators.
The idea behind that is the representatives in the House

(26:30):
represented the people in their different districts, hence being re
elected every two years and having a smaller area to
represent in a congressional district as opposed to the whole state.
US senators were, and really frankly are meant to represent
a state in a state's interest specifically, and what that

(26:53):
meant is there was less of an interest in giving
more power to the federal government because the political incentives
were different. Nowadays, the American people look to their US
senators and they're like, we want you to do stuff
for us, do all these kinds of things, and they
want to get reelected, so they're not focused on keeping
the role, size, scope power of the federal government less

(27:14):
so the states would have more. Instead, it's we're okay
with giving anything to the federal government, the all knowing,
all powerful federal government, because our constituents want more. The
political incentives are very, very different. Well, there's a whole
structural discussion to.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Have about the Constitution.

Speaker 5 (27:38):
And how it sets up checks and balances, of course,
and federalism with the federal government and state governments and
other things. The philibuster is not in the Constitution, but
it is a method to slow the process down in
the upper chamber the US Senate, so that you don't

(28:00):
just ram things through, but give more consideration. There's a
reason that the Senate is considered and viewed as the
upper chamber. It's in part because they represent the states,
of course two of them statewide, but it's also because
they're supposed to be a more deliberative body. And if
you get rid of the filibuster, you get rid of

(28:21):
that stop gap. I don't want a government that's constantly
doing things, let alone doing things at rapid succession. We
need a government that governs least, which governs best. And boy,
you get rid of the filibuster, and Republicans take that lead.

(28:41):
There's a reason why they didn't. And after pushing back
against the urge before Democrats get in power in the
Senate and they have the same inclination, but they pulled back.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
They didn't do it.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
The minority relies upon the filibuster, and it's a terrible idea.
In the long term, you will ruin and Republicans' chances
at stopping any growth an expansion of the government in
so many areas. If you just get rid of the philibuster,
that would be perhaps the worst thing that the US Senate,
pushed by President Trump, could possibly do to get rid

(29:15):
of the philibuster. Our text line koa common Spirit health
text line five six six nine zero.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
What are your thoughts on all of this?

Speaker 5 (29:25):
I agree with the listener text ralphin blackforce the sixteenth
through nineteenth amendments to the worst disasters in US history.

Speaker 6 (29:31):
Okay, I don't agree on the nineteenth Amendment.

Speaker 5 (29:34):
I'm all good with women having the right to vote,
but the sixteenth seventeenth amendments absolutely disasters in particular. But
we got to take a break. We'll pick it up
on the other side, Jimmy Sangenberger and for Mandy Connell Kaoa.
We will be joined by two great gats, Thomas Barry
of the Cato Institute and Philip Magnus of the Independent Institute,

(29:59):
not to be confused with our friends at the Independence Institute,
and they're going to talk and offer insights on the
US Supreme Courts oral arguments over terriffs and President Trump's
scheme on terriffs that happened a couple of days ago.

Speaker 6 (30:15):
I listened to.

Speaker 5 (30:16):
The whole thing is really fascinating. It has to be
among the longest oral arguments in a while. Usually there
I think thirty minutes for each side I recall correctly,
and something along those lines.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
This is pretty darn long, really interesting.

Speaker 5 (30:34):
A lot of insights and takeaways will get legal analysis
and economic history on the other side. Be sure to
stick around for that conversation. Five six six nine zero
is the choa Common Spirit Health text line if you
want to join in to the festivities. Trump is not

(30:55):
thinking what's best for the country. He's selfishly thinking about
his leggacy of getting things done, showing accomplishment, his personal
sense of achievement.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
He says he's ended so many wars. So I agree
to an extent.

Speaker 5 (31:13):
Yes, Trump is constantly thinking about his legacy and what
he leaves behind.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
But I do think that by and large, he.

Speaker 5 (31:24):
Wants his legacy to be something remembered positively. He believes
he's doing things, for the most part, that are right,
that are appropriate, that are necessary for the American people,
and so he wants to show accomplishment in that regard,
not just that he's done stuff, but that he's done
stuff he thinks are good sells that he thinks are

(31:47):
good for the American people. So I think that there's
a bit of a mix there. Yes, legacy, but also
what is that legacy about. He doesn't just want to
be known as the president who got done with the
president who got things done.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
That were good for the American people overall.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
Not to say that everything he's done or doing he
has that mindset, But I don't think it's just accomplishment
for the sake of accomplishment entirely. There's a big piece
of that. Well, with Trump, it's always a mixed bag.
One more thing before we go to break another text.
Here's the strategy. Keep your opponents from doing anything, then

(32:26):
accuse them of doing nothing. Yes, fair enough, Democrats stopping
Republicans from doing anything, including ending the shutdown and getting
a continuing resolution through, then accusing them of doing nothing.
And that's sort of what Trump is responding to with
this whole filibuster discussion. Very dangerous to talk about eliminating
the filibuster, but that's the motivation for the strategy that

(32:52):
you just laid out there in that simple text. Jimmy
Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell two hours up ahead as
we can continue on KOA.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock.
Accident and injury lawyers.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
No, it's Mandy Connell.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Nine one fmy way, say Kenny.

Speaker 10 (33:25):
Connell.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Keith sad day.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
Time Now for the second hour.

Speaker 5 (33:37):
Jimmy Sangenberger covering for Mandy Connell on this Friday. So
good to be with you as we dive into discussion
about a couple of days ago Wednesday, when the US
Supreme Court heard oral argument in the joined cases in
one case on President Trump's unilateral tariffs. This predominantly is

(34:02):
focused on a statue that has been cited by the
Trump administration IJIPA, which is the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act in nineteen seventy seven law that the Trump administration
says gives him the power to put into effect these

(34:24):
unilateral tariffs on basically the entire world. Here's the little
taste of some of the Supreme Court's discussions on Wednesday.

Speaker 10 (34:33):
It's a congressional power, not a presidential power to tax.
And you want to say tarifts are not taxes, but
that's exactly what they are, degenerating money from American citizens revenue.

Speaker 11 (34:45):
The exercise the power is to impose tariffs, right, and
the statute doesn't use the word tariffs. Congress is a
practical matter, It can't get this power back once it's
handed it over to the President's a one way ratchet
towards the tool, but continual accretion of power in the
executive branching away from the people's elected representative.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
That's a little bit of the US Supreme Court Justices
Soda Mayor, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Alito, Samuel Alito
as well. So how are we to look at this
case and what's happening before the US Supreme Court and
the issues involved, and whether or not the Trump administration

(35:26):
actually does have grounds here to break it all down.
I'm pleased to have two different guests on from two
vantage points to dive in.

Speaker 6 (35:36):
Philip W.

Speaker 5 (35:36):
Magnus is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and
the David J. Throw Chair in Political Economy. He's been
a research fellow elsewhere, has been a prolific author of
several books as well. I'm also pleased to be joined
by Thomas A. Burry, Director of the Robert A. Levy

(35:58):
Center for Institutional Studies and the editor in chief of
the Cato Supreme Court Review.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
Gentlemen, welcome to KOA. It's good to talk with you both.

Speaker 7 (36:09):
Absolutely thanks for having us, Yes, thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
Thank you both for coming on.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
So I will start with our legal expert for the beginning,
and that would be you, Thomas A. Berry.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
Can you break down for us, just if you boiled
it down, what the essence of.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
This case is between the two sides, but the Trump
administration is arguing in the court and presented the other day,
and what the plaintive suing the federal government have said.

Speaker 12 (36:39):
Absolutely, Well, thanks for having me, and if you'll permit
me one brief correction. That third voice we heard talking
about the accretion of presidential power was Neil Gorstich.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
Now, excuse me, Aldo, thank you. I'm embarrassed. He's from Colorado.
How could I?

Speaker 12 (36:52):
Gorstich was much more skeptical of the administration than Alito,
was true the argument.

Speaker 4 (36:57):
Thank you for that clarifications.

Speaker 12 (37:00):
This is about, as you said, the text of AEPA,
whether it allows President Trump to impose these tariffs that
he started on so called Liberation Day as he put it,
which have varied quite a bit. Not every tariff he's
enacted is a part of this challenge because these lawsuits
were filed months ago, so some of the newer ones

(37:22):
might not be an issue, al though their legal grounding
might be undermined as well, depending on the reasoning the
court issues. But IEPA, this nineteen seventy statute essentially has
a long list of verbs and nouns that the president
can do if he finds that there's an extraordinary and
unusual threat and he declares a national emergency and he

(37:45):
claims that he needs to take this action to deal
with it. So among all of those very long lists
of verbs, some of them are quite broad. For example, nullify, void, prevent,
or prohibit importation, so the president can say, you know,
no one can import platinum or gold or type tungsten

(38:06):
or whatever from Vietnam or China or something like that.
But the keyword is among those verbs is regulate, so
it says the president can impose in order to regulate.
And then among those objects of the verbs is importation.
And what the administration is hanging its hat on completely

(38:26):
is that if you combine those two regulate and then
put in ellipsi's importation that includes tariffs. The tariffs are
essentially a regulation on importation, and that they were necessary
to deal with the extraordinary two threats through two national emergencies.
One being the importation of ventanyl and the other being
the so called trade imbalance with various countries. And the

(38:48):
administration's main argument that they made repeatedly in oral arguments
is that they don't want these tariffs. The purpose of
these isn't to raise revenue. This is what they're claiming now,
though President Trump has said some things that oh with this,
But their legal argument now is the purpose of this
isn't to raise revenue. It's to provide leverage to change
change people's behavior, and that the hope is that either

(39:10):
other countries will stop the flow of fentanel and thus
we won't need the tariffs anymore. So essentially the punishment ends,
or that manufacturing will increase in the US, the trade
imbalance will go away, and the things that we were
importing just voluntarily won't be imported anymore, and once again
tariff won't be imposed. So that's the administration's argument in

(39:31):
a nutshell, is that they're dealing with these two extraordinary
threats by regulating importation, and in this will and tariffs
count as among the things encompassed by the verb regulate.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Let's tark for a moment.

Speaker 5 (39:45):
Philip Magnus about that aspect of this idea of a
regulatory terrorist versus revenue raising tariffs, because that is part
of the distinction that the administration is addressing, per what
Thomas Barry just told us, And it's interesting to me
to hear this at the same time phil that the administration,

(40:06):
particularly President Trump, has been touting all kinds of revenue
coming into the federal government.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
Look how much money we've made in America from these tariffs.

Speaker 5 (40:16):
But before the Supreme Court, now, now this is about
regulatory tariffs, not about making money, right, right.

Speaker 7 (40:22):
So Trump has actually contradicted in footplop several times on
this particular point, including some of his own court filings,
and certainly is economic Advisor's public documents that they've released.
Trump has been touting that these tariffs, the i EPA
tariffs that are being challenged right now, are projected to
raise between about two point eight and four trillion dollars

(40:44):
in new tax revenue over the next decade. And even
as his lawyers are arguing this before the court, the
White House is tweeting out media eclipse of President Trump
bragging about all the revenue that's coming in. Even an
internal contradiction and messaging here, although one of them, and
they're arguing for illegal reason because they think if the
court accepts these tariffs as regulatory powers, they'll be granted

(41:07):
more deference in the leeway in the international arena. The
reason being that the tax power is so explicitly tied
to what Congress does in Article one, even though it's
as where the commerce regulation power comes from, but the
tax power itself is fundamentally seen as something that our
representatives in an elected body are supposed to have direct

(41:28):
and exclusive oversight on. So Trump wants to run away
from the tax claims in court even while he's making
them in public and.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
Kind of dovetailing in with that.

Speaker 5 (41:38):
I want to ask you real quick of Phil Magnus,
because you were tweeting about this on x as well,
going back into the early mid well still pretty early
eighteen hundreds, during the nullification crisis, and you had the
debate that was going on there and some things you
were pointing out about John C. Calhoun, who's a former

(41:59):
Vice president of the United States, the seventh Vice president
of the United States, talk to us a little bit
about what you're noticing from the solicitor general that would
be the Trump administration's lawyer, John Sower and what he
argued to the Supreme Court and John C.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
Calhoun from two hundred years ago.

Speaker 7 (42:18):
Well, that's the interesting thing. We've had all of these
arguments play out before. It goes back to the earliest
days of the Republic. Because James Madison, basically the main
figure in the design of the Constitution and the main
record keeper at the Convention, introduces the first tariff bill
in seventeen eighty nine, and in his opening speech he says,
this tariff achieves two things. One is it raises revenue

(42:41):
to it regulates commerce. And Madison's point was that tariffs
are actually a joint exercise of these two powers under Congress.
They are both taxes and regulation. And for your economic
followers out there, we also know that the economics of
tariffs work in this exact way. You put a tax

(43:01):
in place, it raises revenue, but it also discourages importation
at the same time thereby regulating it. So it's a
simultaneous exercise of these powers.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
Or John C.

Speaker 7 (43:11):
Calhoun, in eighteen twenty eight, the US Congress passed something
referred to as the Tariff of Abominations. It was an
extremely high protective ERAF following the philosophy of Henry Clay
to basically wall off America from foreign competition and protect
our industries. And Calhoun basically made the same argument. He says,

(43:33):
this is a regulatory tar if. This is not a
revenue tariff, even though it was as listed as the
Revenue Act of eighteen twenty eight. But Calhoun's point was,
you can only take one of these two clauses at
a time. It's either a revenue tariff or a regulatory tariff.
And he had further arguments. He said that if this
is a regulatory tariff, it's unconstitutional because it doesn't fulfill

(43:54):
the tax power. Madison is still alive in this time,
and he's still writing commentaries on these debates to his
friends and close associates, and we have several letters from him.
Madison rebukes essentially the Calhoun position. He says, no, these
are joint powers exercise simultaneously, because every tariff does both things.

(44:15):
That raises revenue and it regulates commerce.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
And quite honestly, I would choose the words of the
father of the Constitution over John C.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
Calhoun, particularly on that one.

Speaker 5 (44:27):
Again, we're joined by Philip Magnus, who's an economic historian
and by constitutional scholar Thomas Barry and Thomas, I want
to come back to you because one of the things
that I've noticed, and I think you've observed this too,
is that President Trump's administration has been searching around, what's
the legal justification we can.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
Find for the broadest tariffs possible.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
We saw a similar thing with Joe Biden and his
presidency on things like, in particular the student loans issue.
Can you speak to that and residence looking for a
legal justification for their Chowsen expansions of presidential authority.

Speaker 12 (45:08):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And this is the reason why
the Supreme Court has, over the last decade or so
developed named doctrine. It's come to be called the Major
Questions doctrine. And it gets that a common sense idea,
which is that if the president starts with a policy
goal in mind, and he President Trump very.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
Much had that goal in mind.

Speaker 12 (45:27):
He wanted tariffs, He made that clear before he was
even elected. If he starts with a policy goal in
mind and then goes hunting for an old statute to
enact it because he can't get Congress to give him
what he wants you should be more skeptical about whether
that legal argument is correct, especially if that old statute
has been around for a while but has never been
used in the way that the President is now using it.

(45:49):
So we saw this play out under President Biden with
student loan forgiveness. This was a major issue in the
twenty twenty election. He had a lot of pressure from
his base to an act student loang giveness. Bills were
introduced in Congress, but none of them could get passed.
So he uses an uncontroversial old statute enacted during the
two thousand and three Iraq War and claims that it

(46:12):
allows him to takes a very general term waiver or
modify provisions related to student loans, and claims that modifying
compasses essentially a wholesale change in the structure of the
student loan system, including for giving billions and billions of
dollars in debt. And the Supreme Court rightly struck that down,
and all of the reasoning of the six justices who

(46:33):
voted to strike that down applies just as much, if
not more here, And in fact, we heard John Roberts,
Chief Justice, who's been the biggest proponent of the major
questions doctrine, asking some pointed questions of the Solicitor General
about whether the major questions doctrine should apply here as well.
So I think all of that reasoning that of all
six justices who joined that student loans opinion should lead

(46:57):
them if they're being consistent to strike down these tariffs.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
Let me ask you a.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Little more about that, Thomas Berry, particularly Justice's Alito, who
you corrected me on before, and yes, absolutely was much
more a sort of friendly to the government's side, which
I found interesting in Justice Thomas who you know, he's
been speaking a lot more since COVID. He didn't say
a word for decades that suddenly started to ask questions,

(47:24):
and the few questions he asked were we're not so
averse to this. So talk to me a little bit
about how you view the conservative justices and their interpretation
what could be here, especially from their questions, and whether
they will or will not.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
I mean, obviously I'm not asking you for crystal ball.

Speaker 5 (47:43):
May or may not line up with what they concluded
in the student loans case that you just mentioned.

Speaker 12 (47:50):
Right, Alito definitely seemed to be on the administration side,
and it seems that to Alito The difference here is
the foreign policy aspect of this. Ask a lot of
pointed questions about what if we have, you know, we're
on the verge of a hot war with China, or
we have a hostage in a foreign hostile foreign country
like China that we're trying to use leverage to get

(48:12):
them out. Shouldn't the president have the maximum number of
tools at his disposal to put leverage on these foreign
countries to negotiate with them. So I'm guessing if Alito
I hope r it's a dissent, not a majority opinion
supporting the government, he would argue that this is different
from the student loans case because that you it's giving
presidents negotiating power with foreign countries should be interpreted more

(48:36):
expansively given that the way the separation of powers is designed,
But it is understood that the president is the lead
negotiator with foreign countries. Is the person who you know
often makes quick decisions when an emergency arises unexpectedly. Nonetheless,
my response to that would be, we have had two

(48:57):
hundred years of presidents having many tools that they're just
for leverage, but tariffs have never been one of them.
In terms of unilateral presidential policy making. We've always relied
on Congress to be the one to spell out explicitly
in statutes what the teriff rates are going to be.
So Congress really has always treated tariffs as a different

(49:18):
kind of thing because they're not just foreign policy, they're
also taxes on Americans.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
Now, that's a great point, Thomas Berry and I would
tend to agree, although Phil Magnus there's an argument from
President Trump and his supporters that the reason why Trump
is using tariffs in this way is because he views
it as a negotiation tool in a way that past
presidents had not, and therefore is justified in going about

(49:45):
it in this way.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
How do you respond to that, Well, it's been a very.

Speaker 7 (49:51):
Erratic and unreliable negotiator here, because he keeps setting terms
or claiming he comes to deals with other countries, and
then a week later he gets mad at the primary
minster that other country or a government official. He gets
mad because Canada runs a TV ad quoting Ronald Reagan
and decides that the deal is off and he's going
to change the rate. And I think what this highlights

(50:11):
is there's a deeper problem in Trump's approach to IEPA
he likes IIPA because he can change it on a
whim with an executive order. But that also means any
in all of these deals that he has claimed to
have secured with foreign countries have no enforcement mechanism. They're
not worth the paper that they're written on, if they're
even written on paper at all. They're outside of the

(50:32):
bounds of the traditional way of doing free trade agreements,
which was there was a formal document, an agreement drafted,
and it was put before Congress, and often Congress would
have to vote on it to accept the terms of
that agreement. Trump's done absolutely none of that and is
just relying on the perpetuity of his own executive orders
to keep these supposed deals in place.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
Well, you just got a few minutes left.

Speaker 5 (50:55):
I want to ask each of you a different final question,
a real quick film magnus. I'll throw it back to
you on the argument about trade imbalances and how they're
now viewed as a national emergency, and that is per
the arguments presented in court as well before the Supreme
Court this week, that this is part of the justification,
is the trade imbalance that we have with a given

(51:16):
country a national security matter?

Speaker 7 (51:19):
It is absolutely not, and you would not be able
to find any credible mainstream economists who would support that proposition.
In fact, we've run trade deficits for basically the last
fifty years. We've run trade deficits for as long as
i EPA has been in place, and never once until
Donald Trump invented this new power, did anyone try to

(51:40):
use IEPA to counter this supposed emergency and the economics
behind it. It just comes down to basically the presidents
in his team, they don't understand basic accounting in the
international arena. They only see goods and services coming in
or going out of the country. They don't look at
all the other financial instruments. People are not giving us
stuff for free and taking stuff away from us. There's

(52:01):
always an exchange, and if you do a full accounting
of what crosses borders. By definition, it's like if I
were to pay my bill at the grocery store, there's
no trade deficit that occurs because I offer money in
return for goods or vice versas. Someone comes into a
store that I own and they give me money for
something that I give them as a physical product, it

(52:22):
actually comes out to a balance.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
Finally, appreciate that answer. Phil magnus So Thomas A.

Speaker 5 (52:27):
Berry, let me just ask you briefly to talk a
bit about the implications of what the Supreme Court might decide.
How do you think this may or may not go down,
and what could it mean for the long term, particularly
in so far as we consider presidential power.

Speaker 12 (52:46):
Sure well, I was in the audience during the Supreme
Court argument trying to predict the votes count to justices
see who's giving more skeptical questions. I counted at least
five votes that I think are leaning against the administration,
the three Democratic appointees plus Justices Gorsicch and Barrett. And
I could definitely see Chief Justice Roberts voting against the
administration as well, given his interest in the major questions doctrine,

(53:09):
and perhaps Justice Kavanaugh, who seemed to be a genuine
swing vote. He seemed genuinely concerned and pained by both
sides and really deep in the weeds of some of
the precedents. So if I had to guess, I guess
somewhere between five and seven votes against the administration, But
a lot will depend on how they write the opinion.
Do they try to work through all of the implications
of how their refunds might work for every party in

(53:32):
the country, or do they simply say the named parties
in this case are entitled to a refund, will leave
it to the lower courts to deal with claims for
refunds by every other affected person. If I had to guess,
I would guess that they would do the latter. The
Supreme Court usually takes the approach of wesss. More so
there's certainly going to be much more litigation to follow

(53:54):
no matter what. And of course, there are many other
statutes that President Trump may use and has said he
probably sure to try to act terarin, some more plausible
than others. So we're likely to have litigation not just
about IEPA, but about other statutes going forward.

Speaker 5 (54:10):
H years ahead of Supreme Court potentially or at least
legal arguments over different justifications for tariffs.

Speaker 6 (54:17):
Oh what joy.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Thomas A.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
Barry, Director of the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center
for Constitutional Studies, and Philip W. Magnus, Independent Institute Senior
Fellow and economic historian, Thank you both so much for
your time, really interesting discussion and appreciate it today.

Speaker 7 (54:35):
Thanks for having us, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 5 (54:38):
Thank you both once again Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for
Mandy Connell.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
What are your thoughts on that conversation?

Speaker 5 (54:43):
KOA commics Beard health text line is a buzz at
five six six nine zero.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
We'll pick it up on the other side as we
continue on KOA.

Speaker 5 (54:52):
Really enjoy the conversation with Thomas A. Berry and Philip W. Magnus.
Back in the last segment, as we dove in depth
on the Supreme Court case before well before the Supreme
Court over President Trump's tariffs, unilateral tariffs on a slew
of different things, that is to say, goods all across

(55:15):
the globe, countries, all across the globe.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
He says it's a negotiation tactic.

Speaker 5 (55:23):
Hence they are regulatory tariffs versus being revenue earning tariffs.
Never mind the fact that President Trump also consistently touts
the amount of money that America is making from taxing
its own citizens, which is basically what happens with tariffs.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
It is the importer that pays the tariff. But it's
neither here nor there.

Speaker 5 (55:49):
He's claiming, on the one hand, this is money coming
into the federal government, it's revenue yay. On the other hand,
there before the Supreme Court. No, No, these are no
revenue raising tariffs. These are just regulatory tariffs. But James
Madison has pointed out by phil Agnes, James Madison, the
father of the Constitution, rebutted John C. Calhoun win the

(56:12):
eighteen twenties. Eighteen twenties made the same argument of a distinction, Oh,
this is just a regulatory tariff. Madison says, no, terriffs
are inherently both revenue raising and regulatory, and that's exactly
what he had presented in his first Tariff Act of

(56:32):
seventeen eighty nine. But that's the argument, the kind of
the legal approach that they're taking. I will be very
disappointed if Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, both
of whom I'm a great admirer of and in fact,
particularly of Clarence Thomas, if they rule in favor of

(56:57):
the Trump administration on this. I think the role of
the Supreme Court should be originalist and should be looking
at the presidential authority through the lens of the Constitution
and what the Congress has in terms of its Article
I Powers, which specifically states the power to tax, the
power to tariff, is the president's or excuse me, is

(57:20):
the Congress is and then they can't just cede it
to the president. Well, we'll see, we'll see what happens.
Listener texts coming in, one of which I found really interesting.
If Colorado laws applied, all Trump would need to do
is change the name from tariff to fee.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Funny, you should say that, You're right.

Speaker 5 (57:45):
All you would need to do is just say that,
and it would pass state constitutional muster. But I actually
wrote a column about this just a few weeks ago
and the Denver Gazette. It was entitled look for it
Denver Gazete dot com. Go to the columns page, scroll
down a bit. Fees, terriffs, taxes by another name. And

(58:06):
I particularly was highlighting US Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, who
was asked why President Trump's tariffs are not taxes on
imported goods. He said, that's easy because tariffs are a
surg charge, not a tax. They could be paid by
the exporter, they could be paid by the country, which

(58:28):
by the way, is straight up nonsense, just as fees
generally are.

Speaker 4 (58:32):
That we've seen new fees going to affect all kinds.

Speaker 5 (58:35):
Think about the fees on door dash deliveries and Amazon deliveries,
or the gas fee that they put in place that
is the same as a gas tax, but they call
it a fee, so apparently it's okay and they don't
have to go to the people for a vote.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
Well, tariffs are, by.

Speaker 5 (58:52):
Literal definition, taxes on imported goods. The founding fathers knew that.
Let's go back to James Madison in seventeen eighty nine
with his terrorffact. Let's go to every economic textbook. I
remember when I was minoring in economics at Regis University,

(59:13):
where I was a student from eight to twenty eleven,
graduating twenty eleven, we studied tariffs.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
As a tax.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
Well, whether a tariff shows up as a duty at
a port or gets slapped on a customs form is irrelevant.
Calling attacks that surcharge doesn't make it any less of
a tax.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
It makes the salesman sound slick.

Speaker 5 (59:39):
When I go to the store and I buy a
dozen eggs and I pay sales tax and check out,
is that suddenly not a tax because it appears as
a surcharge on the receipt?

Speaker 4 (59:46):
I mean, please spare me.

Speaker 5 (59:49):
And by the way, Scott Bess at the Treasury Secretary
had previously acknowledged that it was an essence attax and
that it's the importer who pays it, not by the
exporter but by the importer, as in American companies, And
on and on it goes. And I make the direct
comparison to the left trying to make a fee into attacks,

(01:00:14):
or rather attacks into.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
A fee.

Speaker 5 (01:00:17):
By saying, oh, we don't have to go to a
vote of the people, because this is this is just
a fee. It's the same kind of concept, same kind
of concept. Oh, I love this text on the hotline
or text line five sixty six nine zero terifts are great.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
The results will show it. Get rid of your tds.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:00:39):
After his first after voting for him in twenty sixteen,
I voted for him again in twenty twenty, and then
I voted for him again in twenty twenty four. I've
got a funny way of showing tds, don't you think
in a three time Trump voter, as I am.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
Another Jimmy.

Speaker 5 (01:00:57):
Trade imbalance is a measure of the difference between US
dollar in and US dollar out. It's not simply a
measure of goods VERSUS dollars paid for them.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
Yeah, so every trade.

Speaker 5 (01:01:11):
Deficit that you have has a financial flow that's opposite
of that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
And actually there's a reason why.

Speaker 5 (01:01:21):
If you delve in and this actually goes a little
bit to what Phil Magnus said in the last segment,
If you delve into this a bit, it tends to
be that the larger trade deficit America has, the better
we are doing economically.

Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Just go look at the crust tabs of that and.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
You'll see that's what the economic data has borne out
for a very long time. Higher the trade deficit, we run,
better the economy is actually doing. And one more text
before we run to a break. Here's a good example
of how Trump's policy makes no sense. I work for

(01:02:06):
a large multinational manufacturer. We have paid millions in tariffs
and we pass at least some of this along to
our customers. Soybean farmers have been hit hard, and the
same president who levies tariffs on us then needs to
subsidize farmers.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
Totally ridiculous. But what do you expect from a serial
bankruptcy guy. Well, yes or no, regardless of the.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
Personal financial history of the president, you're right that he
has a policy that has screwed over soybean farmers.

Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
Look These are guys who are planning out. They have
to know well in advance.

Speaker 5 (01:02:43):
What their crops are gonna need to what they're gonna
need as far as their output months in advance, and
so they end up getting a lot more produced. Then
they're able to sell overseas and whatnot because of that's
where so many of their purchases are from China, for example.

(01:03:04):
So then they're screwed over. And then Trump has to say, well,
we're gonna give you farmers money. I mean, what it's
like FDR during the Great Depression. Oh, we know that
you guys have a surplus, so we're gonna go ahead
and pay you. And that actually caused all kinds of
economic problems adding to the depression, like all of the
other policies of FDR. One of the worst domestic policy

(01:03:25):
presidents in the history of this country.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
FDR.

Speaker 5 (01:03:28):
He gets way too much credit, especially in public schools,
is though he's the hero of the Depression, when he
was the one who exacerbated the Great Depression.

Speaker 6 (01:03:36):
But I digress.

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
I'm Jimmy Seckenberger filling in for Mandy Connell. Lots more
to go as we continue on KOA next Saturday, November fifteenth,
eight pm. The Jimmy Junior Blues Band will be performing
at Cactus Jackson, Evergreen. Come on out really excited for

(01:04:02):
this show that would be on November fifteenth, not this Saturday,
but next Saturday at Cactus Jacks in Evergreen. We've got
more gigs coming up in December and even on New
Year's Eve when we'll be playing at t Birds.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
In wheat Ridge. So good times coming. Hope to see you.

Speaker 5 (01:04:24):
They are Cactus Jacks in Evergreen next Saturday, November fifteenth,
Real quick. I want to respond to one text. I
was going to move on, but I want to go
koa commic spirit health text line five six six nine zero.
The sales tax example on eggs is not analogous to
a tariff. Sales tax is a fixed eight percent on purchases,

(01:04:47):
or an unknown amount of the tariff will be passed
on to the customer depending on the elasticity of demand.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
A couple of things.

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
The one this if you're just joining us, has to
do with a comparison I'm made when Treasury Secretary Scott
Bessett recently said that tariffs aren't taxes, their surcharges, and
that's what I was making in comparison of are you
going to say that a sales tax is a surcharge
on eggs or any other product you buy at the store, because.

Speaker 4 (01:05:17):
It's tacked on afterwards.

Speaker 5 (01:05:19):
Yeah, a tariff is not the same structurally as a
sales tax, but it's the same exact principle put on
after the fact.

Speaker 4 (01:05:28):
Now it varies, and some of.

Speaker 5 (01:05:30):
It will be passed some of the customers, some of
it won't. But I'm talking about in terms of the company,
the company, the importer is what is being taxed. That
is a tax on the company, a sales tax in
effect on the company receiving the product to then resell it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:47):
I'm just talking.

Speaker 5 (01:05:48):
About word games and as the use of the term surcharge,
not about some of the other facets to that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:57):
Now it is interesting real quickly.

Speaker 5 (01:05:59):
President's talking about this message to Republicans about how they
should be talking about groceries, energy inflation.

Speaker 8 (01:06:07):
I think of groceries. You know, it's an old fashioned word,
but it's a beautiful word.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Beef.

Speaker 9 (01:06:11):
We have to get down, but we've got prices way down.
And think of this energy.

Speaker 8 (01:06:15):
She drives a car probably and her energy press is
the way down and energy is so all encompassing, it's
so big that when energy goes down, everything comes down.

Speaker 9 (01:06:24):
Everything follows it. And I have energy down to five
six year lows. Now you think prices are coming down
from this that, yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:06:32):
I think they're coming down, but I think they're down already.
I think the biggest problems Republicans don't talk about it.
They don't talk about the word affordability, and the Democrats
lie about it. Look when I took over and I said,
this inflation was so bad under Biden, Remember he had
the Inflation Reduction Act. It was it was a scam,
and he tried to lower inflation, but he caused the inflation.

Speaker 9 (01:06:54):
And he tried to lower the inflation.

Speaker 8 (01:06:55):
He took over my economy where inflation was at one percent,
which is perfect.

Speaker 9 (01:07:01):
He drove it a nine or ten times higher than
that in a short period of time.

Speaker 8 (01:07:05):
When I took over, it was a it was a mess.
I have inflation way down. I have it down to
a normal number right now, lower than a normal number
in my opinion.

Speaker 5 (01:07:13):
Huh okay, Now what's interesting how he wants to talk
about I will say this energy is down, and he's right,
that makes a big impact. And it is particularly because
the Trump energy policy is pro economy, pro growth and
allowing the unleashing of oiling as, which is exactly what
we need. And his energy policy is some of the

(01:07:34):
best that we could have. And by the way, Chris Wright,
the Energy Secretary right from here in Colorado. Jimmy sangen
Burger in for Mandy Connell. Another hour up ahead here
in KOA.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
The Mandy Connall Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
No, it's Mandy Connelly.

Speaker 6 (01:08:01):
Away, Kenne through three, sad.

Speaker 5 (01:08:10):
Thing, third and final hour. Jimmy Sangenberger here with you
in for Mandy Donnell. Good have you long for the ride?

Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
On this Friday?

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
Of course, Monday's brand new schedule here on KOA begins
Colorado's Morning News from five to six, then six to nine,
Roz Kiminski on the News with Gina Gondeck, and then
Michael Brown over here from k Howe from nine to
noon now on KOA, and then of course Mandy continues

(01:08:50):
noon to three, rounding out the more news oriented political
talk before the station heads on into sports. By the way,
I haven't mentioned yet twenty four seven three sixty five.
You want to follow along with my latest content columns
I'm writing and publishing, or when the Jimmy Junior Blues

(01:09:14):
Band has gigs like I just talked about. We're playing
at Cactus Jackson, Evergreen next Saturday the fifteenth at eight pm. Well,
you can find those gigs and more as well off
of my website Jimmy Sangenburger dot com, where you can
also email me twenty four to seven three sixty five
Jimmy Sangenburger dot com. Keep in mind there's no AI

(01:09:37):
or you in Sangenburger. It's all ease, all the time.
Once you know that Sangenburger is easy. We talked a
bit about the economy and tariffs, actually that dominated the
last hour. But here's some interesting data on the economy
right now that may help to explain some of Tuesday

(01:10:01):
election results as well across the country that were not
good for Republicans.

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
This from the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
Consumer sentiment declined in November, with the University of Michigan's
index falling to fifty point three from fifty three point six.
The continuing government shutdown is a key factor in consumers
increased worries about potential negative economic consequences, with near term

(01:10:28):
inflation expectations rising while longer run inflation expectations decreased. In
the November survey, Joanne Sue, the survey's director, said, with
the federal government shutdown dragging on for over a month,
consumers are now expressing worries about potential negative consequences for
the economy. So that's one of the effects, of course,

(01:10:51):
is the government shutdown, which President Trump has interestingly as
Republicans dig in, and I think rightly.

Speaker 6 (01:10:57):
So Republicans had dug in.

Speaker 5 (01:11:01):
To say, look, we're going to hold the line here
because it's the Democrats who are responsible for the shutdown.
So the Democrats want these subsidies for Obamacare that are
set to expire at the end of this year, because
the Democrats themselves set the subsidies to expire at.

Speaker 4 (01:11:19):
The end of this year because they wanted to make
the math work at the time.

Speaker 5 (01:11:25):
Republicans want to adjust how those subsidies are done, but
it's not something that you can do with a continuing resolution.
They want to address it after the CR to allow
the Continuing resolution, of course, funds the government and allows
operations to continue but Democrats have dug in and said no, no, no,
we're not going to reopen the government and pass the

(01:11:49):
CR until you agree to this and allow for the
funding of these subsidies that Republicans fundamentally disagree with how
they're done.

Speaker 4 (01:12:00):
That's happening to the end of this year.

Speaker 5 (01:12:02):
Well, even President Trump is now recognized that Republicans are
getting the blame, and that shouldn't be surprising, even though
they're not to blame because of these primary to blame.
Both parties fundamentally are to blame, but it's the Democrats
predominantly who are.

Speaker 4 (01:12:21):
And President Trump is recognized that, probably.

Speaker 5 (01:12:24):
Because he's the president, but he will not take responsibility
for it. He will never say, of course, it's because
he's the president, but he will say Republicans.

Speaker 6 (01:12:33):
The polls show Republicans are getting blamed for the.

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
Shutdown, and that's a big reason why they're lost on Tuesday,
and there's certainly some truth to that. There is also
truth to the Trump effect.

Speaker 5 (01:12:46):
I think there's a lot of negativity about President Trump
among people who dislike him, and that means they're more
galvanized than animated to go out and vote, and that's
a big piece.

Speaker 4 (01:12:55):
And then when consumer.

Speaker 5 (01:12:56):
Sentiment is down and people are worried about the because
of the shutdown or because of other things, well that
may make them more inclined to make their voices heard
at the ballot box. Speaking of Tuesday's results, Bernie Sanders saying,

(01:13:17):
Zorn Mamdani, the mayor elect of New York City.

Speaker 4 (01:13:22):
He ain't a comedy.

Speaker 13 (01:13:25):
Mamnani is not a communist. Maybe Trump might want to
read a book with two.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
He did quote Eugene Debs in the beginning of his
who Was, as I hope you know what.

Speaker 13 (01:13:35):
Is the great socialist leaders in our country, one of
the great unsung heroes of American history, man who spent
his life fighting for working people and opposing unjust was.

Speaker 6 (01:13:46):
He was not a communist.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
He was a democratic socialist.

Speaker 13 (01:13:49):
So maybe mister Trump might want to study up read
a book of two. I don't know if he reads
his books and learn a little bit about what democratic
socialism is about.

Speaker 5 (01:13:58):
First of all, I see very little difference. I'll say
very nonnary, very little difference between socialism and communism at bottom.

Speaker 6 (01:14:08):
But I think.

Speaker 5 (01:14:11):
Mom Donnie can accurately be described as a communist. To me,
there's no question. But fine, if you want to say, no,
he's a socialist. To me, that makes no difference because
they're both bad.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:14:25):
I remember during Obama's term, Republicans would say Obama's a socialist.

Speaker 6 (01:14:29):
Look at what he's doing.

Speaker 4 (01:14:30):
He's socializing medicine, he's this and that, and he wasn't
the case.

Speaker 5 (01:14:35):
It is far to the left compared to past where presidents,
at least in the past several decades, like Bill Clint did,
for example, farther left for sure than Clinton was by
today's standards. Clinton was actually a relatively conservative president in
many respects. Barack Obama was far from it, but he

(01:14:55):
was no socialist. Here is an instance where communists socialists.
Do you want to call it? For Mamdani, for Alexandria
al Cassio Cortes, for Bernie Sanders, I don't care how
you slice it. Their ideology is dangerous and wrong for America,
and New York City could well get screwed.

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):
Although I will say.

Speaker 5 (01:15:15):
This as we go to break, I will say that
I'm less worried about the economic prospects of New York
City and what Mamdani can do in that regard than
i am about public safety and particularly safety for Jews.
By the way, I don't think he's going to be

(01:15:37):
very apt to guarantee that to the extent nearly that
he should. I think we've seen enough indications of that.
I hope I'm wrong, But in terms of public safety
and support of law enforcement, that's the issue that's going
to be bad for New York City compared to al
Is he going to be able to turn grocery stores
into being state run or some of the other things

(01:15:59):
that he wants to do that are outrageous expansions of
government that take more of the city council involvement. I
think that's going to be trickier, and you're gonna see
less of that and more concerns about public safety and
so forth that'll be legitimate. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger again in
for Mandy Connell. We'll pick it up on the other

(01:16:21):
side on koa corrupt land deal happening in Lakewood, Jefferson
County involving the school district, the city, and a non
profit over an elementary school that has been closed Emery
Elementary and the property there. We will have in studio

(01:16:42):
Anita Springsteen, an attorney former city councilwoman and the plaintiff
in a lawsuit that was just resolved on Monday, allowing
the city to move forward with votes related to this purchase.
We'll pick it up at the bottom of the hour
with her on that. You do not want to miss

(01:17:03):
this absolutely crazy story. By the way, since I've been
teasing a little bit about music and the Jimmy Junior
Blues Band playing Cactus Jacks next Saturday the fifteenth, I'd
be remiss if I didn't mention my friends at the
Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame, which this coming Sunday,
November ninth, from two to six pm, are holding a showcase,

(01:17:28):
the Ladies of Country Music All Stars Showcase at Wild
Goose Saloon, which is a really cool place, a fantastic
venue for live music. They've got the Hall of Fame
band back in a mop and over twenty Ladies of
Country Music in Colorado, extremely talented women will be performing.

(01:17:49):
I should be there this coming Sunday. Ten dollars cover
supports the Country Music Hall of Fame. This is at
Wild Goose Saloon in Parker Sunday from two to six pm.
They do great work at the Country Music Colorado. Country
Music Hall of Fame. One other tidbit. I am struck

(01:18:13):
by this. The FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, is slashing flights. Yes,
they're reducing the number of flights that can happen in
every airport across forty different airports.

Speaker 6 (01:18:26):
In particular, I believe.

Speaker 5 (01:18:27):
DA is included among those airports. And this is going
to be putting a snag, massive snag for travelers everywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:18:37):
Keep that in mind.

Speaker 5 (01:18:39):
It is insane. What is the fix, What is the solution.
Is it just to open the government once again to
end the shutdown?

Speaker 12 (01:18:47):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:18:48):
Hell no.

Speaker 5 (01:18:49):
In fact, there's a great editorial couple of days ago
from the Wall Street Journal. Free the air traffic controllers.
Bottom line, they should spin it off from the federal government.
No longer have the FAA be part of the federal government.
Privatize the entity, change the nature of the relationship, and

(01:19:10):
it will work much better, and they won't be held
every however, many years, held down to the mercy of
they all knowing all powerful federal government. And whether or
not Congress and the President can get their act together
and do what must be done when it comes to

(01:19:31):
keeping the government open. And they write that a nonprofit
outfit could be more nimble in upgrading antiquated air traffic systems.
The government could still regulate the safety aspects of the job,
but spinning off the controllers would free them from pointless
political constraints, including the fact that they're not getting paid
at the moment because sixty senators can't agree to do

(01:19:54):
their job of funding federal public agencies. Government shutdowns are
rarely productive if well. Letting them cripple national travel is daft.
Put an agree more free the air traffic controllers. I'm
Jimmy Sangenberger in from Andy Connell. The time is flying by.
One more segment up ahead on k O.

Speaker 4 (01:20:14):
A business going on here?

Speaker 3 (01:20:36):
I've seen it shaddles everywhere, business going on here, seeing
shadows everywhere?

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
So mean what he is supposed to do.

Speaker 4 (01:20:59):
When you be about a safe business?

Speaker 5 (01:21:07):
Coming back with yours Trulley the Jimmy Junior Blues Band
doing a little shade of business going home in original
tune by yours truly. As we wrap up and wind
down the show, filling in for Mandy Connell, Jimmy Sangenberger,
glad to be with you. And look, when it comes

(01:21:29):
to shady business, there's a heck of a lot going
on in government right now, all across the board, top
to bottom, and that includes locally, which is part of
the reason why you may see it talking about Denver
Public Schools are talking about the city of Lakewood, as
we will now in columns I write for the Denver Gazette,

(01:21:49):
where I will say there's shady business going on in
this situation or whatnot, or referenced shady business. Yeah, I
have my song in mind, but it's because there is
shady business happening. And you can follow along with a
lot of this from my coverage in the Denver Gazette.

Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
And what is this I'm talking about.

Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
Well, a few years ago Jefferson County Schools closed a
number of district schools. One of them is Emery Elementary
in Lakewood, which just before they closed the school, the
district spent two point six million dollars to upgrade the
school building. Then they closed it. Then the question is

(01:22:33):
what do you do with the school, with the property
and the land surrounding it. The answer should be open
up to private bidding. Allow municipalities to have their say
and to pitch their offers. Allow a private developers to
do that allow charter schools the opportunity to say, Hey,

(01:22:55):
we'd like to bid on this property because it's already
'z owned for a school. Well, Jefferson County School said,
that's not what we're going to do.

Speaker 4 (01:23:03):
Instead, we're going to.

Speaker 5 (01:23:04):
Create this new process called municipal interest, and we're going
to say there's no private bidding. The only one that
gets to say if they want this property and to
present a bid and to negotiate is the City of Lakewood.
And this was a process that began in January of
last year. Most people were unaware of what was happening

(01:23:25):
and the prospect of a deal until April of this year,
when the city council voted to authorize the four million
dollar purchase of Emory Elementary and the surrounding land by
the city manager, Kathy Hodgson.

Speaker 4 (01:23:46):
Go ahead and.

Speaker 5 (01:23:48):
Take the opportunity and negotiate this. And it gets even
more interesting from there, especially when last fall of last year,
in September, the city Council went into two illegal executive
sessions that were not properly noticed, which is where my
in studio guest comes into play. Anita Springsteen is an

(01:24:10):
attorney former city councilwoman in Lakewood who sued the City
of Lakewood over these illegal executive sessions, saying, you didn't
give proper notice, you didn't specify what these negotiations, which
is what they put in the notice, are about, and
in state law open meetings laws, you're supposed to give

(01:24:33):
particular details. Then a trial was set in February of
this year for October twenty eighth. Well, the city council
had some other votes they had to do, including selling
Emory Elementary before they even completed the purchase of Emory Elementary.
Imagine that you go and you say, you know what,

(01:24:54):
we're gonna sell this property before we complete the purchase
of the propit, Like, are you going to do the
how how can you even make that determination? Well, needless
to say, a judge in Lakewood put the kebash temporarily
and delayed the process with an injunction saying we're not
going to allow these votes to proceed. And eventually a

(01:25:20):
determination was made from the judge earlier this week saying actually,
it's okay, we're going to allow these sales to move
or these proceedings to move forward. From the city council.
They had other votes to sell the school before they
even bought it, and to buy the property for a
nonprofit I haven't mentioned yet, the Action Center that provides

(01:25:41):
different community services. And they're going to buy the property
of Emory Elementary for one million dollars. Now the property
of Emory's worth up to twelve million dollars, Lakewood's buying
it for four Emory is being sold to the Action
Center building.

Speaker 6 (01:26:02):
For one million dollars.

Speaker 5 (01:26:03):
Meanwhile, the city is going to move ahead and buy
the Action centers to current buildings for up to four
million dollars and lease it to them temporarily while the
elementary school is purchased.

Speaker 4 (01:26:18):
In all of that completes. It is complicated, it is convoluted.

Speaker 5 (01:26:22):
It took a long setup before I could welcome my guest,
Anita Springsteen. Anita, welcome to the show. Good to have
you in studio. Thank you for having me, Thanks for
joining us. So I tried laying out as much as
I could in a few minutes time.

Speaker 6 (01:26:38):
What did I miss?

Speaker 5 (01:26:38):
What other aspects to this or do you think are
worth mentioning? And then we'll get to some of what
you've done with filing lawsuits and so forth.

Speaker 14 (01:26:47):
So I think a couple of things Worth's mentioning is
that the judge did find that the city aired in
the public notice to go into executive session. The city
is required to properly notice a session like that because
it's behind closed doors.

Speaker 4 (01:27:06):
And not in the public purview.

Speaker 14 (01:27:09):
The judge found that they aired, but she went on
to say that it was just a clerical error and
harmless and therefore not even a slap on the rest
for the city. And what I was attempting to do
was to hold the city accountable because during my time

(01:27:29):
on council, I saw that time after time after time,
things were kept from the public and there were decisions
made behind closed doors all the time, and so I
thought this was clear enough that there would be no
problem to push that through as an error. Well, I mean,

(01:27:51):
that was essentially creating a new law, and I'm going
to appeal it because it's a strict stand. There is
nothing in the law that says, you know that the
judge can decide why the error was made and make
decisions either the error was made or not. And the

(01:28:14):
other thing I'd like to point out is the judge
mentioned on that day that she lives, she's a neighbor
of Pambryer, who is the CEO of the Action Center,
and they're in the same book club together, and the
judge didn't mention this until after the trial was over,

(01:28:35):
and that's a very concerning aspect of it to me.

Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
Let me just clarify here.

Speaker 5 (01:28:41):
So last Tuesday you had the trial, yes, and then
I think it was also to note Thursday, among the
different statements that Lakewood had filed included one from Pambryer,
the CEO of the Action Center. And then Monday morning
of this week you get together for this additional hearing
on the injunction whether or not the votes could proceed

(01:29:03):
on the different aspects that I mentioned.

Speaker 4 (01:29:06):
And at the beginning of.

Speaker 5 (01:29:07):
That proceeding, but after the trial is when the judge
just closed this personal relationship with the president and CEO
of the Action Center nonprofit that stands to buy Emory
Elementary worth up to I would say eleven million dollars
when we subtract out the land for one million dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:29:26):
That is correct.

Speaker 5 (01:29:28):
Wow, wow, I am pretty stunned by that. By the way,
the judge is Megan a milewd or allowed. So that's
that's a surprising aspect to this let's talk about the
executive session piece for a moment you had and I
interviewed him for my columnism in the Denver Gazette for

(01:29:51):
another former Lakewood City councilman, Richard Over as one of
the folks that testified in your case, and he had
an affidavits submitted which he also told me about this
that when these executive sessions happened in September of last year,
he himself voted no because he, as a member of

(01:30:11):
the council, did not know what they were.

Speaker 4 (01:30:13):
Going to be discussing behind closed doors exactly.

Speaker 14 (01:30:16):
He expressed in testimony that he had a lot of
concerns because constituents were calling him saying what is this
meeting about, and he couldn't tell them, so he voted
no to go into executive session.

Speaker 4 (01:30:36):
There was a lot of discussion.

Speaker 14 (01:30:38):
About was policy made during this executive session, were positions taken,
and he testified that yes, in fact, that happened that
is not supposed to happen in an executive session, so
he was already expressing problems with it. I would like

(01:31:00):
to note that the public notice excluded the section of
the statute that references that they're going to be discussing
sale of real estate. And I believe that that was
intentional and deliberate. And the reason I say that is

(01:31:20):
when the council convenes for the public meeting prior to
going into the executive session where they make a vote
about going in and emotion is set forth, they do
mention the section of the statute that has to do
with the sale of real property. But the public isn't

(01:31:41):
really going to see that. What they're going to see
is the public notice that was noticed twenty four hours
in advance on the agenda.

Speaker 6 (01:31:49):
And so it's my contention.

Speaker 14 (01:31:53):
That they knew they should mention that extra piece of information,
and they deliberately didn't because they didn't want to tip
off the public that they were talking about anything to
do with real estate.

Speaker 5 (01:32:08):
Now, the city council would say in response, well, okay,
that may have happened. They may accept clerical error or
I don't know if they've accepted any wrongdoing in the
case of that, but they would say and have said,
we've had a ton of public meetings. We had, of course,
the meetings on all of these ordinances where the public
could come and make comment. We've had other community meetings

(01:32:29):
with the Action Centers, that's the nonprofit that will buy
the building, Emory Elementary and other public meetings. It has
not been in closed doors at the very least since
September of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 4 (01:32:41):
What do you say in response to that.

Speaker 14 (01:32:43):
Well, i'd like to I mean, first of all, I know,
as a city councilor the propaganda that they set for
us about these public meetings, the truth is the public
has very very little say in anything that happens and
any ordinances that are past. And for instance, doctor Byrne,

(01:33:06):
who owns a veterinary clinic, tried to go in for
the public meeting October thirteenth. She had to wait like
five hours for a three minute comment. So when you
say that's a robust public process, that's a lie.

Speaker 4 (01:33:25):
It's a myth.

Speaker 5 (01:33:27):
Not only that, I would say, as I mentioned in
the beginning, it took me five minutes just to detail
some of the basics. This is a very complicated real
estate arrangement that involves the school district selling a property
to the city and then the city reselling the property
to a nonprofit while simultaneously buying property current property owned

(01:33:49):
by the nonprofit, and then separately leasing that property to
the nonprofit. I feel like I'm just speaking mumbo jumbo
in listening that out. So how is the average person
supposed to really understand that, especially when we're also talking
a real estate deal in the millions of dollars exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:34:11):
And not only that, but.

Speaker 14 (01:34:15):
There was testimony from the director of planning on Monday
when I asked, how was it decided it would be
a four million dollar deal that went into the ordnance
in April? I said, how did the counsel know ahead
of time what the appraised value of the property was?

Speaker 4 (01:34:35):
Did you give them an appraisal? He said no?

Speaker 6 (01:34:39):
And then later, you know, did they even know what
the value was?

Speaker 14 (01:34:45):
But you know, to me, kind of the point is
the school district has their handout begging for money. They
want a mill levy, they want to They keep saying
they're in a budget crisis. We had a sitch situation
here at Evergreen High School where the district apparently didn't
have enough money to hire a full time SRO to

(01:35:08):
protect our children.

Speaker 4 (01:35:10):
And yet they seem to be saying that they have.

Speaker 6 (01:35:15):
The ability to give away valuable property.

Speaker 4 (01:35:20):
They're in a sixty six million dollar deficit. I think
and that is astonishing, and they have all this property
to sell, and they literally, the school district literally said
we're not accepting.

Speaker 5 (01:35:31):
Private bids for Emery, We're doing a municipal interest process
and only allowing Lakewood to be a part of this.
And then funny money playing funny money with the whole
thing valued it up to twelve million dollars, potentially selling
it to the city for four million dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:35:48):
But here's the thing.

Speaker 5 (01:35:50):
The Mayor and City Council put out a statement a
few days ago and they said this the financial terms
of this project both fair and forward looking and represent
investments in the community for significant public benefits.

Speaker 6 (01:36:06):
The city negotiated a.

Speaker 5 (01:36:08):
Four million dollar purchase price for the seventeen acre Emery property,
three million dollars for seven point two acres of open
space the city will retain, and one million dollars for
the former site, which will be resold to the Action
Center for the same one million dollars. I am stunned
because the assessment from the county assessor puts the building

(01:36:32):
at the bulk of this about eleven million dollars in
value and the land for less than a million dollars,
and not only that, but the school district that put
two point six million dollars into upgrades for the building,
And somehow the city is claiming that three million dollars
is for the land and the other million dollars is

(01:36:53):
for the building, which is really just a nice way
for them to say, oh, no, we're only selling the
Action Center the amount that we think the ten acre
building is worth.

Speaker 9 (01:37:03):
Well.

Speaker 14 (01:37:04):
And that's part of the question. Why was there only
one INNGO considered here? Why was it only the Action Center?
Why are they the preferred favorite. Essentially, they're getting it
for free because the city's buying their other property. And
you know, everybody wants to talk about well, they want

(01:37:26):
to deflect from the issue and say, well, this is wonderful,
it's for the public good, it's for the community. And
here's what I ask, since when did the school district's
mission change from serving the education of our children to charity?

(01:37:47):
And when did the city's mission change from serving the
needs of the citizens of Lakewood to basically representing a
non governmental organization.

Speaker 5 (01:38:00):
Now, next week, Jefferson County School's the school board, i
think it's next week, will be taking up a vote
on selling Emory. You have filed a notice of claim
in regards to that to say, okay, maybe try and
stop that. What what can you tell us about that
aspect of this, especially given the fiduciary responsibility the district

(01:38:22):
has the taxpayers.

Speaker 14 (01:38:24):
Well, on September twelfth, I served them with that notice
of claim, which was just to put them on notice
that there could be further illegal proceedings if they just
blow up their fiduciary duty by making this sale. Not
only is there a problem with the numbers and that

(01:38:46):
they're giving away significant millions of dollars that belonged to
the school district, but I also feel that they are
circumventing state law, which requires if they're going to give
a building to an NGL, that they need to make
findings the building is no longer needed. So it feels

(01:39:06):
unethical to me that they that they would go through
this municipal process when everybody knows that it's just to
give the building away to somebody else. But yeah, I
stated in that, I sort of stated all of the
statutes that I think they're violating, which include fiduciary duty.

(01:39:28):
I feel like there could be money laundering going on.
I feel like this could be a reco case, and
I'd like to see an investigation by the Attorney General,
by the Department of Justice, by.

Speaker 4 (01:39:44):
You know, the yeah whatever at the state.

Speaker 5 (01:39:48):
And I got one more question for you because we're
out of time, but I do want to say it
was striking to me that the city is now claiming
that the appraisal that they got for the existing property
that the Action Center owns that the city is going
to buy, that was a praise at four million dollars,
when the assessed value for the two buildings combined that
I saw from the assessor is two point one million

(01:40:09):
dollars about half of that. They're playing funny money all
around and fudging numbers and whatnot, and it is stunning.
I mean I was even told by the spokesperson for
the city, Oh, we're going to be doing three million
dollars in grants. Then I followed up, actually, we're not
so sure that federal grants are going to be applied
to the purchase.

Speaker 6 (01:40:27):
What is going on here is crazy. But I want
to ask final question.

Speaker 4 (01:40:30):
We are out of time.

Speaker 5 (01:40:31):
The judge allowed, judgment allowed allowed the city to continue
to move forward with all their votes and everything. Are
you are you pleased with what you did. Do you
think that, even though that's the outcome, what you wanted
happened because I wasn't thinking that the judge was going
to completely put the kabash on this thing, but you

(01:40:52):
moved ahead. You actually got an injunction. Talked to me
real quick.

Speaker 14 (01:40:55):
So what I've said is, even if I lose, I've
won because I brought public attention to all of this shady, corrupt,
funny money stuff going on, and people need to be
asking questions for them to say that property is a
sas step four million dollars is just a lie, and

(01:41:19):
people need to understand it's not about the public good
they're trying to do.

Speaker 4 (01:41:24):
It's about that they are playing.

Speaker 14 (01:41:27):
Games with our taxpayer dollars and we need to be
asking questions about why that is.

Speaker 5 (01:41:33):
Well, said Anita Springsteen, our guest here in studio. Thanks
so much for your time and for fighting a good
fight on this one. Thank you for having me, and
I will be writing about this again in the Denver
Gazette next week, so watch for that.

Speaker 4 (01:41:46):
I'm JB.

Speaker 5 (01:41:46):
Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell today. Have a great weekend,
and may God bless America.