Everyone's Hot and Bothered

Many still without power ... more questions about debris collection ... the Middle East is about to explode ... the stock market is imploding ... and, worst of all, it's Monday.  We either laugh or cry; today, we laughed and ate donuts.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vorgies.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm not gonna fight with you today, not you, Lucy.
I might fight with you, kfab Nation. We had a
little tiff on Friday, and I don't want to fight
with you today. I will say I have reached out
to a representative from OPID that's OPPD for a clarification

(00:26):
on this. But whatever their clarification is, I will also say,
and this is the kind of thing that got me
in trouble on Friday show, self responsibility is not something
that people should be whining and complaining about all the time.
Oh this sounds like I am going to fight with
you today. That's what got me in so much trouble

(00:48):
on Friday. Now, if you're able bodied and not an
absolute wretch, there are ways around this situation that Omaha's
dealing with. And I'm not saying that that. I'm not

(01:08):
saying you're a bad person. I'm saying, if you're otherwise
able bodied, you should not be looking, you know, sitting
there with your arms folded, looking for ways to have
everyone try and bail you out of any responsibility that
may or may not be yours. I mean, some things
you's got to as a as as a decent human being.

(01:32):
You look at a situation and go, well, I guess
no one else is going to do that. Maybe it
is someone else's responsibility. In the meantime, this has got
to be done. Now are you willing to do it?
And in that situation, let's talk now about tree limbs
and power lines. If you have a tree on your
property and the tree limbs are hanging into the power lines,

(01:56):
I think that's your responsibility. That doesn't mean said send
Edna May up there with a step stool to go
up there and start whacking away at the limbs. Maybe you,
maybe you have the training to be able to do
something about that. If the limbs are hanging onto the
power lines, I would say you don't, but you contact

(02:19):
a tree care provider. I don't want to spend money
on the tree. Hey, guess what, you're a homeowner. You're
gonna spend money on a bunch of crap. By the way,
if anyone needs any money, I'm spending a ton of
it right now. Just had another contractor out to the
house the other day. He's like, well, yeah, this is
a problem right here, and if we're gonna do that,

(02:41):
we might as well do that. Were you ever thinking
about replacing these I don't know. Maybe, well it'd be
easier if we just do all of it in one shot.
And so now like one little part of potentially bad
sighting is like I'm taking my entire house down and
rebuilding it like a lego house. So that's awesome. But

(03:03):
you know, if you're a homeowner, you spend money on stuff.
I know we're all spending a lot of money on stuff.
State Cenator Justin Wayne's going to join us at ten
thirty five this morning on his ideas and how he
can try and alleviate some property taxes. One of his
ideas is legalized and tax marijuana. I said, really, he goes, well,
that's not my only plan, so we'll talk with him.

(03:26):
Northeast Omaha Representative one of the Northeast Omaha representatives coming
up at ten thirty five this morning. So you look
out there and the tree on your property has got
limbs very close to the power lines. By the way,
this doesn't always just happen overnight. We all get busy.

(03:46):
It's possible sometimes you look out and go, how the
heck did that happen? Where did that come from? It
does happen granted, but sometimes you can see the tree
limbs growing towards the power line from several months away. Now,
in those instances, you can go up there and trim
some of those maybe if you're able bodied and able
to do that kind of thing. Try not to cut

(04:08):
your arm off, or you have someone come out there
and do that for you. If the limbs are on
the lines, that's not for you, that's for an expert.
Might have to pay them. Now, some people say, well,
that's oppd's responsibility. I don't know. If the trees are

(04:30):
on your property, sounds like that's your responsibility. Yeah, But
if the trees are on my property and one of
the limbs falls off on my neighbor's house, that's not
my responsibility. Yeah. And in a case of law or insurance,
that might well be the case. In the circumstances of
being a decent flipping human being, I think that there's

(04:53):
some I'll tell you what I would do if my
tree fell down and smashed my neighbor's truck like it
almost did a few years ago. I want to pay
it this deductible decent human being stuff. And if I
couldn't pay us deductible, I'd say, well, I'll tell you what.

(05:14):
I don't have the money to pay your deductible, but
we can either set up a payment plan or my
kid over here is gonna mow your lawn for the
next five years. And my son's like, what did I do? Like,
it's not what you have done, it's what you're gonna do.
You're gonna mos lawn. How come you know a mo's
lawn because you're gonna do it. Build character, it's good
for you. Or here's the absolute least you can do.

(05:42):
You look outside, you know, wow, the limbs are It's
kind of hard to tell where the limbs end and
the power lines begin. What should I do about this?
Bare minimum? Call oppd Yes, I'm here at fifty third
and Decatur, and I've got tree limbs that are co

(06:02):
mingling with power lines and I don't like that kind
of thing. I think the tree limbs should be over
here on their side of the property line, and the
I don't like them mixing around with the power lines.
You know, it makes me mad to see tree limbs
and power lines getting so close. You're like, are we
still talking about tree limbs and power lines? And I

(06:23):
tell you another thing. I don't want to see some
tree limb out there boxing the power line in the Olympics, Like,
all right, one thing at a time, Calm down, how
about this. We'll put you on our list. It's our responsibility.
Now you've done the absolute bare minimum. You've told the
power company and they've got tree trimming people to go
around and do this kind of thing. I don't know

(06:44):
if they charge you, if it's on if it's on
your property or whatever. But you've told someone there's a
problem here. Now if they don't decide to do anything
about it, well that's on them. So what's the bare
I'm asking the people to do. Make a phone call

(07:05):
and I'm man, I got people in the email going,
oh so easy for you to say you probably have
three phones, you know, Like, I A why do people
just want to fight about all of this at a
time when we still have neighbors helping neighbors and requests
like this one. The restaurants. There are still some restaurants

(07:26):
that don't have power. They're told they might get the
power back tomorrow, maybe wednesday. Some of these places have
been closed for a week. And these are some of
these restaurants and little mom and pop shops. There's a
great story from WOWT six news talks about a couple
of restaurants. We have so many restaurants in this town.
I've never heard of either of these places, Lucy, have

(07:48):
you ever heard of Favero's? I have not, little Greek
joint and Papilion Favero. And then near one hundred and
twentyan Center, there's a place called Report in Pub.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Some of the best fried cauliflower anywhere.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Oh you've been to the Report in Yes?

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Is that in the different?

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Is that in the What is the Westwood Shopping Center? Yeah,
there's a lot of great stuff in there. Every once
in a while, I delve into the dark corners, the
far reaches, the outer banks of the Westwood Shopping Center.
Don't forget it's got a backside. Oh we didn't forget
about the backside. No, you calm down. It's got all
kinds of great shops over there. I missed the movie theater.

(08:33):
But yeah, they got a joint over there called Report
in the Report in Pub. And both these people are saying, yeah,
we tried to give a lot of the food away.
We gave it to employees, gave it to other people.
I come get this food. We had to throw it away,
and they had to throw some of it away, and
they say, we want you know, food will always be
fresh when you come in. Hey, when we get power

(08:56):
later this week. We've been closed for a week. That's
not good for business. What are they asking for. They're saying, hey,
if you're going to go out and get something to eat, lunch, dinner,
Sunday brunch. In the case of Favara's, hey don't forget
about us that have been without power for a long time,
and there's a lot of us. They're dealing with it.

(09:17):
And we know if you're in that part of town
and you've been without power, then the restaurants have been too.
And they're saying, hey, when you get a chance in
the next couple of weeks, mix in a night out.
You certainly have earned it at this point and stop
by and grab some food.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
I'll definitely do that and report in and then I'll
have to try Favarro's.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
I have not been so least people are asking. There
are people out there helping other people and all this stuff.
But I was just going to tell you when OPPD
suggests that more and more people will have power in
the next couple of days. But in trying to grab
a piece of paper here on my desk, I flicked

(09:56):
it with my fingers and it flew an impossible distance
away from But that's fine. It happens to coincide with
this word from our sponsor's break and I'll get it
during this time and I'll give you that information next
Scott Scott atkfab dot com and the Zonker's Custom Woods
inbox and Lucy, we got a lot of people giving

(10:16):
you a rare check your facts. Fool. I don't like
people calling you a fool.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
But oh, the wrong place?

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, well you're right corner or right intersection, wrong corner.
It could be that you don't know the names of
all the various subdivisions around there. Oh, I said, all right,
So this report in pub about one hundred and twentieth
and Center is that in the I said, I think
they call it the Westwood development over there, that would

(10:46):
be the southwest corner of one hundred and twentieth and Center.
And you said, yeah, it's across the street, northwest corner
of one hundred and twentieth and Q in the bel
Air development. That's where that's where Knobby's was and then

(11:09):
it's it's back a little further northwest of there.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
No, that's what I'm talking about. Then I just told
you the wrong thing. But that's where I was when
I had a delicious cauliflower.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I'm not suggesting that you don't that you haven't been there,
Like I said, I think it's just that you don't.
Maybe we both don't know the names of the developments
around there. I didn't give you a direction. I just
said the west Wood Shops where the movie theater and
the Bakers and all that. It's across the street from that.
It's over there.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah. Yeah, it's the same size. It used to have
a W. C. Franks.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
That's that's going back a very long but yeah, at
that I remember where W. C. Franks was over I think.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
It might have even been in the.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, this is this is when you know you're listening
to two people who like decided in about nineteen ninety seven.
This is the extent of my knowledge, and I will
learn nothing more. So, Yeah, northwest corner of one hundred
and twentieth and Center, that's where you'll find W. C. Franks,
Knobbies and Richmond Gordman.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Also, there's a my buddy used to work at a
temp place over there, one of those snelling places. They
would provide temp jobs. You go in there and go,
I need a job, and they'd say, all right, do
you know how to collate like I used to date colate?
Like that's good, they'll teach you. Anyway, show up at
this place at this time, go go do a temp job.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Okay, So I had the right place. Yeah, and I
had it in the right place in my head. I
just told you incorrectly.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yes, fine, and Angelo says, favero, this is These are
the two restaurants that were profiled by WOWT six in
terms of just two restaurants out of dozens of examples
of businesses, but especially restaurants that have been without power
now since Wednesday night and they had to chuck all
their food away or give it out or whatever, and

(13:06):
anyway they can't open with no electricity. That means those
employees aren't getting paid, the management's not getting paid. You know,
it's a rough deal for these restaurants that like this.
One guy at the report in his name is Saul,
and he says, we've never shut down for six days.

(13:27):
And the other one was in papillion at Favero, a
Greek place, and Angelo wants to point out Favero is
the best kept secret in town. Great food, homemade cooking,
homemade deserts, great prices, friendly service. They make you feel
like family every time you walk in that place. Signed,
I totally don't own this place. Now, I'm kidding. All

(13:49):
these restaurants are very happy that they have patrons willing
to stick up for him, and that's why they're saying, Hey,
when we get power back, don't forget about us that
have been without power for in some cases a week.
Now here's how it's reported from k E TV news
Watch seven burring any unforeseen circumstances or issues, which at

(14:12):
this point, why not Israel and Iran go to war?
We end up getting a missile that was intended for
Tehran or the Gaza Strip or whatever. It accidentally hangs
a right and ends up in Omaha, Nebraska, and we

(14:34):
get why wouldn't that happen? At this point? You know,
that's that's the pessimistic side of me. I really do
try and suppress this is you trying to suppress, Yes,
this is the pessimistic side of me. I really try
to suppress. Can now picture myself standing there looking at
a storm cloud bearing down on Omaha, one of those

(14:57):
I don't think shelf cloud is the right term for
what we saw like on Wednesday night. We've seen this
a few times. I call it the Independence Day Cloud,
one of the greatest movies of all time. As the
alien craft is coming into Los Angeles, it's obscured for
a time by this rolling cloud that looks like an

(15:19):
alien UFO. And that's what we have bringing these straight
line wind events into Omaha. And we saw it again
on Wednesday and I thought, oh, oh, today we celebrate
our Independence Day, Bill Pullman. So I'm looking up at
a cloud, one of those clouds coming into Omaha while

(15:41):
checking the stock market ticker on my phone, going well,
I guess the kids aren't going to college and I'll
be working into my nineties. There goes all of those investments.
And then I look up over my right shoulder and
here comes a missile from Iran that was intended for
Israel and it took a rite and now it's going
to drop down into Omaha. And my last thought is, well,

(16:08):
how am I going to get to the radio station
to report on all of this right before I'm obliterated.
So when OPPD says barring any unforeseen circumstances or issues,
that's immediately what I think of. And probably the seventeen
or the one hundred and whatever year cicadas or whatever. Uh,

(16:31):
they're also you know, gnawing at my shoelaces, barring any
unforeseen circumstances or issues. Here is OPPD estimations for when
more people should have their power. By the end of
the day today there should be twelve six hundred customers

(16:54):
rejoined with electricity. Where are we at right now? We
have a total twenty five thousand, six hundred and four
people without power. Twenty one thousand, five hundred of them
are in Douglas County. We got about thirty three thousand,
seven hundred and sixty of them in Sarpee County without power.

(17:16):
So right now twenty five thousand, six hundred people know power.
They say, by the end of the day today, about
half of you will have your power back. What if
I'm not in that half by the end of the day.
And this is where it jumps. So by the end
of the day Wednesday, about five eight hundred more customers

(17:40):
should have power. By the end of the day on Wednesday, Lucy,
help me with the math here. So we got about
twenty five hundred and six right now, we have twelve
six That gets us to this is easy math. Unless
I'm trying to do it on the radio.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Why are you asking me?

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
I know it's eleven thirty.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Do I look like that math guy on late night TV?

Speaker 2 (18:08):
There's a math guy on late night TV.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
In the eighties trying to sell you his math, his
math process.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
No, I didn't watch that.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Apparently I didn't either.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
All right, So by their estimation, by the end of
the day today, there will still be thirteen thousand, one
hundred customers without power by the end of the day Wednesday.
Wait is tomorrow Wednesday? No, we're gonna have Tuesday this week.
We're gonna have a Tuesday this week. I got stuff
to do tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
I have to be a fun Plex.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Lucy's gonna go hang out at fun Plex tomorrow. It's
gonna feel like it's seventy degrees cooler tomorrow and still
be hot. By the end of the day Wednesday, another
fifty eight hundred customers should be able to turn lights
on and off, and after a week with no power.
You are for given. If you just spend some time

(19:02):
like a little kid, turning the light switch on and off,
just gigging, giggling uncontrollably. You know what's a strobe light effect.
You'll be throwing your own personal rave party. That leaves
seven three hundred customers still without power across the area
as they wake up on Thursday, and that's still a

(19:24):
lot of people without power, which suggests to me that
the reason that this is going so slowly is because
we have very big problems and specific like on specific streets.
We're not really looking at neighborhoods so much anymore as
specific streets. And then homeowners because getting those last individual homes,

(19:45):
the last couple hundred or so usually takes a really
long time because they got damaged to their home, damage
to the mast. Look at me, using the term that
we learned on Friday, it's where the power lines connect
to your home via the mast. And that's going to
take a lot of time to get those reconnected because
you got to get an electrician out there, You got
to fix the thing. They got to come out and

(20:06):
do the thing, got to do the coupling get connected
over here. It takes a long time, and that's usually
the last couple hundred, not the last seven thousand, what
I say, eight hundred or so customers, seven three hundred customers.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
I know OPBD has made a lot of statements, They've
given some great information. But have I just missed it
or is there a specific reason why this is lasting
so long? It was because so many actual wires are
down that have to be physically reconnected to the polls.
Is that the problem?

Speaker 2 (20:41):
I just gave you my assessment in terms of an
official statement. I have reached out to OPPD this morning,
and uncharacteristically, I have yet to hear back. I don't
think that they're snubbing me.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Well, I'm just wondering if this has anything to do
with the kinds of things that could happen with overloads
when we have a lot more electricity pulling.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
I wouldn't think that'd be a problem with so many
customers still without power, and the rest of us are like,
I have power and I'm gonna set my thermostat to
fifty seven degrees because it's hot outside. So I don't
think that that's the But at some point today I
would like to hear from OPPD on this program. Until then,
I'll just hold you hostage and make you keep listening

(21:25):
until we get some official word about to answer. An
answer to your question might not be the answer everyone loves,
but an answer, and then the issues when it comes
to how much time have they spent the last few
years trimming these tree limbs around the power lines. Roger
Olsen is hanging out here in the studio. Lucy Chapman's here.
I'm Scott Vorhees. This is news Radio eleven ten KFAB,

(21:48):
Nebraska's news, weather and traffic station. Scott ATKFAB dot com.
A lot of people very upset with the local utility.
I'll give you a hint. It's not mud. So we'll
get some of these emails in a moment. Roger Olsen,
kfab's living legend, an icon in the local broadcasting scene,

(22:11):
was without power for how many hours? Ninety two hour.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
Hours until yesterday afternoon. I was not home, my wife was.
She just said, there's guys with a truck who looked
like utility guys in our backyard.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
So at this point you don't care. How Oh, hello,
Lebanese terrorists, you know whatever.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
You're right dressed up.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
They have they have Yeah, out of equipment on their
tool belt and up the pole down.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah. Meanwhile, they're there. It's a diversion. They're clearing out
Fort Knox. You know they're gonna do some stuff. I
don't care as long as I get my air back.
Is the plot of a die Hard movie, I think,
But you've got air conditioning back. But you were, you
were swell swell teren there for ninety two two hours. Now,
my son and I went back to school shopping. He's
fourteen years old. He's gonna be a freshman in freaking

(23:08):
high school here next week. Kind of happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I know. They go back to school next week.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
I know.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
It's ridiculous. So my son, who only wears two outfits,
and you would think it must be very easy to
go back to school shopping for the lad who only
wears two things. You'd be surprised at how picky he
can be about these two things. But we were at
Shields yesterday. Okay, fine, partner of ours here eleven ten

(23:36):
kfa B.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
I love Shields. It's been a while though.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
And we walked upstairs on the other side, like all
the golf stuff's over here, and then you got the
expanse for the fires wheels down below, and then the
other side of it. I just noted that there is
you can buy your own personal sauna. And I don't
mean like a big sauna you would attach to your

(23:59):
high and you could put a few people in there,
like a bunch of naked guys, you know, and you know,
hanging out after a Friar's club rose. I mean like
it's for one person. And I didn't, I didn't. Look,
I'm not interested in buying that. I imagine it's probably pretty expensive.
But see, you, for ninety two hours had your own
personal sauna. People are paying good money for that kind

(24:21):
of thing, whether it's their own personal thing they can
get at a place like Shields, or whether it's at
a club and gym. They pay good money for a sauna.
You were just given that for free. Well, so do
you want to thank anyone for this opportunity?

Speaker 4 (24:38):
No, I don't, but I will say thank you for
the idea to monetize the next you know.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
See, I hadn't even considered that. I hadn't some of
the those but I have water.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
I mean, you know, it didn't affect my you know water,
so you know, we could get some hot rocks because
a lot of times saunas, you know, they used to
steam off the rocks.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Grabbed any rocks outside. They're pretty hot by now. Oh sure,
poor a little water on there, I've got the shower. Yeah,
or as there was an apartment well there still is
an apartment complex in Ralston where we thought it would
be fun to go in some time. And my buddy thought, well,
I understand you got to pour some liquid on the
rocks in the sauna to make it go, and so

(25:22):
he pulled pourt a whole diet coke on there. Oh
it's at it. I always thought you were going in
another direction. Now it was an unusual experience. I don't
think that's recommended. So yeah, you could. You could pay people,
I mean people could pay you, I mean to come
in there and use your sauna. So ninety two hours,
when did you get the power back?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
About mid afternoon yesterday about two.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
And you were taking your third cold shower of the
day just to cool off. Did that life in particular
and deal with the constant sexual frustration third cole shower
of the day.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
That can happen in January? I mean that's yeah, we
don't need this.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
But.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
You know it, it does make you think, first of all,
about how dependent we are on electricity over the long term. Now,
you know, we've had power outages and we're in a
neighborhood that has you know the above. You're a midtown Yeah,
we're midtown, so we don't have underground wires. Not that
that necessarily means you don't have outages.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
I know. I think Gary was out for a little
while or a day, or.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
He's out in Elcorna.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, and so a lot of people that have you know,
underground wiring, I think they're totally immune while they're not,
especially when you have the whole city get whacked. I mean,
the system just took you know, it was it took
a number on the system.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Listen to this guy, though this is brutal. Dave email
Scott at kfab dot com says, Hi, Scott, I'm around
seventy second and Dodge my power went out for a
few days. And wait a second, that's the wrong email.
I'm trying to listen to this guy. Yeah, it wasn't

(27:13):
this guy. There was. There was a person who emailed
and said my power was out for a few days.
Dave's goofing around here with something about how loud a
neighbors generators are.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, I had a couple going on.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
But someone was without power for a few days and
the power came back for like four you know, it
flickered and was on for like a half an hour.
Then it went out again. And this was on Saturday,
and it's still out. Oh no, I mean, that's that's
psychological torture.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
It is that it's it's like foolishness, like what what happened?

Speaker 2 (27:45):
We had we had we had air conditioning for like
fifteen twenty minutes and then it's gone.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
I know, and I was fearing that I was here.
Don't tease me. Yeah, you know, because it has happened before.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Now regarding power lines and Roger, you can hang out
here if you want to do whatever you want. Mike
emails subject line, and I'm gonna read it in the
way that he wrote it.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
You are wrong.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
OPPD says homeowners should never approach or trim limbs near
power line. And that's what I said too, Mike. Uh,
if you've got power lines or if you have tree
limbs approaching the power lines and you're still you know,
some distance away and you can safely go trim them.
Then safely go trim them. You can see where they're
going to grow towards. They're gonna go towards the light.

(28:34):
Carol Anne, there's your eighties movie reference for this segment
of the radio program. Yep, thank you. Lucy wouldn't get that.
She would say, happy Gilmour, Lucy, you go, okay over there,
Roger's here.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, I know it's good to hear Roger on there.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
All right, So I said, the least you can do
is call OPPD until them. We've got power lines and
tree limbs co mingling, and I don't like it. They're gonna,
you know, someone's gonna think you're a racist for that.
But Mike says, this includes if you try and hire
someone to do it. The fact is our electric rates
include maintaining line clearance. Despite previous problems, calls and line

(29:12):
crews own notifications. OPPD has disregarded their responsibility four years.
They should be doing this, That's what Mike says, sent
to Scott at kfab dot com. Now, does anyone actually
call and tell them? Yes, Diva says one of my
favorite names in the Zonker's Custom woods inbox says, I

(29:36):
live behind the cemetery at eighty fourth and L. Sure,
that's right across from the old rolls. You know, Lucy
and I were joking like, oh, one hundred and twentyeth
and Q W. C. Franks, Richmond Gordman, noobbies. Places that
aren't there anymore. Eighty fourth and L Ralston Bank Grandmother's. Yeah,
I can't remember the name. That's the Jewish thing. It's
a Jewish cemetery there on the south southwest corner of

(30:00):
fourth and now says I live behind it. The trees
are growing over and on power lines. I have reported
to OPPD several times with no response. Not sure why
this is supposed to be an option. Pretty sure I'm
not the only one in this situation. Maybe OPPD should
take care of these things to try to avoid outages.

(30:22):
That is from Diva. She actually calls and reports these things.
She says, they don't do anything about it.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
There's a lot of trees in the city and the
Forestry Department of OPPD, I'm sure, and I've seen that.
Just so you know, I have seen them actually out trimming. Yes,
in fact, the big cottonwood behind my house. Although the
owner of that cottonwood does every few years get a
good trimming on it, so they don't have to come
out as often, but they do do it, and they

(30:52):
do trim trees just for that reason.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
But I'm glad that you have electricity, Roger. The time
you were spending here at the radio station just to
power your phone and take advantage of our air conditioning
was getting to be a problem.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Did you know about that?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, but we we like seeing you. Thanks a lot
for hanging out in the radio.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Did you know my wife used your couch?

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Did she? Did she sleep on my couch?

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (31:16):
She did? Win because I was here Saturday right after
you left. Okay, I was here. Okay, she came in. Well,
it's hot, it's hard to sleep. It's air conditioning here.
There's this couch. It's sunk in real deep, which is
kind of difficult. Like a lot of couches at radio stations.
Everyone's available to use it, and I'm sure it's all
on the up and up. So it was good to

(31:38):
see you. I'm glad don got a little respite she
did on the couch in my office.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
All right. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
We've got more of your emails coming up, including some
questions about what about this with the trees, and what
about this drop off site? We'll get to that in
a second. News radio ELEVENFAB. People are hot and bothered.
I think a lot of people on Thursday Friday morning,
we're look, you know, these crews are working really hard.
We got to give them a lot of grace. We
might be without power for a few days, and let's

(32:05):
look out for each other. That was kind of the
overriding tone, and it was a beautiful one. Today we
have a markedly different tone from several people, including this
email via the Zonker's Custom woods inbox from Kent sent
to Scott at kfab dot com. Kent says, so the
CEO of OPPD is paid eight hundred and fifty six

(32:27):
thousand dollars. I wonder if he has power, OPPD should
give the last person back online one hundred thousand dollars
directly from his salary. So the last person who gets
their power connected should be like, sorry, your power was last.
Here's one hundred grand. Kent also notes that he is

(32:49):
still without power. Hot and bothered. People are wondering about
three limb drop off sites of what's going on there?
They just opened up one in Sarpi County because they
had to close the one near one hundred and sixty
eighth in Highway three seventy that's closed, that is full.
The Papio Narda has opened a new tree debris drop

(33:12):
off location for Sarpee County residents at one hundred and
eightieth and Meridian Street. That's one hundred and eightieth and
Meridian Street. That's now open for you in Sarpee County,
Omaha closed toll park because that's now full. The rest
of them are still open. I'm trying to keep up
with these emails Scot at kfab dot com Zonker's Custom

(33:35):
woods inbox, and this is all related to the storm,
especially when these emails start off with please please don't
say my name on the radio. So mister no name.
Poor guys parents didn't give him a name when he
was born, or girl or an Algerian boxer somewhere in between.

(34:01):
This guy email says at a fort as a forty
plus year lineman, I assure you that a year from now,
when this out had just forgotten, tree crews will be
scolded if they take more than one or two years

(34:22):
growing off of trees away from the primary voltage lines.
That means, well, I'll read the rest of the email
and you'll understand the meaning. Here Oppd's phone will be
ringing off the hook. Why why did you butcher my
beautiful tree? Hey, this great tree, and why can't you

(34:43):
just cut it within a half an inch of the
power lines. You have to come out there and just
start whacking away at the thing. Yeah, when they come
out and they see people been emailing all morning chastising OPPD,
they never come out. They don't keep up with tree trimming.
That's their job to do this, they never do it.
That's funny. I remember many people emailing over the years,

(35:05):
going I want to complain about OPPD. They came out
there into clear tree limbs near the power line. They
just came out there and just started just hacking at it.
And now I got this huge air tunnel around the
power lines in my tree. They didn't even try to
shape it or nothing. They just destroyed it. And he says, Yep,

(35:29):
when people forget about this outage and OPPD is out there,
and if they trim more than one or two years
worth of growth growth off the trees, people complain, why
did you butcher my beautiful tree? This guy email says,
since I retired, I do some damage assessment around the

(35:51):
country on larger outages. Every major city in the older
neighborhoods look exactly like Omaha's older neighborhoods with the old
lines and the large tree. In other words, he says,
we do go out there and do this. Omaha is
a big place. How many tree crews do you think
we have? Now he's not saying that. I read him

(36:11):
between the lines here, so.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Yeah, I think the big difference also with all of this,
even if they could get out to every single house, Yeah,
the big difference is that that wind was so heavy
or so strong, or terrible however.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
You want to it was just mean.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
It was mean. It was mean, exactly right that it
wasn't even about the branches. Certainly the branches did a lot,
but because entire trees were knocked down, it wouldn't have
mattered if your branches were cut back.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Well, I'm just like I said a few minutes ago.
I think Thursday and Friday mornings, people were like, Hey,
these crews work really hard, and let's go out there
and take them some lemonade. You see him out there working.
These guys are great, and now people are like, I
hate these guys and they're all bad.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
No.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
If BBD doesn't do nothing, and I don't how much
does that CEO make. I bet he has power. Someone
emailed and said, yeah, I bet he does have power.
He lives in Lincoln.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Scottikfab dot com. Brian emails and said, we got a
generator on Saturday. We were the one house in the
neighborhood devoid of darkness. Why did I get a generator
on Saturday so I could watch SummerSlam? I think that's
a WWE thing. If it's not WWE, it's one of

(37:38):
the wrestling things. I loved me some WWF in the
eighties and I haven't really paid any attention since then.
So when I talk about and we talked to WWF wrestlers,
Greg the Hammer, Valentine's been on the show. He'll Billy
Jim's been on this show. Didn't I just talk to

(37:58):
somebody else? I don't know, Yeah you did, Yeah, yeah
I did. I don't remember who was. Oh h, So
he says, I, uh, I got the generators? Who we
watch SummerSlam and the Terrence Crawford fight. By the way,

(38:21):
Super tardy in saying this. Congratulations to Bud Crawford, Omaha
Zone first bout at one hundred and fifty four pounds.
He claimed the junior middleweight title, which is awesome that
he's a junior anything. The dude's like thirty some years old,
but that's what they call the title. Fourth belt in

(38:41):
four different weight classes, over forty one fights, thirty one knockouts.
Dude is absolute one of the greatest fighters of all time.
And if he doesn't come back to Omaha upon retirement
and open an Italian restaurant so people go in there
and be like, hey, Champ, you know post for pictures

(39:02):
where he's pretending to knock you in the jaw like
Rocky Balboa, then what are we even doing? I want
to go to his I don't know if Bud Crawford
likes Italian food, but can't you just come back at
some point long after you're done, open an Italian restaurants
people and just come in there and go, Hey, Champ,
I want to see him around town people do I've
never seen him around town? Hey Champ, I love that

(39:25):
Omaha has got a Hay Champ. Bud Crawford, Congratulations, great,
great battle, went the distance, knocked the guy down once.
The ref's like you tripped him, all right, whatever, I'll
just have to pummel him even more mercilessly. Great fighter
he fought in Israel, Madramoff went the distance in twelve rounds,

(39:48):
one after going to the scorecards. Good job, Bud. So
that's why Brian got a generator. I wanted to watch
the Bud Crawford fight. Brian says, this has been terrible.
People need to be minded where to go to cool off.
Me and my kids slept in the car Friday night
because it's the only place we could go where I
could get the temperature below ninety degrees. Yeah, the Salvation

(40:12):
Army has got I don't think you can sleep there though.
They've got the uh.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
The US open and close hours.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, they've got some uh well, it's you know during
the afternoon, that's when it's one hundred degrees. You know,
in the evening it's a cool eighty three degrees or whatever.
The low temperature has been. Yeah, I've heard people going
into their car just to cool off, going to see
Deadpool and Wolverine eight times in a row, just get

(40:40):
out of the the heat, get some ac and watch
what I imagine is a really great movie. I can't believe
I haven't seen it yet. My daughter saw it last night.
My daughter, she hadn't even seen the first two Deadpool movies. Whatever.
People have been taking cold showers, people have been going
into businesses, and if you have a basement, that basement,

(41:02):
I'm sure it's pretty sticky at this point, but it's
a lot cooler than the rest of the house. So
and hopefully it's not to where the basement is getting
so hot without any air circulation down there that you
got mold growing. That might be the next thing to
watch out for. Plagues, famine, pestilence, war in the Middle East,
mold in your basement. Stock Markets down a thousand points

(41:24):
one point trillion, but Lucy house traffic, you know what?
One point four trillion? What cash? Moneynies?

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah, money's dollars.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
That's how many we've lost right now, and the not
how much you've lost. Lucy's invested completely in bitcoin, So Brian,
good luck man. More emails. Mark says Scott, were you
at the gin Blossoms towed the Wet Sprocket Vertical Horizon
concert on Friday at the Astro Amphitheater. If not, you

(41:55):
have a doppel ganger roaming the city of Omaha. Awesome concert,
by the way, that's from Mark No. I've seen Jin
Blossoms a couple of times, seen Vertical Horizon once, and
seeing Toad the Wet Sprocket. I think just once love.

(42:15):
I love two out of three of those bands. Vertical
Horizons all right, but.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
No.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
On Friday night, I was at Steelhouse for l King.
That was a great show, super good time there on
Friday night. As far as my doppelganger, probably Denzel Washington,
I get that a lot. I think he does too.
I heard from someone over the weekend that is super

(42:43):
mad that he doesn't have power because in the last
year or so he bought a really expensive generator to
be able to use it for times like this. But
he didn't lose power for more than about an hour
or two on Wednesday night. And so he's got this
generator and.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
He loaned it out to somebody and even use it.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, I'm sure at a reasonable hourly rate. Yeah, I
don't know, but he was all mad. He's like, I
got this generator and I don't even have a reason
to use it. Well, that's how it goes. You know,
if you wash your car, it's gonna rain.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Oh, so I just need to go buy one. Yeah,
if you keep the power on.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Right, Yeah, if you you know, the generators are not cheap, right,
and the people stereotypically be more likely to be able
to afford a luxury item like a generator probably live
in West Omaha where the power lines are buried and
they're not going to lose power for very long. Though
there are plenty of people in West Omaha still without power.

(43:40):
My buddy Dave was one of them. He's like, still
don't have it. It's a war zone out here, and
he lives in El Gretna, that no man's land between
l Corn and Gretna, Gretcorn and so. But still, I mean,
stereotypically speaking, it would be those people, you know, they're
posh West Omaha holmes and their keys to the country

(44:02):
club and spending their weekends hanging out on their yacht,
that they would have a generator and they don't lose
power very long, they don't need it. What a great
time to start going door to door and offering up
use of your generator. I'll tell that to my buddy
he probably already did it. I only associate with the

(44:22):
nicest and most charitable What are you laughing at? Scott
for News Radio ELEVENFA Luke emails and says it was
the Honkey talk Man. Just had the Honky TNK Man
on here, saying we interviewed a handful of WWF superstars
from days gone by, and I said, we just talked
to someone who was it. I don't know. I'm barely

(44:43):
listening to this show. I don't remember what we did.
A few weeks ago. The Honky talk Man was on
here before he was at Omaha Comic Con. That's right.
I can't believe you forgot that, Lucy. You know what,
you were so excited about it.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Because you know what, I talked to him. I went
up and talked to him, and I said that I
was talking about something else, but I said, and he
mentioned that he was just on the air with somebody
here in town that was me, And I said, you work.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
See he didn't remember me either, Well I didn't. By
the way, did you have a good weekend? What'd you do? I?

Speaker 3 (45:22):
Oh, I was out of Shadow Lake.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
It must have been great. You're at a shadow Lake
on Friday night? And then you had a whole rest
of the weekend.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Went to anniversary lunch.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Happy anniversary to you and mister Chapman, Happy anniversary.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
It was twelve years. I bought him a dozen donuts.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
A dozen donuts, one for each year that you bought
him the donuts? How many did he eat compared to
how many you ate? I'm not calling you fast. Wow,
you're the one that's always wanting donuts.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
Really okay, I'm not even answering that.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I think we all know the answer to that.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Wow, going to just double down?

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Did you give him one? Did you leave him one?

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Wow? Wow?

Speaker 2 (46:08):
What doughnuts are good and good for you?

Speaker 3 (46:13):
You can shut up your face.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
I'm sorry that, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Aren't you going to be talking to the city councilman here?

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Thirteen minutes, Linda emails, and he's a state center. Linda says,
how about a comparison between the forestry budget in OPPD
for trim and trees and all that compared to their
Green Initiatives budget. OPPD people must be in a high
level meeting today, because I've now messaged two of them

(46:44):
over the span of the last several hours, and I
have not heard back from either of them. I imagine
that there's something. There's something either they're they're hiding, which
I don't think is the case, or they're having a meeting.

(47:05):
Craig says, this is so simple, Scott, we just need
to go back to the treeless plain that God intended.
Please let the Leeds Center in Nebraska City know they
should be promoting planting grass instead of trees. That's true
Nebraska conversation. And by the way, when he says grass,
he doesn't mean weed.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
He noted that.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
I mentioned earlier that Papio NRD has opened up the
a new drop off location southwest corner of one hundred
eightieth and Meridian Streets one hundred eightieth and Meridian Streets
in Sarpi County. This is for Sarpie County residents because
the one they had off one hundred and sixty eighth

(47:46):
in Highway three seventy is full. Toll Park in Omaha
is full. The other drop off locations are I believe
they're still open, but I drove by Heflinger Park this
morning expecting to still see some cars lined up, and
I didn't see any cars lined up, And I thought
I saw up the hill some tape up there to

(48:10):
suggest not here. I don't know if that was directional
or for the entire park. So if you're in that
area and you know whether or not Heflinger Park is
open for tree debris, that'd be good to know. I
started off the show here. There's so many emails. Here
she is Kathleen, She says, good morning. We still have

(48:32):
fifty homes, including ours, without power here in Greenbrier.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Now.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Greenbrier is the area around near downtown Elcorn where they
have the tree drop off site there at Greenbrier Park,
and Kathleen says, I wanted to give a positive report
about the debris site at Greenbrier. The workers are efficient
and swift and patient. Trucks and equipment come through the

(48:57):
neighborhood to pick up branches. We had literally tons of
large branches fall on our property from another's property, and
the team was wonderful helping lift and remove the ginormous
pieces that my husband had cut. We would still be
out there working on the big stuff if not for
their wonderful work. That is from Kathleen and Elkhorn, and

(49:20):
that's awesome to hear. Pete says, would you please find
out what the rules are regarding the length and especially
the maximum diameter of the tree limbs to be picked
up at the curb. There seems to be some confusion.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
Well, who's measuring?

Speaker 2 (49:36):
I know this is what has been driving me crazy,
including on the radio on Friday. And if you're making
judging by your laughing over there, I thought you're making it.
You are talking about guys measuring versus the reality of
the measurement. Are you right now?

Speaker 3 (50:03):
Lower you making?

Speaker 2 (50:07):
You're taking this opportunity guys like yep, this one's eh.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
When you start measuring the tree, don't start from the spine,
all right, Pete says, what is the length and the
maximum diameter of the tree limbs be picked up at
the curb? Vague is what we've got here. Now they're saying,
don't put your tree debris in the lawn and leaf

(50:36):
bags and put that by the curve to be picked
up with the rest of this tree debris unless you
buy some of those stickers from FCC Environmental from Waistline.
If you have your stuff in the tree, like lawnen
leaf bags, you can buy stickers, put the stickers on
there and they will come and pick those up. It's
going to cost you a few bucks. Or you can

(51:00):
take the lawn and leaf bags, load them up, take
them to the debris drop off sites, and then shake
the bags out on the pile of tree limbs because
they won't, for whatever reason, take the bags. What is
the I don't know what the problem is taking the bags.
The limbs are all collected nicely in the bags. This
is someone who loaded up nine bags worth and I

(51:21):
still have them in the bags. I don't know what
I'm gonna do with them yet, but like, well then
they won't go what the bags won't go in the
wood chipper, The paper lonen leaf bags won't go in
the wood chipper. That's all. It's it's you'd rather this is,
And yes, this is what they're saying. They would rather
have this big, unruly pile of sticks and branches and

(51:43):
limbs and debris and trunks and all this stuff out there,
just just an absolute mess.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
Anybody who's ever laid mulch can confirm that they are
not that picky about what's in the stuff that they're
chipping up. Or maybe I'm just buying really super cheap
mult I don't.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Know what their problem is with the stuff in the bags.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Well, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
I'm thinking about putting the bags out there and seeing
what they do with it. Well, it just makes it
makes no sense just just dump it all out there
on my curb.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
Well, if you put stickers on the bag, won't they
pick them up eventually?

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Well then, but I.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Don't know why they wouldn't take them. With the rest
of this stuff, it's paper, it's already it's all trees stuff,
so it's just a different form of tree. And anyway,
as far as the stuff they're on the curb, I mean,
I've seen everything piled there on the curb. What I
haven't seen is whether or not they're going to pick
it up. They haven't given any indication. In the past.

(52:41):
It's been like, all right, no longer than four or
six feet long and this much diamond. They haven't given
us any indication on that. I would think that because
it's just so massively unruly with a lot of the
stuff they're on the curbs, it's going to take forever
to get around town and pick this stuff up. Which fine,
worst case scenario, the grass under it there on the

(53:04):
hell strip between the street and the sidewalk, the grass
is gonna die. It's probably going into dormancy right now anyway.
So it's the worst case scenario. You're looking at a
bunch of dead branches for a month. Better in doing
it yourself. If you want to load them up and
take them to the tree debris site, you're welcome to
do that. And a lot of people are like, I'm
not gonna leave this stuff here for three weeks. I

(53:26):
totally get that. I still don't get why they won't
take the lot and leap bags. If this is what
you got, this is what I got, so that I mean,
I'll tell you what they're probably not gonna take over.
Off of Blondo Street in Midtown, there's one they've dumped
all the tree debris on the curb, and there's one

(53:49):
massive branch that's there on the curb. The problem with
this massive branch is it's still half connected to the tree.
They have it snapped off the tree, the leave part
of all of it and the branches that's all still
right there on the curb. I mean, it's if you
just cut it off from the tree, it will fall

(54:11):
into place, but they haven't done that yet. It's still
half attached to the tree. I don't think they're gonna
take that. I don't know if that's gonna work.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Well not so they disconnected, all right.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Teresa quick email here says, you guys are killing me
this morning as a groundskeeper. I'm out on the mower.
You guys are keeping my mind off the heat. I'm
laughing out loud all by myself as cars are going
by on the highway and probably wondering if I'm okay.
Thanks for the entertainment. That's from Teresa. Teresa, I'm glad

(54:42):
you're getting it done here before it gets really hot
this afternoon. Thank you very much for hanging out with us.
We now welcome on to the program. Nebraska State Senator
Justin Wayne loved the quote a couple of weeks ago
before the special session. It says the governor needs to
tell us when we're doing what When we can't just
all be on standby. We are not his slaves. Stay

(55:02):
Senator Justin Wayne, welcome back to news radio eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 5 (55:07):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Cancel your Christmas plans. The governor says, you'll have you
guys in there in the special session until Christmas till
we get some property tax relief based on how things
went after the first week. Are we ready to choose
one idea maybe his vote on it go home here
in a couple of days, or what's going on.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
I don't think his idea has a pathway forward. I
think there'll be a mixture of ideas to help move
us forward a little bit. But yeah, as long as
we have a schedule, I can do it. The problem is,
I'm an attorney here in Omaha, and I have another
branch of government who sets schedules for me too, and
so it's hard to set trials when we don't know
when we're going to be back in Lincoln. But we

(55:48):
got it worked out. We're there now and hopefully get
something done.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Hey, this is what you signed up for when you
decided to make twelve thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 5 (55:58):
Yeah I did. But just a little communication helps, and
so part of it is just organized and thought. So
once you know the call, the official call of the
special session, you can draft bills. And only having ten
hours to draft bills where we put a bind on
not just the elected individuals but the staff behind the
scenes working on that bill drafting. They had over one
hundred bills that they had to do in less than

(56:18):
twenty four hours, and so we just got to make
sure we get the law right, and staff and all
those got to read through it multiple times.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Well, let's start here big picture. The governor says, this
is to provide property tax relief. I think property owners
across Nebraska would agree that they're being property taxed way
too much. Do we have a strong majority of state
senators who agree we need to do something when it
comes to property tax relief or is that willingness not there?

(56:47):
Just from that standpoint, I think.

Speaker 5 (56:50):
We have a majority who wants to do something on
property tax relief. The question is is how? And for me,
just throwing more money in education funding without real structure
changes doesn't work. And we've tried the education funding at
least three different times in my lifetime, the last one
being in nineteen ninety when we created TIOSA and it
dropped property taxes for about four to five years, but

(57:13):
then at the state level we didn't fully fund education
and then now we're right back to where we are.
So I think we got to look structurally a little
more complex than just a quick win by throwing money
into education funding in.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Lowering property tax, So what is your idea.

Speaker 5 (57:29):
So, like, there's a couple of things. One is county jails.
I offered last year to take them over. They didn't
like that idea, So now I'm moving to reimbursing them.
And the theory is ninety five percent of the people
sitting in county jails are there because of state crimes.
We wrote the law. People are prosecuting them. The county
should not bear the cost of housing people in jail

(57:50):
for violating state laws. That by itself is about two
hundred and twelve million across the state. For Omaha area
Douglas County area, that's over fifty million. Actually the seventy
million in property tax relief instantly that we can do
from the state level.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Oh wa wait, but what you say reimburse them? That
money still comes from our tax dollars.

Speaker 5 (58:08):
I mean they didn't come from the state though, so
we would have to find different funding sources or use
what we have right now. As far as general funds,
we have extra billion dollars in general funds that we
can we can use to offset some of those costs.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
That suggests that the tax on my milk is going
to go down twenty percent but the tax on my
bread is going to go up twenty percent. I think
people are like, well, they're still going to hit me somewhere.

Speaker 5 (58:32):
Well, and that's where you have to start finding new
revenue streams.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
That's what State Senator Slama has been saying. She says,
this isn't a this isn't a a taxing issue. There's
a spending issue.

Speaker 5 (58:44):
One hundred percent. And that's part of putting zero caps
on counties and municipalities as part of looking at our
education system finding efficiencies, and looking at our judicial system
and finding efficiencies. For example, we have clerks and staff
at the county level who work for judges that are
on the county's payrolls instead of on the state's judicial payroll.

(59:04):
So those are the efficiencies we got to look at,
which requires a little more conversation and digging deeper than
just a simple less fund education and drop it for
three years and then five years or right back where
we are.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Well, I mean that still sounds like we're just moving
money from this source, same money over here in this pile,
and the taxpayers are still on the hook for it
in some way.

Speaker 5 (59:26):
Because then you find efficiencies too.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
So that's fine.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
I have some communities that have three people who are
in the clerk's office for six trials, and each county
who has three people when technology wise and everything else
that has changed, we could probably do that with two
people for a couple counties, and so looking at those
infrastructure changes just makes sense.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Has state auditor and former Lieutenant Governor Mike fully been
brought in and in any of this, He's constantly looking
at the budgets saying, I don't like this, I don't
like that these guys are wasting too much money.

Speaker 5 (59:57):
I've been trying to reach out. I've been talking to everybody,
including his office, every office, trying to look for efficiency
at the county and city levels. So yeah, I think
he's never brought in on multiple conversations, but those are
the kind of things you got to look at efficiencies,
reducing taxes, but also making sure that we find new
revenue strings, whether it's from tourism or other things.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Or other things. You said, maybe we can have some
legalized online sports wagering, and maybe we legalize and then
tax recreational marijuana. A little controversial, a.

Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
Little controversial, but the online sports betting, it made no sense.
During College World series, people literally would leave the stands,
walk halfway across the Bob Carry Bridge, place their bet
and come back. We're missing out on those revenues and
we're still as a stakes, particularly Omaha, filling the social
ills of gambling in general. So why not collect those
revenues to help offset some of those social reels.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
I draw a big delineation between those who have or
are have a proclivity to have a problem with gambling,
and at the same time also realized in Nebraska you
got everything from these online gaming systems and so many
different businesses around Nebraska. Gambling is gambling. You can lose
money a lot of money on those things, as well

(01:01:12):
as the Indian casinos and now we got you know,
horse race betting, and we've got Keno. I mean, there's
if you want to lose money gambling in Nebraska, you
can still do it. But I guess we've decided that
stuff like online sports gambling could be a major issue.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
I'm curious as to how this goes. Do you have
a lot of support for that? And what about the
legalized marijuana where my thoughts on that pretty much fall
the same way. If you there's a difference between being
full blown addicted and causing the problem and uh, you know,
just having a little bit here and there. I guess
that works for some people.

Speaker 5 (01:01:50):
So the online gambling obviously is different than than the marijuana. Again,
we've already authorized your point, these bank shots and gas
stations and there they're gambling everywhere. I don't think we
should limit it, we should figure out how to collect
those resources. As far as marijuana, what we've seen throughout
the industries, whether it's alcohol or tobacco, that actually legalizing it,

(01:02:12):
taxing it, and putting regulations and have a far greater
impact than just straight out prohibition. So if you look
at history itself, it's saying the way to move, the
way to protect our communities is to actually legalize it
and regulate it. I mean, if you look at tobacco,
the number of kids who are smoking has dropped drastically,
and it's part of not just regulation, but the industry
also putting in money and doing better marketing strategies to

(01:02:35):
make sure you educate the public on the negative effects
of tobacco. So regulation seems to work in those two areas.
But for this, for some reason, we just can't move
to legalizing weed, and I just disagree with it, especially
when you look at one hundred and fifty million dollars
revenue stream that cannot only deliver property tax release but
provide programs and things that are needed to offset these

(01:02:58):
negative ills that we've already we already experience in Omaha.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Two minus left here with Nebraska State Center, justin Wayne
of Omaha. You've also suggested maybe a two cent restaurant
tax across the state of Nebraska. The email just came
in from all of Omaha that says, quote, oh, for
crap's sake, signed everyone.

Speaker 5 (01:03:19):
I agree when the restaurant tax came out in the beginning,
I was adamantly opposed to it. But I think when
we look at our taxing system, we need to look
at once versus needs. And if I want to go
out and spend money on a restaurant or have some food,
that is a want. But I think there's complete differences
based off of needs. And the best example I use
is a haircut. Kids need their haircuts to go to school,

(01:03:40):
You want to get a new job, you typically have
your haircut. That is more of a need versus going
to a nel salon and getting your nails done. So
I think as a tax policy we need to be
looking at once versus needs, and I think going out
and spending money at a restaurant is a want, not
a need.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Don't take away my manicures from me manly manicures. Put
I put the main in manicure. Finally, here this is
really going to come down to, I think expectations. Some
people say, wow, they're talking about saving a bunch of
money in my property taxes. But this is only the
property tax that the state essentially collects. A large part

(01:04:19):
of your property taxes is being cut out from the
schools that's not included in any of this. So what
are the expectations in terms of how much property tax
relief Nebraskans could possibly get? And are the schools holding
hands with you on saying yeah, maybe we can cut
from a few different places.

Speaker 5 (01:04:36):
Well, the first misnomer is the state does not collect
any property tax, your property tax bills, all your local
political subdivisions like nrd city, counties and schools. So the
only way that we can deliver property tax relief is
to lower those individual levies. Gotta right now. Tied end
to the stage name everybody I just named, it's still
against this plan. So nobody wants to lower their levees.

(01:05:00):
In fact, during Pillon's introduction of his bill, there's about
eight hours of negative testimony. People just do not want to,
as Senator Slama said, do a tax shift. We really
have to figure out how to cut spending, all.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Right, but how much can we realistically expect from all
of this? And did the schools bears? Can someone say
to the schools, look, we give you a lot of
property taxes, we get lowered expectations, and we get higher
dropout rates, we get lower graduation rates from some school districts.
What are we really paying for here?

Speaker 5 (01:05:33):
I don't disagree with you on that. The governor's plan
calls for about a fifty percent reduction in property tax
that you would see on your bill. My plan calls
for about a forty percent reduction. It'll probably be somewhere
in between. But the biggest thing is we have to
make sure we're not shifting these taxes. At the end
of the day, we have to find cuts and efficiencies,
and we have to change our structures.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Stay Sanator justin Wayne of Omaha, appreciate your time here,
and I know you'll appreciate a couple of days off
from the special session before you get back to it
on Wednesday.

Speaker 5 (01:06:03):
Thank you so much, Scott Envoys Mornings nine to eleven,
Our News Radio eleven ten Kfab