March 31, 2024 • 50 mins
We continue the candidate interviews as part of the Vote in Leander series. Join us for a conversation with Fred Summers candidate for Mayor in Leander's 2024 election cycle. @leaninleander
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This past week I had the opportunityto sit down with a couple of mayoral
candidates and interview them as part ofthe Vote in Leander series. My interview
with Fred Summers is next here onLean and Leander. So we're back here
(00:24):
at Lantern Media Studios. I'm yourhost of Lean and Leander, Andrew Naudine,
and we are continuing with the Votein Leander series and today I'm here
with Fred Summers. Right, thankyou for joining me. I appreciate it.
You're welcome, all right. SoFred is one of the candidates who
has offered himself up as a mayoralcandidate. So what we're going to do
(00:48):
is spend a little bit of timehere talking to Fred, get a little
to know him a little bit better, and hopefully help you as a voter
kind of find out a little bitmore about him and help you make some
decisions on your voting. So Fredand I had met once before just to
kind of let you know, wemet one time. I think we had
coffee at Starbucks, right, yeah, so just to kind of get to
(01:10):
know each other a little bit beforewe did this, which was very nice.
And so we're going to kind ofstart with that you've been a Leander
resident for how many years? Now? Thirty years? Thirty years, So
you've been here a while a while. A lot of things change, right,
right, That's what we talked aboutwhen we had coffee. So tell
(01:30):
people what brought you to Leander?Obviously thirty years ago. Something happened got
you here? What was that?Well, growing up as a boy,
we enjoyed country living and being inAustin when I met my wife and starting
to have children. I think wehad four at the time when we moved
from Austin to Leander to get backin the country, right, Okay,
(01:55):
it makes it nice to raise childrenand you know, kind of all out
off the busy streets. Right.Austin was super growing, right, Right,
was far enough out there was atthe time, right, exactly exactly
right. Okay, So that's nice. So you came out here, I
guess right after you married your wifeand started your family, right, would
(02:15):
that be a fair assessment. Wewere actually about fifteen years into our oh
okay, been married forty three years. Oh wow, congratulations, that's a
good long time. That's a goodlong time. We're gonna make one little
adjustment, yes, So let's justmove it there a little bit, so
we get you better. Okay.So yeah, no, that's great,
that's that's awesome. I'm I'm closingin on thirty so it's not easy.
(02:43):
Any mile marker of that statue,right is quite an uncomised. Well,
thank you. I appreciate that.And the wives, of course, the
wives get the gold star. Wellyeah, and I mean they put up
with us for that long right,right. Okay, So now your family.
I've seen pictures of your family.I think you have three children,
right of six? Six okay,so I saw a picture with three of
(03:04):
them, right. One of thosewas my granddaughter, so well, okay,
of two girls, two boys,and then two more girls and they're
all flowing the coop now. Orwe have our youngest daughter who's twenty five,
still lives with it. Oh okay, okay, all right. So
and then you, as a residentof Leander, you started a business here
as well, right, I didtell us a little about your business.
(03:25):
We start a family businessing generator inthe generator world back in seventy eight,
and it grew. We started tosee that not only were the small generators
that were nice, and a motorhome generator that was a good start and
they were like a welder, soif it made electricity. We started working
(03:45):
Austin welder in generator service and wenoticed that there was the generators on concrete
in the state. They wouldn't move, so we went out to the standby
business got very big in that industryand moved away from the motor homes,
and so in two thousand, Idecided I would like to move back towards
the smaller generators, and that's whyI started another business. Okay, So
(04:11):
have you maintained the same kind ofbusiness like you know, I don't know
your your logo and your or haveyou kind of changed the business with the
changes that you've made on your focus. We did change okay, okay.
And it wasn't a branch. Itwas right right right brand new business.
Okay. So what is that?What do you called today? Well,
(04:31):
it's it's transitioned as well, okay, it's gen Tech to start in two
thousand, okay, and during theCOVID episode everything changed again. So I
brought everything close to home and usedmy nickname. A lot of my customers
had given me a nickname of generatorFred. Okay, so I changed that.
(04:54):
That's my New DBA. Okay,all right, all right, interesting
stuff, interesting stuff. And sofrom the business perspective, you've been a
business owner in Leander for is ithas been the full thirty years sir?
Okay, So the whole time you'vebeen a business owner, it's twenty four
twenty four years lived here, thirtytwenty four years business. Okay, all
(05:15):
right, all right, good clarification. Yes, so you've probably seen a
lot and you've probably had plenty ofopportunities to engage with you know, permitting
and things of that nature. Isthat one of the things that now,
what are some of the drivers thatare that? Are that are you know
that made you wake up one dayand said, you know what, I'm
gonna I'm gonna throw my hat inthe ring. I'm gonna run for mayor
(05:38):
here in Leander. What help usunderstand what some of that motivation is?
Great segue. They annexed our neighborhoodseven or eight years ago, and they
grandfathered my business at the time intothat picture. Okay, And some years
later we're having we have chickens onour property. So that's been that was
(06:00):
really a driving force that the cityhad adopted rules and regulations that now apply
to my your land, country livingland right right, And and I would
say, why you know, Imean once something in my view, from
my viewpoint, one size does notfit all right. So I think there's
(06:23):
a lot of people that fall intothose kind of categories. I thought,
you know, if we could managethose issues in a more gentle way.
That's so just a rules, arule. That's kind of really what pushed
me towards this. Okay. Ididn't do well trying to get it resolved
through the court system, so Ithought, well, let's try and inside
(06:46):
do it, let's do it allthe way. Okay. Now, hey,
that's a reasonable that's a reasonable motivationin my opinion. So you were
I think the term is ETJ,right, it was ETJ and then you
were annexed, right, And whendid that exactly happened? Like it's seven
years ago. I'm not real goodwith that, okay, okay. And
(07:06):
since then, now you know,you're in the city of Leander. As
far as that's concerned, has therebeen any particular items outside of your chickens
that that you've noticed, like someonewho's this is an interesting angle from my
perspective because I've really never talked toanybody who was in the ETJ who's now
(07:27):
in the city limits, right,So that's there are there are problems and
and and maybe you know some goodthings and bad things with that. What
has your experience been there like that'sinteresting to me. My observation was the
water and wastewater upgrade that comes alongwith that, And my concern was why,
(07:49):
you know, it's a rural it'sa rural neighborhood, so those I
have a lot of questions going intothis endeavor, and that's really I get
in a lot of trouble because Ihave more questions and I have solutions,
but I don't understand the mechanism ofrevenue for services that is required and it
(08:16):
comes with So it's I look atmy property as more of a hostile takeover
because I now have it's tied tothe water and wastewater, so they could
build I'm on about an acre lot, so they could probably build a couple
of houses on my lot and easilynow hook it to the water and wastewater.
(08:39):
That I'm hearing that that's going tobe a huge price for me as
a homeowner to tie into that thing. I've already taken care of making sure
my septic system is good and preparedit along the way. Well. So
now just there's things like that thatI'm convinced that one sized doesn't fit all
(09:00):
in our community, and I'm reallygoing after the residence the side of everything.
I want to live in an understandingway with more residents, get more
residents involved in what we're doing incity Hall. Now, I think it's
a I think it's a very validpoint and again a unique perspective on some
of the growth that we have herein Leander because again, and we've talked
(09:24):
about this pretty much with every candidate, whether they were an incumbent or not,
the growth has been exponential, right, It's it's been really fast,
and it's been a lot and sosometimes these types of I don't know if
you would necessarily refer to them astertiary issues, but they're they're kind of
like, well, you know,we're so concentrating on the growth and all
that stuff that maybe we inadvertently ornot, I don't know, but maybe
(09:50):
it's we neglect a few things thatmaybe there's an opportunity there to have some
more conversation or maybe even find amore f and ly methodology and using your
term, right, just to makeit a little bit easier for those folks
who who find themselves and by nofault of your own, right, I
mean, you just you lived here, right, and all of a sudden,
(10:11):
you know, you find and itcan't You're not alone. You're not
the only person who that's occurred to. Right. This is obviously going to
occur and probably will continue to occuruntil such time the city's growth is fully
realized. Right, there's always goingto be some annexation of ETJ. And
I know that I'm only kind offamiliar with that issue, right, I
(10:31):
don't have a whole lot of experiencedealing with that, but I've I've I've
some of the committees that I've servedon in some of the projects i'll call
them, that I've been involved with, or at least had some conversation about,
have touched on that from time totime. Right. So, again,
going from a very rural, uhyou know area here in Central Texas,
(10:54):
and I'm not saying we're necessarily becomingan urbanized area. There's some urban
development, but overall, I wouldn'tnecessarily refer to us as an urban area
at this point. It's again probablymore suburban than anything else, but it
is. It's interesting so beyond that, like you have a couple of things
(11:15):
that you're like, I'm really curiousabout this. I'd like to find out
more, and then it motivates youenough to where you're like, all right,
I'm going to run for mayor wasthere any one particular tell me the
one thing, like the one storythat because this happened, or because this
occurred, and it doesn't necessarily haveto be related specifically to the ETJ issue,
right, it could just be somethingelse. Like at that point,
(11:37):
you're like, you know what,I'm going to do this great conversation,
I am I do things by theseat of my pants. Person. I
am prone to jump in and thenwonder what did I do in many cases
in my life. All Right,that could be good. That might Hey,
(11:58):
it just depends on your perspective.Definitely. It definitely cuts out some
of the fear factor in what's goingon. Hey, the this go around,
it's been a combination of I'm gonnalay the foundation of the butt.
God. You know, everything inmy life is tempered by butt. God.
(12:22):
My my situation is going along,but God, this happened to me,
but God, this happened to myfriend, but God. So I
weigh the butt God factor in thisas well by seeing there's there's pressure points
in our midst right now, financial, political, I'm the the what what
(12:48):
another driving factor is? Remember theywould say, well, we don't talk
about politics and religion at Sunday dinner. I'm convinced that that was the wrong
own statement along the way. Sowe're I think that there's what's there's a
movement right now called the Great Awakening, and it's creating a conversation, it's
(13:09):
creating opening this this type of mediais overtaking mainstream media. So we're we're
moving into a whole new where whereGod allowed us to step into something that
makes more sense, to have aconversation, to work on things. I'm
(13:30):
a one and one thing that Ibring to the table no matter what I'm
doing, is I'm a great troubleshooter. Okay, by fixing generators, I
could say that I can. I'velearned skills to ask questions and they can
be asked over the phone. Youget to write people talking about a problem.
You can And again, we're ina new era. I've gone from
(13:54):
landline to the cell phone in mycareer and so now we have zoom.
That's all that's new to me aswell. But we can we can cover
a lot more ground. But wegotta find we gotta ask the right questions
and be talking to the right people. And if we got monkey I call
it monkey business going on anywhere.And that's really what I want to find
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out. Okay, what is pushingthings against our residence that doesn't need to
be pushed? Right? I callthat monkey business? Right? Right?
And I think I know what youmean by that. I mean, you
know, I think it's fair tosay you're very inquisitive from that perspective,
right You You at least look atsomething You're like, well, why is
(14:37):
that happening? Right? And sothere's a lot of people who would just
say why is that happening? Andthen move on? Right? Yes,
So part of your endeavor here,part of you your involvement or at least
you know, making yourself a publicfigure for because that's basically what you've done
at this point is uh is inquisitive. It's trying to find out, right,
And I don't see I don't seewhere there's U a whole lot of
(15:01):
there's opportunity there again if you're askingthe right questions and you're talking to the
right people, right, So youhave to try to avoid really you know,
I know, the term in thesocial media world, or even even
in just on the news, it'salways you know, misinformation like stuff that
well, that's not really the truth, right, It's it's it's presented in
(15:24):
a way that it's it's perceived bysome people as factual, but at the
end of the day, it's it'snot right, it's not part of the
conversation or it's someone's opinion of that, right. I just recently had a
conversation with a friend of mine wherewe were talking about this very this very
subject, right, and we weretalking about it's not the harm. The
(15:46):
harm isn't really done when the personsays whatever it is that they say,
right, it can be anybody.It can be a social media figure,
it can be a politician, itcan be a movie star, you know,
it can be the rock on theWWE, Right, I mean that's
it could be anybody who says anything. The problem is how that is restated,
(16:08):
right, Like, it's how peopleconsume that information and then restate it
and when they restate it, theystated in a way that it seems factual.
But again, it's no longer thefacts, right, it's it's a
it's a different opinion. And unfortunately, the algorithms and all the stuff that
we deal with in the world today, they emphasize anything that's negative. Right,
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So if you if you turn acomment on its head, with the
original comment being it could be completelyinnocent, it can be a very very
you know, I'm just asking why, right, you know, I'm just
I just want to know why,and someone turns that into a negative connotation,
then it takes off and then allof a sudden, you know,
oh, you know, Andrew askeda you know, a really stupid question,
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you know, and and and youknow he doesn't know what he's talking
about, right, And that's alwaysthe fear that you kind of run into
when you put yourself into, youknow, these types of environments that people
can misconscrew what it is that you'retrying to do and how you're trying to
say it. Right? Is thatfair? That fair? Okay? And
I mean, you know, Ireally do respect and admire anybody who takes
(17:22):
this path, right, because thisis tough, This is not easy,
not only the process of actually makingyourself available and making yourself a public figure.
From that perspective, even though it'sa microcosm. Even it's just Leander,
right, thirty nine square miles,right, it's not that much.
But there's a lot of people here, right, It's one hundred thousand people
in this town, and at leastone percent of that one hundred thousand is
(17:45):
paying attention, right because we knowthat's what votes. Right, So that's
a lot of people. So kudoson that. I mean, I feel
that way for every candidate, Ireally do. I just like that's this
is this is a lot to takeon. So outside of you out of
your troubleshooting and and you're and you'rebeing able to kind of like find you
know, solutions, ask the rightquestions. What other qualifications would you say
(18:10):
you're bringing to the table. Again, outside of the mayor, that's really
kind of a leadership position within theat large council members. Right. I
always say this that you know,everybody's basically running for mayor, there's only
a few people who actually want thetitle, right, because when you're at
large, it's you're representing the entirecity, right, So so how would
(18:33):
you answer that question when post theoldest of four boys, So the oldest
child birth order kind of deal automaticallypushes the firstborn child into those kind of
the additional responsibility firstborn as well,so I get it. Yeah, and
(18:55):
also firstborn of seven grandchildren, allboys. So you're yeah, you're you're
kind of thrust into it, andyou're you get more attention along the way,
both good and bad. Yes,absolutely, and there will be another
podcast as entertainment value from the mayor'sseat. But natural leader comes with figuring
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out how to run a business,run a family, interact with people when
you're when you're my my business.Part of it is the most has been
the most valuable I've had to Ican remember when I'm working on a generator
as a rookie man and the customer. We never asked our customers to go
away. You know where we're weour customers are actually part of our family
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there, they are friends. Welike to treat it that way, and
so they'll be standing there watching mefix the generator and I'm sweating bullets as
a rookie. So growing through thosekind of interaction, you know, people
to people's skills is I can seethe value of that in me. My
(20:14):
wife always says, I'll be tryingto lead her. You know what,
she's You're a You're a leader allthe time. I can. I've got
this, you know. So Ithink a friendly You know again, I
can't do anything without the vote,without masses of people who take and I'm
I'm counting on I'm I'm kind oflike a wild card, uh name recognition
(20:37):
only back to the butt God factor. You know, this ain't gonna happen
except for God. I'm not spendingmoney on a campaign. In fact,
what you're doing here is what I'mwhat I'm hoping for, this kind of
face value of Fred Summers. Thisis how it gets out. Okay,
(21:00):
Now, I would love I willtell you this. So, whether I
get into the council chambers as themayor, I will be spending more time
there as a resident. I'm awareof the other because again this time and
space where we're at, we haveto have that. Yeah. No,
I would completely agree with that.I mean and I again, I talk
(21:22):
about this often for those of youwho follow the podcast. There's a few,
not millions, there's a few,anyway, excuse me. Yeah,
So when I came to Leander.One of the things that I did with
purpose, right, It was somethingthat was a decision that I made.
I got here and I said,you know what, I've lived in Houston
(21:44):
for you know, twenty some oddyears, right, And I moved around
a little bit. But even evenin that I had a few friends,
I had a few neighbors that Iknew. I really just didn't know my
community, right, I didn't.I did a number of volunteer you know,
oriented positions there. I served ona couple of different committees and things
of that nature, but I neverreally knew my community. So when we
(22:07):
moved out here, I was verypurposeful in that regard in that I was
like, I'm going to know myneighbors. I'm going to know the people
who live on my street. Youknow, I'm going to make sure that
I'm making that effort. If theyreciprocate, fine, if they don't,
fine, that's not the issue.The issues. I want to know who
they are, right to be,just present myself as someone they could come
(22:27):
to if they need help or youknow, a couple sher or whatever.
Right. And then because Leander isagain has a little bit of a small
town Ethos. Right. What Ifound right away was like, Okay,
this is really an interesting environment forand it offered an opportunity to get involved.
Right, You have an opportunity toget involved. It's not so big
(22:49):
that you get lost in the mix, right, but it's big enough to
where if you are at least motivatedto try to make some changer, substantiate
some new ideas, there there's anopportunity there. Right. So I made
myself available right away, and Iyou know, started volunteering for committees with
the city and and started to getto know some of the people of One
(23:12):
of the reasons I'm able to dothis is because of that. Right.
Had I not made that effort,nobody know who I am. Right,
at least you know there's some recognitionof Okay, well this guy, and
you know he's fair, he's balanced, he'll speak with everybody and have a
nice conversation. And that's the point. That's always the point of this is
just to sit down. And thisis the conversation that I think everybody should
(23:33):
have with the candidates, right,But they can't. It's just that's not
possible. It's not scalable to sitdown with everybody one on one, right,
So what I try to do issit down with you one on one
and have a conversation and just kindof reveal some things, hopefully about who
you are and what you're thinking.That helps people get a little bit of
an insight, you know, andyou know, and I when we talked
(23:57):
about this, it was like,I'm not here to do you know,
you know, gotcha journalism or anythinglike that. I'm not looking to do
that at all, right, Ijust want to like hopefully present an opportunity
and a platform for people to getto know you know. The how do
I say it on the podcast onmy website, It says the people,
the places, and the things thatare Leander right. And you're one of
(24:19):
the people that are Leander right.So again, I appreciate you taking the
time in your business world, becauseI think this is a good way to
kind of talk about some of thesethings outside of your own personal business.
Have you ever had an opportunity oran experience where you've maybe served with an
association like I don't know, isthere a Generator Association of Greater Texas.
(24:44):
I have no idea there is.Where I have served is in the racing
industry. Okay. We had atrack in Kyle. It was called Central
Texas Speedway, Okay, and Iprovided the pacecar for seven years. I
bought a two thousand and nine Challengeback at the time, the SRT model
in two thousand and nine was theBig Boy. Okay, Yeah, I
(25:04):
think I know which car you're talkingabout. It was orange. Of course,
we outfitted it with lights and onboth ends and gave rides. But
that was something I wanted to dowith that car. It gave me more
of an opportunity to have more funwith the car. We did that for
(25:25):
seven years, put one hundred andseventy thousand miles on that thing, going
back and forth to Kyle. Wedid some guest shows in Houston at one
of the tracks there. Tried toget in with Texas Motor Speedway, but
they only let Chevrolets run. Thisis a mopark, But through that endeavor,
it was all christ centered, anoutreach, a preaching moment. It
(25:51):
was the Pace for Life pace car. Interesting the last call safety car.
We did road courses, okay,but we developed a gospel track to hand
out. But we focused a loton giving kids rides. And you know,
there's just if you like racing andyou're around the cars and you end
up on the track. It's it'svery fun for the people who are hanging
(26:14):
around the track. Yeah, no, I've it's funny because I had a
very similar conversation the other day.A friend of mine is now getting interested
in f one. Right. Andwhen I was in the hospitality industry,
I worked with Sheraton and we hada driver and there was a Grand Prix
I think there was two years thatthey did it in Houston, so we
(26:37):
were able to get into the paddock, you know it. It was at
the Georgia R. Brown Convention Center. It was the first time in a
Grand Prix history that they had aair conditioned paddock, right, because it's
normally outside, right, so allthe cars were inside. That was really
cool. That was a lot offun. And I agree. I mean
I'm a car ish guy, youknow, I know how to you know,
get in there and you know,do a few things. But you
(27:00):
know, I've always I've always boughtthe car that I want. I've never
built the car that I wanted.So that's interesting and and it also kind
of you talked a little bit abouttheir you know, the service aspect of
some of that as well. Andit sounds like that's that's something that you
do. Is that do you continueto serve in that kind of capacity?
I mean, I, you know, not to necessarily bring religion into the
(27:22):
conversation, but just from a serviceperspective, it sounds like that's where you've
provided a lot of community service.Does that continue today? It does?
Okay, tell us a little bitabout that. What are you doing now?
I'm involved with an organization called CelebrateRecovery for folks who have either hurts,
hang ups, or habits that thathinders them, okay, and we
teach them how to overcome that,but with biblical principles okay, and it's
(27:48):
a nationwide, worldwide ministry. Ido it with a Great Hills Baptist Church.
They're friends of mine and okay,we have a meeting there every Wednesday.
So I've been with them for twoyears now and we do that every
Wednesday. Very very nice, verynice. Yeah. And again you know,
you're you're you're you're making yourself availableand again in a service oriented kind
(28:11):
of way. Right. I alwaysI like to highlight the fact that there
is a servant leadership component to anybodywho puts themselves forth in any kind of
civic regard, right or there shouldbe I mean, that's that's kind of
what you should be doing there.That should be part of what your thought
process is. Not self self aggrandation, you know, but but more you
(28:36):
know, Hey, I'm here toto make sure, you know, the
little guy gets taken care of her. However you might want to frame that,
right, That's something that I wantto work harder on as well.
I know this is a volunteer deal. I'm sixty seven, so I'm kind
of retired. I can pretty muchdo what I would like to do,
need to do in this case,want to do, want to serve my
community. But I'd like to bean open door mayor. They don't even
(28:59):
have an office for the mayor becauseof right, right, And it's because
it is a volunteer position. They'renot actually city staff, right, So
there's no office per se. SoI'm hoping that I can find somewhere where
I can be open door at leastthree days a week people people who have
something going on that they'd like totalk about, you know, in the
(29:22):
council chambers. It's kind of theway they run that meeting is kind of
like going to court and it's intimidatingat times. I will agree with that
it can be, and it's onthe times times. So that's the feel
I want to have with the residents. I mean we in the flow chart
(29:44):
in the city book, it saysresidents and then it's got the maryor and
then the council. So I reallywant to help the residents understand how much
they hold water for themselves, ifthey will hold right right to get involved.
And so yeah, I'm one ofthese guys that I like to have
(30:06):
a big splash. And so again, whether it's from the mayor seat or
on the others in the chamber,I'd like to see two three hundred people
show up at every meeting now andwith the with the community outreach, you
know, I mean, anything ispossible, right, So I wouldn't I
don't. I don't mean to laughand and and and I'm not laughing at
(30:29):
the prospect of it. I thinkthat's a that's a wonderful idea. It's
it's a it's a great idea.Having been to several council meetings, the
reason that I chuckle is they gountil you know, eleven o'clock sometimes.
I know there was one. Iremember that it actually went to like one
am or something like that. Sothat's that's my idea about these this large
number. More is to is tobe a peaceful participation. So yeah,
(30:52):
no, we don't all have tospeak, but if we, if the
council sees that we got that kindof yeah, no, I agree,
I agree. And then then asthe mayor, I get to bring proposals
to the table. So again I'mlearning. I admit, I you know,
late to the table here, butI'm here and I'm a fast learner.
(31:12):
I found out I'm a better studentthan I give myself credit for.
I wish I could say the same. I got my high school degree,
but I was looking out the windowat sixth grade, right, and it's
you know, there was there wasthings that were I had to go to
summer school to graduate. There wasa program where you work in the afternoon,
(31:33):
so you got fifteen hours of credit. So that helps. So there
was some things along the way thathelped me graduate. But as again as
the oldest child, as creative,we've been created by God. I think
in some degrees some ways our creativityis not explored. Our aptitudes are not
brought to the cream to the Yeah, so I think again that's that can
(31:59):
be another conversation from the mayor chairwith the with the community. Hey,
what else can we do some Oneof the things that I would love to
see, and it seems impossible isto end the property tax if we if
we were able to do that,that will be a catalyst that will bring
people to well how did that?What's going on? It would free up
(32:22):
money is that they may want tospend in the community to help with So
it seems like a snowball that wouldhelp in a lot of ways. Yeah,
and even and then beyond that endowmentmoney. Oh, I want to
say right now, I'm in fullfavor of a Cheddar's restaurant, and well
(32:42):
let's just buy let's bypass Cedar Parkon that one. Put that so I'll
fight for that one for you know, I would join you at the door
because I do like Cheddars myself.And another thing, if in case they're
listening, that's a good sponsorship.I'm a to be an ambassador, especially
for places I love. So anotherone, another one I want to I
(33:05):
wanted Volley for is for canes toadd fried shrimp they're just chicken. Can
you imagine what it would be likefor fried shrimp with that? That would
be a nice addition. It shouldn'tcause too much chaos in the kitchen,
right right, That's a thought,that's definitely a thought. Yeah, Cane's
shrimp. That's interesting. I guessthat maybe if the dog ate the shrimp.
(33:29):
I don't know. I don't knowthat an expansion, no, but
I again, it kind of itdoes highlight at least some creative thinking,
right, And that's always part ofone of the things that you know,
you would hope for, at leastin a candidate, is that they're going
to be creatively you know, contemplatingsome of the issues and some of the
some of the complications that occur withsome creativity in it and a creative mind
(33:52):
and a creative approach, right,because I think far too often we end
up very siloed and very like wecan only do it this way or we
can only do it that way.And honestly, I would say some of
the problems that we have today stemfrom that type of thinking, like there's
there's only one way to do that. This is how we've always done it,
right, and so you know,it's it's it's always a good it's
(34:15):
always a good thing. I thinkto add to add new voices and add
new ideas to the mix. Right, it's a gumbo at the end of
the day. Right, it's,it's, it's, it's it's a lot
more. I remember when I wasa kid, and I you know,
I'm a first generation American, andand you know, my family was from
Mexico, and you know, therewas opportunity there to talk about that a
(34:37):
little bit when I was growing up. And and one of the things that
I remember very very distinctly was theidea of the great melting pot, right,
the great the great mix of allsorts of people from all sorts of
places, and yeah, just justall these things that we can do together.
And I think it's arguable that Ithink we've maybe gotten a little bit
away from that, Right. Ithink it's still an underlie buying reality.
(35:00):
Right. I think most people wouldsay, yeah, you know that the
idea of the melting pot is kindof what we buy into. Right.
And here in Leander, again froma from a smaller community perspective, you
know that the race themselves, youknow, it's a it's a nonpartisan race
(35:21):
again, You're you're basically saying,I would like to volunteer to do this,
uh, serve in that capacity.I've I've referred to it as a
little bit of an aggrandized committee becauseit's kind of what it is, you
know, but the idea of therepresentative piece of that is really what that's
about. Right, So when you'rewhen you're talking about these ideas and and
(35:46):
maybe sometimes they're a little bit asany idea, but that's okay, you
know, it's it's it's good tohave that conversation because there's people who would
say, yeah, you know what, why don't we have a Chatter's restaurant?
Like, why is that not oneof the restaurants we have there?
There's only a certain amount of controlthat the city necessarily has there. Right,
it's but could we, potentially,from an economic development perspective, reach
(36:07):
out to that company, you know, and say, hey, you know,
our residents have indicated that they wouldlike one of your restaurants in our
city, and would you like tocome and tour and see what we have
and see available opportunities. There's landhere, there's a new building coming up
over here, we have this newstrip mall over here, et cetera.
And I think that we're definitely trendingin that direction. I wouldn't say that
(36:30):
we're not doing that right, butcould we do more? You know,
you never know, And community outreachis part of the process. Is something
that I think is super, superimportant, and you've said it a couple
of times while we've been sitting here, is that you have to get involved,
right, You have to take thetime that it takes to at least
express your opinion. And at theworst case scenario, that's the vote,
(36:52):
right, that's going to the polls, either early or you know, I
think it's May fourth, right,So on May fourth, you show up
and you know, you punch thedial or whatever with the pencil. I
forget what it is anymore, butyou use that mechanism to express how you
feel about, you know, whereyou want your city to be going right,
(37:14):
where you want your city to change, if that's what you want,
or continue if that's what you want. Whatever your voice might be. But
when there's only again, I thinkin the last election, I think it
probably kind of started touching maybe closeto five percent. I remember at one
point I looked at this, butit was between three and five percent of
(37:35):
the total registered population actually showed upto vote. And in Texas, historically
and statistically, registered voters track aroundseventy to eighty percent of the population.
Right, So if we just usesimple Caveman math, right, and there's
one hundred thousand people in Leander andseventy thousand of them on the low end
(37:58):
are registered voters, and only fivepercent of that actually shows up. That
was another thing that caught my eyein my if they only had five percent,
surely I could help get ten Youwould, I mean, and I
would hope for I would. Iwould wish that for any candidate, right,
Like, if you can get morepeople to come out, right,
(38:19):
then we get a better representative sampleof what the citizens in the city want.
Right. It's about whether it's whetherit's a crazy idea or something that's
really hard to understand, or whateverthe case might be. It is about
the best idea, like what willbe the best what works best for our
community. Because you and I aresitting here today, right and we're having
(38:43):
this conversation, and you're making yourselfavailable as a candidate for the mayor of
the city, and you'll do that. Maybe if you were to win,
you would do it for a term, maybe two terms. So that's six
years, right, six years inthe in the in the greater scheme of
a city, in any city,right is nothing so far, it's nothing,
(39:05):
right, it's a minute period oftime. But the city keeps going.
Right. Citizens come and go,they move in, they move out,
They you know, they live theirlives and however you want to look
at that. But the city doesn'tgo away. I mean, we hope
and you know, hopefully there's youknow, there's an opportunity that the climate
and all those other things don't forceus to all move north. So you
(39:28):
know that kind of thing. Andagain I'm just I'm being kind of silly
there. But at the end ofthe day, those decisions that were made,
you know, ten, fifteen,twenty years ago can still be influencing
what's happening today. So the sameholds true going forward. Right. Being
homesteaded is part of the equation,you know. Some my business allows me
(39:49):
to be deeply rooted. There's enoughbusiness here and my customers actually can come
to me from other states and theyhave once. In the service industry,
no matter what you do, ifyou do it correctly, you'll your referral.
Yeah, no, people will findyou. No, absolutely, I
completely agree with that. Again,I had some of my experience in the
(40:14):
past was in the hospitality industry,so I really am that was where I
cut my teeth, right, So, so my service orientation is very very
much from a hospitality perspective, right, So I view the world from that
lens. I didn't necessarily grow upthat way, and I didn't necessarily intend
for that to be the case.But it absolutely it doesn't matter what I
(40:37):
do. I can't get rid ofit. I've tried. I can't get
rid of it. I cannot goto a store, I cannot sit in
a restaurant, I cannot go havea drink without orienting the experience to the
level of service that I received.Right. So then you take that and
how do you approach your And youyou know your business, you've you know,
(41:00):
you've homesteaded, You've created a solidbusiness in the city where people recognize
who you are they come to youfor that service, right. But that's
not by accident, right, that'swith a purpose, like you did that
with intent. There was never ajust like, ah, you know,
I think I'll just fix some generatorsI'm looking at your comeback, right,
(41:20):
Yeah, no, absolutely zero,Yeah that it needs to be zero.
Trust me. When I when Iwas in the hospitality industry, when I
was a service when I was directorof sales and marketing, right, and
one of the things that I wouldconstantly it was and today even to this
day, it's still something that Iharp on all the time. From a
sales methodology perspective, you go throughthe prospecting process and you find out what
(41:44):
it is that your customer wants,and then you kind of go through the
solutioning process where you're giving them theservices or the or the you know,
the widgets or whatever it is thatyou have, and you try it's a
it's a sales process. So youwant to convince them that this is the
best decision, right, and andit's done with an intent that you believe
in your product that should be atleast and you know that you really believe
(42:05):
that this is the best solution.They've come to you because they're looking to
solve X and you have why,right, So you're you're showing them like,
why will solve your X equation here? And so but one of the
things that I was always harping onand still I think it's one of the
most important parts of the process iswhat about the lost business when you didn't
(42:27):
get the sale? Why? Likewhat was it that you missed? Like?
Was it not the right solution?Was it something that you said,
how did that occur? Right?And I think far too often in many
of the things that we do froma community perspective, we don't look at
that. We don't look at like, well, why didn't that business select
Leander? And sometimes it's a prettyeasy equation, right, like something like
(42:50):
a Samsung, Right, there wasn'tenough land, Like there's nowhere for that
to go, right. And youknow, you'll hear people talk about,
you know, while we don't haveany kind of of you know, enough
incentives for businesses, right, AndI'm like, well, you know,
honestly, they got enough money.They don't really need our incentives, right.
What they need is the location,they need, the land they need
(43:10):
somewhere to go, right, andtheir equation and the way that they look
at things should be. I wouldthink more along the lines of where can
we get the best deal, right, doesn't necessarily need to enjoy it next
location? Yeah? Right? Imean again, from a and a lot
of that is small business, right, it's Leander's just by the very nature
(43:30):
of the city and where we arein central Texas, you know, related
to Austin and arguably to San Antonio. Right. One of my questions,
this leads to a question, whydid we get a what a burger right
next to a dairy queen instead ofa cheddar. That's just just an honest,
honest you know you get it raisedlaughter, No, it's a legitimate
(43:54):
question. May lead to a frownsomewhere else, but that's that's me.
That's that If the machine is notrunning perfectly smooth right from as many pressure
pressure points as we can measure,then I'm gonna start asking. And that
(44:15):
comes from a guy who builds racecars. We're looking for every horse power.
We love sprint cars and sprint cars. So when we put that thing
on the Dino, and so it'sour it's one of our jil we called
the junk Yard project. We getthe engine out of the junk yard.
And so we're trying to save costand get more people involved at a lower
(44:38):
level. And here's our plan,here's our recipe, and so we're trying
to hit five hundred and fifty horsepower on the Dino at the wheels.
And so again that's when, youknow, I bring the the car over
and I say it's ready to go, and then the guys are testing it
and they're putting pressure on it,and they're going, now, Fred,
(45:00):
you didn't quite make it, youknow. You know, so I get
discouraged, But I still I'm goingout to the five hundred and fifty horse
powers. So there's a lot ofwhat's it called metaphors, Yeah, yeah,
no, I mean it's a perfectmetaphor. I bring relatability to the
table. I can relate to theresidents and the business entrepreneurs. I'm not
(45:24):
a I think there's some monkey businessgoing on with with developers and development and
some more hostile takeover with land.If the if the fellow didn't have to
sell, or if he if hedidn't have a tax burd maybe he would
keep the land in his family.I know that hurts the guy who wants
to bring cheddars, because boy,that's a great piece of property. But
(45:47):
still everybody should be able to getto do what they want to do,
now what they're forced to do.I do not I don't in in in
our civil life. I don't thinkwe should push people. We should be
accommodating. And I'm I'm I'm aggravating. That's say what brings me to the
(46:10):
table. Aggravation on how people treatpeople is part of it. And maybe
this will be a good place toend. I'm not sure what my parents
this is how we should the publicsquare should be a certain way. And
(46:30):
my parents when when I was aboy, when we were us four boys
were young, we go out todinner and all they had to do was
look across the table, say boyswere in public, knock it off.
And that's the kind of courtesy weshould give everybody. And not in a
I mean the they're the parents,so they have a bigger hammer, but
(46:52):
in just men to men, peopleto people. We should say, you
know, something's going wrong at thepark and you walk over and say,
hey, you guys, okay,you know gently, hey, you know,
do you try to diffuse it.I'm that's another one of my characters.
I'm a good diffuser. That comesfrom being a hothead for a lot
of you. I learned, youknow, but God intervened and showed me
(47:15):
how you know that you really didn'thandle that right? Let me show you
a different way. So that's abeautiful explanation of how God takes our weaknesses
and makes him strong. So I'ma I'm a person that can make the
picture strong. I'm confident. Tellthe folks where they can find you,
what are your socials? Where areyou on the web. I'll tell you
(47:37):
what. I'm gonna give you mymy email. I've taken everything else down
because everybody was just being argumentative.So again I'm back to total grassroots.
You know, I'm around enough thatpeople know me and can see me.
Maybe maybe, if not this goaround, then the next. But this
(47:59):
is a process. But Fred atfix your generator dot com. That's Fred
at fix Yo. You are yourgenerator dot com, Fred at fixyogenerator dot
com. All right, well,Fred, thank you so much. This
has been a wonderful conversation. Iappreciate your time very very much and the
best of luck in your in yourendeavors to run from ayor. Thank you
(48:22):
very much. All right, Sothat's it for this episode, and I
certainly hope that you guys are gettingsomething out of this. I know that
I am, and I appreciate everycandidate who's taken the time and those who
have not yet shown up, butwe're working on that. So hopefully we're
gonna get everybody on to the podcasthere over the next week to ten days
and have all that information out thereprior to you know, I was hoping
(48:45):
that I could get it all donebefore April fourth, so but it looks
up we going to be a littlebit behind that date, but that's okay.
We'll have all this information out foryou. You can find it at
vote in Leander dot com or onLeaninleander dot net. Again, please subscribe
if you like the content. Youcan find us on Apple Podcasts or your
favorite podcast app, and YouTube andFacebook, as well as a couple other
(49:12):
social media channels. So however youfind us, I appreciate you finding us.
Hope you stick around for a littlebit, and that's going to wrap
us for this one. Thanks again, Fred, I appreciate it. We'll
see y'all next time. One ofmy favorite h
This past week I had the opportunityto sit down with a couple of mayoral
candidates and interview them as part ofthe Vote in Leander series. My interview
with Fred Summers is next here onLean and Leander. So we're back here
(00:24):
at Lantern Media Studios. I'm yourhost of Lean and Leander, Andrew Naudine,
and we are continuing with the Votein Leander series and today I'm here
with Fred Summers. Right, thankyou for joining me. I appreciate it.
You're welcome, all right. SoFred is one of the candidates who
has offered himself up as a mayoralcandidate. So what we're going to do
(00:48):
is spend a little bit of timehere talking to Fred, get a little
to know him a little bit better, and hopefully help you as a voter
kind of find out a little bitmore about him and help you make some
decisions on your voting. So Fredand I had met once before just to
kind of let you know, wemet one time. I think we had
coffee at Starbucks, right, yeah, so just to kind of get to
(01:10):
know each other a little bit beforewe did this, which was very nice.
And so we're going to kind ofstart with that you've been a Leander
resident for how many years? Now? Thirty years? Thirty years, So
you've been here a while a while. A lot of things change, right,
right, That's what we talked aboutwhen we had coffee. So tell
(01:30):
people what brought you to Leander?Obviously thirty years ago. Something happened got
you here? What was that?Well, growing up as a boy,
we enjoyed country living and being inAustin when I met my wife and starting
to have children. I think wehad four at the time when we moved
from Austin to Leander to get backin the country, right, Okay,
(01:55):
it makes it nice to raise childrenand you know, kind of all out
off the busy streets. Right.Austin was super growing, right, Right,
was far enough out there was atthe time, right, exactly exactly
right. Okay, So that's nice. So you came out here, I
guess right after you married your wifeand started your family, right, would
(02:15):
that be a fair assessment. Wewere actually about fifteen years into our oh
okay, been married forty three years. Oh wow, congratulations, that's a
good long time. That's a goodlong time. We're gonna make one little
adjustment, yes, So let's justmove it there a little bit, so
we get you better. Okay.So yeah, no, that's great,
that's that's awesome. I'm I'm closingin on thirty so it's not easy.
(02:43):
Any mile marker of that statue,right is quite an uncomised. Well,
thank you. I appreciate that.And the wives, of course, the
wives get the gold star. Wellyeah, and I mean they put up
with us for that long right,right. Okay, So now your family.
I've seen pictures of your family.I think you have three children,
right of six? Six okay,so I saw a picture with three of
(03:04):
them, right. One of thosewas my granddaughter, so well, okay,
of two girls, two boys,and then two more girls and they're
all flowing the coop now. Orwe have our youngest daughter who's twenty five,
still lives with it. Oh okay, okay, all right. So
and then you, as a residentof Leander, you started a business here
as well, right, I didtell us a little about your business.
(03:25):
We start a family businessing generator inthe generator world back in seventy eight,
and it grew. We started tosee that not only were the small generators
that were nice, and a motorhome generator that was a good start and
they were like a welder, soif it made electricity. We started working
(03:45):
Austin welder in generator service and wenoticed that there was the generators on concrete
in the state. They wouldn't move, so we went out to the standby
business got very big in that industryand moved away from the motor homes,
and so in two thousand, Idecided I would like to move back towards
the smaller generators, and that's whyI started another business. Okay, So
(04:11):
have you maintained the same kind ofbusiness like you know, I don't know
your your logo and your or haveyou kind of changed the business with the
changes that you've made on your focus. We did change okay, okay.
And it wasn't a branch. Itwas right right right brand new business.
Okay. So what is that?What do you called today? Well,
(04:31):
it's it's transitioned as well, okay, it's gen Tech to start in two
thousand, okay, and during theCOVID episode everything changed again. So I
brought everything close to home and usedmy nickname. A lot of my customers
had given me a nickname of generatorFred. Okay, so I changed that.
(04:54):
That's my New DBA. Okay,all right, all right, interesting
stuff, interesting stuff. And sofrom the business perspective, you've been a
business owner in Leander for is ithas been the full thirty years sir?
Okay, So the whole time you'vebeen a business owner, it's twenty four
twenty four years lived here, thirtytwenty four years business. Okay, all
(05:15):
right, all right, good clarification. Yes, so you've probably seen a
lot and you've probably had plenty ofopportunities to engage with you know, permitting
and things of that nature. Isthat one of the things that now,
what are some of the drivers thatare that? Are that are you know
that made you wake up one dayand said, you know what, I'm
gonna I'm gonna throw my hat inthe ring. I'm gonna run for mayor
(05:38):
here in Leander. What help usunderstand what some of that motivation is?
Great segue. They annexed our neighborhoodseven or eight years ago, and they
grandfathered my business at the time intothat picture. Okay, And some years
later we're having we have chickens onour property. So that's been that was
(06:00):
really a driving force that the cityhad adopted rules and regulations that now apply
to my your land, country livingland right right, And and I would
say, why you know, Imean once something in my view, from
my viewpoint, one size does notfit all right. So I think there's
(06:23):
a lot of people that fall intothose kind of categories. I thought,
you know, if we could managethose issues in a more gentle way.
That's so just a rules, arule. That's kind of really what pushed
me towards this. Okay. Ididn't do well trying to get it resolved
through the court system, so Ithought, well, let's try and inside
(06:46):
do it, let's do it allthe way. Okay. Now, hey,
that's a reasonable that's a reasonable motivationin my opinion. So you were
I think the term is ETJ,right, it was ETJ and then you
were annexed, right, And whendid that exactly happened? Like it's seven
years ago. I'm not real goodwith that, okay, okay. And
(07:06):
since then, now you know,you're in the city of Leander. As
far as that's concerned, has therebeen any particular items outside of your chickens
that that you've noticed, like someonewho's this is an interesting angle from my
perspective because I've really never talked toanybody who was in the ETJ who's now
(07:27):
in the city limits, right,So that's there are there are problems and
and and maybe you know some goodthings and bad things with that. What
has your experience been there like that'sinteresting to me. My observation was the
water and wastewater upgrade that comes alongwith that, And my concern was why,
(07:49):
you know, it's a rural it'sa rural neighborhood, so those I
have a lot of questions going intothis endeavor, and that's really I get
in a lot of trouble because Ihave more questions and I have solutions,
but I don't understand the mechanism ofrevenue for services that is required and it
(08:16):
comes with So it's I look atmy property as more of a hostile takeover
because I now have it's tied tothe water and wastewater, so they could
build I'm on about an acre lot, so they could probably build a couple
of houses on my lot and easilynow hook it to the water and wastewater.
(08:39):
That I'm hearing that that's going tobe a huge price for me as
a homeowner to tie into that thing. I've already taken care of making sure
my septic system is good and preparedit along the way. Well. So
now just there's things like that thatI'm convinced that one sized doesn't fit all
(09:00):
in our community, and I'm reallygoing after the residence the side of everything.
I want to live in an understandingway with more residents, get more
residents involved in what we're doing incity Hall. Now, I think it's
a I think it's a very validpoint and again a unique perspective on some
of the growth that we have herein Leander because again, and we've talked
(09:24):
about this pretty much with every candidate, whether they were an incumbent or not,
the growth has been exponential, right, It's it's been really fast,
and it's been a lot and sosometimes these types of I don't know if
you would necessarily refer to them astertiary issues, but they're they're kind of
like, well, you know,we're so concentrating on the growth and all
that stuff that maybe we inadvertently ornot, I don't know, but maybe
(09:50):
it's we neglect a few things thatmaybe there's an opportunity there to have some
more conversation or maybe even find amore f and ly methodology and using your
term, right, just to makeit a little bit easier for those folks
who who find themselves and by nofault of your own, right, I
mean, you just you lived here, right, and all of a sudden,
(10:11):
you know, you find and itcan't You're not alone. You're not
the only person who that's occurred to. Right. This is obviously going to
occur and probably will continue to occuruntil such time the city's growth is fully
realized. Right, there's always goingto be some annexation of ETJ. And
I know that I'm only kind offamiliar with that issue, right, I
(10:31):
don't have a whole lot of experiencedealing with that, but I've I've I've
some of the committees that I've servedon in some of the projects i'll call
them, that I've been involved with, or at least had some conversation about,
have touched on that from time totime. Right. So, again,
going from a very rural, uhyou know area here in Central Texas,
(10:54):
and I'm not saying we're necessarily becomingan urbanized area. There's some urban
development, but overall, I wouldn'tnecessarily refer to us as an urban area
at this point. It's again probablymore suburban than anything else, but it
is. It's interesting so beyond that, like you have a couple of things
(11:15):
that you're like, I'm really curiousabout this. I'd like to find out
more, and then it motivates youenough to where you're like, all right,
I'm going to run for mayor wasthere any one particular tell me the
one thing, like the one storythat because this happened, or because this
occurred, and it doesn't necessarily haveto be related specifically to the ETJ issue,
right, it could just be somethingelse. Like at that point,
(11:37):
you're like, you know what,I'm going to do this great conversation,
I am I do things by theseat of my pants. Person. I
am prone to jump in and thenwonder what did I do in many cases
in my life. All Right,that could be good. That might Hey,
(11:58):
it just depends on your perspective.Definitely. It definitely cuts out some
of the fear factor in what's goingon. Hey, the this go around,
it's been a combination of I'm gonnalay the foundation of the butt.
God. You know, everything inmy life is tempered by butt. God.
(12:22):
My my situation is going along,but God, this happened to me,
but God, this happened to myfriend, but God. So I
weigh the butt God factor in thisas well by seeing there's there's pressure points
in our midst right now, financial, political, I'm the the what what
(12:48):
another driving factor is? Remember theywould say, well, we don't talk
about politics and religion at Sunday dinner. I'm convinced that that was the wrong
own statement along the way. Sowe're I think that there's what's there's a
movement right now called the Great Awakening, and it's creating a conversation, it's
(13:09):
creating opening this this type of mediais overtaking mainstream media. So we're we're
moving into a whole new where whereGod allowed us to step into something that
makes more sense, to have aconversation, to work on things. I'm
(13:30):
a one and one thing that Ibring to the table no matter what I'm
doing, is I'm a great troubleshooter. Okay, by fixing generators, I
could say that I can. I'velearned skills to ask questions and they can
be asked over the phone. Youget to write people talking about a problem.
You can And again, we're ina new era. I've gone from
(13:54):
landline to the cell phone in mycareer and so now we have zoom.
That's all that's new to me aswell. But we can we can cover
a lot more ground. But wegotta find we gotta ask the right questions
and be talking to the right people. And if we got monkey I call
it monkey business going on anywhere.And that's really what I want to find
(14:16):
out. Okay, what is pushingthings against our residence that doesn't need to
be pushed? Right? I callthat monkey business? Right? Right?
And I think I know what youmean by that. I mean, you
know, I think it's fair tosay you're very inquisitive from that perspective,
right You You at least look atsomething You're like, well, why is
(14:37):
that happening? Right? And sothere's a lot of people who would just
say why is that happening? Andthen move on? Right? Yes,
So part of your endeavor here,part of you your involvement or at least
you know, making yourself a publicfigure for because that's basically what you've done
at this point is uh is inquisitive. It's trying to find out, right,
And I don't see I don't seewhere there's U a whole lot of
(15:01):
there's opportunity there again if you're askingthe right questions and you're talking to the
right people, right, So youhave to try to avoid really you know,
I know, the term in thesocial media world, or even even
in just on the news, it'salways you know, misinformation like stuff that
well, that's not really the truth, right, It's it's it's presented in
(15:24):
a way that it's it's perceived bysome people as factual, but at the
end of the day, it's it'snot right, it's not part of the
conversation or it's someone's opinion of that, right. I just recently had a
conversation with a friend of mine wherewe were talking about this very this very
subject, right, and we weretalking about it's not the harm. The
(15:46):
harm isn't really done when the personsays whatever it is that they say,
right, it can be anybody.It can be a social media figure,
it can be a politician, itcan be a movie star, you know,
it can be the rock on theWWE, Right, I mean that's
it could be anybody who says anything. The problem is how that is restated,
(16:08):
right, Like, it's how peopleconsume that information and then restate it
and when they restate it, theystated in a way that it seems factual.
But again, it's no longer thefacts, right, it's it's a
it's a different opinion. And unfortunately, the algorithms and all the stuff that
we deal with in the world today, they emphasize anything that's negative. Right,
(16:33):
So if you if you turn acomment on its head, with the
original comment being it could be completelyinnocent, it can be a very very
you know, I'm just asking why, right, you know, I'm just
I just want to know why,and someone turns that into a negative connotation,
then it takes off and then allof a sudden, you know,
oh, you know, Andrew askeda you know, a really stupid question,
(16:56):
you know, and and and youknow he doesn't know what he's talking
about, right, And that's alwaysthe fear that you kind of run into
when you put yourself into, youknow, these types of environments that people
can misconscrew what it is that you'retrying to do and how you're trying to
say it. Right? Is thatfair? That fair? Okay? And
I mean, you know, Ireally do respect and admire anybody who takes
(17:22):
this path, right, because thisis tough, This is not easy,
not only the process of actually makingyourself available and making yourself a public figure.
From that perspective, even though it'sa microcosm. Even it's just Leander,
right, thirty nine square miles,right, it's not that much.
But there's a lot of people here, right, It's one hundred thousand people
in this town, and at leastone percent of that one hundred thousand is
(17:45):
paying attention, right because we knowthat's what votes. Right, So that's
a lot of people. So kudoson that. I mean, I feel
that way for every candidate, Ireally do. I just like that's this
is this is a lot to takeon. So outside of you out of
your troubleshooting and and you're and you'rebeing able to kind of like find you
know, solutions, ask the rightquestions. What other qualifications would you say
(18:10):
you're bringing to the table. Again, outside of the mayor, that's really
kind of a leadership position within theat large council members. Right. I
always say this that you know,everybody's basically running for mayor, there's only
a few people who actually want thetitle, right, because when you're at
large, it's you're representing the entirecity, right, So so how would
(18:33):
you answer that question when post theoldest of four boys, So the oldest
child birth order kind of deal automaticallypushes the firstborn child into those kind of
the additional responsibility firstborn as well,so I get it. Yeah, and
(18:55):
also firstborn of seven grandchildren, allboys. So you're yeah, you're you're
kind of thrust into it, andyou're you get more attention along the way,
both good and bad. Yes,absolutely, and there will be another
podcast as entertainment value from the mayor'sseat. But natural leader comes with figuring
(19:30):
out how to run a business,run a family, interact with people when
you're when you're my my business.Part of it is the most has been
the most valuable I've had to Ican remember when I'm working on a generator
as a rookie man and the customer. We never asked our customers to go
away. You know where we're weour customers are actually part of our family
(19:52):
there, they are friends. Welike to treat it that way, and
so they'll be standing there watching mefix the generator and I'm sweating bullets as
a rookie. So growing through thosekind of interaction, you know, people
to people's skills is I can seethe value of that in me. My
(20:14):
wife always says, I'll be tryingto lead her. You know what,
she's You're a You're a leader allthe time. I can. I've got
this, you know. So Ithink a friendly You know again, I
can't do anything without the vote,without masses of people who take and I'm
I'm counting on I'm I'm kind oflike a wild card, uh name recognition
(20:37):
only back to the butt God factor. You know, this ain't gonna happen
except for God. I'm not spendingmoney on a campaign. In fact,
what you're doing here is what I'mwhat I'm hoping for, this kind of
face value of Fred Summers. Thisis how it gets out. Okay,
(21:00):
Now, I would love I willtell you this. So, whether I
get into the council chambers as themayor, I will be spending more time
there as a resident. I'm awareof the other because again this time and
space where we're at, we haveto have that. Yeah. No,
I would completely agree with that.I mean and I again, I talk
(21:22):
about this often for those of youwho follow the podcast. There's a few,
not millions, there's a few,anyway, excuse me. Yeah,
So when I came to Leander.One of the things that I did with
purpose, right, It was somethingthat was a decision that I made.
I got here and I said,you know what, I've lived in Houston
(21:44):
for you know, twenty some oddyears, right, And I moved around
a little bit. But even evenin that I had a few friends,
I had a few neighbors that Iknew. I really just didn't know my
community, right, I didn't.I did a number of volunteer you know,
oriented positions there. I served ona couple of different committees and things
of that nature, but I neverreally knew my community. So when we
(22:07):
moved out here, I was verypurposeful in that regard in that I was
like, I'm going to know myneighbors. I'm going to know the people
who live on my street. Youknow, I'm going to make sure that
I'm making that effort. If theyreciprocate, fine, if they don't,
fine, that's not the issue.The issues. I want to know who
they are, right to be,just present myself as someone they could come
(22:27):
to if they need help or youknow, a couple sher or whatever.
Right. And then because Leander isagain has a little bit of a small
town Ethos. Right. What Ifound right away was like, Okay,
this is really an interesting environment forand it offered an opportunity to get involved.
Right, You have an opportunity toget involved. It's not so big
(22:49):
that you get lost in the mix, right, but it's big enough to
where if you are at least motivatedto try to make some changer, substantiate
some new ideas, there there's anopportunity there. Right. So I made
myself available right away, and Iyou know, started volunteering for committees with
the city and and started to getto know some of the people of One
(23:12):
of the reasons I'm able to dothis is because of that. Right.
Had I not made that effort,nobody know who I am. Right,
at least you know there's some recognitionof Okay, well this guy, and
you know he's fair, he's balanced, he'll speak with everybody and have a
nice conversation. And that's the point. That's always the point of this is
just to sit down. And thisis the conversation that I think everybody should
(23:33):
have with the candidates, right,But they can't. It's just that's not
possible. It's not scalable to sitdown with everybody one on one, right,
So what I try to do issit down with you one on one
and have a conversation and just kindof reveal some things, hopefully about who
you are and what you're thinking.That helps people get a little bit of
an insight, you know, andyou know, and I when we talked
(23:57):
about this, it was like,I'm not here to do you know,
you know, gotcha journalism or anythinglike that. I'm not looking to do
that at all, right, Ijust want to like hopefully present an opportunity
and a platform for people to getto know you know. The how do
I say it on the podcast onmy website, It says the people,
the places, and the things thatare Leander right. And you're one of
(24:19):
the people that are Leander right.So again, I appreciate you taking the
time in your business world, becauseI think this is a good way to
kind of talk about some of thesethings outside of your own personal business.
Have you ever had an opportunity oran experience where you've maybe served with an
association like I don't know, isthere a Generator Association of Greater Texas.
(24:44):
I have no idea there is.Where I have served is in the racing
industry. Okay. We had atrack in Kyle. It was called Central
Texas Speedway, Okay, and Iprovided the pacecar for seven years. I
bought a two thousand and nine Challengeback at the time, the SRT model
in two thousand and nine was theBig Boy. Okay, Yeah, I
(25:04):
think I know which car you're talkingabout. It was orange. Of course,
we outfitted it with lights and onboth ends and gave rides. But
that was something I wanted to dowith that car. It gave me more
of an opportunity to have more funwith the car. We did that for
(25:25):
seven years, put one hundred andseventy thousand miles on that thing, going
back and forth to Kyle. Wedid some guest shows in Houston at one
of the tracks there. Tried toget in with Texas Motor Speedway, but
they only let Chevrolets run. Thisis a mopark, But through that endeavor,
it was all christ centered, anoutreach, a preaching moment. It
(25:51):
was the Pace for Life pace car. Interesting the last call safety car.
We did road courses, okay,but we developed a gospel track to hand
out. But we focused a loton giving kids rides. And you know,
there's just if you like racing andyou're around the cars and you end
up on the track. It's it'svery fun for the people who are hanging
(26:14):
around the track. Yeah, no, I've it's funny because I had a
very similar conversation the other day.A friend of mine is now getting interested
in f one. Right. Andwhen I was in the hospitality industry,
I worked with Sheraton and we hada driver and there was a Grand Prix
I think there was two years thatthey did it in Houston, so we
(26:37):
were able to get into the paddock, you know it. It was at
the Georgia R. Brown Convention Center. It was the first time in a
Grand Prix history that they had aair conditioned paddock, right, because it's
normally outside, right, so allthe cars were inside. That was really
cool. That was a lot offun. And I agree. I mean
I'm a car ish guy, youknow, I know how to you know,
get in there and you know,do a few things. But you
(27:00):
know, I've always I've always boughtthe car that I want. I've never
built the car that I wanted.So that's interesting and and it also kind
of you talked a little bit abouttheir you know, the service aspect of
some of that as well. Andit sounds like that's that's something that you
do. Is that do you continueto serve in that kind of capacity?
I mean, I, you know, not to necessarily bring religion into the
(27:22):
conversation, but just from a serviceperspective, it sounds like that's where you've
provided a lot of community service.Does that continue today? It does?
Okay, tell us a little bitabout that. What are you doing now?
I'm involved with an organization called CelebrateRecovery for folks who have either hurts,
hang ups, or habits that thathinders them, okay, and we
teach them how to overcome that,but with biblical principles okay, and it's
(27:48):
a nationwide, worldwide ministry. Ido it with a Great Hills Baptist Church.
They're friends of mine and okay,we have a meeting there every Wednesday.
So I've been with them for twoyears now and we do that every
Wednesday. Very very nice, verynice. Yeah. And again you know,
you're you're you're you're making yourself availableand again in a service oriented kind
(28:11):
of way. Right. I alwaysI like to highlight the fact that there
is a servant leadership component to anybodywho puts themselves forth in any kind of
civic regard, right or there shouldbe I mean, that's that's kind of
what you should be doing there.That should be part of what your thought
process is. Not self self aggrandation, you know, but but more you
(28:36):
know, Hey, I'm here toto make sure, you know, the
little guy gets taken care of her. However you might want to frame that,
right, That's something that I wantto work harder on as well.
I know this is a volunteer deal. I'm sixty seven, so I'm kind
of retired. I can pretty muchdo what I would like to do,
need to do in this case,want to do, want to serve my
community. But I'd like to bean open door mayor. They don't even
(28:59):
have an office for the mayor becauseof right, right, And it's because
it is a volunteer position. They'renot actually city staff, right, So
there's no office per se. SoI'm hoping that I can find somewhere where
I can be open door at leastthree days a week people people who have
something going on that they'd like totalk about, you know, in the
(29:22):
council chambers. It's kind of theway they run that meeting is kind of
like going to court and it's intimidatingat times. I will agree with that
it can be, and it's onthe times times. So that's the feel
I want to have with the residents. I mean we in the flow chart
(29:44):
in the city book, it saysresidents and then it's got the maryor and
then the council. So I reallywant to help the residents understand how much
they hold water for themselves, ifthey will hold right right to get involved.
And so yeah, I'm one ofthese guys that I like to have
(30:06):
a big splash. And so again, whether it's from the mayor seat or
on the others in the chamber,I'd like to see two three hundred people
show up at every meeting now andwith the with the community outreach, you
know, I mean, anything ispossible, right, So I wouldn't I
don't. I don't mean to laughand and and and I'm not laughing at
(30:29):
the prospect of it. I thinkthat's a that's a wonderful idea. It's
it's a it's a great idea.Having been to several council meetings, the
reason that I chuckle is they gountil you know, eleven o'clock sometimes.
I know there was one. Iremember that it actually went to like one
am or something like that. Sothat's that's my idea about these this large
number. More is to is tobe a peaceful participation. So yeah,
(30:52):
no, we don't all have tospeak, but if we, if the
council sees that we got that kindof yeah, no, I agree,
I agree. And then then asthe mayor, I get to bring proposals
to the table. So again I'mlearning. I admit, I you know,
late to the table here, butI'm here and I'm a fast learner.
(31:12):
I found out I'm a better studentthan I give myself credit for.
I wish I could say the same. I got my high school degree,
but I was looking out the windowat sixth grade, right, and it's
you know, there was there wasthings that were I had to go to
summer school to graduate. There wasa program where you work in the afternoon,
(31:33):
so you got fifteen hours of credit. So that helps. So there
was some things along the way thathelped me graduate. But as again as
the oldest child, as creative,we've been created by God. I think
in some degrees some ways our creativityis not explored. Our aptitudes are not
brought to the cream to the Yeah, so I think again that's that can
(31:59):
be another conversation from the mayor chairwith the with the community. Hey,
what else can we do some Oneof the things that I would love to
see, and it seems impossible isto end the property tax if we if
we were able to do that,that will be a catalyst that will bring
people to well how did that?What's going on? It would free up
(32:22):
money is that they may want tospend in the community to help with So
it seems like a snowball that wouldhelp in a lot of ways. Yeah,
and even and then beyond that endowmentmoney. Oh, I want to
say right now, I'm in fullfavor of a Cheddar's restaurant, and well
(32:42):
let's just buy let's bypass Cedar Parkon that one. Put that so I'll
fight for that one for you know, I would join you at the door
because I do like Cheddars myself.And another thing, if in case they're
listening, that's a good sponsorship.I'm a to be an ambassador, especially
for places I love. So anotherone, another one I want to I
(33:05):
wanted Volley for is for canes toadd fried shrimp they're just chicken. Can
you imagine what it would be likefor fried shrimp with that? That would
be a nice addition. It shouldn'tcause too much chaos in the kitchen,
right right, That's a thought,that's definitely a thought. Yeah, Cane's
shrimp. That's interesting. I guessthat maybe if the dog ate the shrimp.
(33:29):
I don't know. I don't knowthat an expansion, no, but
I again, it kind of itdoes highlight at least some creative thinking,
right, And that's always part ofone of the things that you know,
you would hope for, at leastin a candidate, is that they're going
to be creatively you know, contemplatingsome of the issues and some of the
some of the complications that occur withsome creativity in it and a creative mind
(33:52):
and a creative approach, right,because I think far too often we end
up very siloed and very like wecan only do it this way or we
can only do it that way.And honestly, I would say some of
the problems that we have today stemfrom that type of thinking, like there's
there's only one way to do that. This is how we've always done it,
right, and so you know,it's it's it's always a good it's
(34:15):
always a good thing. I thinkto add to add new voices and add
new ideas to the mix. Right, it's a gumbo at the end of
the day. Right, it's,it's, it's, it's it's a lot
more. I remember when I wasa kid, and I you know,
I'm a first generation American, andand you know, my family was from
Mexico, and you know, therewas opportunity there to talk about that a
(34:37):
little bit when I was growing up. And and one of the things that
I remember very very distinctly was theidea of the great melting pot, right,
the great the great mix of allsorts of people from all sorts of
places, and yeah, just justall these things that we can do together.
And I think it's arguable that Ithink we've maybe gotten a little bit
away from that, Right. Ithink it's still an underlie buying reality.
(35:00):
Right. I think most people wouldsay, yeah, you know that the
idea of the melting pot is kindof what we buy into. Right.
And here in Leander, again froma from a smaller community perspective, you
know that the race themselves, youknow, it's a it's a nonpartisan race
(35:21):
again, You're you're basically saying,I would like to volunteer to do this,
uh, serve in that capacity.I've I've referred to it as a
little bit of an aggrandized committee becauseit's kind of what it is, you
know, but the idea of therepresentative piece of that is really what that's
about. Right, So when you'rewhen you're talking about these ideas and and
(35:46):
maybe sometimes they're a little bit asany idea, but that's okay, you
know, it's it's it's good tohave that conversation because there's people who would
say, yeah, you know what, why don't we have a Chatter's restaurant?
Like, why is that not oneof the restaurants we have there?
There's only a certain amount of controlthat the city necessarily has there. Right,
it's but could we, potentially,from an economic development perspective, reach
(36:07):
out to that company, you know, and say, hey, you know,
our residents have indicated that they wouldlike one of your restaurants in our
city, and would you like tocome and tour and see what we have
and see available opportunities. There's landhere, there's a new building coming up
over here, we have this newstrip mall over here, et cetera.
And I think that we're definitely trendingin that direction. I wouldn't say that
(36:30):
we're not doing that right, butcould we do more? You know,
you never know, And community outreachis part of the process. Is something
that I think is super, superimportant, and you've said it a couple
of times while we've been sitting here, is that you have to get involved,
right, You have to take thetime that it takes to at least
express your opinion. And at theworst case scenario, that's the vote,
(36:52):
right, that's going to the polls, either early or you know, I
think it's May fourth, right,So on May fourth, you show up
and you know, you punch thedial or whatever with the pencil. I
forget what it is anymore, butyou use that mechanism to express how you
feel about, you know, whereyou want your city to be going right,
(37:14):
where you want your city to change, if that's what you want,
or continue if that's what you want. Whatever your voice might be. But
when there's only again, I thinkin the last election, I think it
probably kind of started touching maybe closeto five percent. I remember at one
point I looked at this, butit was between three and five percent of
(37:35):
the total registered population actually showed upto vote. And in Texas, historically
and statistically, registered voters track aroundseventy to eighty percent of the population.
Right, So if we just usesimple Caveman math, right, and there's
one hundred thousand people in Leander andseventy thousand of them on the low end
(37:58):
are registered voters, and only fivepercent of that actually shows up. That
was another thing that caught my eyein my if they only had five percent,
surely I could help get ten Youwould, I mean, and I
would hope for I would. Iwould wish that for any candidate, right,
Like, if you can get morepeople to come out, right,
(38:19):
then we get a better representative sampleof what the citizens in the city want.
Right. It's about whether it's whetherit's a crazy idea or something that's
really hard to understand, or whateverthe case might be. It is about
the best idea, like what willbe the best what works best for our
community. Because you and I aresitting here today, right and we're having
(38:43):
this conversation, and you're making yourselfavailable as a candidate for the mayor of
the city, and you'll do that. Maybe if you were to win,
you would do it for a term, maybe two terms. So that's six
years, right, six years inthe in the in the greater scheme of
a city, in any city,right is nothing so far, it's nothing,
(39:05):
right, it's a minute period oftime. But the city keeps going.
Right. Citizens come and go,they move in, they move out,
They you know, they live theirlives and however you want to look
at that. But the city doesn'tgo away. I mean, we hope
and you know, hopefully there's youknow, there's an opportunity that the climate
and all those other things don't forceus to all move north. So you
(39:28):
know that kind of thing. Andagain I'm just I'm being kind of silly
there. But at the end ofthe day, those decisions that were made,
you know, ten, fifteen,twenty years ago can still be influencing
what's happening today. So the sameholds true going forward. Right. Being
homesteaded is part of the equation,you know. Some my business allows me
(39:49):
to be deeply rooted. There's enoughbusiness here and my customers actually can come
to me from other states and theyhave once. In the service industry,
no matter what you do, ifyou do it correctly, you'll your referral.
Yeah, no, people will findyou. No, absolutely, I
completely agree with that. Again,I had some of my experience in the
(40:14):
past was in the hospitality industry,so I really am that was where I
cut my teeth, right, So, so my service orientation is very very
much from a hospitality perspective, right, So I view the world from that
lens. I didn't necessarily grow upthat way, and I didn't necessarily intend
for that to be the case.But it absolutely it doesn't matter what I
(40:37):
do. I can't get rid ofit. I've tried. I can't get
rid of it. I cannot goto a store, I cannot sit in
a restaurant, I cannot go havea drink without orienting the experience to the
level of service that I received.Right. So then you take that and
how do you approach your And youyou know your business, you've you know,
(41:00):
you've homesteaded, You've created a solidbusiness in the city where people recognize
who you are they come to youfor that service, right. But that's
not by accident, right, that'swith a purpose, like you did that
with intent. There was never ajust like, ah, you know,
I think I'll just fix some generatorsI'm looking at your comeback, right,
(41:20):
Yeah, no, absolutely zero,Yeah that it needs to be zero.
Trust me. When I when Iwas in the hospitality industry, when I
was a service when I was directorof sales and marketing, right, and
one of the things that I wouldconstantly it was and today even to this
day, it's still something that Iharp on all the time. From a
sales methodology perspective, you go throughthe prospecting process and you find out what
(41:44):
it is that your customer wants,and then you kind of go through the
solutioning process where you're giving them theservices or the or the you know,
the widgets or whatever it is thatyou have, and you try it's a
it's a sales process. So youwant to convince them that this is the
best decision, right, and andit's done with an intent that you believe
in your product that should be atleast and you know that you really believe
(42:05):
that this is the best solution.They've come to you because they're looking to
solve X and you have why,right, So you're you're showing them like,
why will solve your X equation here? And so but one of the
things that I was always harping onand still I think it's one of the
most important parts of the process iswhat about the lost business when you didn't
(42:27):
get the sale? Why? Likewhat was it that you missed? Like?
Was it not the right solution?Was it something that you said,
how did that occur? Right?And I think far too often in many
of the things that we do froma community perspective, we don't look at
that. We don't look at like, well, why didn't that business select
Leander? And sometimes it's a prettyeasy equation, right, like something like
(42:50):
a Samsung, Right, there wasn'tenough land, Like there's nowhere for that
to go, right. And youknow, you'll hear people talk about,
you know, while we don't haveany kind of of you know, enough
incentives for businesses, right, AndI'm like, well, you know,
honestly, they got enough money.They don't really need our incentives, right.
What they need is the location,they need, the land they need
(43:10):
somewhere to go, right, andtheir equation and the way that they look
at things should be. I wouldthink more along the lines of where can
we get the best deal, right, doesn't necessarily need to enjoy it next
location? Yeah? Right? Imean again, from a and a lot
of that is small business, right, it's Leander's just by the very nature
(43:30):
of the city and where we arein central Texas, you know, related
to Austin and arguably to San Antonio. Right. One of my questions,
this leads to a question, whydid we get a what a burger right
next to a dairy queen instead ofa cheddar. That's just just an honest,
honest you know you get it raisedlaughter, No, it's a legitimate
(43:54):
question. May lead to a frownsomewhere else, but that's that's me.
That's that If the machine is notrunning perfectly smooth right from as many pressure
pressure points as we can measure,then I'm gonna start asking. And that
(44:15):
comes from a guy who builds racecars. We're looking for every horse power.
We love sprint cars and sprint cars. So when we put that thing
on the Dino, and so it'sour it's one of our jil we called
the junk Yard project. We getthe engine out of the junk yard.
And so we're trying to save costand get more people involved at a lower
(44:38):
level. And here's our plan,here's our recipe, and so we're trying
to hit five hundred and fifty horsepower on the Dino at the wheels.
And so again that's when, youknow, I bring the the car over
and I say it's ready to go, and then the guys are testing it
and they're putting pressure on it,and they're going, now, Fred,
(45:00):
you didn't quite make it, youknow. You know, so I get
discouraged, But I still I'm goingout to the five hundred and fifty horse
powers. So there's a lot ofwhat's it called metaphors, Yeah, yeah,
no, I mean it's a perfectmetaphor. I bring relatability to the
table. I can relate to theresidents and the business entrepreneurs. I'm not
(45:24):
a I think there's some monkey businessgoing on with with developers and development and
some more hostile takeover with land.If the if the fellow didn't have to
sell, or if he if hedidn't have a tax burd maybe he would
keep the land in his family.I know that hurts the guy who wants
to bring cheddars, because boy,that's a great piece of property. But
(45:47):
still everybody should be able to getto do what they want to do,
now what they're forced to do.I do not I don't in in in
our civil life. I don't thinkwe should push people. We should be
accommodating. And I'm I'm I'm aggravating. That's say what brings me to the
(46:10):
table. Aggravation on how people treatpeople is part of it. And maybe
this will be a good place toend. I'm not sure what my parents
this is how we should the publicsquare should be a certain way. And
(46:30):
my parents when when I was aboy, when we were us four boys
were young, we go out todinner and all they had to do was
look across the table, say boyswere in public, knock it off.
And that's the kind of courtesy weshould give everybody. And not in a
I mean the they're the parents,so they have a bigger hammer, but
(46:52):
in just men to men, peopleto people. We should say, you
know, something's going wrong at thepark and you walk over and say,
hey, you guys, okay,you know gently, hey, you know,
do you try to diffuse it.I'm that's another one of my characters.
I'm a good diffuser. That comesfrom being a hothead for a lot
of you. I learned, youknow, but God intervened and showed me
(47:15):
how you know that you really didn'thandle that right? Let me show you
a different way. So that's abeautiful explanation of how God takes our weaknesses
and makes him strong. So I'ma I'm a person that can make the
picture strong. I'm confident. Tellthe folks where they can find you,
what are your socials? Where areyou on the web. I'll tell you
(47:37):
what. I'm gonna give you mymy email. I've taken everything else down
because everybody was just being argumentative.So again I'm back to total grassroots.
You know, I'm around enough thatpeople know me and can see me.
Maybe maybe, if not this goaround, then the next. But this
(47:59):
is a process. But Fred atfix your generator dot com. That's Fred
at fix Yo. You are yourgenerator dot com, Fred at fixyogenerator dot
com. All right, well,Fred, thank you so much. This
has been a wonderful conversation. Iappreciate your time very very much and the
best of luck in your in yourendeavors to run from ayor. Thank you
(48:22):
very much. All right, Sothat's it for this episode, and I
certainly hope that you guys are gettingsomething out of this. I know that
I am, and I appreciate everycandidate who's taken the time and those who
have not yet shown up, butwe're working on that. So hopefully we're
gonna get everybody on to the podcasthere over the next week to ten days
and have all that information out thereprior to you know, I was hoping
(48:45):
that I could get it all donebefore April fourth, so but it looks
up we going to be a littlebit behind that date, but that's okay.
We'll have all this information out foryou. You can find it at
vote in Leander dot com or onLeaninleander dot net. Again, please subscribe
if you like the content. Youcan find us on Apple Podcasts or your
favorite podcast app, and YouTube andFacebook, as well as a couple other
(49:12):
social media channels. So however youfind us, I appreciate you finding us.
Hope you stick around for a littlebit, and that's going to wrap
us for this one. Thanks again, Fred, I appreciate it. We'll
see y'all next time. One ofmy favorite h
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