April 15, 2025 • 42 mins
Ed Young joined VERONICA LIVE to discuss his run for Panama City Commissioner Seat Ward 1. He shared his thoughts on all the hot issues impacting the city and why he is running.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Veronica Live. And I'm here with John my wingman,
and we've got a special guest who reached out to
me because he wanted to come on Veronica Live and
tell us why he is running for Panama City Commission
Ward one Ed Young Hey Ed, Welcome to Ronica Live.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thanks for having me Ronica.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Well, tell everyone about your background. What have you been
doing you know for employment? How long have you lived here?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you well.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
At eighteen, I joined the United States Air Force right
out of high school. Actually is a six month delayed enlistment.
I joined before I was old enough to join. My
father was retired Air Force and all I ever wanted
to do was go into the Air Force and serve
my country.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And be a jet engine mechanic. So I was blessed
to do that.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Took the ADS BAP and all the pre entrance exams
and got a designated guaranteed job to be a jet mechanic.
And I went in the Air Force, and I spent
six years in the Air Force in the laugh asignment
in the Air Force was right here at Tyndall.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
And what did you what airplanes you work on?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Start on F one oh six's which there are no
more of because we we converted them to full scale
drones and used them to train our pilots, the best
fighter pilots in this world, the United States Air Force
fighter pilots.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
We have a range in the Gulf.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Of Mexico designated for live fire, and we took all
those old F one O sixes that I used to
work on in the beginning of my career and we
turned them into full scale sized drones and we shot
them out the sky. And then after that I went
to work on F fifteen Eagles, which is what we
had here. In eighty five, when I transferred from the
Upper Peninsula, Michigan, k I saw the Air Force base
(01:48):
here to Tindall, and I spent three years on F fifteen,
the last two of which I was an instructor for
maintenance for crew chiefing. And during that timeframe we had
a thing called the Graham Rugman Budget Reduction Bill. I
had just gotten married to a gallon the Air Force,
and at that time we had a thing called joint
(02:09):
spouse assignments. If if I got sent somewhere, she would too.
If she got sent somewhere, I'd get sent there. But
Graham Rugman Budget reduction bill terminated that, and I had
just gotten married and did not want to end up,
you know, separated like that. So they called me in
and said, Starry Young, you have a choice to make.
You can re enlist right now, or we're going to
(02:30):
be discharging you in two weeks because we're doing a
manning study. And it basically I was going to get
sent overseas without her, and I decided it wasn't worth it.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I wanted to make a career out of.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It, but they kind of it was peace time, we
were not at war. There was no reason for me
to feel like I was turning my back on anything.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And I just decided, well.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I'd rather I'd rather not be separated like that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
So I decided to get out.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And about two days after getting out, one of my
friends took me for a ride in a Florida Marine
Patrol boat on night shift. He knew I needed work,
and I wasn't expecting to have to need it so quickly,
And we went for a ride in the Marine patrol
boat out in East Bay at night and boarded shrimp
boats and did a little surveying and some surveillance on somethings,
(03:20):
and I fell in love with that, and I did
seven years in the Florida Marine Patrol. I did two
years with the Scamba County Sheriff's Office, one year overseas
in Kosovo as an international police officer in the Unmixed
UNMICK Mission over the United Nations Mission in Kosovo.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And when I got back, my wife.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Wanted to settle back down in Panama City. So I
came back here and did a year or two at
Panama CITYPD, and then I retired out of the Bay
County Sheriff's Office. So I used the accumulation of all
that different time to have a state retirement. The whole
time I was doing that, I was working. I was
moonlighting and construction, building kitchens and decks and barns and additions.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And I realized.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That we worked four ten hour days most of the
time in those agencies, and I financially from my family
that we continued to grow. I was more of a
provider financially on my three days off building a garage
or addition than I was for twelve hour days, and
(04:25):
with a lot of the things you have to put
up with in law enforcement. And so I had to
make the choice of being a better provider for continuing
to work two jobs. So I decided just to get
my certified billion contractor's license about twenty four years ago.
And that's what I've been doing for twenty four years
of being a building.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I knew I loved you because you know, my husband
flew F fifteen's.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
I oh, wonderful crew chiefs.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Make it happen because you know when they go fly
and they land, they're so happy. But anyways, so, Ed,
why are you running?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
What made you decide to run?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And I know you are definitely not one of the
good old boys, because everybody keeps whispering in my ear
telling me that you're not and that you need to
be elected. So why are you running for this commission?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
See?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, I would hope that as my lifelong pursuit of
defending people against bullies would show through here. I cannot
stand bullies. I cannot stand tyranny. I cannot stand government overreach.
I cannot stand tyrannical attitudes. Government works for the people.
(05:34):
The government is of, fore and by the people. And
I watched my neighbors down on Beach Drive. I live
two blocks off Beach Drive in Saint Andrews. I have
twenty four years in this home. My wife grew up
in this neighborhood. All of them grew up playing down
at the Duck Pond on East and West Carolina and
walking the bay Saint Andrews Bay down on Beach Drive.
(05:58):
And when I when it came evident to me what
was happening, which was a neighborhood saying, we don't want this.
We never asked for this, we never petitioned for this.
This is going to completely disrupt our lives and the
lives of everyone wants to know, appreciate and enjoy this
natural piece of our city that's been here for so long.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Uh. And I started asking.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Questions of all the neighbors that were down there, like
when did this begin, what's going on? Why are they
forcing it on us? What's the hidden reason behind this?
Because it can't just be because somebody somewhere in the
city wanted it. It's got to be for a larger
reason than that, which there's been a lot of of,
you know, conjecture about why it's so forced.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But anyway, I started looking into that and.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I realized, no one wants it. It's costly, it can't
be paid for for what they say, it violates so
many rules of just standard conduct between government and the people.
And it was during election time. It was back well,
it was preparation for election time, when I already doing
all the research August actually August of twenty twenty four,
(07:04):
when I was becoming more and more aware about all
of it, and because I was looking into that, then
I looked into the money being spent on the Martin Theater,
the money being spent on street skates downtown Panama City.
And during the course of all that, the of course
the Advalorm giveaway.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
With Sweet Bay occurred.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
And then I started going to workshops and listening to
transportation impacts, fee proposals and all these and started realizing
just because I've been on both sides of the fence
and government, spent my whole first part of my lifetime
serving in the government one form or another, either with
the military, the international effort, a city effort, county and
(07:45):
state effort.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I know how to follow rules, I know how.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
To reach statutes, I know and understand the function of
the government. And everywhere I've been in the service of
the people, I was always taught and always drilled and
in service and retrained on we work for the people.
And one of the greatest things I ever carried away
from Marine Patrol Academy years ago was a quote one
of the attorneys that was teaching us constitutional law at
(08:10):
the Marine Patrol Academy. He was very clear, he said, quote,
you can only police a free society to the extent
that they wished to be policed. In other words, they
work for us. The government works for us, and we
can tell them to what degree we will allow their taxation,
(08:30):
allow their decision making that affects our lives, et cetera,
et cetera. Well, I didn't see any of that being
practice with the beach drive proposal pathway, and then I
started looking into it deeper. I discovered that in the
very beginning of that grant money, it was written for quote,
sidewalks within Panama City, obviously post Hurricane Michael, damages, etc.
(08:54):
And from the point or another it morphed into multi
use pathway. And then when that language got caught, they
change it to sidewalk again because the grant started being
reviewed by so many solids.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I'm laughing because this is hysterical.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Well it.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Anyway, here's the reality.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Most Maybe I want to cry.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I know well most.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
People, the thirty fish, the thirty eight thousand residents in
this town. Let's look at some facts from the twenty
twenty census. They're working their tails off. Most of them,
like me, all my life, have at least two jobs,
sometimes three. If it's not three full time jobs, it's
a full time, a part time, in a weekend job.
Everybody is working very hard in this economy. It's the
(09:38):
worst economy I've seen in my life. At sixty one
years of age, I've never seen economy where it takes
around sixty to sixty five percent of your monthly income
to provide your domicile. Back when I was growing up,
if you spent more than twenty five percent of your
monthly income on your domicile, you were quote living beyond
your means, and you need to assess how you're spending
(09:59):
your money. Now. I've got four young professionals in this town.
They all are spending sixty to sixty five percent of
their income. One's in Tallahassee, but the rest are here.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
But the point is they're all born and raised here.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
They all had to grow up under these conditions. We
have a seventeen and a half almost an eighteen percent
poverty rate in Panama City. The average income per home,
not individual per home is forty eight thousand dollars a year.
You look at these numbers and understand these people. No
one's making a city commission meeting, no one's bothering to
(10:34):
watch it when it gets archived on the website. These
people are working themselves silly, and the evenings are doing
laundry and cooking food and taking care of changing a
tire and getting their kids ready for school tomorrow and
helping them with their homework. So this thing about well,
there's not much government involved in that. Well, the economics
are keeping people working themselves silly. They don't have a
(10:55):
whole lot of time. I, at this final winter of
my life, dream to see myself getting involved in politics.
I am way too irritated and felt hypocritical sitting and
watching this happen and doing nothing. And when I realized
there may be something I can do about it, I've
volunteered myself to.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Go and do.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I have never had a desire to get into politics.
I've never had a desire to run for office. And
I am not doing this for me. I don't need it.
I've fulfilled every aspect of the desires of my life
and fulfilled the measure of my creation in so many
different aspects that I did not need this. I am
doing this because I see the need for it, because
(11:36):
others cannot do it. Others don't have the time for it,
they don't have the understanding, and most of them, if
they did, wouldn't have near the inclination because they see
what a difficult task it is to rein in a
government who some of their ranking officials and people that
are qualified to tell them so, such as Jan Smith,
the city clerk and treasurer, is just turning blue telling
(11:58):
them how dire are finances are, and they keep spending
money like drunken sailors.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Well, how do you?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
How do you?
Speaker 5 (12:07):
How do you do you square things? You know, the
city has got so many basic fundamental needs in it,
and the one thing that government should should always do
is take care of the basics. Okay, I mean, yeah,
the sidewalk, the pretty sidewalks are all nice, you know,
the civic center and all that is nice, but you've
got to take care of the basics. And you know,
one of the things we've been we've been harping on
(12:29):
is the situation with the fire hydrants, you know where
where we have all these fire hydrants out of commission.
I mean we're talking that effects people.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Have over seventy fire hydrants that are inoperatives have over
seventies that.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Are why didn't we spend this one million?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Well, we have the Cove yacht club that burned to
the ground because we didn't have a functioning fire hydrant
over there in the cove where the uh where a
lot of folks who are are adamantly uh just us
saying things that they do like about the city have
a fire hydrant that was inoperative, so their yacht club
burned down in front of them. We also have a
(13:06):
fire tax that was imposed that you would think with
a kind of money that we collected as a city. Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Some people, as I.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Just mentioned about the factual true condition of the finances
of many of the people in our city limits, some
people had to borrow that money from relatives to pay
that assessment that was between six and seven hundred dollars
the first year round when you are on.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
A buzzet, working doesn't work. After they you know, pillaged
the people, Oh my.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Goddess, and you think after what happened in California, people
would pay attention, you know, our fire insurance rates. At
some point, you know, when a word about this gets
around and the insurers look at it and say, well,
these people, you know, half their fire hydrants aren't working
or whatever the number is.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We ensure them because the city's not doing their damn job.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Or they'll raise the fire insurance rating and and your
premiums will go up for that.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
But you know, well to give not to the worker
bees of the city. How how awful is it for
us to realize that these crews who by mandate and
by standard operating procedure and by their manuals, they go
out and test fire hydrants as part of their standard
duties as a fireman and as a firehouse in their district,
they go out and test the operational capability of fire hydrogens.
(14:20):
I was in law enforcement here in Bay County for
many years in with the city, and I know for
a fact a lot of these firemen I know by
first name and have for years. They are charged with
going out and doing these tests and checking operations. How
would you think you would feel if you were a fireman,
you know, you work for a city government that's accountable
to its citizens. You go out and test these hydrants,
(14:41):
you know how many of them are completely inoperative. You
understand the mathe logistics and geography of where they're located
with fire risk, and your.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Plus to put them at harms way, so you know.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Sol they know when they pull up to it, it's
not gonna You.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Know, well, I'm a retired Air Force officer too, So
there's got to be some accountability here. And Ed, we
need you on the commission with the mayor because this
is unsatisfactory. What's been going on, and to waste a
million dollars. You know, I interviewed over the years, I've
interviewed Mayor ber Nikki. I've lost count how many times.
The city manager before Jerreal McQueen I used to interview
(15:16):
all the time, and he talked about the infrastructure under
the city was like the Roman days. Here we've wasted
a million dollars on some damn pathway that looks fine,
that doesn't even belong to the freaking city.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
So so you know the thing is John.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And I, well, here's something worse about that money. Here's
something worse about that money.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Ed. As a engineer, you are given a request by
your customer, in this case the city Panama City, we
request you draw the following with the following amenities, and
you do so, and you get paid because you fulfilled
that contract. And now all the back pedaling and all
the craw fishing comes out, and all the alternative alter
(16:00):
alternative things that have yet to be drawn that are
yet to be paid for. First of all, I don't
believe in a million years that there's any way that
any sane traffic engineer could look at the city of
Panama City, look at the east west traffic flow and
the main arteries and say to themselves, well, that's a
wonderful idea. Let's pull that major artery out, make it
(16:20):
a capillary, and let's overload these other arteries. Levit Street
fifteenth Street with approximately you know, six thousand cars per
road during rush hour, morning and night, and think that
that's gonna work.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
They're already overloaded.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
We've already overloaded this city post Hurricane Michael, with the
number of folks that have come in here. I sometimes
question this overall number of residents in Panama City because
I note for a fact, my personal experience driving here,
shopping here, going to the grocery store, in the big
box stores for construction needs. And seeing the number of
people and cars in this town post Michael, I would
(16:59):
I would dare to say thirty growth in vehicle traffic
post Michael.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
And not only that, look at look at all the
housing construction that's going on. And I'm not talking single
family homes. I'm talking these rental I don't know if
they're condominiums or apartments or whatever. In panwas everywhere, I
mean everywhere, and it's like, you know, eventually they're going
to be occupied and you're gonna have all that traffic
flowing off these secondary roads onto those primary roads.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Again, here's the facts, gentlemen. Is the yacht club is gone.
It is gone, and that should have been the wake
up call. And seventy five hydrants don't have freaking water.
That's that's wake up call number two. And we saw
from California what a fire did, destroyed hundreds of homes.
(17:45):
And I don't understand why this is not the number
one priority. And the city manager has all the commissioners
beating him up getting this fixed instead of wasting frickin'
million dollars on Beach Drive with these mansions that nobody
cares about right now.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Well, the other problem is is the is the the
utility department, which is you know, they're responsible for the
water and the fire hydrants, Okay, and they are. They
are on a break neck, breakneck pace for raising the
rates already. And you know, we're just talking to the
mayor a little while ago, and and you know, I'm
paying one hundred and twenty seven dollars a month right
(18:21):
now for water, sewage, and garbage, which is which is
doubled since since Hurricane Michael. And apparently it's going up
nine percent a year for the next five years. So
in five years, I'll be paying over two hundred dollars
a month for water, three thousand gallons of water. This
is insane.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I mean, how many people in the city can.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Afford two hundred dollars a month for a water bill.
I mean something is gonna something's going to crash, and
it's going to crash hard because you know, two hundred
dollars for water bill, two hundred dollars for.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Ask yourself, where does don't have to go?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
People don't have to ask yourself, where does the money go?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Once it's collect Where does it go because here's here's
the reality. We are in a financial distressed situation. There
is no question about it. Jan Smith, who's not a
member of any club. She was hired on her credit,
her resume, her interview, her ability and background. She is
a certified public accountant. She comes from a much larger
(19:19):
city with much greater problems than we could ever have
with population and infrastructure and growth and all the nuances
that go along with that. And she is every commission
meeting that I have attended, I see the dread and
worry on her as she sits there and realizes that
they're not listening to me. They haven't listened to me
(19:39):
when I when I tell them what's the truth, they
belittle me. I was at the commission meeting when she
was explaining there the dire fiscal condition that we're in,
and one of the commissioners made a statement said, we
love Jan, she's a really good CPA for the day
to day, but this is in investment accounting and that's
(20:01):
just not your area of expertise. And I thought when
I saw her turn purple that I thought I was
gonna see steam come out of miss Smith's ears.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
But it didn't.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Thank goodness, she composed herself, and then another commissioner said
to her something about politicizing this, and she couldn't take
it anymore. And that woman finally stood up for herself,
and she was visibly shaken. She was controlling herself. She
did a great job, but she made it very clear,
I am not about this for politics. I am not
(20:32):
about this for anything to do with your politics. I
am telling you the truth and the state and condition
of the city's finances, and this.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Is what they are. And I just sat there going, Okay, So.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The one person that all of you at one time
and point were praising and supporting and how wonderful Jan
Smith is. But the second she tells the truth because
the face facts, I'm going to say it, with the
exception of Mayor Rohan up there on that das Jan Smith,
and they are Rohant don't have any problem telling the truth.
(21:05):
They're not in it for themselves. They're not in it
for truly, not in it for political reasons. They're not
in it for a bias for people that they may
be connected with in contracting or in banking, or in
whatever the case may be. They truly are independent up there,
and they don't mind telling the truth, but everyone else
has a quote dog in the fight, and it's all
(21:25):
about politics, including those that are running for office right now.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
So question for you, Ed, I mean, what's the city
manager doing when all of this is hitting the fan?
Because if he's the most important person, why is in
he on top of the budget?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Okay, So in the state of Florida, the charters are
written by the state and minsipolities have to follow them,
and we have what's called a weak mayor system. The
mayor is merely he's.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Merely as yeah, exactly, he does.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Conduct the meetings. He holds the gavel, so he has
the order of the meeting, he has the agenda, and
he is the one that basically in commission meetings and
in his absence or if he wants to move emotional something,
he'll pass the gavel.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
But that that's due to the rules.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
But the city commission they are supposed to be in
such unison with the city manager that that things get done,
things get handled things, or are done in such a
way that's fiscally responsible, it's in agreeance and so forth. Well,
the mayor has been up there for two years basically
all by himself. Every time he brings up something, has.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
A suggestion, asks a question, he shut out.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Shut down, belittled, and and he has He'll vote four
to one on so many things. The forty five percent
of of lorm give away a sweet Bay four to
one against him, the Chestnut Avenue eleven twenty eight Chessnut
Avenue property, way too much money our budget, Our finances
are so poor, yet we give way way too much
(22:55):
for land in cases like eleven tway Hey four to
one voted against him. Let me think of a no example,
Martin Theater and the transfer of all the funds from
the Marina to the Martin Theater four to one. So
he's never been.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Given a hold on though, because I want to ask
you about the Martin Theater. I'm literally appalled that that's
going to be thirty five million dollars. I'm ticked that
I don't have a civic center. So where do you
stand on these things?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Ed?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
The Martin Theater is an absolute travesty of money. If elected,
I promise you, as a certified building contractor, I will
go over that contract. I will go over the bills
that they have submitted their invoices with this kind of money.
Sheet rockers better be making one thousand dollars an hour
thirty four million dollars. I could tear the Martin Theater
(23:43):
down and build it twice for thirty four million dollars,
and I so could any other.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Builder and get down.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Yep, there's something too, There's something crooked going on here.
You know, people's pockets are being aligned.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Because I was on the fundraising committee for the Gretchen Scott.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
The school was given five million. The school the county
matched five.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
That was ten and it's as big as the Martin
And that was a ten million dollar building. And how
did we go and triple this now in a few years.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I feel like it was supposed to be a remodel.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, but it's supposed to be a remodel.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
But if you go down there and look at it,
it is the farthest thing from a remodel. They were
supposed to save the historical elements and architectural pieces of
Go in there and look around. There's nothing left. The
sign is not even neon anymore. The sign is.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Digital out front.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Of course, that happened way before this contract. But the
point being, we're gonna reserve, we're gonna preserve the Martin Theater.
We haven't preserved a piece of it. It is absolutely
nothing but a foundation, walls and a roof, and everything
going in there is going to be.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It's not a remodel, it is a rebuild. And the
kind of money that we spent on that is shameful.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
And it doesn't and it doesn't hold enough people. It
doesn't hold enough people for community events. That's the part
that really gets me.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
If you do the math, it will take five one
hundred years if you get a return on investment, five
hundred years, no pure and and.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
It's never had any return in the forty five years
I've been here that the Martin Theater's been an issue
in Panama City. It has never ever ever been successful
at anything.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah, you know that's the crazy part.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
But what's changed did you take?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
If you take an amount of money that was sitting
down there through marina and it had a chance of survival,
and you completely remove the chance of independence as the
city being independent with their money to take care of
the marina, and you snatch it so that the city
has absolutely no money to help its own marina, and
you place it somewhere else, stay the Martin theater. Now
(25:45):
you have got to face the fact the city will
never have any money independently to deal with their marina,
and it will have to be a public private collaboration, which,
in my opinion from the outside looking in, that's exactly
what the powers that be wanted.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
They wanted to.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
And ed wh well, they've been trying.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
They've been trying to give away the marina for the
last twenty years, you know, to you know, and look
at all the plans that have come and gone, all
the hotel right in, the gambling and you know, the
cruise ships and all this stuff. Every one of these
pipe dreams has been a complete and utter failure.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But here's the bottom line, John, is that the marina
is not open, and Florida's a boating state. And before
I had my boat in my backyard, I used the
Panama City Marina to put my boat in occasionally to
get to Shell Island. And the Florida citizens are suffering
because Panama City leadership can't get their act together.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Well, just to show you how how crooked and corrupt
the whole thing is, Veronica, in the nineteen sixties, there
was a bond issue that was taken out to build
that marina, and that that's where the one percent merchant
tax came in. And after that bond was all paid off,
the merchants acts stayed. So they've been spending that money
(27:04):
that was always segregated, always supposed to be you know
that the citizens voted for for the marina, they've been
spending it on all kinds of stuff. Since you can
look up, where do you get taxing room with this stuff?
You know, where do they get money from?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well, the money's going to come from private. The private's
going to have a whole lot of decision making on
what goes in there. That's why if you look at
the plans that have been the most recently rendered, plans
are one half of that marina is going to be
for exceptionally large large vessels. I just ran down to
you the state of finances of the average citizen in
(27:40):
Panama City, and that is a city marina. The average
citizen in this town will never be able to afford
a forty footer that stays in the water down there.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
But that's what we're looking at.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
The half of the marina that's the westerly half closest
to the Indigo Hotel in Harrison's Restaurant. That half of
the marina is slated under renderings right now and suggestion,
and you know how suggestions go when certain people suggest them,
that's going to be for very large vessels, and the
other half of.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
The marina will will not.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It won't be for very large vessels. It'll be for
probably twenty five and less. But let me one more
caveat with the down with the marina, the City Marina.
Another part of it, in the original deed is that
the Florida Marine Patrol will always have a slip at.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
The Panama City Marina. No one knows about that, and.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
But that's the reason.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Means well that what that what that means is so
many things that were deeded in the origins of many
things like Beach Drive in the beginning. Every single piece
of land that's on the south side of Beach Drive
ninety eight is absolutely a part of the of the
property north of it. The end of every street on
Beach Drive was retained by the developer, the end of
(28:56):
Lake Caroline was retained by the developer, and over the years,
if it's been kept in the family and closely monitored,
all those deeds reflect that the person on the north
side of the road owns the piece of property on
the south side road directly across the street from it.
If it's changed family hands numerous times, that's where some
(29:16):
of the things have slipped away. The title companies could
go back and verify that every single piece of land
south of that road belongs to the person north of
right now, currently I don't know the percentage, but it's
a large percentage that do have that documentation with them
on their deeds.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
But that's the tool that is used.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
For beach drive, for the marina, for other things. Is
that things get lost over the years.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Well, and the marina is closed.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It's been too many years now, So I find this
that behind fire hydrants is ticking me off. And what
about the Amphi theater debacle? Four thousand seats the last
three summers has been one hundred degrees.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I know because I walked off every.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Fricking day A and the imagine sitting on a piece
of concrete that's.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Been they found fly in for non a seed four
thousand seat on hundred degree day because it's one hundred
degrees still at eight pm at night.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
So so and then when it rains when you get
your afternoon rainstorm.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
That doesn't, and so you kill four thousand people by lightning.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
That is a parking That is a parking spot for
trailers and trucks to launch their boats. That is the
city Marina. Now, as far as everybody's concerned over the
civic center, we don't have money in our city and
more in the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
To do many things.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Does anyone happen to know what it costs to build
a civic center? So I can tell you the civic
center desire, Yes, your civic center desires are a far
long way off.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
All the commissioners out because they had a civic center
they could have fixed, and now they gave gave it
away for what a four thousand seat out sweating my
ass off and empathy, I.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Think bronic, I I you know, I look at these
people and I think, you know, and and as Ed
has said about long range plans here and sketches, I
think it was intentional that they that they got rid
of the city, that they tore the civic center down.
Now that land is is not city property, you know,
it is city property technically, but it's available for that
(31:22):
private public partnership, you know, and if it had stayed
the Civic Center, that would have never happened, right, And
that's very well ified.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
You have just identified the absolutely you have seen through
the mirrors and the smoke, and you do now see
what I have seen, which is all this is completely calculated.
And I'm not gonna say anything other than that this
is calculated.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
The money transferred from the rain of the Martin Theater
was calculated. The Civic Center tear down was calculated. You know.
We had a very capable contractor given opinion on the
salvaging of the Civic Center.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Whether you liked it.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Or not, it was a a building that could be
salvaged and continue could continue.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
To be used. And that was thrown right out the window.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
They didn't pay any attention to the opinion of the
fuired of all.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
These people that have been in office and lived here
for one hundred years that don't they're not working for
you and me, so Ed, I need you to win
this and clean up with Doc and Demetrius.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, let me stress this.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I am not doing this for me, absolutely not. I
am doing this for the people that do not have
a voice, that are working their tails off two jobs.
I've been that person all my life. I have no
desire for fame, or for control, or for authoritative guidance
(32:43):
on city moneys.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
None, none of that at all is in mind. My
heart is this.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
There are people out here that are working their tails
off that will never see a city commission meeting. They're
working too hard, they cannot make it. They probably don't
have time except on the weekend when they're trying to
with their children, to even watching archives a city commission meeting.
I understand this.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I've been there.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I'm in a point now where I can give my time,
and I'm going to tell you this. I haven't told
anybody this except Cather, and I are aware of it.
From the month of August and September last year, when
I started for the first sixty days that I was
preparing to do all this and setting my life up
for it, I didn't even know you got paid as
a city commissioner. And I was talking to a neighborhood
(33:27):
beach Drive, and I was explaining to him how I
was rearranging my life so I could afford to give
two days a month for meetings and about three or
four days in the month to go down there and
ride in the trucks and meet the folks that are
actually boots on the ground working. And she said, what
do you mean you've rearranged things? And I said, well,
you know I'm going to be taking a loft because
(33:47):
that's time down And she said, ed, you're not aware
that you get a stipend for this. That was the
first I was sixty days after my planning and desire
to do it that I even found out that you
got a stipend to do this. So I was not
in it for the money. I was not in it
for anything other than I cannot stand bullies. I cannot
stand tyranny. And that's all I saw our city doing
(34:09):
was being bullies, and tyranny is spending money ridiculously with
no fiscal responsibility, and and things that didn't make a
bit of sense. A bit of sense Martin Theater, forty
percent of Alorum going out of sweep Bay, out of
our out of our city coffers back to sweep Bay behind.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
That, said Doge. When they said that Bay County was
the first county to.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Get a Doge visit, I was excited about it and
and ed, what what happens if we have another hurricane
now and stuff catches on.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Fire, done, you know, we're going to be a We're
going to.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Be a Palisades like California. Yeah, with all of us
crying in our houses, burned down and gone.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Because well, to answer to answer your question, legitimately, if
Bay County would come in and take over, if we
have another situation like that, with our finances the way
the way that they are, you will not find a
financial institution. It's going to stick their neck. We just
signed a four hundred million dollar bond for Sweet Day.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We co signed with them.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Our neck is so far stuck out on everything. If
we god forbid, have a big, major hurricane come here,
the County of Bay is what Panama City will become.
There will be no more Panama City.
Speaker 5 (35:16):
And why, why in the world would anybody sign a bond?
What would the city sign a bond for a private,
private group like that after never been done before.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Not that I not that I'm where I have no
one other.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Than well, yeah, I didn't follow the money, other.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Than there's wisdom that I'm not aware of.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And I've seen on Facebook they're pushing their deep State
Cartel t shirts nobody's mailed one to me because I'd
rather have a fire hydrant full of water.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
So you know, I'm not even a.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Panama City resident, but this is a sword that I
feel like, you know, I'm going to fall on ed.
We've got to get the right people in. And I
don't you know, you know, I helped Doc. I was
his campaign manager the first time he lost. Then I
helped him the second time when he and I did
a social media and and you know, this is the
third time. I think the voters are going to step
(36:05):
up because voters these days are sick of this garbage.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And and like you said, well, he has not been
given an opportunity for two years. He has not been
given an opportunity to leave the city. Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
He has been.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
He has been And once again I stress, I can't
stand the bully, and he has been. He has been bullied,
He's been lied about, he's been misrepresented.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Is he perfect?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Far from it, Just like all of us, he's far
from perfect. However, he does not have a financial tiger
in this or a dog in the fight. That man
cares about people.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
After he was.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Elected the first time, droves of people came up and
hugged his neck and talked about the free things that
he did in his medical career. There were plenty of
people in the grounds.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
And in the last campaign they.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Said he was a racist and didn't like black people,
And there was plenty of black people there hugging and
thanking him, and I saw it.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And well they say that on the one hand, then
they turn around and say he's a They turn around
to say he's uh an agent for a super bad
guy somewhere because he wanted to. This black guy comes
down to be the city manager.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
So how can how can you be both? How can
you be on the one hand, the.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Hand the wicked west of the you know hisom hang
time people right.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Well ed.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
One of the things we we did some digging into that,
into that that that mail out piece bit by that
group called the Committee on Civic Knowledge, and that is
a Tallahassee pack that's being funded by another Tallahassee pack
called Florida First Forever. They're the ones with the millions
of dollars that are funding this this garbage.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
And and let every every voter asked themselves this question,
why on the earth if everything they have to say
about that man is true, would they go to the
extent that they have gone to, including this last mere campaign?
Why would they go to this?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Because they are very worried and very aware.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
That people are listening. People are aware, and they're panicking,
and they're doing everything they can to prevent that man
from getting back into office.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
So what are the voters telling you?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Ed?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Because Spars didn't endorse you either. And that tells me
too that you know, they've got their three that they've endorsed,
and and people are whispering and whispering in my ear
they don't want to vote for those three.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Right, They've got three that are owned, three commissioners that
are owned. You're not one of.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Well, I care much more about the Republican Libertarian Caucus
that has listed me as as who they're endorsing for
Ward one, much more than I do about a bunch
of real estate agents.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Let me just tell you that.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Good characterizations.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Okay, what do you want the voters to know about you?
That we've missed today?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And sorry, we're fired up because we just interviewed the
mayor and you reached out.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I've been fired since August.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Well, well, and we're tired of this.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
You know, people are tired of this garment and the
direction is the direction is not great.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
And John gets all the complaints when you're a public
person and you reached out to me to come on,
and I was like, yeah, let's do it, because you know,
and I'm sorry I was out of the country for
three weeks or I would have hosted you earlier. But
you know, this is important, Ed, this is so important.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
For I'd like them to know that I'm not afraid.
I'm not afraid of being challenged. I'm not afraid of
being questioned. I'm not afraid to ride around in the
dump truck to dig a ditch with them fellas out
there in the water department. I'm not afraid to go
down the solid waste or the mechanic shop. I'm not
afraid to walk into the treasurer clerk's office and ask
her questions. I'm not afraid of any of it. I've
(39:44):
been on both sides of government. When I was in government,
I was completely conditioned to believe that the world revolved
because government exists. Then when I got out of government,
got my contractor's licenses, started working in the quote civilian world,
I realized the truth the world revolves in spite of government,
and especially in a town where government does not understand
(40:06):
and adhere to the to the adage that you work
for the public, you answer to the public. You can
be questioned by the public at any time, and you
need to answer those questions. You shouldn't be doing anything
that you're embarrassed about in your function as a city
bureaucrat or an elected official. You should be easily questioned.
You should quickly give up the answer. This whole thing
(40:28):
about lying about the Dot and what they've been told
by the Florida Dot. It came to a head the
other night at a city Commission meeting where Greg Abrams
actually pinned their hide to the wall, asked for a name,
and then informed Jonathan Hayes in public on the record.
I just spoke to that person today and they absolutely
deny what you just had to say. There's nowhere to hide,
(40:50):
There's nowhere to go. You've been lying for two years.
You've been lying to the people there that have organized
themselves against that effort on Beach Stride. You've been lined
to the general public. Have have lied. You violated the
public trust. You've di qualified yourself to have that trust.
Given back to you because you did it blatantly, intentionally
and repeatedly. It wasn't a misstep, it wasn't a misunderstanding.
(41:13):
For two years you have sung the same song and
told the same lie, and it was a lie. And
the Florida Department Transportation has explained to everyone it is
an absolute lie. We're not getting that road. They never
were told they would get that road, and they went
out and spent hard earned tax dollars that we have
given faithfully, actually over a million, both in Intturney's fees
(41:35):
and in Chris Sohan's Panhandle engineering. We have spent over
a million dollars.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Show well. We wish you well.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
We've been talking with Ed Young he's running for Ward one,
the Panama City Commission seat, and Ed, I know they
need you in there, So God blessed, and early vote
votings happen in so get out there and vote because
Panama City needs some cleanup.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
So God bless you, Ed.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Thank you for your time and vicinity to thank you, grateful,
grateful for the time, and look forward to speaking to
you after the twenty second Thank you
Welcome to Veronica Live. And I'm here with John my wingman,
and we've got a special guest who reached out to
me because he wanted to come on Veronica Live and
tell us why he is running for Panama City Commission
Ward one Ed Young Hey Ed, Welcome to Ronica Live.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thanks for having me Ronica.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Well, tell everyone about your background. What have you been
doing you know for employment? How long have you lived here?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you well.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
At eighteen, I joined the United States Air Force right
out of high school. Actually is a six month delayed enlistment.
I joined before I was old enough to join. My
father was retired Air Force and all I ever wanted
to do was go into the Air Force and serve
my country.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And be a jet engine mechanic. So I was blessed
to do that.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Took the ADS BAP and all the pre entrance exams
and got a designated guaranteed job to be a jet mechanic.
And I went in the Air Force, and I spent
six years in the Air Force in the laugh asignment
in the Air Force was right here at Tyndall.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
And what did you what airplanes you work on?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Start on F one oh six's which there are no
more of because we we converted them to full scale
drones and used them to train our pilots, the best
fighter pilots in this world, the United States Air Force
fighter pilots.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
We have a range in the Gulf.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Of Mexico designated for live fire, and we took all
those old F one O sixes that I used to
work on in the beginning of my career and we
turned them into full scale sized drones and we shot
them out the sky. And then after that I went
to work on F fifteen Eagles, which is what we
had here. In eighty five, when I transferred from the
Upper Peninsula, Michigan, k I saw the Air Force base
(01:48):
here to Tindall, and I spent three years on F fifteen,
the last two of which I was an instructor for
maintenance for crew chiefing. And during that timeframe we had
a thing called the Graham Rugman Budget Reduction Bill. I
had just gotten married to a gallon the Air Force,
and at that time we had a thing called joint
(02:09):
spouse assignments. If if I got sent somewhere, she would too.
If she got sent somewhere, I'd get sent there. But
Graham Rugman Budget reduction bill terminated that, and I had
just gotten married and did not want to end up,
you know, separated like that. So they called me in
and said, Starry Young, you have a choice to make.
You can re enlist right now, or we're going to
(02:30):
be discharging you in two weeks because we're doing a
manning study. And it basically I was going to get
sent overseas without her, and I decided it wasn't worth it.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I wanted to make a career out of.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It, but they kind of it was peace time, we
were not at war. There was no reason for me
to feel like I was turning my back on anything.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And I just decided, well.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I'd rather I'd rather not be separated like that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
So I decided to get out.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And about two days after getting out, one of my
friends took me for a ride in a Florida Marine
Patrol boat on night shift. He knew I needed work,
and I wasn't expecting to have to need it so quickly,
And we went for a ride in the Marine patrol
boat out in East Bay at night and boarded shrimp
boats and did a little surveying and some surveillance on somethings,
(03:20):
and I fell in love with that, and I did
seven years in the Florida Marine Patrol. I did two
years with the Scamba County Sheriff's Office, one year overseas
in Kosovo as an international police officer in the Unmixed
UNMICK Mission over the United Nations Mission in Kosovo.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And when I got back, my wife.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Wanted to settle back down in Panama City. So I
came back here and did a year or two at
Panama CITYPD, and then I retired out of the Bay
County Sheriff's Office. So I used the accumulation of all
that different time to have a state retirement. The whole
time I was doing that, I was working. I was
moonlighting and construction, building kitchens and decks and barns and additions.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And I realized.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That we worked four ten hour days most of the
time in those agencies, and I financially from my family
that we continued to grow. I was more of a
provider financially on my three days off building a garage
or addition than I was for twelve hour days, and
(04:25):
with a lot of the things you have to put
up with in law enforcement. And so I had to
make the choice of being a better provider for continuing
to work two jobs. So I decided just to get
my certified billion contractor's license about twenty four years ago.
And that's what I've been doing for twenty four years
of being a building.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I knew I loved you because you know, my husband
flew F fifteen's.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
I oh, wonderful crew chiefs.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Make it happen because you know when they go fly
and they land, they're so happy. But anyways, so, Ed,
why are you running?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
What made you decide to run?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And I know you are definitely not one of the
good old boys, because everybody keeps whispering in my ear
telling me that you're not and that you need to
be elected. So why are you running for this commission?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
See?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, I would hope that as my lifelong pursuit of
defending people against bullies would show through here. I cannot
stand bullies. I cannot stand tyranny. I cannot stand government overreach.
I cannot stand tyrannical attitudes. Government works for the people.
(05:34):
The government is of, fore and by the people. And
I watched my neighbors down on Beach Drive. I live
two blocks off Beach Drive in Saint Andrews. I have
twenty four years in this home. My wife grew up
in this neighborhood. All of them grew up playing down
at the Duck Pond on East and West Carolina and
walking the bay Saint Andrews Bay down on Beach Drive.
(05:58):
And when I when it came evident to me what
was happening, which was a neighborhood saying, we don't want this.
We never asked for this, we never petitioned for this.
This is going to completely disrupt our lives and the
lives of everyone wants to know, appreciate and enjoy this
natural piece of our city that's been here for so long.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Uh. And I started asking.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Questions of all the neighbors that were down there, like
when did this begin, what's going on? Why are they
forcing it on us? What's the hidden reason behind this?
Because it can't just be because somebody somewhere in the
city wanted it. It's got to be for a larger
reason than that, which there's been a lot of of,
you know, conjecture about why it's so forced.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
But anyway, I started looking into that and.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I realized, no one wants it. It's costly, it can't
be paid for for what they say, it violates so
many rules of just standard conduct between government and the people.
And it was during election time. It was back well,
it was preparation for election time, when I already doing
all the research August actually August of twenty twenty four,
(07:04):
when I was becoming more and more aware about all
of it, and because I was looking into that, then
I looked into the money being spent on the Martin Theater,
the money being spent on street skates downtown Panama City.
And during the course of all that, the of course
the Advalorm giveaway.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
With Sweet Bay occurred.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
And then I started going to workshops and listening to
transportation impacts, fee proposals and all these and started realizing
just because I've been on both sides of the fence
and government, spent my whole first part of my lifetime
serving in the government one form or another, either with
the military, the international effort, a city effort, county and
(07:45):
state effort.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I know how to follow rules, I know how.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
To reach statutes, I know and understand the function of
the government. And everywhere I've been in the service of
the people, I was always taught and always drilled and
in service and retrained on we work for the people.
And one of the greatest things I ever carried away
from Marine Patrol Academy years ago was a quote one
of the attorneys that was teaching us constitutional law at
(08:10):
the Marine Patrol Academy. He was very clear, he said, quote,
you can only police a free society to the extent
that they wished to be policed. In other words, they
work for us. The government works for us, and we
can tell them to what degree we will allow their taxation,
(08:30):
allow their decision making that affects our lives, et cetera,
et cetera. Well, I didn't see any of that being
practice with the beach drive proposal pathway, and then I
started looking into it deeper. I discovered that in the
very beginning of that grant money, it was written for quote,
sidewalks within Panama City, obviously post Hurricane Michael, damages, etc.
(08:54):
And from the point or another it morphed into multi
use pathway. And then when that language got caught, they
change it to sidewalk again because the grant started being
reviewed by so many solids.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I'm laughing because this is hysterical.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Well it.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Anyway, here's the reality.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Most Maybe I want to cry.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I know well most.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
People, the thirty fish, the thirty eight thousand residents in
this town. Let's look at some facts from the twenty
twenty census. They're working their tails off. Most of them,
like me, all my life, have at least two jobs,
sometimes three. If it's not three full time jobs, it's
a full time, a part time, in a weekend job.
Everybody is working very hard in this economy. It's the
(09:38):
worst economy I've seen in my life. At sixty one
years of age, I've never seen economy where it takes
around sixty to sixty five percent of your monthly income
to provide your domicile. Back when I was growing up,
if you spent more than twenty five percent of your
monthly income on your domicile, you were quote living beyond
your means, and you need to assess how you're spending
(09:59):
your money. Now. I've got four young professionals in this town.
They all are spending sixty to sixty five percent of
their income. One's in Tallahassee, but the rest are here.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
But the point is they're all born and raised here.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
They all had to grow up under these conditions. We
have a seventeen and a half almost an eighteen percent
poverty rate in Panama City. The average income per home,
not individual per home is forty eight thousand dollars a year.
You look at these numbers and understand these people. No
one's making a city commission meeting, no one's bothering to
(10:34):
watch it when it gets archived on the website. These
people are working themselves silly, and the evenings are doing
laundry and cooking food and taking care of changing a
tire and getting their kids ready for school tomorrow and
helping them with their homework. So this thing about well,
there's not much government involved in that. Well, the economics
are keeping people working themselves silly. They don't have a
(10:55):
whole lot of time. I, at this final winter of
my life, dream to see myself getting involved in politics.
I am way too irritated and felt hypocritical sitting and
watching this happen and doing nothing. And when I realized
there may be something I can do about it, I've
volunteered myself to.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Go and do.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I have never had a desire to get into politics.
I've never had a desire to run for office. And
I am not doing this for me. I don't need it.
I've fulfilled every aspect of the desires of my life
and fulfilled the measure of my creation in so many
different aspects that I did not need this. I am
doing this because I see the need for it, because
(11:36):
others cannot do it. Others don't have the time for it,
they don't have the understanding, and most of them, if
they did, wouldn't have near the inclination because they see
what a difficult task it is to rein in a
government who some of their ranking officials and people that
are qualified to tell them so, such as Jan Smith,
the city clerk and treasurer, is just turning blue telling
(11:58):
them how dire are finances are, and they keep spending
money like drunken sailors.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Well, how do you?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
How do you?
Speaker 5 (12:07):
How do you do you square things? You know, the
city has got so many basic fundamental needs in it,
and the one thing that government should should always do
is take care of the basics. Okay, I mean, yeah,
the sidewalk, the pretty sidewalks are all nice, you know,
the civic center and all that is nice, but you've
got to take care of the basics. And you know,
one of the things we've been we've been harping on
(12:29):
is the situation with the fire hydrants, you know where
where we have all these fire hydrants out of commission.
I mean we're talking that effects people.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Have over seventy fire hydrants that are inoperatives have over
seventies that.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Are why didn't we spend this one million?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Well, we have the Cove yacht club that burned to
the ground because we didn't have a functioning fire hydrant
over there in the cove where the uh where a
lot of folks who are are adamantly uh just us
saying things that they do like about the city have
a fire hydrant that was inoperative, so their yacht club
burned down in front of them. We also have a
(13:06):
fire tax that was imposed that you would think with
a kind of money that we collected as a city. Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Some people, as I.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Just mentioned about the factual true condition of the finances
of many of the people in our city limits, some
people had to borrow that money from relatives to pay
that assessment that was between six and seven hundred dollars
the first year round when you are on.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
A buzzet, working doesn't work. After they you know, pillaged
the people, Oh my.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Goddess, and you think after what happened in California, people
would pay attention, you know, our fire insurance rates. At
some point, you know, when a word about this gets
around and the insurers look at it and say, well,
these people, you know, half their fire hydrants aren't working
or whatever the number is.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We ensure them because the city's not doing their damn job.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Or they'll raise the fire insurance rating and and your
premiums will go up for that.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
But you know, well to give not to the worker
bees of the city. How how awful is it for
us to realize that these crews who by mandate and
by standard operating procedure and by their manuals, they go
out and test fire hydrants as part of their standard
duties as a fireman and as a firehouse in their district,
they go out and test the operational capability of fire hydrogens.
(14:20):
I was in law enforcement here in Bay County for
many years in with the city, and I know for
a fact a lot of these firemen I know by
first name and have for years. They are charged with
going out and doing these tests and checking operations. How
would you think you would feel if you were a fireman,
you know, you work for a city government that's accountable
to its citizens. You go out and test these hydrants,
(14:41):
you know how many of them are completely inoperative. You
understand the mathe logistics and geography of where they're located
with fire risk, and your.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Plus to put them at harms way, so you know.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Sol they know when they pull up to it, it's
not gonna You.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Know, well, I'm a retired Air Force officer too, So
there's got to be some accountability here. And Ed, we
need you on the commission with the mayor because this
is unsatisfactory. What's been going on, and to waste a
million dollars. You know, I interviewed over the years, I've
interviewed Mayor ber Nikki. I've lost count how many times.
The city manager before Jerreal McQueen I used to interview
(15:16):
all the time, and he talked about the infrastructure under
the city was like the Roman days. Here we've wasted
a million dollars on some damn pathway that looks fine,
that doesn't even belong to the freaking city.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
So so you know the thing is John.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And I, well, here's something worse about that money. Here's
something worse about that money.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Ed. As a engineer, you are given a request by
your customer, in this case the city Panama City, we
request you draw the following with the following amenities, and
you do so, and you get paid because you fulfilled
that contract. And now all the back pedaling and all
the craw fishing comes out, and all the alternative alter
(16:00):
alternative things that have yet to be drawn that are
yet to be paid for. First of all, I don't
believe in a million years that there's any way that
any sane traffic engineer could look at the city of
Panama City, look at the east west traffic flow and
the main arteries and say to themselves, well, that's a
wonderful idea. Let's pull that major artery out, make it
(16:20):
a capillary, and let's overload these other arteries. Levit Street
fifteenth Street with approximately you know, six thousand cars per
road during rush hour, morning and night, and think that
that's gonna work.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
They're already overloaded.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
We've already overloaded this city post Hurricane Michael, with the
number of folks that have come in here. I sometimes
question this overall number of residents in Panama City because
I note for a fact, my personal experience driving here,
shopping here, going to the grocery store, in the big
box stores for construction needs. And seeing the number of
people and cars in this town post Michael, I would
(16:59):
I would dare to say thirty growth in vehicle traffic
post Michael.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
And not only that, look at look at all the
housing construction that's going on. And I'm not talking single
family homes. I'm talking these rental I don't know if
they're condominiums or apartments or whatever. In panwas everywhere, I
mean everywhere, and it's like, you know, eventually they're going
to be occupied and you're gonna have all that traffic
flowing off these secondary roads onto those primary roads.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Again, here's the facts, gentlemen. Is the yacht club is gone.
It is gone, and that should have been the wake
up call. And seventy five hydrants don't have freaking water.
That's that's wake up call number two. And we saw
from California what a fire did, destroyed hundreds of homes.
(17:45):
And I don't understand why this is not the number
one priority. And the city manager has all the commissioners
beating him up getting this fixed instead of wasting frickin'
million dollars on Beach Drive with these mansions that nobody
cares about right now.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Well, the other problem is is the is the the
utility department, which is you know, they're responsible for the
water and the fire hydrants, Okay, and they are. They
are on a break neck, breakneck pace for raising the
rates already. And you know, we're just talking to the
mayor a little while ago, and and you know, I'm
paying one hundred and twenty seven dollars a month right
(18:21):
now for water, sewage, and garbage, which is which is
doubled since since Hurricane Michael. And apparently it's going up
nine percent a year for the next five years. So
in five years, I'll be paying over two hundred dollars
a month for water, three thousand gallons of water. This
is insane.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I mean, how many people in the city can.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Afford two hundred dollars a month for a water bill.
I mean something is gonna something's going to crash, and
it's going to crash hard because you know, two hundred
dollars for water bill, two hundred dollars for.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Ask yourself, where does don't have to go?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
People don't have to ask yourself, where does the money go?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Once it's collect Where does it go because here's here's
the reality. We are in a financial distressed situation. There
is no question about it. Jan Smith, who's not a
member of any club. She was hired on her credit,
her resume, her interview, her ability and background. She is
a certified public accountant. She comes from a much larger
(19:19):
city with much greater problems than we could ever have
with population and infrastructure and growth and all the nuances
that go along with that. And she is every commission
meeting that I have attended, I see the dread and
worry on her as she sits there and realizes that
they're not listening to me. They haven't listened to me
(19:39):
when I when I tell them what's the truth, they
belittle me. I was at the commission meeting when she
was explaining there the dire fiscal condition that we're in,
and one of the commissioners made a statement said, we
love Jan, she's a really good CPA for the day
to day, but this is in investment accounting and that's
(20:01):
just not your area of expertise. And I thought when
I saw her turn purple that I thought I was
gonna see steam come out of miss Smith's ears.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
But it didn't.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Thank goodness, she composed herself, and then another commissioner said
to her something about politicizing this, and she couldn't take
it anymore. And that woman finally stood up for herself,
and she was visibly shaken. She was controlling herself. She
did a great job, but she made it very clear,
I am not about this for politics. I am not
(20:32):
about this for anything to do with your politics. I
am telling you the truth and the state and condition
of the city's finances, and this.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Is what they are. And I just sat there going, Okay, So.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The one person that all of you at one time
and point were praising and supporting and how wonderful Jan
Smith is. But the second she tells the truth because
the face facts, I'm going to say it, with the
exception of Mayor Rohan up there on that das Jan Smith,
and they are Rohant don't have any problem telling the truth.
(21:05):
They're not in it for themselves. They're not in it
for truly, not in it for political reasons. They're not
in it for a bias for people that they may
be connected with in contracting or in banking, or in
whatever the case may be. They truly are independent up there,
and they don't mind telling the truth, but everyone else
has a quote dog in the fight, and it's all
(21:25):
about politics, including those that are running for office right now.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
So question for you, Ed, I mean, what's the city
manager doing when all of this is hitting the fan?
Because if he's the most important person, why is in
he on top of the budget?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Okay, So in the state of Florida, the charters are
written by the state and minsipolities have to follow them,
and we have what's called a weak mayor system. The
mayor is merely he's.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Merely as yeah, exactly, he does.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Conduct the meetings. He holds the gavel, so he has
the order of the meeting, he has the agenda, and
he is the one that basically in commission meetings and
in his absence or if he wants to move emotional something,
he'll pass the gavel.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
But that that's due to the rules.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
But the city commission they are supposed to be in
such unison with the city manager that that things get done,
things get handled things, or are done in such a
way that's fiscally responsible, it's in agreeance and so forth. Well,
the mayor has been up there for two years basically
all by himself. Every time he brings up something, has.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
A suggestion, asks a question, he shut out.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Shut down, belittled, and and he has He'll vote four
to one on so many things. The forty five percent
of of lorm give away a sweet Bay four to
one against him, the Chestnut Avenue eleven twenty eight Chessnut
Avenue property, way too much money our budget, Our finances
are so poor, yet we give way way too much
(22:55):
for land in cases like eleven tway Hey four to
one voted against him. Let me think of a no example,
Martin Theater and the transfer of all the funds from
the Marina to the Martin Theater four to one. So
he's never been.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Given a hold on though, because I want to ask
you about the Martin Theater. I'm literally appalled that that's
going to be thirty five million dollars. I'm ticked that
I don't have a civic center. So where do you
stand on these things?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Ed?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
The Martin Theater is an absolute travesty of money. If elected,
I promise you, as a certified building contractor, I will
go over that contract. I will go over the bills
that they have submitted their invoices with this kind of money.
Sheet rockers better be making one thousand dollars an hour
thirty four million dollars. I could tear the Martin Theater
(23:43):
down and build it twice for thirty four million dollars,
and I so could any other.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Builder and get down.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
Yep, there's something too, There's something crooked going on here.
You know, people's pockets are being aligned.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Because I was on the fundraising committee for the Gretchen Scott.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
The school was given five million. The school the county
matched five.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
That was ten and it's as big as the Martin
And that was a ten million dollar building. And how
did we go and triple this now in a few years.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I feel like it was supposed to be a remodel.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, but it's supposed to be a remodel.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
But if you go down there and look at it,
it is the farthest thing from a remodel. They were
supposed to save the historical elements and architectural pieces of
Go in there and look around. There's nothing left. The
sign is not even neon anymore. The sign is.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Digital out front.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Of course, that happened way before this contract. But the
point being, we're gonna reserve, we're gonna preserve the Martin Theater.
We haven't preserved a piece of it. It is absolutely
nothing but a foundation, walls and a roof, and everything
going in there is going to be.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It's not a remodel, it is a rebuild. And the
kind of money that we spent on that is shameful.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
And it doesn't and it doesn't hold enough people. It
doesn't hold enough people for community events. That's the part
that really gets me.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
If you do the math, it will take five one
hundred years if you get a return on investment, five
hundred years, no pure and and.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
It's never had any return in the forty five years
I've been here that the Martin Theater's been an issue
in Panama City. It has never ever ever been successful
at anything.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah, you know that's the crazy part.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
But what's changed did you take?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
If you take an amount of money that was sitting
down there through marina and it had a chance of survival,
and you completely remove the chance of independence as the
city being independent with their money to take care of
the marina, and you snatch it so that the city
has absolutely no money to help its own marina, and
you place it somewhere else, stay the Martin theater. Now
(25:45):
you have got to face the fact the city will
never have any money independently to deal with their marina,
and it will have to be a public private collaboration, which,
in my opinion from the outside looking in, that's exactly
what the powers that be wanted.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
They wanted to.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
And ed wh well, they've been trying.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
They've been trying to give away the marina for the
last twenty years, you know, to you know, and look
at all the plans that have come and gone, all
the hotel right in, the gambling and you know, the
cruise ships and all this stuff. Every one of these
pipe dreams has been a complete and utter failure.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But here's the bottom line, John, is that the marina
is not open, and Florida's a boating state. And before
I had my boat in my backyard, I used the
Panama City Marina to put my boat in occasionally to
get to Shell Island. And the Florida citizens are suffering
because Panama City leadership can't get their act together.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Well, just to show you how how crooked and corrupt
the whole thing is, Veronica, in the nineteen sixties, there
was a bond issue that was taken out to build
that marina, and that that's where the one percent merchant
tax came in. And after that bond was all paid off,
the merchants acts stayed. So they've been spending that money
(27:04):
that was always segregated, always supposed to be you know
that the citizens voted for for the marina, they've been
spending it on all kinds of stuff. Since you can
look up, where do you get taxing room with this stuff?
You know, where do they get money from?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Well, the money's going to come from private. The private's
going to have a whole lot of decision making on
what goes in there. That's why if you look at
the plans that have been the most recently rendered, plans
are one half of that marina is going to be
for exceptionally large large vessels. I just ran down to
you the state of finances of the average citizen in
(27:40):
Panama City, and that is a city marina. The average
citizen in this town will never be able to afford
a forty footer that stays in the water down there.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
But that's what we're looking at.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
The half of the marina that's the westerly half closest
to the Indigo Hotel in Harrison's Restaurant. That half of
the marina is slated under renderings right now and suggestion,
and you know how suggestions go when certain people suggest them,
that's going to be for very large vessels, and the
other half of.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
The marina will will not.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It won't be for very large vessels. It'll be for
probably twenty five and less. But let me one more
caveat with the down with the marina, the City Marina.
Another part of it, in the original deed is that
the Florida Marine Patrol will always have a slip at.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
The Panama City Marina. No one knows about that, and.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
But that's the reason.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Means well that what that what that means is so
many things that were deeded in the origins of many
things like Beach Drive in the beginning. Every single piece
of land that's on the south side of Beach Drive
ninety eight is absolutely a part of the of the
property north of it. The end of every street on
Beach Drive was retained by the developer, the end of
(28:56):
Lake Caroline was retained by the developer, and over the years,
if it's been kept in the family and closely monitored,
all those deeds reflect that the person on the north
side of the road owns the piece of property on
the south side road directly across the street from it.
If it's changed family hands numerous times, that's where some
(29:16):
of the things have slipped away. The title companies could
go back and verify that every single piece of land
south of that road belongs to the person north of
right now, currently I don't know the percentage, but it's
a large percentage that do have that documentation with them
on their deeds.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
But that's the tool that is used.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
For beach drive, for the marina, for other things. Is
that things get lost over the years.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Well, and the marina is closed.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It's been too many years now, So I find this
that behind fire hydrants is ticking me off. And what
about the Amphi theater debacle? Four thousand seats the last
three summers has been one hundred degrees.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I know because I walked off every.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Fricking day A and the imagine sitting on a piece
of concrete that's.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Been they found fly in for non a seed four
thousand seat on hundred degree day because it's one hundred
degrees still at eight pm at night.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
So so and then when it rains when you get
your afternoon rainstorm.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
That doesn't, and so you kill four thousand people by lightning.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
That is a parking That is a parking spot for
trailers and trucks to launch their boats. That is the
city Marina. Now, as far as everybody's concerned over the
civic center, we don't have money in our city and
more in the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
To do many things.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Does anyone happen to know what it costs to build
a civic center? So I can tell you the civic
center desire, Yes, your civic center desires are a far
long way off.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
All the commissioners out because they had a civic center
they could have fixed, and now they gave gave it
away for what a four thousand seat out sweating my
ass off and empathy, I.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Think bronic, I I you know, I look at these
people and I think, you know, and and as Ed
has said about long range plans here and sketches, I
think it was intentional that they that they got rid
of the city, that they tore the civic center down.
Now that land is is not city property, you know,
it is city property technically, but it's available for that
(31:22):
private public partnership, you know, and if it had stayed
the Civic Center, that would have never happened, right, And
that's very well ified.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
You have just identified the absolutely you have seen through
the mirrors and the smoke, and you do now see
what I have seen, which is all this is completely calculated.
And I'm not gonna say anything other than that this
is calculated.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
The money transferred from the rain of the Martin Theater
was calculated. The Civic Center tear down was calculated. You know.
We had a very capable contractor given opinion on the
salvaging of the Civic Center.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Whether you liked it.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Or not, it was a a building that could be
salvaged and continue could continue.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
To be used. And that was thrown right out the window.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
They didn't pay any attention to the opinion of the
fuired of all.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
These people that have been in office and lived here
for one hundred years that don't they're not working for
you and me, so Ed, I need you to win
this and clean up with Doc and Demetrius.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, let me stress this.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I am not doing this for me, absolutely not. I
am doing this for the people that do not have
a voice, that are working their tails off two jobs.
I've been that person all my life. I have no
desire for fame, or for control, or for authoritative guidance
(32:43):
on city moneys.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
None, none of that at all is in mind. My
heart is this.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
There are people out here that are working their tails
off that will never see a city commission meeting. They're
working too hard, they cannot make it. They probably don't
have time except on the weekend when they're trying to
with their children, to even watching archives a city commission meeting.
I understand this.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I've been there.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I'm in a point now where I can give my time,
and I'm going to tell you this. I haven't told
anybody this except Cather, and I are aware of it.
From the month of August and September last year, when
I started for the first sixty days that I was
preparing to do all this and setting my life up
for it, I didn't even know you got paid as
a city commissioner. And I was talking to a neighborhood
(33:27):
beach Drive, and I was explaining to him how I
was rearranging my life so I could afford to give
two days a month for meetings and about three or
four days in the month to go down there and
ride in the trucks and meet the folks that are
actually boots on the ground working. And she said, what
do you mean you've rearranged things? And I said, well,
you know I'm going to be taking a loft because
(33:47):
that's time down And she said, ed, you're not aware
that you get a stipend for this. That was the
first I was sixty days after my planning and desire
to do it that I even found out that you
got a stipend to do this. So I was not
in it for the money. I was not in it
for anything other than I cannot stand bullies. I cannot
stand tyranny. And that's all I saw our city doing
(34:09):
was being bullies, and tyranny is spending money ridiculously with
no fiscal responsibility, and and things that didn't make a
bit of sense. A bit of sense Martin Theater, forty
percent of Alorum going out of sweep Bay, out of
our out of our city coffers back to sweep Bay behind.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
That, said Doge. When they said that Bay County was
the first county to.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Get a Doge visit, I was excited about it and
and ed, what what happens if we have another hurricane
now and stuff catches on.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Fire, done, you know, we're going to be a We're
going to.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Be a Palisades like California. Yeah, with all of us
crying in our houses, burned down and gone.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Because well, to answer to answer your question, legitimately, if
Bay County would come in and take over, if we
have another situation like that, with our finances the way
the way that they are, you will not find a
financial institution. It's going to stick their neck. We just
signed a four hundred million dollar bond for Sweet Day.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We co signed with them.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Our neck is so far stuck out on everything. If
we god forbid, have a big, major hurricane come here,
the County of Bay is what Panama City will become.
There will be no more Panama City.
Speaker 5 (35:16):
And why, why in the world would anybody sign a bond?
What would the city sign a bond for a private,
private group like that after never been done before.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Not that I not that I'm where I have no
one other.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Than well, yeah, I didn't follow the money, other.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Than there's wisdom that I'm not aware of.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And I've seen on Facebook they're pushing their deep State
Cartel t shirts nobody's mailed one to me because I'd
rather have a fire hydrant full of water.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
So you know, I'm not even a.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Panama City resident, but this is a sword that I
feel like, you know, I'm going to fall on ed.
We've got to get the right people in. And I
don't you know, you know, I helped Doc. I was
his campaign manager the first time he lost. Then I
helped him the second time when he and I did
a social media and and you know, this is the
third time. I think the voters are going to step
(36:05):
up because voters these days are sick of this garbage.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And and like you said, well, he has not been
given an opportunity for two years. He has not been
given an opportunity to leave the city. Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
He has been.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
He has been And once again I stress, I can't
stand the bully, and he has been. He has been bullied,
He's been lied about, he's been misrepresented.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Is he perfect?
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Far from it, Just like all of us, he's far
from perfect. However, he does not have a financial tiger
in this or a dog in the fight. That man
cares about people.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
After he was.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Elected the first time, droves of people came up and
hugged his neck and talked about the free things that
he did in his medical career. There were plenty of
people in the grounds.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
And in the last campaign they.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Said he was a racist and didn't like black people,
And there was plenty of black people there hugging and
thanking him, and I saw it.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And well they say that on the one hand, then
they turn around and say he's a They turn around
to say he's uh an agent for a super bad
guy somewhere because he wanted to. This black guy comes
down to be the city manager.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
So how can how can you be both? How can
you be on the one hand, the.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Hand the wicked west of the you know hisom hang
time people right.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Well ed.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
One of the things we we did some digging into that,
into that that that mail out piece bit by that
group called the Committee on Civic Knowledge, and that is
a Tallahassee pack that's being funded by another Tallahassee pack
called Florida First Forever. They're the ones with the millions
of dollars that are funding this this garbage.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
And and let every every voter asked themselves this question,
why on the earth if everything they have to say
about that man is true, would they go to the
extent that they have gone to, including this last mere campaign?
Why would they go to this?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Because they are very worried and very aware.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
That people are listening. People are aware, and they're panicking,
and they're doing everything they can to prevent that man
from getting back into office.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
So what are the voters telling you?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Ed?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Because Spars didn't endorse you either. And that tells me
too that you know, they've got their three that they've endorsed,
and and people are whispering and whispering in my ear
they don't want to vote for those three.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Right, They've got three that are owned, three commissioners that
are owned. You're not one of.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Well, I care much more about the Republican Libertarian Caucus
that has listed me as as who they're endorsing for
Ward one, much more than I do about a bunch
of real estate agents.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Let me just tell you that.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Good characterizations.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Okay, what do you want the voters to know about you?
That we've missed today?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
And sorry, we're fired up because we just interviewed the
mayor and you reached out.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
I've been fired since August.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Well, well, and we're tired of this.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
You know, people are tired of this garment and the
direction is the direction is not great.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
And John gets all the complaints when you're a public
person and you reached out to me to come on,
and I was like, yeah, let's do it, because you know,
and I'm sorry I was out of the country for
three weeks or I would have hosted you earlier. But
you know, this is important, Ed, this is so important.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
For I'd like them to know that I'm not afraid.
I'm not afraid of being challenged. I'm not afraid of
being questioned. I'm not afraid to ride around in the
dump truck to dig a ditch with them fellas out
there in the water department. I'm not afraid to go
down the solid waste or the mechanic shop. I'm not
afraid to walk into the treasurer clerk's office and ask
her questions. I'm not afraid of any of it. I've
(39:44):
been on both sides of government. When I was in government,
I was completely conditioned to believe that the world revolved
because government exists. Then when I got out of government,
got my contractor's licenses, started working in the quote civilian world,
I realized the truth the world revolves in spite of government,
and especially in a town where government does not understand
(40:06):
and adhere to the to the adage that you work
for the public, you answer to the public. You can
be questioned by the public at any time, and you
need to answer those questions. You shouldn't be doing anything
that you're embarrassed about in your function as a city
bureaucrat or an elected official. You should be easily questioned.
You should quickly give up the answer. This whole thing
(40:28):
about lying about the Dot and what they've been told
by the Florida Dot. It came to a head the
other night at a city Commission meeting where Greg Abrams
actually pinned their hide to the wall, asked for a name,
and then informed Jonathan Hayes in public on the record.
I just spoke to that person today and they absolutely
deny what you just had to say. There's nowhere to hide,
(40:50):
There's nowhere to go. You've been lying for two years.
You've been lying to the people there that have organized
themselves against that effort on Beach Stride. You've been lined
to the general public. Have have lied. You violated the
public trust. You've di qualified yourself to have that trust.
Given back to you because you did it blatantly, intentionally
and repeatedly. It wasn't a misstep, it wasn't a misunderstanding.
(41:13):
For two years you have sung the same song and
told the same lie, and it was a lie. And
the Florida Department Transportation has explained to everyone it is
an absolute lie. We're not getting that road. They never
were told they would get that road, and they went
out and spent hard earned tax dollars that we have
given faithfully, actually over a million, both in Intturney's fees
(41:35):
and in Chris Sohan's Panhandle engineering. We have spent over
a million dollars.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Show well. We wish you well.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
We've been talking with Ed Young he's running for Ward one,
the Panama City Commission seat, and Ed, I know they
need you in there, So God blessed, and early vote
votings happen in so get out there and vote because
Panama City needs some cleanup.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
So God bless you, Ed.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Thank you for your time and vicinity to thank you, grateful,
grateful for the time, and look forward to speaking to
you after the twenty second Thank you
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.