Killer Crocks / Razor Wire / Therapy Squirrels

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vorgiez the Nebraska legislature said, here are some new
building codes we would like everyone to abide by when
doing new construction. Here are some specific electrical codes. It's
really not that big a deal now. Cities are welcome
to have more stringent codes, and the Democrats on the
Omaha City Council have led the effort to add more

(00:21):
restrictive electrical codes, and Nick Dolphins of the Metro Omaha
Builders Association or a MOBA said, the upgrades are going
to end up causing things that they're building to cost
thousands of dollars more. When a lot of these are
business owners or people trying to do affordable new homes

(00:43):
and apartment living. You this adds to the cost and
defeats the purpose. Nick joins us now here, Nick, welcome
to eleven to ten KFA be good morning, Good morning, Scott,
Thank you absolutely. First of all, what are these codes
that the Omaha City Council think need to be a
opted for new business and new home construction?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, good question. So Mobile worked with the State of
Nebraska to amend the new twenty twenty three National Electric
Code for the state of Nebraska. So we carved out
five exceptions and passed the rest of the code and
its entirety. So these codebooks are an inch and a
half pick, so they're all regulations that we have to follow.

(01:29):
And five of those five items we decided, for the
sake of affordability, we should not pass. And one was
a surge protector. Required surge protector on your home, which
is not safety related. There were some GFI outlets. There's
a bunch of GFI outlets and new homes they were
adding to that, so for your dryer and your range,

(01:53):
items like that. And there's a shutoff on the outside
of your home that they want to add so the
fire department can come shut off all the power to
your home if they have to be there in an emergency.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, I live in my home. I have individual little
surge protectors at places where I have probably way too
many chords plugged in. But if you don't want to
plug in this many chords, don't make a surge protector
that gives me the opportunity to plug six things into it.
But there's a whole home surge protector and the little

(02:30):
GFI outlets there which are good, you know, in bathrooms
and so forth. You know, a lot of these people
are mostly just doing this anyway, Does none of these
things sound incredibly cost prohibitive? How much more expensive does
it make the construction of a new whether business or home.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Right, So, my electrician that we work with quoted twelve
hundred and sixty five dollars for those five items, and
the gentleman with the union his quote was more like
seven hundred dollars, so hundreds and hundreds at the very least.
What brought me out of my chair was when you

(03:13):
hear the city council person say, oh, seven hundred dollars
on a three hundred and fifty thousand dollars home. That's
not that much percentage by so you know, we need
to vote on safety. So what concerns me is it's
that mentality that has created an unaffordability problem. Twenty years

(03:33):
of that mentality and adding seven hundred or twelve hundred
dollar items over and over and over and over is
the problem. And the National Association of Home Building did
a study a few years ago and quoted something like
twenty three percent of the cost of a home is
related to regulations.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
And you're not saying get rid of all the regulations.
I mean, we got to have some regulations and so forth.
But you're saying we're.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
All for safety, right, Scott. I mean, we all want
our kids to be safe in our homes. But the
point I tried to make to the council is all
of us are going home tonight to homes that don't
have any of this in there, right, so if we
feel safe at home, we really do. All I'm asking
for is us to have the process of questioning these regulations,

(04:25):
and we have the legal right to do that. We
can make amendments and have a thoughtful discussion for the
sake of affordability. But if the Omaha City Council isn't
interested in doing that and just wants to pass everything
as a blanket, that's concerning to me because we're we're
not thoughtfully fighting that battle for affordability.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
I certainly appreciate what you're saying here, Nick Dolphins with
the Metro Omaha Builders Association with US on news radio
eleven ten kfab because for a long time I've kind
of said something similar as a lot of these local
taxing authorities said we're only raising your taxes by just
a little bit, and when and it's true, you look
at each individual one and it's only going up a

(05:06):
little bit on your property tax. But when Metro Transit
raised a little bit, and the schools raise it a
little bit, and the community colleges raise it a little bit,
and and other entities decide to just raise it up
just a little bit, Well, suddenly we're talking about a lot.
And it's the same thing here. You're saying, you're you're
quote here, you talk to the Nebraska Examiner, I'll quote

(05:28):
you to you, Nick. The battle for affordable housing is
won and lost five hundred dollars at a time. And
when we're trying to make more affordable housing, things that
are adding to the cost which don't do anything for safety.
I mean a surge protector, that's not a safety issue, right.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
No, that seems like really low hanging fruit that we
could amend out. And it's not to say people can't
add that, right Scott. These are mandates that every builder
is required to put in.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Right, and cities across Nebraska, many of them aren't doing
this right. The Nebraska legislators said, we want you to
do this and this, you could do more if you want,
and Omaha decided to do more. So if you're buying
a new home in Ashland, for example, I don't know
what their standards are. Then you could argue, well, the
homes in Ashland aren't as safe as an Omaha Yeah,

(06:24):
but they might be more cost effective, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
And again it's just we need that thoughtful conversation of
what is safe and what's not. Because one of the
council people had a good comment of we could all
sit in a room and think of dozens of ways
to make things more safe. We could have two egress
windows required in a basement, or we could have a

(06:49):
fire extinguisher in every bedroom. I mean, it's just a
matter of what do we need to mandate, and this
is just overrun affordability.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Last question for you, Nick, you'd suggested that one of
the members of the Omaha City Council who was in
favor of this should have recused himself from voting on it.
Can you explain that?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, one of them is affiliated with the union, and
I think, if you know, we need to be careful
if we're just voting with a party or with an
organization like that. I thought it would have been nice
if they would recuse himself, but I understand their interest
is just on the side of the union's decision to

(07:33):
go with the complete adoption of the code as a state.
So it's just an interesting conversation. I'm glad there's a
little public awareness about Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
I don't remember the last time we had a real good,
full throated conversation about building electrical codes on this program. Yeah,
and hopefully we never I don't know. The listener response
here is amazing. Now, please hold Nick over for two
more segments, but sorry, we gotta let you get back
to work. Nick, Thank you very much for asking the
right questions on this issue. This is subject to Mayor

(08:09):
Stother's veto and we'll see what she ends up doing
with it.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
That sounds great, all right.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Nick Dolphin's mobile the metro Omaha Builders Association. Good to
talk to you, my friend, you too, Take care absolutely
here on news radio eleven to ten kfab. We got
this message via the Zonker's Custom Woods inbox in the
wake of it. It's a great conversation. These electrical requirements
are so stupid. The one they don't talk about is

(08:36):
that and I heard someone say this this new deal
that you can no longer place an outlet on your
kitchen island because the idea is, well, okay, let's say
you've got a crock pot plugged into the island, or
you know, a big electrical skillet or something plugged into

(08:56):
the island, and a kid comes along and reaches up
there and grabs that cord, pulls the crock pot down
on its head, and now you've got heavy scalding crockpot inards,
englfing your child.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
So there is none of your business.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Therefore, Yeah, if I would have scalded my kid, that's
that's my business. So this is the idea. What if
there's something on the island, a kid pulls it down
on top of them, and the emailer says, maybe we
should just make crock pots illegal.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Well, see, here's a buffets. The only thing that goes
on my.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Island, Jimmy Buffett on your island. Lucy's grilling parrots. Hmm,
I like mine with French fries, antimatoes or what.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
You gotta kill them fast they start crying.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
That's right, Yeah, you gotta kill them fast. They'll talk. Uh,
that's horrible. Why would you say any of that. Yes,
it is true that if you have a big electrical
skillet or a crockpot or something plugged into the outlet
there on the side of the island. Now you've got
this loop electrical cord coming down there. You got the
blender plugged in there, and a kid comes along, grabs

(10:06):
a thing and pulls it down on top of their face.
That could absolutely happen, yes, right, say right. They could
open the oven and climb inside when you've got like
I want these brownies now ooh, the dryers too, Yep,
all this stuff. So here's the thing. They've just decided
that no one should have outlets on their island, even

(10:31):
if like someone I know. Now here's the part of
the show where Lucy says she's glad she doesn't have kids.
Even if you don't have kids, you don't allow kids
anywhere within one hundred feet of your house, and you
like the convenience of having the plug in right there
on top of this extra countertop space for your kitchen island.

(10:51):
They've said, no, you know it could be unsafe. How
about this, try parenting, it's easy and fun. What yeah,
if you don't think that it's safe for you to
plug that in because your toddler might come along and
try and Indiana Jones itself up the side of this
old dangling electrical card that don't plug the thing in.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
I'm gonna start worrying that somebody's peeping in the windows
every time I'm using a frying pan to make sure
that the handle is turned into the stove.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
If that's why you think that they're peeping through your
windows on behalf of me, for Paris, on behalf of
me and all the other guys out there, I can
tell you that that's not the reason why we're doing that.
Never even occurred to us like, oh, that could be unsafe.
So here's another thing that is making things more expensive

(11:43):
round here. Initiative four to thirty six passed last week
pretty overwhelmingly, and Nebraska said we want as I'm sure
you remember, what's four thirty six is that where I
get to smoke marijuana while having a in eight weeks. No,
that was not four thirty six. Four to thirty six

(12:04):
is that businesses have to provide five days of paid
sick leave. That's for businesses with fewer than twenty employees,
So your mom and pops have to provide five days
of paid sick leave. Businesses with over twenty employees have
to provide seven days of paid sick leave, and for
part time employees, they receive one hour of paid sick
leave for every thirty hours they work. And people said like, well,

(12:28):
I want the idea. I don't want people coming to
work sick, and you should be able to have a
few paid sick leave days. It's not a big deal,
not going to add up the cost of everything as much. Well,
here's I think that on its face. If you if

(12:49):
you're an employer and you trust your employees and you've
got people thankfully in reserve, Let's say someone calls in
sick and you've got someone you know you can call
to come in and cover their shift, or you end
up doing it, or you've got resources available. Obviously, you
hire these people because you want them to be good employees.
You want them to be good at their jobs, you

(13:12):
want them to be good team members, and you want
them to grow in the opportunities within the business as such.
This is why most Nebraska businesses already offer some opportunities
for paid sick leave. And they know that if you've
got a situation going on, they want to help you
through it. You know, these ideas that all these business

(13:34):
owners are all rich fat cats someplace across the country,
and they don't know who you are, therefore they don't
care about you. That certainly does happen, but it's not
the majority of businesses, especially when we're talking about this
now a new thing that small businesses have to deal with.
And they say, all right, so if you decide you

(13:54):
want to extend vacation, or you need to take a
mental health day because you didn't like the election results,
or you're going to use some of your sickly because
you haven't in a while, and all right, so now
I got to pay you not to be working, and
I have to pay someone else to come in here
and work. And this is going to cost more money,

(14:15):
which means I have to then either pay people less
for this benefit they now enjoy. Well, you get this benefit,
or I'm going to have to raise the cost of
goods and services. And I don't know if you know
how this works, but small mom and pop type businesses
around Nebraska, they can't really afford to raise their costs anymore.
Already they're having to charge more than some of the

(14:37):
big superstores that come into the communities or some of
these nationwide chains that aren't giant superstores. They're smaller general
stores that come into the community. And a lot of
those giant stores they don't employ a lot of full
time workers anyway. They're employing a lot of part time people.
They don't want to pay the benefits and the extra

(14:59):
money for full time employees, and this also helps them
keep their costs down. So now we're sticking it to
the mom and pops that want to employ people, give
them good full time opportunities. They're just everyone's just really concerned.
As long as this isn't abused, it'll be fine. The
problem is, sick leave is one of the most abused

(15:23):
benefits that businesses offer employees. It's often used. Raise your
hand if you've ever done any of this stuff. It's
used for non medical reasons, such as extending vacations. I
need to take a day off for mental health day.
I need to I once called in sick at a

(15:45):
job years ago, just because I wanted to finish a
project in my backyard and it was a nice day
and it bothered me that I couldn't finish it. Like
you know what, I haven't taken a sick day in
a while. I'm just gonna call in sick. That's my right,
I guess, you know. And also the gamble if I
need sick days later, I probably shouldn't have burned one

(16:07):
so I could finish that backyard project on a nice day.
And I truly did do that. I didn't go play golf,
So I don't know if I've ever called in sick
to go play golf. I know some people who have. Anyway,
it's an abused benefit. And now the businesses are like,

(16:28):
all right, so I have to pay people when they're
not working.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Is there a set number of days they have to
give them? According to this.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
New small businesses fewer than twenty employees have to provide
five days of paid sickle. Businesses with over twenty have
to provide seven days. Now, a lot of businesses already
provide as many or more than that. And the idea
is that the ones who don't don't because they're evil

(16:58):
corporate overlord and they don't want to offer this stuff.
This really isn't too much of a problem here in Nebraska.
But just like, I'll give you an example, I said
on the radio a few years back. You know, increasing
the minimum wage always sounds really nice. Why not? Why
not give these guys a little bit more money. Hey,
they earned it. It all sounds great. Who do you

(17:20):
think pays for all this stuff? This is another reason
why we had increased costs. It's inflation. It's also when
businesses have to pay their employees more, then the cost
of goods and services go up. And then the reality
of that was places like McDonald's were already trying to
pay people eighteen dollars an hour to come work, and
they weren't getting qualified employees at eighteen dollars an hour.

(17:43):
But the day of Nebraska, the voters said, let's make
it fifteen dollars. We'll face it in over a couple
of years. We're still working towards it. Well, the cost
of goods and services has gone up, and most businesses
were already paying more than that. They've decided on their own,
without government or voter intervention, how best to take care
of their employees. And the voters said, yeah, it's fine,

(18:04):
let's do this for these guys. And then we all
turned around and said, how come everything costs more when
a lot of these employees, whether they're now getting up
towards fifteen dollars an hour or getting paid sickly These
are not full time people who are trying to support
a family. Part time employees, teenagers, college students, retired people

(18:27):
just looking to supplement their income. And like, you know,
grandma doesn't need maternity leave. I don't think. I don't know,
but you know, we decided this is what we want
to do, so all right, we'll see how it goes.
I got a little bit of a check your facts
fool here to deal with, and the Zonker's custom was
inbox when we occasionally get something wrong here on the

(18:51):
radio show, former Omaha City Councilman Ben Gray yells at
me to check my facts fool. Todd emails this has
to do with the electrical code conversation at the last
hour at a guest on from Mobile, the Metro Omaha
Builders Association said, the Omaha City Council is making home
builders do all these extra extra electrical code things that

(19:14):
are not mandated by anyone other than the city council,
and it's costing more money. And we're trying to do
affordable housing and this is not helping and these are
not sometimes for safety reasons. So we were talking about
all of that, and then we started talking about how
you can't put an electrical outlet on the island of
the kitchen, and Todd says, this is the point zero

(19:36):
zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero
zero one percent. I happen not to agree with you.
We are still able to install outlets in kitchen islands.
They just need to be integrated into the counter top.
They're known as pop up outlets. Yes, it'll be more expensive,

(19:57):
but we're no longer required to install outlets in the island.
People also have countertops around the perimeter of their kitchen
where they could plug in their crock pots. Yeah, but
that's usually where you've got a giant cappuccino cappuccino machine
or espresso machine that you don't really use, or that
mixer you had to have. I'm gonna make my own pasta,

(20:18):
and that giant contraption sitting there that has never been used.
It's the only thing that thing's doing is making its
own dust. Like, can we have pasta? Yeah, just go
get that stuff from downstairs, throw it in the boiling
pot of water. But you said you were gonna make
homemade pasta. I don't have time for that. I don't
even have time to play guitar. So the island space

(20:42):
when you move all of your kids legos and school projects.
I'm like, oh, this is really nice picture. No, don't
leave it there. Yeah I can't. I can't throw it away,
So you throw it away. This is this is just
good space. But you can't have the outlet there on
the side of it because some kid that may or

(21:03):
may not exist in your home might see the cord
pull the electrical skillet and all the fried fish inside
or parrots inside down on its face. And I bet
that kid won't do that twice, probably because of the
bandages obstructing obstructing its site. But here's another issue. I

(21:27):
have lots of issues this morning. Now, I mean this
news stories, That's what I meant. Here's a woman named
Dea Day. Day says that she's got homeless squatters living
in her backyard.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
In her backyard, we used to call them family.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, it's it's not squirrels. They're just going back there.
They're eating all the bird seed. Not supposed to be
eating the bird seed. That is not for birds, that's
for squirrels. I had this naughty little squirrel in my
backyard the other day, ripped off the top of this
I've got a little tarp over the the We got

(22:09):
a little play set in the backyard. My kids are
way too big for it. My wife says, can we
take down the playset? And I said no, because I
like it. I can't grow grass back there anyway.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
In reason, you don't want to have to grow grass.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
I love growing grass, but I don't know the play set.
That's where my kids played, that's where I pushed them
on their swings.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Wait till you wait till you come up with the
idea to put a green of your own, little putting
green back there, that thing will be gone so fast.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
I hadn't considered that. All right, it's gone, But there's
a tarp on the top of the little little treehouse area.
And the squirrel. I was in my backyard and the
squirrel just looked at me and it was trying to
like pull the thing off with its teeth, and I said, hey,
stop that. It looked over me, like what you going
to do about it, and just pulled the thing off.

(23:04):
Lill jerk. But this is not this problem in this issue.
The unwanted guests in the backyard are people living, and
they're not just like passed out in the backyard. Here
it says in South Omaha. I don't have anything more
specific than South Omaha. But there's a couple of neighbors

(23:27):
here to talk to WOWT six News probably I think
this was Mike McKnight. And they said, yeah, it's not
just people like passed out in the backyard or occasionally
they cut through my yard. They built a structure on
my property. And I looked at this. It's this massive
camp and there's I guess, multiple people kind of coming

(23:49):
and going. There's a roof made out of pallettes that
they grab from nearby businesses. There's even cable TVs available.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
I a point where there was one guy doing something right.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, I guess unless they all just got together and said,
all right, we need to build a campment, and we
need to build it now. And they just started banging around.
Next thing, you know, you got all this stuff out there,
and so that both these women called the police, and
the police said, yeah, it's a bunch of mess on
your property. The people that you're talking about aren't here,

(24:24):
so you know, if they come back, give us a call.
But right now, this is a bunch of junk on
your property. If you want to clean up. You have
to clean it up, Like, but we didn't put it here,
it's on your property.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Can I replace it with razor wire?

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Ooh, I don't.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
No, I don't know. If you want to put a
bunch of razor wire.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Back there, it would be effective.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Then you're gonna have a bunch of bleeding, screaming homeless
people in your backyard. Not twice, It's probably true. You
look out there and then we're all caught up in
the razor wire. Then you're gonna call the police. They're like, well,
you're gonna have to clean him up. Think about what
you're doing. So now that they call the Omaha City

(25:10):
Council or Mike McKnight from Channel six called one of
these guys ended up talking to Ron hug He's the
city council person for South Though I thought Vinnie Palermo
was not anymore so run said. He told the property owners,
I'll contact Omaha's homeless coordinator about the squatters and the
litter and the violation noticed that the property owner is

(25:33):
responsible for. And I'm sure the homeless coordinator will do something. Now,
I'm sure she'll go running right over there and give
him a sleeping bag, a new sleeping bag, so they
can continue to live on the streets. You can't trespass
and live in someone's yard. But I guess in South
Omaha or in Omaha Omaha, this is just fine. It's like,

(25:56):
what do you mean, why do you want people out
of your yard? Are you racist?

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Dig pits with steaks sticking out of them?

Speaker 1 (26:03):
No, Lucy, you can't. This isn't We're not fighting the
Viet Kong here. These are people who need some assistance.
And plus there is plenty.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
Of assistance out there, and I'm sure every one of
them has been offered over and over again to give
to get assistance.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
That's the push pull of this whole issue, is that
you can't just grab these guys and take them someplace
and clean them up and all this stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
I'm not even though I want to protect my own property.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Even though everyone agrees this is the best thing for them,
and they would even agree with that once they went
through the program and got clean and got their life
back together. But you can't force them to do this.
And if they are breaking laws, then they end up
going to prison. And you're like, oh, you're criminalizing homelessness.
Now I'm criminalizing some people who are building a house

(26:53):
in my backyard. They're building a little lean to in
my backyard, and you call the city and they're like, well,
it's on your property. You clean up, like you've got
a cable TV hookup back here. That's true, that's what
it says in the story says there's a roof made
out of palettes and there's even cable TV, cable TV available,

(27:15):
but six News didn't see a TV hooked up to it,
and they're probably mad, like, how are they gonna watch
Mike mcnight and John Nicely. By the way, John Nicey's
coming into the studio here next week, So clean up,
clean up around here, clean clean yourself up. Don't wear
that dirty old Gibson T shirt. I complimented you on
ten minutes ago. You have to clean up. John Nicely's coming.

(27:36):
TV people are coming in here. They have expectations of
how a set is supposed to look and how people
are supposed to look.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
I've got some stuff from when I used to do
the traffic. If I could give it to him and
he could take it back to the studio, that'd be great.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Oh that's right, So we got John nicely is going
to be in here next Thursday for a little bit
during this show during the ten o'clock hour. All right,
so clean up.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Le's stick around, all right?

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Good?

Speaker 1 (28:02):
All right? Then where was I? Oh? Yeah, almost people. Yeah,
they called the city and the city said, well, well,
you know, if they come back again, call us, then
what are they going to do. I think they probably
wouldn't do anything nearly as bad as what they did
to that squirrel in New York. We have a peanut
the squirrel update next Scott Boyes News Radio eleven KFAB

(28:29):
and the soncer's custom was inbox Scott atkfab dot com.
Sam says, I just laughed until I cried when you
and Lucy were talking about the razor wire. That's from Sam.
Rob has provided us a link to Walmart dot com
where Lucy can buy razor wire. No, we're not putting
razor wire around our properties to try and keep the

(28:52):
homeless population out. We shouldn't need to resort to razor
wire in our backyard.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Now that I agree with that statement.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
To be able to deal with the homeless population like this.
These people in South oh have got homeless people building
an encampment in their backyards and the city comes out
and they said, well, you know, we we don't see them.
Let us know if they come back, like they built
they built a fort. Are you sure it wasn't just
neighborhood kids.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Let us know if they come back they say that.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, they're like, well, they're not here now. So this
stumps on your property. It's your property. You got to
clean it up. How do we know you didn't put it? Yeah,
that's what I did. I just came out and say,
you know what, I'm just gonna put a bunch of
sleeping bags, drug paraphernalias and palettes, so random cable TV wires.
I'm just gonna, you know, put it up here, a
bunch of bags and stuff. I'm just gonna throw it

(29:46):
here in my backyard. You know, that's what I want.
I thought about doing a bird bath, but instead I
made a homeless encampment. That's what I did. So the
city is like, well, you know, if they come back,
we can charge them with trespassing, and what happens then
we give them a fine that they won't pay, and
we don't forcibly remove them from your home. In some instances,

(30:06):
we'll call the homeless services coordinator, and she'll be like, oh, pumpkin,
don't you need sleeping bags? And a little tent will
give you a little tint and some sleeping bags, And
then it's probably not a good idea to sleep in
her backyard. Here's the property line. You can sleep right here. Like, no,
that's not what we need to do. And just like
we don't need to do the razor wire.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Well, if they would stop doing chemtrails, the people wouldn't
want to live outside homeless.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
No, look, one crazy thing at a time. Though. Karen
just emailed and said, Lucy, your ideas are great. Oh
there's two of you. We have an update on Peanut
the squirrel. Yes, you've been following this story much more
closely than I do. You want to give us everything

(30:55):
in case no one's ever heard of Peanut and Freda.
You want to tell us what this is all about.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah, a guy in New York. I'm not exactly sure
how he came upon this little baby squirrel, but he
came upon a little baby squirrel. The mother was killed,
I'm assuming by a car, because that's how all squirrels die, right,
razor wire. And so he picked up this little baby
squirrel and didn't know what to do with it, so
took it home and raised it up. And then when

(31:21):
the squirrel got older and he wanted to stay, and
they gave him a name, and then they gave him
his own YouTube channel and or TikTok yeah probably, but
very very famous TikTok squirrel. And so then about a
few months ago, somebody gave this guy or dropped off
in front of his house a raccoon that had been injured,

(31:44):
and so he said, well, join the family, and he
nursed the raccoon back to life, called them Fred and
they were a happy family.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
And they were internet famous, as you mentioned there. And
the guy like formed a very close relationship with this squirrel.
He's basically it was his emotional support squirrel. Yeah, and apparently,
I mean the videos were cute. I saw some of
this stuff. Do we have any idea why it was
that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation had to

(32:15):
go up and try and remove these wild animals from
the home. I mean someone had to call them in
to do this, right.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
They said it was because you can't have wildlife. You
can't have wildlife in your home.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, but someone had to call them and logical plaint.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
Allegedly, somebody did her. Picture has been on the internet.
I've seen that a few times.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, well that doesn't mean it's actually the person. It's
the first person that gets the most retweets that post
a picture of someone they don't like and said, here's
the person who did it. Get her and that. Meanwhile,
this person's like, I don't have anything. I don't even
live in New York. This is just this idiot making
an example of me. Anyway, things did not go well though,

(32:59):
right They went out to potentially remove these animals, and
the squirrel bit a dec staff member, And when you're
bitten by a wild animal, you have to be like, well,
I might have rabies. Now, so I got to test
this squirrel for rabies. And there's only one way to
test an animal for rabies. Of all the scientific advancements

(33:22):
we've made in our lives, the only way to test
an animal for rabies is to kill the animal.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
However that true, Well, I think that is right.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
It's what they do.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
I think that's true. But if this animal had been
living in a home with no issues, it was just
a matter of licensing or whatever. This animal showed absolutely
no indication of any kind of illness. I don't understand
why they couldn't have quarantined in this case. Well, the
guy there wasn't a wild animal. They just found in

(33:53):
the woods.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
The guy and his wife received wildlife rehabilitator licenses from
this office, the depart of Environmental Conservation in August. But
they said, well, your license doesn't allow you to keep
animals long term rehab doesn't mean forever home, which is.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Well, Fred hadn't been there long. Maybe they were gonna
let him go.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
The whole thing is just super dumb. So they came
out and like, all right, there was a ten month investigation.
So here's the update on this. The guy, first of all, says,
the test came back on our dead animals. They didn't
have rabies, which they knew that they didn't have rabies,
but they killed these animals. The rabies test came back negative.
And he says, there was a ten month investigation for

(34:36):
a squirrel and a raccoon. We have murderers and rapists
running the streets and they don't get investigations like this.
Not only did you violate my constitutional rights, you need
to come up with an explanation as to why you
murdered these animals. That's what this guy Peter, I think
is his name Mark. This is why Mark. He told

(35:01):
this to News Nation yesterday.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
You know me, I am not a fan of frivolous lawsuits.
But this guy, I hope he files at least a
civil suit against them, if at all possible. I hope
he finds a lawyer that'll do it.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
He won't win, Okay, I don't care.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Let's look yeah, especially if you can get a lawyer
that's going to do it for probono.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Let's look at it differently, all right, Let's say this
guy had a honey badger in his home, or he
was he had a leopard. You know, I have a
wild animal leopard in my home. I've got a chimpanzee
in my home. Okay, Now, personally, I don't care what
the guy has it. If he decides he wants to
have an anaconda living in his house, that's on him.

(35:43):
It's probably literally on and around him. But if it's
a squirrel that's suddenly cute, and it had a bunch
of YouTube videos and all that, then suddenly it's adorable.
The thing is still like, you can't have wild animals
living in your house, and we've got to do something
about it.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
He had a license, even though it wasn't exactly this
right license, which wasn't his fault. He had a license
to have these animals. The raccoon could have been could
have fallen within the parameters of that license. He didn't
have him for very long, and he was still rehabilitating him.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
All I know is and the raccoon.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Is not of linx or whatever you said, an anaconda
or chimpanzee. Because if a raccoon, I'm sorry, if a
squirrel goes insane, just like a couple of monkeys, chimpanzees
have done in the past, like the lady had her
face ripped off. Yes, if a chimpanzee goes crazy, you
have that kind of possibility. If a squirrel goes crazy,

(36:43):
you're gonna have a lot of cleanup to do in
the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Squirrels don't go crazy, Squirrels go nuts. Scott Boys Mornings
nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven ten KFAB