OPPD Tries to Help / Schools Open With Code Violations

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vorhees, there's Lucy Chapman. I'm Scott Vorhees. This is
News Radio eleven ten kfab Lucy. Did you bring your
allei with you this morning? My alley because I have
something that might be up it.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Oh well, let me clear out some other stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'll give you a moment, all right, And that's how
we're starting off this morning. Yes, it is Thursday, isn't it.
I'm at the point in my life I don't know
what day it is anymore. I don't know what month
it is. I barely know what year it is. Remember
when you used to ask your parents how old are you?

(00:43):
And they had to think about it. It's because it
just doesn't matter. It's like, all right, what's coming up
in the next fifteen minutes and the next six hours.
That's all I care about.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, and here's my movie quote. Yeah, oh yeah, you Blend.
I don't know that quote all blends together? Right, Oh
you Blend. You don't know that one.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
My cousin Vinnie, I have never seen that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Is that an inexcusable? It's on my list, pretty good,
It's on my Joe PESHI is an excellent side character
in a movie. I don't know if I can take
a full hour and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Pretty much, pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Joe Peshi and Marissa Tomay's character seems even more annoying
in that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
No, she's adorable.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Okay, all right, Well everyone says it's a great movie.
I just haven't yet to see it. Anyway. A local
group has said that they have something now that's going
to make your life easier. OPPD.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Is it legal?

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, Omaha Public Power District. I don't know if you've noticed,
but anytime the wind thinks about blowing, several people lose
power around town. So OPPD said, here's what we're gonna do.
We have got this technology, improved technology now to give
customers more customers, more detailed information about outages in their area,

(02:13):
and let OPBD know about whether or not you have power,
so you don't have to call them and go, hey,
I don't have any electricity. They'll already know now. None
of this is specifically pointed out in the story from
k ETV News Watch seven. They talk about a new

(02:35):
map and advanced metering infrastructure technology. It sounds like this
is the same kind of thing that they were providing
to us in the smart meter technology. And it's one
of those things where it's like, oh, hey, put this
on your home, completely voluntary, put this on your home,

(02:57):
and that way OPPD can have a better idea of
you know, peak usage time and what's going on in
your neighborhood and whether there might be an issue. And
that way we can read your meter virtually. We don't
need to send someone into your backyard to the side
of your house and have people come out with a
shotgun going what are you doing trespassing? We can just

(03:19):
read your meter and we can give you a bill
that more reflects what your actual electricity usage is. And
it's smart meter technology and it's great. And I said,
because the first they said, put the smart meter on
your house, completely voluntary, Well we'll come out, we'll do it,
doesn't cost you a thing. It's great use the smart

(03:40):
meter technology. And then they said, would you like to
sign up for a voluntary program where we can do
some rolling brownouts, you know, on those days where you've
got sweltering heat and everyone's got their air conditioner going,
maybe they're some parts where we can just you know,

(04:01):
shut that down for a little bit, just for a
few minutes. At a time, and just to alleviate the
strain on the electrical grid. By the way, I don't
think anyone's doing that at any major internet discount, superstore,
warehouse or energy field in our community. They're not doing
it for them. But for your house, you know, we
might shut down you. It's a completely voluntary just to

(04:24):
reduce that strain on the grid, and of course combat
climate change, got to restrict our electricity. It's completely voluntary.
And now they're saying, hey, we got this improved technology,
advanced metering infrastructure technology that will tell us if there's
an outage in your home or your neighborhood, and it
will send us that information via encrypted safe radio signals.

(04:45):
You won't have to actually report outages anymore. They will
people will. I think about my neighbor who she's one
of those who pretty much leads the neighborhood outrage group.
There was we had during the last heat wave, a
really bad one a couple of weeks ago. It caused

(05:08):
the street in our neighborhood to buckle. So she sent
a text message out to all the other wives on
the block and said, we need to call the city
and tell them they need to figure out how to
make roads like that ought to do it? Yes? Is
this the city? Yes, my name is Scott, and I'm
hoping that you guys can figure out how to make roads.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Well, she's not one wrong, I know, but what.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Exactly is there incenstant like, Hey, I'm I'm I'm just
a guy out here living in this house and here
in my neighborhood. The road buckled, and you guys need
to figure out how to make roads. Oh okay, thank
you for that. We were wondering whether anyone cared whether
or not we knew how to make roads, and it
turns out that you do have some concerns in this regard,

(05:55):
and we're going to do our best to make roads.
Before we were just slapping it together with paper mache
or whatever cardboard we could find. But I guess other
cities use I don't know, concrete and pavement, asphalt and
stuff like. We're gonna we're gonna try that because you
called and told us, thank you, sir, you're the best.
So I got my neighbor and I guarantee even if

(06:17):
they say we've got smart meter technology in your home,
that will tell us immediately the powers out at your
house she's still gonna call, and then she'll call ten
minutes later that's still out. Didn't know if you guys
saw that that there are people like that all over town.
I'm not picking on my neighbor as far as she knows.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
You're saying they'd sign up and then still call.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Of course they will. Yeah, power is still out. Yes,
we we know, we've got teams out, and you know,
I'm just letting you know because I think some people
will get a false sense that, oh, if they've got
the advanced metering infrastructure technology, that oppd' is like, oh,
didn't know that the power was out at the Chapman
house boo, and they just push a button and your

(06:57):
power comes back on. That's not how that works either.
This still means the power is going to go out.
It just will mean that they'll know about it when
it went out, how long it's out, when it comes
back on. The severity, the duration, the frequency of your
electricity going out in your house will not change one bit,

(07:21):
But now they're going to know about it without you
calling them. See, you just saved yourself a phone call
and maybe waiting on hold. Isn't that nice?

Speaker 2 (07:29):
And probably some people losing their job at OPPD because
there's no need to answer the phone.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Hmm. I didn't think about that. Do they have people
at OPPD answering the phone ors that get routed through Pakistan?
Like everything else, no offense to Pakistan, look, no offense.
I you know, when when someone in Pakistan calls because
they have an issue with I don't know, learning how
to play the game of baseball or something, and they

(07:57):
call it a helpline and they get an American on
the phone, I bet they're like, oh geez, you know,
they're super mad about it. They're like, I can't understand
this guy. So that's you know, that's just how Anyway,
what I wonder is if this advanced metering infrastructure technology

(08:17):
is another attempt by the not this particular utility, but
by the climate change crowd that's always trying to get
their tentacles into any board, including utility boards like OPPD
and in all aspects of our lives, that this is

(08:37):
one more attempt to, like, please let us voluntarily put
this meter on your house that can turn off the
power at your house when we feel it's necessary to
do so. They this climate change group, the ones who
say they're against it, but they don't actually want to
do anything to change it. They just want to profit

(08:59):
off of bit. They want to put this technology on
your home that they can just turn off your power
at the times when you most need it, when it's
really really hot or really really cold. And they're like,
there are a lot of people in this community who
are using a lot of power. Right now, let's just
do some rolling brownouts. Right, it's not a blackout. We're
just going to turn off the power your home for

(09:20):
ten or fifteen minutes in this neighborhood. Then we'll move
over to this neighborhood and then this day and then
your power comes back on and it's all okay, there
aren't look, this is my house. Sorry. If I sound
like Eddie Murphy doing an impersonation of his dad from
that old eighties comedy bit, I apologize. I'm not meeting

(09:42):
to rip off Eddie Murphy. This isn't my house. You
don't like it, get the sorry. That's the rest of
that bit. Then Aunt Bunnie falls down the steps. I
love that bit. Anyway, this isn't my house. If I
want to set my thermostat to fifty two degrees and
pay for it. That's on.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
But yes, you have an entire population of people who
are absolutely one hundred percent blinded to the oh, this
will be great, and willing to hand over every bit
of their information, every bit of the control, much like

(10:22):
they do in China, where you cannot do anything right
without a phone, and you can be debanked in China
very easily, where you have no access to money. That's
happening in places here. I'm hearing about some debanking going
on in this country that that just have absolutely no
clue that whatever they the government does, and the government
is O PbD because it is a public service, it's

(10:45):
a public utility, whatever they do affects you too.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Sounds like Lucy has a conspiracy theory.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
We wove in debanking, okay, where.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
You're cut off all access from your accounts.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
I don't know about all that. I'm not a Russian
oligarch here in this country trying to funnel money to
Vladimir Putin ahead of tomorrow's summit, which we'll be following
here on eleven to ten kfab throughout the day to
find out who storms out of that meeting first and
how that goes.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I'm only saying to keep giving up control, to giving
up control.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Back to the topic, You're exactly right. Why else would
they constantly be trying to say, give us access to
your electrical workings so we can we can manipul put
the smart thermostat in your home connected to the smart
meter which is connected. But we have that way just
if there's an emergency. They don't want to do this

(11:46):
in an emergency. There are probably some good people, well intentioned,
who probably know what they're doing a lot better than
I've probably given them credit, who say, look, there are
certain times when this just even doing this for seven
ten minutes could save the world as we know it. Okay,
But there are other people that they We did a

(12:06):
bit about this years ago, like nineteen years ago on
this radio station when I first started here. It was
the sixty three and Let It Be program. Now this
was we did that, but probably eighteen and a half
years ago. It was during the winter, and the idea
was is that there were rich people who can afford

(12:26):
to heat their homes to a hotter temperature, and when
they do that, they use more energy. When they use
more energy, it drives up costs for all of us.
Because aunt Rita over here is I'm cold? So she said,
there's her thermostat to eighty four. And now more energy
is used, and that creates more of a problem for

(12:48):
all customers. You have people on a budget who can't
afford to do that, and so they're shivering putting on
more sweaters and blankets. So in order to use the
best amount of energy and not have some people of
different classes be more comfortable in their homes than others,
the bit was is that we're gonna ask you to
set your thermostat to sixty three degrees and then don't

(13:11):
touch it all winter. Sixty three You won't die. Might
be a little chilly, but you won't see your breath
in your home. It'll be fine. And that way we
can use less energy and we can save the planet.
That was the bit. In the two decades or so
since then, it continuously looks like it's coming true that
people want to do this, and of course it got

(13:34):
more ridiculous, and they said, we'll be monitoring to make
sure that people are actually setting their thermostat at sixty
three degrees during the winter. If we find that they're
not complying, they'll get a letter. After that, we might
have to move on to fines and then severe instances
of non compliance seizure of their homes. That was the

(13:55):
joke about twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
I thought that was what was happening. How did they
know at that point, They wouldn't have known.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Twenty years since then, it's been give us access to
your thermostat, give us access to your meters. We might
have to institute some some rolling brown house. Just doesn't
that sound nice? A rolling brown out? You don't want
that in your neighborhood. And you don't want it in
your shorts. You don't want a rolling brown out. So
since then they I did that as a bit on

(14:25):
this radio program. They took that as instruction and here's
the next step. Now, if you want to do this, Hey,
it's your house. I don't care. Is it your house?
If you don't like it, all right again, Eddie Murphy.
If you want the advanced metering infrastructure technology so that
OPPD knows when your lights are out, then by all

(14:48):
means call them up and say, hey, sign me up,
let's do it. You won't save any money, your electricity
won't go out fewer times for less time. It's still
gonna be exis exactly what you've come to be paying
for that A lot of customers are not enthralled by.
But now they'll know without you calling them, and I

(15:08):
guarantee you'll still call them.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Scott Voices News Radio eleven ten KFAB.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Doug and others are pointing out that because I said,
I think all the schools here in the metro area
are back to school today, and many people are saying,
here's from Doug says, no school to August twenty fifth
here in Iowa, a whole week and a half away.
School needs to go back to Labor Day the Memorial Day.

(15:36):
Then he says, our school only allows four minutes between classes.
Does that seem reasonable? Yes? And that about how much
time we had thought we had about three minutes, maybe five,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Three sounds familiar, but I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, well anymore. I mean when Lucy and I went
to school was back in the old timy times when
the school was confined to the school. Now you've got
outdoor trailers that they brought in and and mobile units,
and there's like some guy with a tent set up
across the football field and you got to go in

(16:13):
there and have class with him at least that's that's
that's what I was told A right, third period, you
got to go out and hang out with Randy like what,
he's in a tent on the other side of the
north end zone. Okay, I learned a lot from Randon.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
I bet you did.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
But you know, they they've got they've got all these
various uh trailers and and and mobile units and whatever else.
They call him out there, and uh, you got to
leave the school and you got to go out there
and walk across the thing and go across the parking
lot and go find you know, the teacher. How is
it just the new teachers that have the classes in

(16:53):
like the old Winnebago out there behind the school.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
The win a Bago really a camper. You're going to
class at a camper. There's something you might need to talk
to your parents, right, it.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Might be a coleman. I don't know. I'm not brand
specific here, but you'd go buy some of these schools
and some of the classes are in these these mobile
homes outside the school.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Well yeah, the mobile homes buildings, right.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
But I'm sure that that's a that's not a longtime
tenured teacher at the school. That's out there, or maybe
they like it. Maybe they're like, you know, get me
as far away from the rest of these maniacs as possible.
I'll be out here biv whacking in the east side
of the parking lot, teaching science class. There are two

(17:42):
new Elkhorn schools that are according to the city of
Omaha and the story from k e TV News Watch seven,
these two new Elcorn schools are violating city code. Are
they open? I've I've read the stories here from seven
and First Alerts, and it sounds like both of these

(18:03):
schools are now open. Kids are going there and learning stuff,
But the city says that they're violating city code and
should be shut down. But are there kids in there
right now? This is Stone Point and Iron Bluff elementary schools.
Stone Point and Iron Bluff sound like like schools. Yeah,

(18:29):
I know. They sound like some guys that would play
on White Goodman's Dodgeball team, Blazer and Aser and all
kinds of azers. Stone Point, Iron Bluff. They sound like
people you would fight in some stupid video.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Game fight club.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Oh wait, we sound like that. Well no, we don't
know about fight club, but I bet their characters' names
and here's a great eighties video game reference for you,
Arcade Nintendo. How about Double Dragon? Where you planing on
hearing that reference on today's radio show? No, man, I
love Double Dragon. That is a great game.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Oh it's a game I've got.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah, it's a great video game. And we could play
it during the next words from our sponsors. Because in
my office down the hall, Lucy, you know, I got
TV in there. Yeah, and I've got the Nintendo hooked
up to it. The what the Nintendo? And that is
My wife called me one time from the mall and said,
there's a Kiosk because they for a while there they

(19:33):
were selling a Nintendo where they had all the games
already programmed in a box that looked like an old Nintendo,
like the nineteen eighty five Nintendo that I love so much.
And rather than have all the individual cartridges and have
to blow in them and push them in there and
get it to like, jiggle it, jiggle, jiggle it until
the thing work, it was all right there in the box.
And it was when they released those, it was impossible

(19:57):
to get one. They'd sell out immediately, back ordered for years.
So my wife calls me and says, I'm here at
I don't know, West Roads, I think, And there's these
guys set up in the kiosk and they're selling them
and they're only like eighty bucks. You want me to
buy one. I'm like, heck, yes, I want you to
buy one. So I get the thing. I'm all excited.
I'm plug it in and I'm playing some of the games.

(20:18):
I noticed some of the games. The titles are misspelled,
some of them don't work. Some of them. You get
past level two and the game just shuts down, like
this isn't right. And I'm looking at the box and
I realize that it has it's the same look, the
same colors, same logos, but it doesn't really say Nintendo

(20:40):
on there. It's made to look like a Nintendo, but
it is not. It was a knockoff, and so I
call it the Nintendo.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Oh so it wasn't officially called Nintendo.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
I've officially okay, all right? Where was I? Stone Point
and Iron Bluff elementary schools, according to the City of Omaha,
have not passed final inspections, including electrical mechanical right electric,

(21:13):
It's it's only minor things like electrical, mechanical, plumbing and fire.
Do you have kids right now. It's at Iron Bluff
Elementary School. It's right down the way from Stone Point. Yeah.
They apparently they made their school out of matchsticks, and

(21:35):
the city is like, we can't guarantee their safety. Oh,
it's probably fine. And so that's the Channel seven story
about it. The Channel six story First Alert six. They
said that apparently there's just mud all over the place
now on a construction site, especially with all the heavy

(21:56):
rain we've had here lately, you're gonna have mud washing
out po and caking at this place and that. But
they said there's so much mud around there. The kids
are like, I'm going into my first day of first grade.
By any you have a great day, and then they
go into the mud and they're lost forever. We've lost
so many kids in that mud. We won't see them
till the past clears. So there's just there's mud. Apparently,

(22:21):
no telling what's going on with the electrical and the plumbing.
And if there's a fire, I think it all just
goes up, just one big shot and it's all gone.
That's according to the City of Omaha. And that's only
a major gross exaggeration on my part. But they said
that the city Planning department issues certificates and the buildings

(22:44):
are open, but they don't have certificates of occupancy and
when they do so, they are in violation. And it
sounds like the schools are open. Elkhorn Public School says
safety features and inspections are complete. We're good, and the
city doesn't know they're not. It sounds like the school

(23:06):
I believe is. I don't think that they would open
these buildings and allow the kids to be in there
unless they knew that the buildings were good and safe.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, that would be what you would hope would happen.
But one of the parents said that they had wires
hanging from the ceilings.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Still I didn't see that.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Oh, well that's what I saw.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Are they exposed fred wires.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Maybe or they didn't.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, I don't know. Well, we've got wires and junk
hanging from the building here, well at the radio station,
and we come in here.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
I say, we're not kindergarten but well, we.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Haven't elevated to that level of education yet preschoolers here, Yeah,
I don't. I mean, it sounds like anyone is ever
and I mean no disrespect to the hard working people
employed by the City of Omaha, whose job it is
to go out there and make sure building aren't going
to blow down on the wind. But there are, But

(24:04):
there are sometimes where you got some city inspector going, oh, no,
you couldn't possibly do this, not until logan And I'll
give you the example of what happened to my house
this spring. We had an issue with a fence and
we called Tom and Ron's and they said, all right,
now we have to because we're building contractors here in town,

(24:26):
we have to let all the utilities in the city
know that we're redigging a fence post and putting a
new fence post exactly in the same spot where the
existing fence post is. Well, here comes the City of Omaha.
Are you are you? Are you building an addition to
your house? No, it's it's a fence post. Or where

(24:48):
are you putting it? See that fence post, that post
is coming out, new posts going in same spot. Well,
we got to have the utilities mark the entire yard
and the neighbor's yard, like no one's digging anywhere other
that right here. They're digging right here where there's already
a whole dog and there's a post in here. They

(25:08):
had the whole yard marked, and they put flags in
my neighbor's yard and all kinds of stuff, and we
kept telling these people it's it's right here, it's just here,
somewhere somewhere on the other side of the house. They're
putting flags in the yard, going well, you never know, Yeah,
we do, we do, we know with one hundred percent certainty,

(25:29):
this is the only spot. And we got people coming
out there going putting in a new sprinkler system or anything. No,
just one post.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well they just driving by and decided to stop the
sooner it just.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
As soon as the as soon as they're like, hey,
we're we're gonna do something, then suddenly here comes all
the people. Oh we gotta make sure that you know,
if if you know, you never know, you put this
fence post in here and your whole house could fall down.
So we got to be one hundred percent sure, like
do you so. Look, I'm not mean to malign the
good City Inspectors, but sometimes this is this is overkilled.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Scott Voices mornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven
ten KFAB