Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Tau Cloud in for Trevor Carrey today. Trevor's got
the day off and I'm in filling the big, big
giant shoes. I was lucky enough to get the phone
call this morning after Agent Squire's went through his rolodex
and he got down to the end and called everybody
could and my name popped up, and so it's I'm
super excited to be here again. It's Tall Cloud. I'm
(00:20):
filling in for Trevor Carrey. It's been a while since
I've sat it this little console, so I got to
get used to everything. So bear with me. A lot
to go over today, you know, driving down the street,
thinking God, if I was on the show today, what
would I talk about? You know, that's kind of how
it is. Sometimes I'll be thinking about other things other
than business or family or what's going on in life,
(00:40):
and I thought, you know, that's what i'd like to
talk about, or I'd like to hear about. So it's
my chance I get one day. It maybe my you know,
last day for a while, because you never know when
I'm gonna get called back in to fill in, which
is always a lot of fun. So I thought, hey,
I'm gonna I'm just gonna crank it up with lots
of different people, lots of different subjects, and we're going
to play a game. It's the Power Talk ninety six
(01:01):
to seven fill in Flunky game with Tal Cloud. The
winner of this game gets drinks at the Minkler Cash
Store in downtown Minkler Beers on tal you can only
have beers, and you know you can go until you
upset Queen Mary out there and she'll cut you off.
But I'm going to play a little game. And if
you go to my Facebook page or Power Talks Facebook
page and you can guess these names before our first
(01:24):
guest at three thirty, of all our different guests, you'll
get you'll get a night of beers in Minkler. So
our first guest at three thirty is a is an
elected official who lost a name battle over an Indian
name that a town is. That's a pretty easy one.
Our next one at four o'clock is a tax fighter,
someone who's spent hundreds and thousands of dollars, not hundreds
(01:47):
of thousands, but thousands and hundreds of dollars of his
own money to fight various taxes in Fresno County to
make us more efficient when he's you know, he's put
his moneys where his mouth is. But guess what he
might be coming into talk about why he could support
attacks in this day and age. Someone who's opposed to
attacks supporting attacks. That's our second guest. At four o'clock.
(02:09):
At four point thirty, we're going to go across the aisle.
We're going to pull someone who is a Democrat that
is supporting oil and gas big time. An elected official
here in the valley may not be in Fresno County
as a Democrat could be in one that's maybe has
a problem with a former supervisor that had child molestation
(02:31):
charges charge laid on them last weekend, and lots of
bad things that happened in Kern County about a year ago,
a cover up. Oh I told you Kern County, So
I'll let you guess that name. And then at five o'clock,
we have another elected official that wants to talk about
the out of control state and conjugal visits that you
(02:51):
get a little conjugal and a whole bunch of murder.
We're going to talk about the murders with conjugal visits
that are legal in California. Yes, when you're sentenced to
a prison and it's not you know, for murder and
you know, life sentence, when you have a possibility of parole,
you know, you get thirty to forty hours of conjugal
visits and then you know, every now and then maybe
(03:12):
you'll you'll get you'll get killed, which has happened in
California multiple times. So that's going to be our five
o'clock guest, and our five thirty guest is going to
talk about something that you may think is you know,
maybe not the most exciting, but all of us depend
on it. It's small business lending. It's what's happening with
lending here in the Central Valley and how that's affecting
(03:34):
the economy, what we're doing moving forward, what's happening with
you know, building with you know, the ability to get
financing in these tariff times that people are so concerned about. So, yeah,
I've got a I got a pretty big schedule put
together for us today. I figured it's it's a lot
easier for other people to talk in my case and
you having to hear me who's a little out of
(03:54):
practice of this this whole gig. So I thought it'd
be fun to bring in a variety of people. We're
going to talk about brighter subjects. I mean, I was,
you know, that's funny. I was reading the Wall Street
Journal on Saturday and mentioned about how Gavin Newsom is
having to come to Jesus meeting as relates to to
oil and gas production in California, now that we've had
(04:14):
multiple refineries say hey, we're done, We're shutting down. We're
not you know, we're not going to keep doing this.
And it's to me, it's interesting because you know, is
Gavin Newsen trying to change his ways because he might
be trying to run for president or does he actually
believe it. I don't think anybody in this audience thinks
he believes anything other than what's best for Gavin. And
we've seen a lot of that and I and a
(04:35):
lot of what we're going to talk about today with
all my guests, there's going to be an underlying theme.
It's what is the government doing to harm us in
California versus what are they doing to help us? And
I think certainly with some of the things going on
with our government, anybody that's in small business, like myself,
I have a small business company here with my sister
and my mom. We started almost forty years ago now,
(04:59):
and you know, we we've seen the craziness trying to
run a small business, all the different rules and regulations,
everything we have to do, and the reality is government's
not really there to help us. They're there to take
our money or to challenge challenge us that we're you know,
all employers basically look at their employees and how do
we you know that we don't beat them every day
(05:20):
before we pay them. And some of these rules and regulations,
the way the government has treated the oil industry in California,
you know, we're starting to see those problems come to
fruition because of the problems. The increase in oil and
gas prices. Now we've maybe not see it the pump
today because of what's happening with the you know, the world.
Oil prices are dropping because of you know, demand for
(05:43):
oil is down, so we're seeing some drops in oil.
I think it's trading around fifty five to sixty dollars
a barrel, but can you imagine if it was back
up to you know, eighty ninety one hundred dollars a
barrel like it was a couple of years ago during
the Biden administration, and with all the additional taxes and
regulations on oil and gas and cal California. I think,
you know, that's it's pretty scary. So we got to
we've got a lot to talk about. Always, you're always
(06:05):
welcome to call in at five five nine two three
zero forty two forty two and join the conversation. I mean,
there's so much that goes on in Fresno. There's so
many subjects I want I want to touch on. You know,
Fresnel Unified, it's going to be voting on a new superintendent.
They Presnel Unified board. They didn't want to, you know,
they didn't want to look outside. They've done so well
(06:26):
with with all the previous you know, picks that they have.
They don't want to bring in like a National UH
Administrator of the Year. No, we wouldn't want to bring
in that person. We wouldn't want to bring in someone
out of the area. We have to you know, kind
of pick someone that's been here for a long time.
So there's a little frustration on that subject. I think
it's kind of interesting. Maybe you have a different opinion
(06:46):
in the sense that maybe it is good to keep
that person here. But I think I think one thing
I've learned in organizations, there's times where you want to
you want to change things up. And I think at
Fresnel Unified, given given how poorly they performed, that it
wouldn't be a bad thing to change things up with
Fresnel Unified. That Fresnel Unified, you know, the way the
(07:07):
students are and the morale and the everything that the numbers,
how poorly we've done prior to COVID and since COVID
I think a different way of looking at something would
have been important. I think that would have been really nice,
and unfortunately, I think we're not doing that. So we've
got you know, we've got a lot we can talk about.
We've got a lot of different subjects we can talk about.
(07:28):
And you know, we got a caller right now, Thomas
wants to talk about the California Air Resources Board. I'll
just move my little mouse over here and hit Thomas
right there. I'm not very good at my left hand.
Hey Thomas, how are you?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I'm doing good?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Hey? Good. You know, the California Air Resource Board. That's
a real winner of an organization. If I've ever seen one.
What he got.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Well, you know that they're going to pulse like a
fifty six tax for gas to try to offset what
the governor said he did by reducing the taxes on
the gas.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So that's going to come into effect, I believe in
July of this year.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But here's the real clincher. The California Air Resources Board,
as part of the hand of Gavin Newsom to regulate
the environment, what they've done is by cleaning up the
environment out here, they have sold our carbon credits to
other states that pollute the area, so they get.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That money too well. And I think that's the whole
carbon tax. That was the whole scam, right, just make
a bunch of money, use it as as a way
to tax people. But I can tell you firsthand, the
California Air Resources Board is a big problem.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
They've overstepped their boundaries as relates to the electric car
mandates and all the various mandates they put on people
stopping the burning, the additional taxes. It's just they're out
of control bureaucracy and there's no and and basically Newsom
has seated authority to them so he doesn't have to
be the bad guy.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Well, and not the hipocrisy of the whole organization, because
if they're still environmentally friendly, why don't they let another
stake pollute our country, you know, by buying our comment
credits from here.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Well yeah, the same thing though, is is China is
polluting the world, but they you know that everybody wants
America to pay for and I think we're seeing that
shift right now. So you know, lots lots of things
are changing there. So hey, I appreciate the phone call,
thank you, thanks for calling in.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, but it's it's it's he brings up a Tom
springs up. An interesting point is when we're selling these
credits from one state to the other, that that, you know,
what is the point And I think at the end
of the day, the point of the credits is just
to make tax revenues. So we'll, you know, we'll just
start is.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
The Trevor Cherry Show on the Valley's Power Talk.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Tout Cloud in for Trevor Carry today. He's taking a
little day off, but I'm in here and I'm excited
to be here. We've got the little Trevor Carry Uh
guess game going if you can guess who my guests.
Are you get all the beers you can drink at
Mikler Cash Store. Mary will set you up. It's three thirty.
We've got elected official talking about an Indian name controversy
(10:10):
in a local city or a community. We've got a
tax fighter at four o'clock who spent a lot of
his own money on taxes. Opposing him now might want
to support one. At four thirty, we got a Democrat,
a Democrat member in government that is worried about gas
perchuction in California. Big things are coming up in June
that may really affect the gas industry. Getting your tank
(10:33):
of gas come June. At five o'clock, we got an
elected official that is a little concerned about the conjugal
death visits. When you have a little conjugal visit in
prison and you know, two people go in the room,
the prisoner and the conjugal visit e but unfortunately only
one comes out. And at last Business Lending at five
(10:53):
point thirty talking about the SBA really cool program for
small business owners. So we got a lot to talk about.
If you want to get the show, it's five five
nine two three zero forty two forty two. Happy to
talk to you, but right now before we have our
first guest. And then if you go to tau Clouds
Facebook page or power Talk Facebook page, you put those
names in there who you think they are, and if
(11:14):
you're right, I'll buy you Beers and Minkler. But first
I want to talk about you know, anybody that's talking
about sports, anybody that's watching sports right now. I don't
know of anybody that says, man, I love this in il.
I think it's the best thing ever for college sports.
It's the best thing to see these of seventeen, sixteen,
fifteen year old kids, you know, getting commitments to that
(11:36):
they could almost drive Lamborghinis before they even hit college
een throw a pass. I read there day there's some
kid that was driving a Lamborghini already and he hasn't
thrown a single college pass, but he's made so much money.
And how it relates to the draft. You know, there's
all the conversation about Sugar Sanders and his fall from
grace and how much he's dropped. I'm sure many of
(11:56):
you have read that, but I find it interesting that
you know Shadur who you know three months ago, four
months ago, where they were talking about a lottery pick,
a top five, top ten pick. You know fell so far,
but but why did he fall so far? It's interesting.
It's kind of like the Biden administration, you know, when
everything's over and you're not in power anymore and now
(12:17):
you're just a lowly draft pick. We can all talk
about the behind the scenes, and we're hearing the behind
the scenes with Shadur was he came underprepared Brian Dabele
that there's a story that I read Brian Dabele on
the Giants. You know, asked him to, hey, here's a
game plan. I want you to memorize it. We'll talk
about it. And he ended up showing up the Giants
(12:38):
and he one didn't study it too, tried to bs
his way through. It. Had so much cologne on it
was hard to be in the same room with him.
And he had his entourage, which is probably not the
best thing to do when you're applying for a job.
You probably don't bring mommy to work with you when
you're applying for a job. Would be probably some good advice.
But I thought that was interesting, you know that that
when he dropped in NFL's team saw that and other
(13:01):
NFL teams kept seeing, you know that maybe the same
thing he he went and met with the story. He
met with the Cleveland Browns who were desperate for a quarterback.
I think they ended up drafting a couple, but they
they passed on them. The Raiders badly need a quarterback.
They passed on them, you know. They. I think Geno
Smith will work fine for in the pinch, for as
(13:22):
a bridge quarterback, but he's certainly not a long term solution.
So yeah, we saw that and then the other one
that was interesting, And this is where, you know, I
think Fresno State is in a tough situation because unfortunately
here in the valley, you know, tal Cloud just does
not want to have you know, I don't need to
go pay a college quarterback, you know, a million dollars
(13:42):
to advertise the tow Cloud you know dealership my auto
dealership or my my airplane company or whatever, you know,
fictitious names I may have for companies. I don't think
the money's in there for a lot of the smaller
schools that can have the you know, hey, I you know,
I'm I'm Joey, you know, BEEFCA and I'm representing you know,
tow Clouds businesses here and blah blah blah. You know,
(14:04):
I'm I'm happy to promote him. I think that's just
not going to be effective here for the valley. But
you had quin quint viewers, I think is how you
say his name out of Texas. And you know, we
all know that. You know, the kid coming up behind
him is a Manning arch. Manning is going to push
him to the side. And he kind of had a
He had a decent year, had a great team, great coach,
(14:25):
Steve Sarcagian. They had a great season. But he got
hurt and so he hey, I'm going to go I'm
going to go college and stay in college for one year.
So he had a five point two million dollar in
an I L deal in I L N I h
N IL deal National health Care. No, that's not it
nil deal on the table, and I think it was
at a Oregon and they because they needed a quarterback
(14:47):
because their quarterback had moved on to greener pastures. And
he walked away from that and he put his name
in the draft. And by all accounts, this year was
a very light quarterback year, so there weren't a lot
of high talented quarterback. I think Cam Ward was up there,
and you know that beyond that, it was a it
was a drop off between Dart was the next guy,
(15:07):
former USC quarterback transferred to to Mississippi under Lane Kiffen.
But he ended up this quint Eerrs guy. If I'm
saying his name right, which I'm sure I'm not, he
ended up I think going for Miami in one of
the later picks, in a six or seventh round. And
you know, he had five point two million dollars in
the table if he had stayed in college, and he's
(15:28):
going to maybe be making eight fifty eight seventy five
this year. I mean, that's that's crazy. I mean, that's
that's some Really that's a that's a big drop off,
and it's a is it really worth it for these kids?
Is the nil going to have some of these kids
staying in school longer? I don't know what I mean.
I I just I'm frustrated that I think these kids
(15:49):
are coming into college and the coach says, hey, Johnny,
you know you didn't run that route right. Uh No,
I ran it right. It's the better way I had it.
I did the right way. And if you don't like
the way I run the route I'll leave and they
go to another school and another school, another school and
another school. You know, like we've seen some of these
quarterbacks that are doing and other players. I think it's
just ruining college sports. And I'm excited to see that
(16:12):
that maybe, you know, maybe this nil situation that happened
this year where some of these kids that came out
thought they were gonna get big money, they maybe they
could have stayed in and done and been better. You know,
I think Trey Lance could have used more, more more
college football than he received. And he was a big
bus for the forty nine ers, and you know now
he's on his third team down and down in the Chargers.
So you're seeing, you know, some of these kids have
(16:34):
come out too soon, others have you know, maybe when
they did come out, they thought they were going to
make the big bucks and and they realized they show
has stayed in college. So you know, you never know
what we're going to see.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
This is the Trevor Charry Show, Condom Valley's Power Talk.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We're going to start our guest CAVL caval raid or
whatever the word would be, paraded all the different Well,
Nathan's got a parade face on after the parade this weekend.
You got little sun Tan. It looks like, well, I'm
gonna I've got Nathan Maxigon. It's tal Cloud in for
Trevor Carey today and we've got a lot to talk about,
and we're going to start off talking about you know,
he just gott he lost a name change issue with
(17:15):
the state, and then we're going to talk about a
real more serious issues relates to to our local hospitals.
I think really people need to be aware what's going
on local hospital. So let's start off. Nathan, welcome in
to the Trevor Carrey Show. First of all, thanks for
taking taking my visit on very short notice, and tell
us what happened with Squaw Valley.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yeah, so, a few years ago, the state legislature had
to build AB twenty twenty two that passed the governor
signed it into the law, and that basically said that
all places throughout California that have the name Squaw Valley
or Squaw in general associated with them, that name was
deemed defensive and it needed to be removed. So Fresno
County we filed a lawsuit because in eastern Fresno County
(17:55):
we have a community called Squaw Valley that has been
in place for over one hundred fifty years, and I
reached out to the community and said, hey, community, what
do you want. There was a survey that went out
to residence and over eighty seven percent said, please do
everything you can to try to preserve our name because
it's very important to us. So out of that, the
(18:16):
state just rejected our pleas to listen to the residents,
and so we filed a lawsuit. We lost in superior court,
and so we appealed that decision, and the appellate court
also upheld the ruling of the superior court. Where I
was frustrated with all of this is, you know, government
is really supposed to be by the people and for
the people, and the state, through sweeping legislation, changed names
(18:40):
and gave local communities very little input into this process.
And so as I did research on the name Squaw
Valley and how that community got its name, I found
that the local tribes were part of getting Squaw Valley
named that name. And so I presented all this evidence
and that was rejected. And when we went to court,
(19:01):
I was as as an elected official and Fresno County
was attempting to protect the speech rights of residents who
lived in Squaw Valley. And what the court's effectively said
is that counties cannot do that. We do not have
a right to protect the constitutional rights of individuals. They
have to make that claim themselves. So I was, I
(19:24):
was pretty shocked to see that. So basically the claims
that we had were dismissed, and the Superior Court and
Appellate Court both said that counties we cannot defend the
constitutional rights of people. So again little troubling and shocked,
but I did lose that case, and we're a nation
of laws and I'm gonna abide by those laws.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But just on that, just to ask you a question, though,
isn't there other areas, like when it comes to healthcare,
that you are representing people, you are representing communities. Absolutely,
I mean, I mean, that just seems the hypocrisy right
there is that it's a convenient argument to dismiss your
ability there. But you do so many other things in
other areas that represent people.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
You know, I agree, And one of the things where
I'm challenged is I look at what's happened now that
President Trump is in office. He has gone back and
he's He's changed the names of the Golf of Mexico's
now the Gulf of America. He's changed the names of
different mountain ranges that were changed a few years ago
back to their original names. But again, because this was
(20:24):
a state issue in a state law, I needed state
courts to side with the residents. But in this case
here in California, state courts still wanted to side with
Gavin Newsom and the legislators in Sacramento.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Well, speaking of President Trump, there's this thing that my
wife and I have talked about. We've seen it. I
actually was. I watched sixty minutes last night and it was,
you know, basically, the sky is falling because Trump's cutting
all the money, and everybody's going to die, and all
this money is going to be cut. The rest of
the story is never clearly told, and the story's being
written as we speak. In that there's a lot to
(21:00):
talk about money's getting cut, money's going to go away
for Medicare, money's going to go away for services from
the federal government. But yet maybe money is just going
to be redirected. Much like in education, where there's a
lot of talk about eliminating the Department of Education, and
pushing that cash back down to the states without the
cut coming out of the federal government. Saves federal government money,
(21:20):
puts the money in the states, let them administer it.
I think the same could be said with Medicare and
Medicaid and a lot of those issues. But you brought
up something that was when we were talking earlier prior
to the show that I thought was interesting, is that
we've got a chance to see Community Hospital, you know,
our one of our premier, if not the premier centers
in the central California with emergency, fire, trauma, everything. They're
(21:45):
very concerned about what the next two years brings, and
I think their concerns have nothing to do with this administration.
It's a long brewing problem. So the question I have
as an elected official and somebody you do represent, what
are we going to do with Community Hospital? They can't
go broke?
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Yeah, So Community Hospital right now, it's really the largest
hospital system that we have in the Central Valley. And
what a lot of people don't realize is other hospitals
actually transfer patients to Community Hospital. And so again this
is the bigger issue is this. It's patient mix right
now at Community Hospital over eighty percent of the patients
(22:19):
who receive care at the hospital have some form of
government assistance healthcare. And right now, the federal government, state government,
when they submit reimbursements for care that's given, it doesn't
cover the costs of the services that the hospitals are providing.
So right now private pays those individuals who have private insurance.
(22:41):
We are subsidizing the care of people who are on
government assisted programs, and so community is being tremendously impacted.
You look at the Central Valley, We've got many disadvantaged communities.
We've got a lot of people who are on medical here,
which is again the state form of healthcare, and just
(23:01):
the state recently has had to give billions of dollars
to that program because it's so overprescribed right now. But
even with that over prescription and the payments that are
being made to hospitals, the money is not making it
into the doctor's hands or to just the equipment that's needed.
There's not enough money that's there. And so if it
(23:22):
wasn't for the private payers, a lot of the hospitals
we have would already need to close their doors. But
something you said, a lot of government programs that are
out there whether it be Department of Education or even FEMA.
For me, when the Creek fire happened in Fresno County
just four and a half years ago, we were a
FEMA designated area, and I can tell you that the
County of Fresno had millions of dollars in damage and
(23:44):
we were promised that FEMA would be there to provide assistance,
and we still are waiting on millions of dollars from
the federal government that hasn't come, and so these expenses
are falling back on the County of Fresno and it
is crippling us.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, I mean, but you bring up a point about community.
I mean that we recently saw Madera's Hospital ion't put
back up and for for years since it closed, I'm
not sure how long it's closed, two years, let's just
say plus or minus that community we and Fresno's had
to basically subsidize and not you know, if they're all
one community. But Madera's people are coming here and so
it's putting them in a very tough position. And community again,
(24:22):
I mean, if we can't afford to lose community. But
is there a solution? I mean, what does you know
the federal government claims they have no money. You've got
newsome that is basically given everybody that can walk across
our border health care, and that's driving our cost up.
What's the solution and is there one?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Well?
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Bottom line is healthcare costs money, and what we need
to do is we need to change the patient mix.
So we need more people who have private insurance receiving
care at our hospitals because that covers the costs of care.
So the solution is that we need to get the
government out of the way. Because whenever the government builds
affordable housing or they get involved in this case with
(24:58):
providing medical insureurants, they charge a lot of money to
provide these services, but very little money actually makes it
to community hospital.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
In this case.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
I laugh when I hear government talking about how government
wants to pass more bonds and create affordable housing. When
I look at the actual costs per door, it's more
expensive to build affordable housing using government dollars than it
is to build market rate housing. So bottom line with
all this is we need less bureaucracy. We need more
people who have private insurance to help our hospitals out.
(25:30):
And if we don't do that we're going to see
more hospitals closing their.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Doors well, and but I think that's what we're going
to have. And if you think about community as an example,
they have Clovis, which is in a very affluent area.
It's a beautiful hospital. I had someone that was recently
in that hospital and they were there for you know,
in the hallway for two days. Because it's so overran
that people are still using the hospital as their urgent care.
And I think that's one area that we need to
(25:54):
be aware of what the heck is going on. We
should be using these hospitals as urgent cares, but that's
another negative. And do we stop that? How do we
stop someone that doesn't know our language, that is sick
and in trouble, but really they should be at an
urgence care. How do we stop that.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
We need more nurses, we need more doctors, we need
more providers. But the only way that you get that
is these doctors, nurses and providers need to be getting
paid for the services that they're doing. Madera Hospital had
to close their doors because they had a patient mix
issue as well. The state government came back in to
help them open their doors back up, but even now
that they're open again, A lot of the patients that
(26:29):
used to go to Madera are still coming to Fresno.
I don't believe any berths are taking place at the
Madera Hospital. I still believe one hundred percent of people
who need to deliver babies they're coming to Fresno County now.
And people who if there's any level of trauma, they're
coming to the Level one trauma center, which is Community
there in downtown Fresno Community Hospital there. So the answer,
(26:50):
what is the answer to all of this, Well, I'll
tell you the answer is not government. Government has put
so many constraints on our doctors. They've made it so
difficult for them. I look at how many lawsuits that
are out there against doctors, which makes insurance almost impossible.
And we we don't need to go down that rabbit
hole because it's affecting people who drive cars, who who
own homes in the mountains who can't find insurance. Now,
(27:13):
So the answer is not more government. We need to
really cut a lot of this bureaucracy back. We need
to find way to stimulate entrepreneurs. And again we need uh,
we need businesses out there that have private insurance. We
need to do what we can to help them be
successful because when they hire people and put them on
their private insurance, those plans are the things that help
to keep our hospitals open.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
But I mean, you're talking about some of these issues.
I mean, how if you're a if you were a
state elective visual how would you fix it? What's the
how do what's the solution? Because it's like it's easy
to talk about problem. All I do is hear people
talk about problems and it's really hard to fix them.
So so what if if you were if you were
king for the day or you know, Governor Magzig for
the day, what what could be done? And what's that?
(27:54):
What's the what would you what would be your top
couple priorities.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
But one of them would be that I think the
state legislature needs to be limited in the number of
bills that they can introduce, both in the Assembly and Senate,
but just deregulation. Right now, there are layers and layers
of bureaucracy. So things that I would do right now
at the state level is instead of focusing so much
on programs and more bureaucracy and regulation, I'd focus on
projects infrastructure allows for communities to thrive. Water is a
(28:21):
major issue that we have here in the Central Valley.
And it's not that we don't have enough water falling
on this state. We've got plenty of water. About one
hundred and seventy million acre feet of water falls on
California every year. What we need to be doing is
building conveyance systems. We need to be building more dams
to store that water and moving it up and down
the state because our systems here were built for a
population of ten million people. When it comes to healthcare,
(28:44):
how do we attract more doctors and encourage them to
stay here. Well, housing prices are through the roof. But
twenty years ago, when I was running a construction company
and building homes, I didn't have to deal with some
of the litigious issues that pop up out there from
construction defect litigation and things that really line the pockets
of attorneys and don't make our communities any safer or stronger.
(29:05):
Government has moved away from building infrastructure and it's focusing
more on programs and bureaucracy. Those things need to be cut.
Entrepreneurs need to be turned loose, and that where the
state needs to be focusing its money is on our roads,
on dams, on below ground storage, and also forest management.
(29:25):
And that's a whole nother discussion because we need to
be working with the federal government on that too. But
if you want to go down that rabbit hole, I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, Well, I know you love to talk about forest management.
I think I think one of the areas it's been
interesting and we'll probably talk about a little later in
the show with little my other guests, But it's the
thought that's what you brought up in you know, with
the Creek fire and the insurance rates and the problems
with government and what's happened in LA with the fire
down in LA, and how that's affect the rebuild costs.
(29:52):
Where are you know when people built these houses thirty, fifty,
sixty years ago, they didn't have to put sprinklers in
their house. They didn't have to put solar, they didn't
have to do all these things. It really in some
areas you know you don't need you don't need that.
You don't need sprinklers in a house. There's no how
do you what? How does sprinklers in a home help
you when you run out of water? I don't get it,
but you've you've seen firsthand the incompetence of government rebuilding
(30:14):
up in Shaver in Huntingdon.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
I mean yeah, So again looking at the creek fire.
The creek fire happened in Fresno County September fourth, twenty twenty.
We are four and a half years removed, and I
am still working with residents trying to rebuild their homes
in those mountain areas. And again looking at just how
codes have changed. When you're in the mountains, you don't
need to put solar panels on your home to meet
(30:36):
the new energy code. A lot of these homes that
burned were built in the forties, fifties, sixties on up.
But now you're having to build to a standard which
is very difficult to meet in these mountain areas, and
the cost to do that is significantly higher. So again
government has gotten involved in every area of our life,
and in that process it makes everything very expensive too.
(30:57):
So again, when I was building, I could build sticks
and bricks, so from foundation up for about seventy five
dollars a square foot. That cost now is closer to
two hundred bucks a foot. And people here in the
Central Valley when you look at wages, even though minimum
wage has gone up, that has not done anything to
really help most of the families that are out there
(31:18):
who are struggling trying to raise a family of four
making somewhere between sixteen eighty thousand dollars a year, and
that's predominantly who we have here in the Central Valley.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, times are tough, But as a county supervisor, do
you have any play over that? Do you have any
authority over making rebuilding regulations any less burdensome? So it's
state controlled.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Again, when it comes to state codes, as it relates
to building codes, the state makes those changes. We do
have control over what's called ordinances, and we can make
small changes, but ultimately, really in the state constitution, counties
are defined as an arm of the state. So our
job is to carry out those laws and rules that
(32:00):
the state passes. So we do have some liberties and freedoms.
The County of Fresno's a charter county, meaning that you know,
we can operate a little bit more flexibly than a
general law county. But again, I cannot override a state law.
I can't preempt state laws. I have to follow those
state laws.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well, and given the super majority in both houses by
the Democrats, and you know, virtually every state wide office
controlled by a Democrat. That's I don't see that changing.
And I think that's a challenge because it's not going
to change in two years, four years, or six years.
There's no there's no I mean, look at how quick
that some of the poll numbers have turned on Trump
when it just he's done a few things, maybe against
the what people think, unless he really hits it out
(32:43):
of the park. I don't see that anything changing statewide
because the districts are so bad. Well these districts. I
mean there's a there's a Senate district that you might
have your eyes on. I think you do that. You know,
basically it's going to be won by a Republican. You
can get caught beaten a dog. If you're a Republican
against a Democrat in that district, you're gonna win. I mean,
(33:03):
so that's a challenge. Tell us about your race. And
you know, I don't think you beat dogs, do you?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I do not. I love dogs.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
And as a matter of fact, if you follow me
on Facebook, Doug, the pit pull that I adopted and
fostered was actually adopted to a family up in Oregon.
So if you are looking for a pet, all of
our animal shelters right now are heavily impacted. I would
encourage you to adopt a dog or a cat. But
I digress SD twelve is a seat that I am
(33:32):
running for. That is Shanning Grove's current Senate district she
has termed out and it includes Fresno County to Larry
County and Kerrent County, and there are many issues in
those counties that whether it be oil issues, whether it
be insurance issues, infrastructure issues, things that I want to
go to Sacramento and work on. But we only have
ten Republicans in the Senate out of forty and so
(33:55):
the only way that you're going to begin to move
the needle on policy is you need more Publicans in Sacramento,
and so we have to begin taking back seats. But
you also brought up the fact that redistricting every ten years,
there's this commission that is not independent and they create
these crazy gerrymandered seats. So I believe what needs to
happen is we need a ballot major to go before
(34:16):
voters statewide to change how we do redistricting because right
now we've created Frankenstein districts here in California.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah, I get it. Well, you know, I appreciate you
coming in, you know, to talk about that. I'm excited
for your opportunity for that district. I was involved in redistricting.
It's a terrible process. It's just an absolute joke of
a process. So it's great seeing you and hope to
see you have a little success here in a couple
of years. And pay attention. This hospital issue is a
(34:46):
big deal. We really got to get on this hospital issue.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
And you know what, I would really encourage your listeners.
While a lot of doom and gloom is being talked about,
I always have. I have hope for the future, but
listeners need to get engaged, get involved, working for candidates
that you believe in. Listen to this show, spread the word,
and that's how we make a difference.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Thanks Nathan for coming in. Always great to talk to Nathan.
Excited about his race for state Senate. He'd be a
great candidate moving on up. And he's a strong candidate
and'd be great to have him. And he's doing a
lot for this county and he's worked hard for I
think it's twenty years. He's worked really hard for this county,
so you know, it'd be great to see him follow
(35:23):
David Tangapa up to Sacramento and the two of them
could probably work to get some things done, which would
be great. He's assistant Trevor Cherry show Mondo Valley's Power
talg
It's Tau Cloud in for Trevor Carrey today. Trevor's got
the day off and I'm in filling the big, big
giant shoes. I was lucky enough to get the phone
call this morning after Agent Squire's went through his rolodex
and he got down to the end and called everybody
could and my name popped up, and so it's I'm
super excited to be here again. It's Tall Cloud. I'm
(00:20):
filling in for Trevor Carrey. It's been a while since
I've sat it this little console, so I got to
get used to everything. So bear with me. A lot
to go over today, you know, driving down the street,
thinking God, if I was on the show today, what
would I talk about? You know, that's kind of how
it is. Sometimes I'll be thinking about other things other
than business or family or what's going on in life,
(00:40):
and I thought, you know, that's what i'd like to
talk about, or I'd like to hear about. So it's
my chance I get one day. It maybe my you know,
last day for a while, because you never know when
I'm gonna get called back in to fill in, which
is always a lot of fun. So I thought, hey,
I'm gonna I'm just gonna crank it up with lots
of different people, lots of different subjects, and we're going
to play a game. It's the Power Talk ninety six
(01:01):
to seven fill in Flunky game with Tal Cloud. The
winner of this game gets drinks at the Minkler Cash
Store in downtown Minkler Beers on tal you can only
have beers, and you know you can go until you
upset Queen Mary out there and she'll cut you off.
But I'm going to play a little game. And if
you go to my Facebook page or Power Talks Facebook
page and you can guess these names before our first
(01:24):
guest at three thirty, of all our different guests, you'll
get you'll get a night of beers in Minkler. So
our first guest at three thirty is a is an
elected official who lost a name battle over an Indian
name that a town is. That's a pretty easy one.
Our next one at four o'clock is a tax fighter,
someone who's spent hundreds and thousands of dollars, not hundreds
(01:47):
of thousands, but thousands and hundreds of dollars of his
own money to fight various taxes in Fresno County to
make us more efficient when he's you know, he's put
his moneys where his mouth is. But guess what he
might be coming into talk about why he could support
attacks in this day and age. Someone who's opposed to
attacks supporting attacks. That's our second guest. At four o'clock.
(02:09):
At four point thirty, we're going to go across the aisle.
We're going to pull someone who is a Democrat that
is supporting oil and gas big time. An elected official
here in the valley may not be in Fresno County
as a Democrat could be in one that's maybe has
a problem with a former supervisor that had child molestation
(02:31):
charges charge laid on them last weekend, and lots of
bad things that happened in Kern County about a year ago,
a cover up. Oh I told you Kern County, So
I'll let you guess that name. And then at five o'clock,
we have another elected official that wants to talk about
the out of control state and conjugal visits that you
(02:51):
get a little conjugal and a whole bunch of murder.
We're going to talk about the murders with conjugal visits
that are legal in California. Yes, when you're sentenced to
a prison and it's not you know, for murder and
you know, life sentence, when you have a possibility of parole,
you know, you get thirty to forty hours of conjugal
visits and then you know, every now and then maybe
(03:12):
you'll you'll get you'll get killed, which has happened in
California multiple times. So that's going to be our five
o'clock guest, and our five thirty guest is going to
talk about something that you may think is you know,
maybe not the most exciting, but all of us depend
on it. It's small business lending. It's what's happening with
lending here in the Central Valley and how that's affecting
(03:34):
the economy, what we're doing moving forward, what's happening with
you know, building with you know, the ability to get
financing in these tariff times that people are so concerned about. So, yeah,
I've got a I got a pretty big schedule put
together for us today. I figured it's it's a lot
easier for other people to talk in my case and
you having to hear me who's a little out of
(03:54):
practice of this this whole gig. So I thought it'd
be fun to bring in a variety of people. We're
going to talk about brighter subjects. I mean, I was,
you know, that's funny. I was reading the Wall Street
Journal on Saturday and mentioned about how Gavin Newsom is
having to come to Jesus meeting as relates to to
oil and gas production in California, now that we've had
(04:14):
multiple refineries say hey, we're done, We're shutting down. We're
not you know, we're not going to keep doing this.
And it's to me, it's interesting because you know, is
Gavin Newsen trying to change his ways because he might
be trying to run for president or does he actually
believe it. I don't think anybody in this audience thinks
he believes anything other than what's best for Gavin. And
we've seen a lot of that and I and a
(04:35):
lot of what we're going to talk about today with
all my guests, there's going to be an underlying theme.
It's what is the government doing to harm us in
California versus what are they doing to help us? And
I think certainly with some of the things going on
with our government, anybody that's in small business, like myself,
I have a small business company here with my sister
and my mom. We started almost forty years ago now,
(04:59):
and you know, we we've seen the craziness trying to
run a small business, all the different rules and regulations,
everything we have to do, and the reality is government's
not really there to help us. They're there to take
our money or to challenge challenge us that we're you know,
all employers basically look at their employees and how do
we you know that we don't beat them every day
(05:20):
before we pay them. And some of these rules and regulations,
the way the government has treated the oil industry in California,
you know, we're starting to see those problems come to
fruition because of the problems. The increase in oil and
gas prices. Now we've maybe not see it the pump
today because of what's happening with the you know, the world.
Oil prices are dropping because of you know, demand for
(05:43):
oil is down, so we're seeing some drops in oil.
I think it's trading around fifty five to sixty dollars
a barrel, but can you imagine if it was back
up to you know, eighty ninety one hundred dollars a
barrel like it was a couple of years ago during
the Biden administration, and with all the additional taxes and
regulations on oil and gas and cal California. I think,
you know, that's it's pretty scary. So we got to
we've got a lot to talk about. Always, you're always
(06:05):
welcome to call in at five five nine two three
zero forty two forty two and join the conversation. I mean,
there's so much that goes on in Fresno. There's so
many subjects I want I want to touch on. You know,
Fresnel Unified, it's going to be voting on a new superintendent.
They Presnel Unified board. They didn't want to, you know,
they didn't want to look outside. They've done so well
(06:26):
with with all the previous you know, picks that they have.
They don't want to bring in like a National UH
Administrator of the Year. No, we wouldn't want to bring
in that person. We wouldn't want to bring in someone
out of the area. We have to you know, kind
of pick someone that's been here for a long time.
So there's a little frustration on that subject. I think
it's kind of interesting. Maybe you have a different opinion
(06:46):
in the sense that maybe it is good to keep
that person here. But I think I think one thing
I've learned in organizations, there's times where you want to
you want to change things up. And I think at
Fresnel Unified, given given how poorly they performed, that it
wouldn't be a bad thing to change things up with
Fresnel Unified. That Fresnel Unified, you know, the way the
(07:07):
students are and the morale and the everything that the numbers,
how poorly we've done prior to COVID and since COVID
I think a different way of looking at something would
have been important. I think that would have been really nice,
and unfortunately, I think we're not doing that. So we've
got you know, we've got a lot we can talk about.
We've got a lot of different subjects we can talk about.
(07:28):
And you know, we got a caller right now, Thomas
wants to talk about the California Air Resources Board. I'll
just move my little mouse over here and hit Thomas
right there. I'm not very good at my left hand.
Hey Thomas, how are you?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I'm doing good?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Hey? Good. You know, the California Air Resource Board. That's
a real winner of an organization. If I've ever seen one.
What he got.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Well, you know that they're going to pulse like a
fifty six tax for gas to try to offset what
the governor said he did by reducing the taxes on
the gas.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So that's going to come into effect, I believe in
July of this year.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But here's the real clincher. The California Air Resources Board,
as part of the hand of Gavin Newsom to regulate
the environment, what they've done is by cleaning up the
environment out here, they have sold our carbon credits to
other states that pollute the area, so they get.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That money too well. And I think that's the whole
carbon tax. That was the whole scam, right, just make
a bunch of money, use it as as a way
to tax people. But I can tell you firsthand, the
California Air Resources Board is a big problem.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
They've overstepped their boundaries as relates to the electric car
mandates and all the various mandates they put on people
stopping the burning, the additional taxes. It's just they're out
of control bureaucracy and there's no and and basically Newsom
has seated authority to them so he doesn't have to
be the bad guy.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Well, and not the hipocrisy of the whole organization, because
if they're still environmentally friendly, why don't they let another
stake pollute our country, you know, by buying our comment
credits from here.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Well yeah, the same thing though, is is China is
polluting the world, but they you know that everybody wants
America to pay for and I think we're seeing that
shift right now. So you know, lots lots of things
are changing there. So hey, I appreciate the phone call,
thank you, thanks for calling in.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, but it's it's it's he brings up a Tom
springs up. An interesting point is when we're selling these
credits from one state to the other, that that, you know,
what is the point And I think at the end
of the day, the point of the credits is just
to make tax revenues. So we'll, you know, we'll just
start is.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
The Trevor Cherry Show on the Valley's Power Talk.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Tout Cloud in for Trevor Carry today. He's taking a
little day off, but I'm in here and I'm excited
to be here. We've got the little Trevor Carry Uh
guess game going if you can guess who my guests.
Are you get all the beers you can drink at
Mikler Cash Store. Mary will set you up. It's three thirty.
We've got elected official talking about an Indian name controversy
(10:10):
in a local city or a community. We've got a
tax fighter at four o'clock who spent a lot of
his own money on taxes. Opposing him now might want
to support one. At four thirty, we got a Democrat,
a Democrat member in government that is worried about gas
perchuction in California. Big things are coming up in June
that may really affect the gas industry. Getting your tank
(10:33):
of gas come June. At five o'clock, we got an
elected official that is a little concerned about the conjugal
death visits. When you have a little conjugal visit in
prison and you know, two people go in the room,
the prisoner and the conjugal visit e but unfortunately only
one comes out. And at last Business Lending at five
(10:53):
point thirty talking about the SBA really cool program for
small business owners. So we got a lot to talk about.
If you want to get the show, it's five five
nine two three zero forty two forty two. Happy to
talk to you, but right now before we have our
first guest. And then if you go to tau Clouds
Facebook page or power Talk Facebook page, you put those
names in there who you think they are, and if
(11:14):
you're right, I'll buy you Beers and Minkler. But first
I want to talk about you know, anybody that's talking
about sports, anybody that's watching sports right now. I don't
know of anybody that says, man, I love this in il.
I think it's the best thing ever for college sports.
It's the best thing to see these of seventeen, sixteen,
fifteen year old kids, you know, getting commitments to that
(11:36):
they could almost drive Lamborghinis before they even hit college
een throw a pass. I read there day there's some
kid that was driving a Lamborghini already and he hasn't
thrown a single college pass, but he's made so much money.
And how it relates to the draft. You know, there's
all the conversation about Sugar Sanders and his fall from
grace and how much he's dropped. I'm sure many of
(11:56):
you have read that, but I find it interesting that
you know Shadur who you know three months ago, four
months ago, where they were talking about a lottery pick,
a top five, top ten pick. You know fell so far,
but but why did he fall so far? It's interesting.
It's kind of like the Biden administration, you know, when
everything's over and you're not in power anymore and now
(12:17):
you're just a lowly draft pick. We can all talk
about the behind the scenes, and we're hearing the behind
the scenes with Shadur was he came underprepared Brian Dabele
that there's a story that I read Brian Dabele on
the Giants. You know, asked him to, hey, here's a
game plan. I want you to memorize it. We'll talk
about it. And he ended up showing up the Giants
(12:38):
and he one didn't study it too, tried to bs
his way through. It. Had so much cologne on it
was hard to be in the same room with him.
And he had his entourage, which is probably not the
best thing to do when you're applying for a job.
You probably don't bring mommy to work with you when
you're applying for a job. Would be probably some good advice.
But I thought that was interesting, you know that that
when he dropped in NFL's team saw that and other
(13:01):
NFL teams kept seeing, you know that maybe the same
thing he he went and met with the story. He
met with the Cleveland Browns who were desperate for a quarterback.
I think they ended up drafting a couple, but they
they passed on them. The Raiders badly need a quarterback.
They passed on them, you know. They. I think Geno
Smith will work fine for in the pinch, for as
(13:22):
a bridge quarterback, but he's certainly not a long term solution.
So yeah, we saw that and then the other one
that was interesting, And this is where, you know, I
think Fresno State is in a tough situation because unfortunately
here in the valley, you know, tal Cloud just does
not want to have you know, I don't need to
go pay a college quarterback, you know, a million dollars
(13:42):
to advertise the tow Cloud you know dealership my auto
dealership or my my airplane company or whatever, you know,
fictitious names I may have for companies. I don't think
the money's in there for a lot of the smaller
schools that can have the you know, hey, I you know,
I'm I'm Joey, you know, BEEFCA and I'm representing you know,
tow Clouds businesses here and blah blah blah. You know,
(14:04):
I'm I'm happy to promote him. I think that's just
not going to be effective here for the valley. But
you had quin quint viewers, I think is how you
say his name out of Texas. And you know, we
all know that. You know, the kid coming up behind
him is a Manning arch. Manning is going to push
him to the side. And he kind of had a
He had a decent year, had a great team, great coach,
(14:25):
Steve Sarcagian. They had a great season. But he got
hurt and so he hey, I'm going to go I'm
going to go college and stay in college for one year.
So he had a five point two million dollar in
an I L deal in I L N I h
N IL deal National health Care. No, that's not it
nil deal on the table, and I think it was
at a Oregon and they because they needed a quarterback
(14:47):
because their quarterback had moved on to greener pastures. And
he walked away from that and he put his name
in the draft. And by all accounts, this year was
a very light quarterback year, so there weren't a lot
of high talented quarterback. I think Cam Ward was up there,
and you know that beyond that, it was a it
was a drop off between Dart was the next guy,
(15:07):
former USC quarterback transferred to to Mississippi under Lane Kiffen.
But he ended up this quint Eerrs guy. If I'm
saying his name right, which I'm sure I'm not, he
ended up I think going for Miami in one of
the later picks, in a six or seventh round. And
you know, he had five point two million dollars in
the table if he had stayed in college, and he's
(15:28):
going to maybe be making eight fifty eight seventy five
this year. I mean, that's that's crazy. I mean, that's
that's some Really that's a that's a big drop off,
and it's a is it really worth it for these kids?
Is the nil going to have some of these kids
staying in school longer? I don't know what I mean.
I I just I'm frustrated that I think these kids
(15:49):
are coming into college and the coach says, hey, Johnny,
you know you didn't run that route right. Uh No,
I ran it right. It's the better way I had it.
I did the right way. And if you don't like
the way I run the route I'll leave and they
go to another school and another school, another school and
another school. You know, like we've seen some of these
quarterbacks that are doing and other players. I think it's
just ruining college sports. And I'm excited to see that
(16:12):
that maybe, you know, maybe this nil situation that happened
this year where some of these kids that came out
thought they were gonna get big money, they maybe they
could have stayed in and done and been better. You know,
I think Trey Lance could have used more, more more
college football than he received. And he was a big
bus for the forty nine ers, and you know now
he's on his third team down and down in the Chargers.
So you're seeing, you know, some of these kids have
(16:34):
come out too soon, others have you know, maybe when
they did come out, they thought they were going to
make the big bucks and and they realized they show
has stayed in college. So you know, you never know
what we're going to see.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
This is the Trevor Charry Show, Condom Valley's Power Talk.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We're going to start our guest CAVL caval raid or
whatever the word would be, paraded all the different Well,
Nathan's got a parade face on after the parade this weekend.
You got little sun Tan. It looks like, well, I'm
gonna I've got Nathan Maxigon. It's tal Cloud in for
Trevor Carey today and we've got a lot to talk about,
and we're going to start off talking about you know,
he just gott he lost a name change issue with
(17:15):
the state, and then we're going to talk about a
real more serious issues relates to to our local hospitals.
I think really people need to be aware what's going
on local hospital. So let's start off. Nathan, welcome in
to the Trevor Carrey Show. First of all, thanks for
taking taking my visit on very short notice, and tell
us what happened with Squaw Valley.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yeah, so, a few years ago, the state legislature had
to build AB twenty twenty two that passed the governor
signed it into the law, and that basically said that
all places throughout California that have the name Squaw Valley
or Squaw in general associated with them, that name was
deemed defensive and it needed to be removed. So Fresno
County we filed a lawsuit because in eastern Fresno County
(17:55):
we have a community called Squaw Valley that has been
in place for over one hundred fifty years, and I
reached out to the community and said, hey, community, what
do you want. There was a survey that went out
to residence and over eighty seven percent said, please do
everything you can to try to preserve our name because
it's very important to us. So out of that, the
(18:16):
state just rejected our pleas to listen to the residents,
and so we filed a lawsuit. We lost in superior court,
and so we appealed that decision, and the appellate court
also upheld the ruling of the superior court. Where I
was frustrated with all of this is, you know, government
is really supposed to be by the people and for
the people, and the state, through sweeping legislation, changed names
(18:40):
and gave local communities very little input into this process.
And so as I did research on the name Squaw
Valley and how that community got its name, I found
that the local tribes were part of getting Squaw Valley
named that name. And so I presented all this evidence
and that was rejected. And when we went to court,
(19:01):
I was as as an elected official and Fresno County
was attempting to protect the speech rights of residents who
lived in Squaw Valley. And what the court's effectively said
is that counties cannot do that. We do not have
a right to protect the constitutional rights of individuals. They
have to make that claim themselves. So I was, I
(19:24):
was pretty shocked to see that. So basically the claims
that we had were dismissed, and the Superior Court and
Appellate Court both said that counties we cannot defend the
constitutional rights of people. So again little troubling and shocked,
but I did lose that case, and we're a nation
of laws and I'm gonna abide by those laws.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But just on that, just to ask you a question, though,
isn't there other areas, like when it comes to healthcare,
that you are representing people, you are representing communities. Absolutely,
I mean, I mean, that just seems the hypocrisy right
there is that it's a convenient argument to dismiss your
ability there. But you do so many other things in
other areas that represent people.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
You know, I agree, And one of the things where
I'm challenged is I look at what's happened now that
President Trump is in office. He has gone back and
he's He's changed the names of the Golf of Mexico's
now the Gulf of America. He's changed the names of
different mountain ranges that were changed a few years ago
back to their original names. But again, because this was
(20:24):
a state issue in a state law, I needed state
courts to side with the residents. But in this case
here in California, state courts still wanted to side with
Gavin Newsom and the legislators in Sacramento.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Well, speaking of President Trump, there's this thing that my
wife and I have talked about. We've seen it. I
actually was. I watched sixty minutes last night and it was,
you know, basically, the sky is falling because Trump's cutting
all the money, and everybody's going to die, and all
this money is going to be cut. The rest of
the story is never clearly told, and the story's being
written as we speak. In that there's a lot to
(21:00):
talk about money's getting cut, money's going to go away
for Medicare, money's going to go away for services from
the federal government. But yet maybe money is just going
to be redirected. Much like in education, where there's a
lot of talk about eliminating the Department of Education, and
pushing that cash back down to the states without the
cut coming out of the federal government. Saves federal government money,
(21:20):
puts the money in the states, let them administer it.
I think the same could be said with Medicare and
Medicaid and a lot of those issues. But you brought
up something that was when we were talking earlier prior
to the show that I thought was interesting, is that
we've got a chance to see Community Hospital, you know,
our one of our premier, if not the premier centers
in the central California with emergency, fire, trauma, everything. They're
(21:45):
very concerned about what the next two years brings, and
I think their concerns have nothing to do with this administration.
It's a long brewing problem. So the question I have
as an elected official and somebody you do represent, what
are we going to do with Community Hospital? They can't
go broke?
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Yeah, So Community Hospital right now, it's really the largest
hospital system that we have in the Central Valley. And
what a lot of people don't realize is other hospitals
actually transfer patients to Community Hospital. And so again this
is the bigger issue is this. It's patient mix right
now at Community Hospital over eighty percent of the patients
(22:19):
who receive care at the hospital have some form of
government assistance healthcare. And right now, the federal government, state government,
when they submit reimbursements for care that's given, it doesn't
cover the costs of the services that the hospitals are providing.
So right now private pays those individuals who have private insurance.
(22:41):
We are subsidizing the care of people who are on
government assisted programs, and so community is being tremendously impacted.
You look at the Central Valley, We've got many disadvantaged communities.
We've got a lot of people who are on medical here,
which is again the state form of healthcare, and just
(23:01):
the state recently has had to give billions of dollars
to that program because it's so overprescribed right now. But
even with that over prescription and the payments that are
being made to hospitals, the money is not making it
into the doctor's hands or to just the equipment that's needed.
There's not enough money that's there. And so if it
(23:22):
wasn't for the private payers, a lot of the hospitals
we have would already need to close their doors. But
something you said, a lot of government programs that are
out there whether it be Department of Education or even FEMA.
For me, when the Creek fire happened in Fresno County
just four and a half years ago, we were a
FEMA designated area, and I can tell you that the
County of Fresno had millions of dollars in damage and
(23:44):
we were promised that FEMA would be there to provide assistance,
and we still are waiting on millions of dollars from
the federal government that hasn't come, and so these expenses
are falling back on the County of Fresno and it
is crippling us.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, I mean, but you bring up a point about community.
I mean that we recently saw Madera's Hospital ion't put
back up and for for years since it closed, I'm
not sure how long it's closed, two years, let's just
say plus or minus that community we and Fresno's had
to basically subsidize and not you know, if they're all
one community. But Madera's people are coming here and so
it's putting them in a very tough position. And community again,
(24:22):
I mean, if we can't afford to lose community. But
is there a solution? I mean, what does you know
the federal government claims they have no money. You've got
newsome that is basically given everybody that can walk across
our border health care, and that's driving our cost up.
What's the solution and is there one?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Well?
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Bottom line is healthcare costs money, and what we need
to do is we need to change the patient mix.
So we need more people who have private insurance receiving
care at our hospitals because that covers the costs of care.
So the solution is that we need to get the
government out of the way. Because whenever the government builds
affordable housing or they get involved in this case with
(24:58):
providing medical insureurants, they charge a lot of money to
provide these services, but very little money actually makes it
to community hospital.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
In this case.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
I laugh when I hear government talking about how government
wants to pass more bonds and create affordable housing. When
I look at the actual costs per door, it's more
expensive to build affordable housing using government dollars than it
is to build market rate housing. So bottom line with
all this is we need less bureaucracy. We need more
people who have private insurance to help our hospitals out.
(25:30):
And if we don't do that we're going to see
more hospitals closing their.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Doors well, and but I think that's what we're going
to have. And if you think about community as an example,
they have Clovis, which is in a very affluent area.
It's a beautiful hospital. I had someone that was recently
in that hospital and they were there for you know,
in the hallway for two days. Because it's so overran
that people are still using the hospital as their urgent care.
And I think that's one area that we need to
(25:54):
be aware of what the heck is going on. We
should be using these hospitals as urgent cares, but that's
another negative. And do we stop that? How do we
stop someone that doesn't know our language, that is sick
and in trouble, but really they should be at an
urgence care. How do we stop that.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
We need more nurses, we need more doctors, we need
more providers. But the only way that you get that
is these doctors, nurses and providers need to be getting
paid for the services that they're doing. Madera Hospital had
to close their doors because they had a patient mix
issue as well. The state government came back in to
help them open their doors back up, but even now
that they're open again, A lot of the patients that
(26:29):
used to go to Madera are still coming to Fresno.
I don't believe any berths are taking place at the
Madera Hospital. I still believe one hundred percent of people
who need to deliver babies they're coming to Fresno County now.
And people who if there's any level of trauma, they're
coming to the Level one trauma center, which is Community
there in downtown Fresno Community Hospital there. So the answer,
(26:50):
what is the answer to all of this, Well, I'll
tell you the answer is not government. Government has put
so many constraints on our doctors. They've made it so
difficult for them. I look at how many lawsuits that
are out there against doctors, which makes insurance almost impossible.
And we we don't need to go down that rabbit
hole because it's affecting people who drive cars, who who
own homes in the mountains who can't find insurance. Now,
(27:13):
So the answer is not more government. We need to
really cut a lot of this bureaucracy back. We need
to find way to stimulate entrepreneurs. And again we need uh,
we need businesses out there that have private insurance. We
need to do what we can to help them be
successful because when they hire people and put them on
their private insurance, those plans are the things that help
to keep our hospitals open.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
But I mean, you're talking about some of these issues.
I mean, how if you're a if you were a
state elective visual how would you fix it? What's the
how do what's the solution? Because it's like it's easy
to talk about problem. All I do is hear people
talk about problems and it's really hard to fix them.
So so what if if you were if you were
king for the day or you know, Governor Magzig for
the day, what what could be done? And what's that?
(27:54):
What's the what would you what would be your top
couple priorities.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
But one of them would be that I think the
state legislature needs to be limited in the number of
bills that they can introduce, both in the Assembly and Senate,
but just deregulation. Right now, there are layers and layers
of bureaucracy. So things that I would do right now
at the state level is instead of focusing so much
on programs and more bureaucracy and regulation, I'd focus on
projects infrastructure allows for communities to thrive. Water is a
(28:21):
major issue that we have here in the Central Valley.
And it's not that we don't have enough water falling
on this state. We've got plenty of water. About one
hundred and seventy million acre feet of water falls on
California every year. What we need to be doing is
building conveyance systems. We need to be building more dams
to store that water and moving it up and down
the state because our systems here were built for a
population of ten million people. When it comes to healthcare,
(28:44):
how do we attract more doctors and encourage them to
stay here. Well, housing prices are through the roof. But
twenty years ago, when I was running a construction company
and building homes, I didn't have to deal with some
of the litigious issues that pop up out there from
construction defect litigation and things that really line the pockets
of attorneys and don't make our communities any safer or stronger.
(29:05):
Government has moved away from building infrastructure and it's focusing
more on programs and bureaucracy. Those things need to be cut.
Entrepreneurs need to be turned loose, and that where the
state needs to be focusing its money is on our roads,
on dams, on below ground storage, and also forest management.
(29:25):
And that's a whole nother discussion because we need to
be working with the federal government on that too. But
if you want to go down that rabbit hole, I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah, Well, I know you love to talk about forest management.
I think I think one of the areas it's been
interesting and we'll probably talk about a little later in
the show with little my other guests, But it's the
thought that's what you brought up in you know, with
the Creek fire and the insurance rates and the problems
with government and what's happened in LA with the fire
down in LA, and how that's affect the rebuild costs.
(29:52):
Where are you know when people built these houses thirty, fifty,
sixty years ago, they didn't have to put sprinklers in
their house. They didn't have to put solar, they didn't
have to do all these things. It really in some
areas you know you don't need you don't need that.
You don't need sprinklers in a house. There's no how
do you what? How does sprinklers in a home help
you when you run out of water? I don't get it,
but you've you've seen firsthand the incompetence of government rebuilding
(30:14):
up in Shaver in Huntingdon.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
I mean yeah, So again looking at the creek fire.
The creek fire happened in Fresno County September fourth, twenty twenty.
We are four and a half years removed, and I
am still working with residents trying to rebuild their homes
in those mountain areas. And again looking at just how
codes have changed. When you're in the mountains, you don't
need to put solar panels on your home to meet
(30:36):
the new energy code. A lot of these homes that
burned were built in the forties, fifties, sixties on up.
But now you're having to build to a standard which
is very difficult to meet in these mountain areas, and
the cost to do that is significantly higher. So again
government has gotten involved in every area of our life,
and in that process it makes everything very expensive too.
(30:57):
So again, when I was building, I could build sticks
and bricks, so from foundation up for about seventy five
dollars a square foot. That cost now is closer to
two hundred bucks a foot. And people here in the
Central Valley when you look at wages, even though minimum
wage has gone up, that has not done anything to
really help most of the families that are out there
(31:18):
who are struggling trying to raise a family of four
making somewhere between sixteen eighty thousand dollars a year, and
that's predominantly who we have here in the Central Valley.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, times are tough, But as a county supervisor, do
you have any play over that? Do you have any
authority over making rebuilding regulations any less burdensome? So it's
state controlled.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Again, when it comes to state codes, as it relates
to building codes, the state makes those changes. We do
have control over what's called ordinances, and we can make
small changes, but ultimately, really in the state constitution, counties
are defined as an arm of the state. So our
job is to carry out those laws and rules that
(32:00):
the state passes. So we do have some liberties and freedoms.
The County of Fresno's a charter county, meaning that you know,
we can operate a little bit more flexibly than a
general law county. But again, I cannot override a state law.
I can't preempt state laws. I have to follow those
state laws.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well, and given the super majority in both houses by
the Democrats, and you know, virtually every state wide office
controlled by a Democrat. That's I don't see that changing.
And I think that's a challenge because it's not going
to change in two years, four years, or six years.
There's no there's no I mean, look at how quick
that some of the poll numbers have turned on Trump
when it just he's done a few things, maybe against
the what people think, unless he really hits it out
(32:43):
of the park. I don't see that anything changing statewide
because the districts are so bad. Well these districts. I
mean there's a there's a Senate district that you might
have your eyes on. I think you do that. You know,
basically it's going to be won by a Republican. You
can get caught beaten a dog. If you're a Republican
against a Democrat in that district, you're gonna win. I mean,
(33:03):
so that's a challenge. Tell us about your race. And
you know, I don't think you beat dogs, do you?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I do not. I love dogs.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
And as a matter of fact, if you follow me
on Facebook, Doug, the pit pull that I adopted and
fostered was actually adopted to a family up in Oregon.
So if you are looking for a pet, all of
our animal shelters right now are heavily impacted. I would
encourage you to adopt a dog or a cat. But
I digress SD twelve is a seat that I am
(33:32):
running for. That is Shanning Grove's current Senate district she
has termed out and it includes Fresno County to Larry
County and Kerrent County, and there are many issues in
those counties that whether it be oil issues, whether it
be insurance issues, infrastructure issues, things that I want to
go to Sacramento and work on. But we only have
ten Republicans in the Senate out of forty and so
(33:55):
the only way that you're going to begin to move
the needle on policy is you need more Publicans in Sacramento,
and so we have to begin taking back seats. But
you also brought up the fact that redistricting every ten years,
there's this commission that is not independent and they create
these crazy gerrymandered seats. So I believe what needs to
happen is we need a ballot major to go before
(34:16):
voters statewide to change how we do redistricting because right
now we've created Frankenstein districts here in California.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah, I get it. Well, you know, I appreciate you
coming in, you know, to talk about that. I'm excited
for your opportunity for that district. I was involved in redistricting.
It's a terrible process. It's just an absolute joke of
a process. So it's great seeing you and hope to
see you have a little success here in a couple
of years. And pay attention. This hospital issue is a
(34:46):
big deal. We really got to get on this hospital issue.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
And you know what, I would really encourage your listeners.
While a lot of doom and gloom is being talked about,
I always have. I have hope for the future, but
listeners need to get engaged, get involved, working for candidates
that you believe in. Listen to this show, spread the word,
and that's how we make a difference.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Thanks Nathan for coming in. Always great to talk to Nathan.
Excited about his race for state Senate. He'd be a
great candidate moving on up. And he's a strong candidate
and'd be great to have him. And he's doing a
lot for this county and he's worked hard for I
think it's twenty years. He's worked really hard for this county,
so you know, it'd be great to see him follow
(35:23):
David Tangapa up to Sacramento and the two of them
could probably work to get some things done, which would
be great. He's assistant Trevor Cherry show Mondo Valley's Power
talg
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