08/14/2025 580 Live with Dale Cooper - Mayor Frank Mullins, Andrew Donaldson, Mayor Amy Goodwin

South Charleston Mayor Frank Mullins on this year's Summerfest, Andrew Donaldson with West Virginia Watch talks about troops in DC and other national issues, and Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin on the Municipal League and numbers from this year's Regatta.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS
it's employees or WVRC Media.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Eight minutes past nine o'clock, you're listening to five eighty
love WCHS the Voice of Charleston from Downtown Charleston. I
am Dale Cooper. Thank you so much for tuning in today.
Dave Ballen out today and tomorrow, will be back on Monday.
That means I'm filling in for him today on this show.
Jeff Jenkins will be in on Midday again this afternoon
at TJ Meadows on Friday tomorrow will be filling in

(00:55):
on Midday four day Ballence. So that is kind of
what our setup is here for the week, filling in
for Dave, one of our many Daves across our network
of stations. This one though, is on vacation this week
days having he's I've checked in with him a few
times checked he's checked in with me and he's doing fine.
So Dave's fine. You don't have to worry about him.
The Bloomberg report just coming out of news. Kind of funny.

(01:16):
Two days ago we had inflation news that was, hey,
this is so much lower than what we expected. In
today's inflation numbers so much higher than we expected. Interesting times,
very interesting times. We have an interesting show as far
as those things go, coming up for you today in
just a moment, South charleson Maryer Frank Mallins is going
to join me for just a couple minutes, so we're
going to we're going to preview the remainder of Summerfest.

(01:39):
Summerfests started last night with some great events and then
it continues through Saturday and there's all types of great
things going on there. We're going to talk to Meyer
Mallins about a couple of those things. I want to
have on Andrew Donaldson a little bit later on in
the program. He's with West Virginia Watch and The Herdtel Show.
Andrew's been on this program a couple of times. He's
even co hosted it. He has been making the tour

(02:00):
he's in well, i'll let him I think four different countries,
four or five different countries where he's been commentating on
different things going on in the US, specifically this thing
that's going on in Washington, d C. So I'm going
to get Andrew's opinion on those as well as kind
of what his impression is from outside the country based
on the types of questions and impressions he's getting from
other countries where he's been on to talk about what's

(02:21):
going on here. Just wanted to kind of see it
from that perspective, which I thought might be unique compared
to what we've heard so far. So I thought that
might be interesting. We'll talk to Andrew coming up here
in about ten or fifteen minutes, and then Mayor Amy
Schuler Goodwin is going to join.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Us as well.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
She was just elevated to the position to president of
the Municipal League of Mayor's here in West Virginia, covering
over two hundred and thirty municipalities in the state. It's
a very important role. Amy's been part of the league forever,
but I wanted to get Mayor Amy's take on what
her leadership is going to encompass in this what her
major initiatives are and what she sees on the future

(02:55):
for the municipal league. So that's what our show is today.
You're welcome to text over any questions or common so
you have three zero four nine three five fives years
zero eighth. Threes are four nine three five fives years
zero eight. You can also send us a you can
send us a phone call just like the pioneers used to.
Phone line number is three zero four three four five
fifty eight fifty eight. Three zero four, three four five
fifty eight fifty eight. Let's go ahead and go to

(03:16):
our first guest. We have Mayor Mullins who's coming on
lines with us. Ring Mallins from South Charleston, gonn talk
a little bit about Summerfest this morning. Mary, good morning,
how you doing this morning.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
Well, Corndale, go find thank you, thank.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
You so much for for tuning in. I always love
Summerfest in South Charleston. It's a great event.

Speaker 5 (03:31):
Yeah, it's a great time. It's you know, it's what
we look forward to at one of our big events
we look forward to every year. Started off last night,
got a little rain at the end but got most
of it in so I had a good crowd. We're
off the pretty good start.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
I guess that that tributes track reality because the Heart
concert first time around in Charleston got canceled and last
night you got a little bit of rain with the
Heart tribute band coming on. But that's okay, that's okay.
The the forecast for the weekend looks pretty darn good
for what you have coming up.

Speaker 5 (03:57):
Yeah, yeah, it really does. So we'll get back at
at this evening hopefully have a good crowd out to
night via. You're right, I think Mother Natre is going
to be good to us the rest of the time.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
I certainly hope so.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
And if you're in the area, you know what Summerfest
in South Charleston is all about. It starts late in
the afternoon around four point thirty. Food vendors open up.
They have them all over the place. What I like
is you every single day you have a place for
the kids. So you have the Kid Zone place where
you can go and get different activities there, and that's
an important part of a family activity.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
Yeah, we wanted to keep it a family oriented advent
and that's one of the things that we put into
play in my first term was the kids Zone. It's
kind of grown a little bit since then and so
now it pretty much wraps around the whole backside of
the mound. So we're worthly proud of that. Everything back
there is free, with the face painting, the inflatables, the
slow cones, all that kind of stuff is free to

(04:45):
the kids, so they can just get back there and
have a good time.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that and when I
bring my daughter down there this weekend and the music
starts every night at about six o'clock. There's two shows
every night, all kinds of things. Josh Pantry is going
to be over there tomorrow and night. I know he's
a very popular locally. You have the Detonators and the
Legacy Motown Review that's going to be performing tonight. It's

(05:07):
just a good time, live music, live events. It's your friends,
your neighbors, and it's in the beautiful city of South Charles.
I mean, there's really nothing to not love about this.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
It really isn't It is a great time. Just bring
your lawn chair, set it out on d Street and
join the entertainment. You know, I like that most about it.
Just mingle with all across the crowd, and you see
a lot of people you don't get to see all
the time. So it's just a good time to get out.
It's a good family atmosphere, as I mentioned, and so
they come on out and join the entertainment. We'll have
a big drone show on Friday night and fireworks end
up on Saturday. So come on down and joy with us.

(05:39):
It's a really good time.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
Just briefly that drone show.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
These things are getting more and more popular, and I know,
especially for folks that have like dogs or kids that
are a little bit nervous around the noises. Drones show
in South Charles and this is gonna be pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
Yeah, it's a quiet fireworks show, right, so but with
the music and everything. You know, we were one of
the first in Koff County to do it. We were
almost first of the stay yaha beat us by a
little bit, but but it's caught on a lot of
folks were doing. It's pretty neat. I mean, it's amazing
what they could do with those drones, is all the
different characters and things they can design up in the sky.
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
It really is.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
And then one of the favorite events for everybody that
happens there, and we've lost some of our car events
in the area recently, so it's really nice to have
a car show in South Charleston that's going to be
on Saturday morning starting at eight.

Speaker 5 (06:20):
Yeah, we rebooted that thing a few years ago and
it's a couple of my city council members have taking
control when they run that thing, and it's grown every
year and it's grown again this year. I can't remember
the exact number of cars that we're having, but I
think we reached over two hundred last year, maybe getting
there again. So come on out. That's from Saturday morning
from eight to two, prior to Summer Fest getting kicked
off later in the evening, so it's a full day

(06:42):
that day, but come on out and enjoy the car show.
Those guys do a great.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Job of that man.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
That is great information, a great time happening at Summerfest
in South Charleston, and it's the ongoing now starts about
four thirty today and tomorrow eight o'clock in the morning.
Saturday is an all day event, starting with the car
show at eight o'clock. But you can turn out out there.
It's going to be a great time, a mixture of events,
some free, some things you have to do. It's just
an amazing time and it's the perfect type of event

(07:06):
and festival to kind of start wrapping up summer, getting
ready to go back to school.

Speaker 5 (07:10):
Yeah, it is, like I say, a great time and
Saturday night come out. We'll we'll we'll end up with
our our tradition of Rick K and road trip. You know,
Rick's been with us a long time. Everybody looks really
everybody looks forward to all the entertainment is great, but
everybody looks forward to Rick K. He's kind of a
statue with Summer Fest. So we're glad to have him back.
And again we'll wind up with the fireworks on Saturday night.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
So meyor allins, I really appreciate your time. That's a
great time out in Summerfest. I look forward to bringing
my family out there. I know most people are. Thank
you so much for coming on and just remind us
a little bit about what's going on. It's how Charleston
this weekend.

Speaker 5 (07:41):
Well that's it now Summerfest is going on, and so tonight,
tomorrow and Saturday. We'll wind up Saturday, but we start
every day at four thirty. The food vendors open up. Saturday.
It's an all day things starting date aim with the
car show, So everybody just come on out and enjoy
the enjoy the enjoy the evening with us. It's a
really good family oriented time.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Sounds a great Mayor. I really appreciate your time warning
and sharing it with us. Having good luck this week
and really appreciate it and thanks a bus. Take care
all right, take care maryor Frank Mallins from South Charleston.
What a great time over there, and for Summer Fest's
a it's an event that's grown and grown and grown.
It's just become one of the staples of our local
combined communities here in the Kenall Valley. Let's go ahead

(08:18):
and take or break. When we come back, we're going
to have Andrew Donaldson with us. He is with West
Virginia Watch and the Herd Tail Show. We're going to
talk up a little bit about what's going on in
DC and maybe some back to school stuff and things
as well. That's coming up next. You're listening to five
E D Live. I'm Deal Cooper back right after this.

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so much for tuning in today, and thanks to South
Charleston miror Frank Mallins for joining us in the first
segment talking a little bit about Smmerfest. I have to
welcome to the airways. Now back returning to the airways

(11:30):
here in Charleston, West Virginia. Andrew Donaldson is joining us
he's with West Virginia Watch. Editor of Ordinary Times, host
of the Hotel Show, joins us here this morning. Andrew
Goo morning, how you doing this morning.

Speaker 12 (11:41):
Great to be back with you, Coop. It's been way
too long, my friend.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
We've talked several times. I haven't done this show. A
Dave is a workhorse man. I mean, he just he
doesn't take any time off hardly.

Speaker 12 (11:53):
Well, that's what you want in an employee. And then
now you've got him double dip in doing the afternoon show,
which he's doing a great job with with a man
of baron, so you know, hey, don't worry about the load.
Just load to cart, let the mule pull it. And
when you get a workhorse, go with it. So no,
Dave does a great job.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
I like calling David mule. I'll have to have to
make sure to relay that to him. I think he
identifies that possible.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
Sid.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
I know, I know that's very true. I really enjoy
I really appreciate your joining me this way. There's so
much stuff to talk about. And one thing that I've
noticed about you is you've you uh, you do a
bit of this of commentary for for for a living
or that's part of what you do is uh as
your role as a commentator and a writer in different
things along those lines, and you get pulled into some
pretty interesting areas when it comes to these commentating on

(12:34):
different events. So I'm going to get to that in
just a moment. I guess first of all, the main
thing that from my understanding, that you've been kind of
contacted about by organizations looking for comments is about the
the federal takeover of DC as far as law enforcement goes.

Speaker 12 (12:48):
Yeah, it's funny because there it's interesting what stories pop overseas.
And I do commentary for Canadian media for news Form,
which has kind of become the They're like the Fox
News that are the alternative is a CBC. I'm with
them a couple times a week, and for my own work,
I've been interviewing people. I've done interviews for people from Portugal, Romania,
I've got a UK episode getting ready to come out,

(13:08):
and people overseas because DC is the capital that grabs
the attention overseas and other media. Because you know, when
people from outside America think of America, they think New York, LA.

Speaker 13 (13:20):
D C.

Speaker 12 (13:20):
That's kind of what they think of. So it did
pop and It's been really interesting watching the reactions to it, because,
like with everything else, President Trump is covered overseas very
differently than he is in our media. And I'm guilty
too because I'm in the media now. We really just
everything's reactionary. Donald Trump for and against. He does something,
everybody reacts to it, and he is the greatest single

(13:41):
thing that's ever happened to the news media business in
our lifetimes, and that's unarguable. There are a lot more
recompense overseas. They kind of sit back and watch. They
understand Donald Trump very well and how he does things,
so things like the terrorists, things like this. They've really
adapted this term as opposed to the first term, more
of a wait and see approach. So they're like, Okay,
we know there's going to be the big loud headline,

(14:01):
then there's going to be the big loud reaction, and
then President Trump will react to the reaction. They've kind
of developed overseas. They kind of know to wait for
those three things to happen, and then it kind of
settles into whatever it's going to be, probably something that
would be healthy for all of us to start trying
to do.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
That's an interesting point. I have a friend of mine
who dabbles in the stock market quite a bit, and
he was very frustrated with kind of the the announcements
of seeming half hazard, announcements of tariffs, no tariffs, break
on tariffs, back and forth. Somebody in the know there
could potentially make you know, quite a bit of money
play in the market if they knew what was happening.
But also the predictable reactions. Reactions became relatively predictable after

(14:41):
the announcements, and he started playing in that area and
he did it for about a month and did very
very well. He said, I'm not going to use like
the Trump index for my career, but for this month
he cashed out and worked very well, just working on
the inverse of announcements that we made on tariffs.

Speaker 12 (14:54):
Yeah, we get caught up in the news cycle, but
there really is kind of a circadium rhythm to this stuff. So, like,
you know, we're both in the new business. So right now,
it's like, Okay, the reason I'm doing this overseas stuff
with my own work right now is because when Congress
comes back to September, we're going to go right into
failure theater and passing a cr and all of that.
We're doing this new stories on the DC military takeover,
but the Putin News sometime today, once that meeting happens,

(15:17):
that's going to take over the cycle Friday, going into
the weekend, and then we'll go into the midterms. Long
term we know that's coming, and even longer term we
know to twenty twenty eight. This stuff has a rhythm
to it, So if you can kind of step yourself
back from the day to day chasing the viral, whatever
the character of the day is on social media and
news media, this stuff really does have a rhythm to it,
and you're going to get surprised a lot and things

(15:38):
pop up, but the overall arc of it, there's an
up and down to it that you can kind of
follow if you have a little bit of perspective.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
When we talk about what's happening in DC and a
perfect illustration of what you're talking about about the coverage,
especially in the US news media, Basically you have hyperpartisans
on both sides that immediately find and identify a sort
of what their narrative is going to be. That's what
they marry to, and they defend that narrative until it's
beyond cognitive dissisonance.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
And it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
I hate the both sides things, I really do, because
not always as both sides equal, but both sides are
definitely guilty of doing this where you just you just
married to your narrative and you will not budge off
that narrative if we try to navigate through the truth here.
Some people is like, this is just a plain fascist takeover.
This is a warning every This is a warning shot
across the bowels to basically everybody. You need to be

(16:25):
in line or or who knows what's gonna happen. They're
gonna be federal offices in your office. People, you know,
claiming that there's a crime issue when when depending on
the on the data, Yeah, what is What do you
think is if we if we went to trying to
find the best possible faith argument for this, is there
a good faith argument to be made? Is that there
is significantly a problem in DC and is the federal

(16:49):
government the only thing that could help it?

Speaker 12 (16:53):
There is this is just kind of the perfect media
story for our modern age because both things are true. Yes,
crimes down, yes, DC, the government area and the mall
and the tourist areas and where Congress and the halls.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
Of power are.

Speaker 12 (17:06):
If you ever went to DC in the eighties and nineties,
it is inarguable it is cleaner, it's nicer, there's lower crime.
That is all true. But DC is also a city
of two different things. So you have places across Santa Costia.
You got places in Brentwood that have very high crime,
and there's some systematic things built into d C why
it's always had a high crime problem. So you can
pull out the crime stats and go, yeah, the crime

(17:28):
stats are down, that's true. And you can pull out
the viral video of really bad crime happening and going,
crime's way up, and that's true too. And both of
those things are true at the same time. And it
goes right into everything else we're talking about. People Donald Trump,
and President Trump is the expert at getting reaction to
further his message. So the reaction of him, and he
has the legal authority to do this, So the people

(17:49):
saying he can't do it, yes, the home room law.
He gets thirty days past that he has to go
to Congress. He's going to make a big show of it.
They're going to have all the FEDS walking around. It's
going to be a big pr hit. What's it going
to do after that? If the answer was not to
go there's no crime in DC? Because now you look ridiculous.
And that's what a lot of the people that are
against President Trump are doing. They play right into it,
they add to it, they fuel his fire. A lot

(18:10):
of President Trump's success is he is blessed with really
bad decision making by his enemies and opponents, and this
is a good example of it. Of course, there's bad
crime in DC. Is this going to fix it? Probably not.
You'll have a little bit of a bump, but they're
not going to go into Anacostia. They're not going to
go into Brettwood and actually clean.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
Up a lot of it.

Speaker 12 (18:26):
Really, my favorite quote of that whole thing was he
talked about cutting loose a little bit of money for
road improvement West Virginians. We've heard politicians promise road improvement.
This is how Donald Trump do it. He said, this
is a quote, we need a beautiful topping by a
very talented asphalt type person. That's how he talks about
road improvement in his very Donald Trump way, which is
so entertaining. But that's the point of this. Does he

(18:48):
have the right to do it. Yes, Is it the
end of the world he's doing it?

Speaker 2 (18:51):
No?

Speaker 4 (18:52):
Is it the end of the republic?

Speaker 5 (18:53):
No?

Speaker 12 (18:53):
Is it probably going to go away in two or
three weeks because we just did this in LA where
the military came in, and when's the last time did
we talk about that? Because they quietly went home and
the court case hasn't even caught up. I think that's
probably more of the model of what we're going to
be dealing with here.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
That's so insightful, and I think it really marries into
a lot of problems that we have with these things,
and it all comes bad to bad faith argument. And again,
this could be anyone that does this. And DC is
a great example. Well, there's not that much crime in DC.
Look how much it's gone down. You look at the
actual raw numbers. There's a ton of crime in DC,
and there's no question about it. It's the same argument
that I hear about Chicago all the time. I hear

(19:28):
people that's never stepped foot in the state of Illinois
argue about how dangerous Chicago is. I lived in between
Chicago and Detroit for fifteen years. I went to bo
cities a lot, perfectly safe both cities. Every time I went,
never felt threatened in any way, shape or form. Why
because there are certain areas you don't go to. Otherwise
everything's more or less fine. And that's what you find,
that kind of two city thing that is in a

(19:51):
lot of places. And when you start talking about, well,
Chicago's a hellhole, you can't go there without being murdered.
That's just not true. It's not even close to true.
I've been there twenty times. It's not true at all.
Same thing with New York. I've been to New York
I don't know fifteen or twenty times. It's just not
true unless you happen to go into the wrong place.
I remember driving through Indianapolis a few years ago, got
off at the wrong spot. I was looking for Indianapolis

(20:13):
Indians a baseball field, as a matter of fact, got
off at I think it was like Northern India or
something like that. I can't remember exactly. I got pulled
over by the police. I'm like, what in the heck
did I do wrong? I have no idea. The police
came up to my car, rolled down my window, and
they said, sir, I think you might be in the
wrong neighborhood. By my observation, you might want to find
a different place if you're looking for a hotel or something.

(20:34):
I was Indianapolis is fine, but this police officer pulled
me over just to tell me, Son, you might be
in the wrong place to seek other places. It's like
that basically everywhere.

Speaker 12 (20:45):
It's like that. In Charleston, it's like that. In Huntington,
it's like that. In Morgantown. It's like that in Somersville,
a little tiny Summersville where I live there. You know,
Summersville is very nice, all the touristy stuff. But you know,
we can go down some hollers. When you start getting
past Craigsville and rich Wood, there's some places you probably
don't want to wander off without some way that's local
with you. The thing is, can you survive first contact
with a viral video and not overreact to it? Can

(21:06):
you look at data and look at a problem like
crime and understand it like, Okay, you can come in
heavy handed because it makes everybody feel good and you
can squash the crime temporarily. That'll work, but it won't
work long time. Because we know crime prevention. You have
to do the preventative stuff. You have to do the
infrastructure stuff you have to have, you know, the social
aspect of it. Poverty is a big part of it.
There's an all of the above way of dealing with

(21:27):
crime and just bringing the hammer and smashing criminals. Never
ever in the history of ever has fixed it. It'll
do it temporarily. It makes a really good PR hit,
but long term it ain't gonna work. Just like our
drug prom in West Virginia, you can, you just can't
throw enough of them in jail to ever stop it.
You have to do the preventative, which brings us to
what we're going to see in the next week or so.
With this, there's going to be the big PR splash.

(21:48):
The six or seven FEDS walking through Georgetown is not
actually going to change the crime rate overall. There'll be
a depression because there's so much pr over it. But no,
it's not the end of the republic. Everybody calm down.
You have to take President Trump and President Trump's opponents
at their face value. Look at it, don't lose your bearing.
And then when President Trump says does something good, say
that was good. If he does something bad, say that

(22:10):
was bad, and don't lose your bearing over it.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Because then you just end up.

Speaker 12 (22:13):
Screaming in the wind all the time, and we're going
to get a lot of that with this story.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, you really end up looking uninformed. Like one of
the things you love seeing rolled out is like crime
statistics in Alabama and Tennessee, for example, very high. When
you talk about violent crime rates and things like that,
you deal into it more. It is very high, higher
than in most areas. They are typically rural states. Where's
the crime rate come from Huntsville and Memphis? Yeah, you

(22:38):
know what I mean.

Speaker 12 (22:39):
As with poverty, Yeah, poverty is the number one driver
of crime. That always has been, always will be. Lack
of services driver of crime. It's it's the same stuff everywhere.
We just want to put the other story.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
On top of it.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, that's absolutely true, and sometimes it takes a little
bit more of a longer view. One of the we'll
go to a break here in a minute. I want
to come back and talk a little bit more, maybe
a little bit more lighthearted stuff.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
School thing.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I wanted to ask your opinion on the cell phones
in school. That's something in here in Kinnak County we
just recently got rid of. But you mentioned a moment
ago I don't want to leave this completely unturned. I
didn't we didn't prep on this, but we can riff
on it for just a second. As far as the
meeting in Alaska taking place between President Trump and Vladimir Putin,
what's your top line read on that?

Speaker 12 (23:19):
This is something that President Trump's actually done really good
on Russia the last couple of months. He's been a
lot harder on him. He's been critical of Putin, which
is unusual for him. I don't know what to make
of this, because this was very much Putin talked the
world into pressuring President Trump into having this meeting, into
having a unilateral meeting where it's just the two of
them bilateral. I guess I should say just the two

(23:40):
of them talking about it. I'm a little apprehensive what's
going to come out of it, But again, whatever the
initial announcement of it is, we probably shouldn't react to
it until we find out the details of it. Because
you can come out and pronounce something with this, but
if we don't have anything written in paper, if the
Ukrainians don't agree to it, if NATO and the EU
don't agree to it, this may not have a whole
lot of teeth to it if we're not to do

(24:00):
sanctions and things like that. So I would caution everybody
to probably let that one burn a day or two
before we overreact to it. But the optics of it
aren't great. But we'll see what happens.

Speaker 4 (24:09):
That's that's kind of what you know.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
I don't know enough about that international theater to really
have much of an opinion. I try to retract from
from from downing too far into opinions on stuff that
I don't know all that much about. Optically, it's just
an odd fit, you know. That's the thing. The thing
for me is as I have a hard time kind
of squaring that circle a little bit. I mean, it
could be fine. I mean like, I'm not an expert

(24:32):
with this. It's just there's something about the the in
the gut that I have a hard time squaring, squaring
the meeting the way that it's taking place.

Speaker 12 (24:39):
Because it's a pr thing and he's gonna see it,
and Donald Trump's a very transactional it's a big media
moment and he lives for those. So when you look
at it with your media hat on, it makes perfect
sense politically and geopolitically. No, it don't make a lot
of sense. But that's the secondary consideration. Is this sort
of a thing. It's moving the ball forward in Putin's mind,
in President Trump's mind, because they're going to have the
big moment, going to put all the attention back on them.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, that's that's uh, that's very true, and it's it's
interesting the way these things play out. I like that
your perspective from this always is to to wait till
the noise dies down and then try to make sober
assessments of what's going on. Don't get caught in the headline,
don't get caught into the social media thing. I've almost
removed myself completely from social media except for where it
has to go with work, because you frankly don't.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
I'm in news. I have access to like actual.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Local news resources and to people won the ground in
places I don't. I don't actually need social media to
follow the news. I have plenty of resources that I
could get to myself where I don't need to be
influenced as it as it is by people that are
trying to contextualize things that might not be necessarily true.
I've just tried to completely separate myself from that it's
more therapy for me than anything else anymore. I don't

(25:46):
use it for any information sourcing.

Speaker 13 (25:49):
No.

Speaker 12 (25:49):
Look, social media is a tool. It's like a hammer.
You can use it to kill somebody, or you can
use it to build a house for somebody. It's just
a tool you use.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah, that's very true. If you don't mind hanging one
with me, I want to come back talk little abo
here locally. We're going back to school. I want to
talk a little bit about going back to school. We
recently had an initiative where cell phones are no longer
allowed up to high school in Knaw County schools.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
Talk a little bit about that, what it might mean
you have.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
You're a multi time father, You've been dealing with different
aspects of kids in schools.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
So we'll talk about that from different perspectives when we've
come back. If you don't mind.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
Holding no one for me, absolutely, As Andrew Donaldson joined
me from West Virginia, watch, we're gonna come back talk
a little bit about local school and things that are
happening here as kids are returning to school. Later on,
Mayor Amy Schuler Goldon is going to join me. We
want to talk about her ascension to president of the
Municipal League. That's all coming up next. You're listening to
five eighty live on the Voice of Charleston, and don't

(26:43):
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Speaker 3 (29:41):
He're listening to five eighty love. I'm Dell Cooper, thanks
for tuning in. I'm filling in for Dave today and tomorrow.
Dave will be back on Monday, but thanks for tuning
in today. Still have a great show for you the
remainder of today, and I'll get back to Andrew Donaldson
in just a moment from West Virginia Watch and the
Hotel Show. We're going to talk a little bit about
going back to school. Uh and uh, yeah, going back
to school. Basically, Andrew's a father multi times over. I'm

(30:04):
a father of a young child, my daughter se is seven,
and so it's that time of year again and we've
may had some changes here locally in Kanall County. Did
get a text in a couple of texts, and one
of them Andrew, this is for you. Social media is
like a hammer. This is from the six eight one
four seven to four. That's a great analogy, so very true.
So they liked your analogy of calling social media hammer.
It's a tool that could be used either to bludgeon

(30:26):
or to build.

Speaker 12 (30:28):
Yeah, oh, it's a nice to get a compliment on
the text line. That's better than usual, So appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Thank you. Yeah, not so bad.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
And then also had a comment from the three zero
a four to three eight nine that caught us in
the middle of our discussion about what's going on in
DC about local issues on this show, having more local
issues on the show, and I just wanted and thank
you for listening first and foremost, and I thank you
for responding to my text. I just wanted to let
you know that was the conversation we're in this basically

(30:54):
the second topic of the programming we're in this morning.
The other three of our topics that we're talking about
is basically local, So nderstand where you're coming from. I
try not to nationalize this show when I do it,
either try to keep things local. But there's things going
on and we'd like to talk about, and if I
wanted to be a little selfish, I don't get a
chance to do this very often, so I tried to
spread out and diversify it to talk about some different things.
So I appreciate you listening. But we have plenty of

(31:15):
stuff coming up, including Charles and maryer Amy Schuler Goodwin
to talk about her ascension to president of the Municipal League.
So that's coming up here in just a few minutes. Andrew,
I wanted to just get a couple guys talking here
of a certain age. You're a parent multiple times over,
You've navigated through all of these different I guess every
generation might say this, but I feel like that the

(31:38):
generation of our children that's been coming up for the
last fifteen or twenty years have really seen some pretty
massive changes in the way the dynamic works with education.

Speaker 12 (31:48):
They have and they believed everything we told them about it.
So one of the things we don't talk enough about
COVID when they shut down the schools, that generation of kids,
and my two youngest kids went through that. My oldest
was in college when that happened. My other daughter was
in high school when it happened. That generation believes what
we told them about education. So when we shut down schools,

(32:11):
what we told them was that our school system, too
often as far as the adults are concerned, was it's
a giant jobs program for the teachers and it's a
daycare for the parents, and their education came in third place.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
And that's how they saw it.

Speaker 12 (32:22):
Because they could go to stores, they could go everywhere
where I live, the grocery stores kind of across the
street from the elementary school in the high school, right
And you told these kids who don't understand all of
the same They're like, well, we see all the same
people over here, but if we go over there, we're
all going to die of this dreaded illness. And that's
how it got treated to them. And they're all very

(32:42):
online and they have their own ways of learning things,
and they're smarter than us, and they're more online than us,
and they have more information than us. So we adults
us old, they just believe what we told them, and
they've made their own decisions of you know what, our
education is something we're going to have to take on ourselves.
We have to be a little more responsible needs to
be about us because they have a trust problem with

(33:03):
the adults in the school system and their government, and
they have a right to have one.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, I think that, and those are some problems with
a seven year old. We were a little under those
concerns at the moment, except for the fact that my
kid's just way smarter than I was at seven years old,
and the access to information is even As somebody that
grew up with a computer in his and I mean
I have my first k Pro two in nineteen eighty two.
I was eight years old with my first computer. I'm

(33:27):
familiar with technology, but as a fifty one year old
man today dealing with a seven year old kid, I
feel a little out of sort. Sometimes I'm trying to
get you know, security precautions in place, make sure that
she has the right filters and stuff like that. It's
very difficult. And that kind of relates to the recent
decision of Connaw County Schools that up until high school

(33:48):
that you're not allowed to have cell phones in classroom anymore.
And I believe that kids have rights. I don't think
that kids are all in like one bucket and that
we should just disrespect kids at all. But as far
as public school goes, what took so long? I mean,
isn't that an obvious move?

Speaker 12 (34:04):
Well, it's obvious move. I've kind of been torn on it,
and I'm in the minority where I was slow on
it because one of the things about it is too
is I think education you should prepare killed children for
the world as it exists, not for how you think
it should exist. And the world they exists in is
they're going to have a phone in their hand.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Every day for the rest of the world. Excellent, okay,
or whatever.

Speaker 12 (34:20):
Replaces cell phones. However, we've got the data now. It
took a couple of years to get the real good studies.
We've got the data in classrooms. So if I think
back over my working career, like when I was in
the military, you had all kinds of briefings where you
put your cell phone in the little plastic thing outside
and then went in and had your briefing. Should we
take it away for in classroom stuff? We now have
the data that yes, that improves your in classroom scores.

(34:42):
Should Would they ban them from the school building completely
where they have zero access to them? I don't think so.
I think you need to let them have access during
non learning times. I understand people just want to swing
the banhammer because it's easier, But this is just one
of those evolving things where we have to decide what
kind of education we want. And we do have the
data now that in classroom the cell phone should probably
be off or put away. But in school and around

(35:03):
we still need to teach them how to use these
tools we just talked about, because they're going to have
them for the rest of their lives, and if we
don't teach them how to do it now, they're going
to have a harder time in the future. So they
might as well learn how to do it and when
to do it, and how not to do it now.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
There's some musicians when you go see them perform, they
actually have technology deployed at the arenas where you can't
access the outside, where your phone basically goes into automatic
airplane mode. I mean you can't access the outside world.
And we know there's technology where you can create gateways
to where you can allow some information through. It seems
to me like there might be a technological solution to

(35:35):
this where you can have the devices used as a
learning thing where there's no pass through information that's allowed,
and if there was an emergency, there's an override where
that would go away and you would be able to
use your phone. It seems like that that would be
a possible solution.

Speaker 12 (35:49):
It's going to be the solution eventually, but it's a
massive funding issue right now. But at some point, what
they're going to do is they're going to have what
a lot of hospitals have this, military places have this,
government buildings had courts are starting to at this in
court buildings are starting to put in limited Wi Fi.
You're gonna have a Wi Fi system where you're only
allowed to access certain things. Universities are test betting this place,
but it's a mass you know, if you're going to

(36:10):
go to you know where I went to elementary school
in Frametown in Braxton County. You know you have thousands
and thousands and thousands of those. It's a massive funding thing.
But eventually that will be the answer to it. It's
just going to be a long way getting there with
the technology. Until the technology is cheap enough, they can
do it.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
That's good stuff, man. I appreciate the conversation this morning.
I have Mary Amy that's gonna be coming on here
in just a moment, so I'll take my commercial break
so I could get to her. But nice conversation this morning, man.
I just wanted to talk about a couple of different things.
Some things that's going to on nationally, some things locally.
Catch up with you just a little bit. We need
to catch up in person as soon as we get
the availability to. But man, I appreciate your time this
morning on coming on the airwaves and sharing some of
your thoughts.

Speaker 12 (36:43):
Yeah, y'all are my favorite media I ever get a
dous hometown radio that I grew up listening to. So
appreciate you, Coop, thank you.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
For the time. Appreciate it. Andrew. Thanks A.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Buch Man that's Andrew Donaldson. He is with West Virginia.
Watch with the Herdtel Show editor at ordinary times. All
kinds of great content out there from Andrew, and very
measured and his responses to everything. I learned a lot
from that, to be quite honest with you, and I
really appreciate it. We need to take a break when
we come back, and Mayor Amy Schuler Glenn was going
to join us. We're going to talk about her assention
to president of the Municipal League. Very interesting. We're going

(37:11):
to talk more about that when we come back. We
do need to take a break right now, though, just
don't forget that the day Valence Show. This is this show,
although it's not Dave Allent. Today is presented in part
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Please plan to join us for the third annual Lea's
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Speaker 3 (40:06):
You're listening to five and ey love you see HS
the Voice of Charleston. It's almost twelve minutes until the
top of the hour. Twelve minutes and twenty six seconds
until the top of the hour. Thanks so much for
tuning in today. I am Del Cooper filling in for
Dave Allen. Dave will be back on Monday. Appreciate you
tuning in today and thanks for all the time. I'm
getting quite a bit of the text messages this morning.
More folks just saying hi and checking in, and I

(40:27):
appreciate you. Thanks for listening, and I appreciate you checking in.
If you want to send a text message over your mornan,
welcome to three zero four now three five five zeros
here eight three zero four nine three five five zereers eight.
You can give us a call. We might have some
a couple minutes here at the end of the program
if you want to get onto the show. Three zero
four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Three zero
four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. I wanted
to go ahead and bring onto the program. Charleston Mayor

(40:48):
Amy Schuler Goodwin, who is with us this morning? And
I haven't talked to the mayor on the radio in
quite a while. Mayor Goodwin, good morning, how are you
doing this morning?

Speaker 19 (40:57):
Good morning to you. So great to speak with you.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
It's good to talk to you again. It's nice to
seeing you out and about my daughter's favorite mayor.

Speaker 9 (41:04):
You.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
She's the best, and you have done great, great things
and this will this this plays perfectly into your role
with the Municipal League. You've done great things with her
impressions of mayors, because up until she met you, her
only her only mayor exposure was Mayor Humdinger on on
the was it the paw Patrol?

Speaker 4 (41:22):
I think?

Speaker 3 (41:22):
And he's kind of a villain, and so to her,
the mayor was always kind of a bad guy. So
she met you, and so now she's like, she wants
to be a mayor.

Speaker 19 (41:29):
She's very happy with Mayor's ma Oh my gosh, I
totally love that. As a matter of fact, it's so funny.
One of the young girls at the African American Heritage
Night event at the ballpark night before last, and for
whatever reason, there was a there's a video of me
double dutching, which, by the way, it is much much

(41:52):
harder than it looks. I don't know if you've ever done.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
I respect your courage, mayor, I respect your courage.

Speaker 19 (41:56):
Oh my goodness, gracious and so. But there's this video
now going around with me double dutching. I'm it's difficult.
But anyways, but this this little girl, it was about
five or six. It was standing there and getting ready
to double dutch and she said she said. I said
to her, hey, you should really do it. There's a
professional there. She'll teach you how to do it. And

(42:16):
she said to me, you do it first, then I'll
do it.

Speaker 5 (42:19):
I was like, oh, no, what did I do?

Speaker 19 (42:22):
But I will say this. It is you know, being
the first female mayor in the city of Charleston is
something I'm very proud of. The good news is I'm
the first, but I certainly won't be the last. And
I do think that. You know, mayors worked in every
form of government. Deal You know that because I've worked
with you in my other roles in government. Never thought

(42:42):
I would run for public office, but here I go.
But it is the it is the form of government.
It is the type of government that I like to
work in and it is the most connective form of
government because you not only get to meet and help

(43:04):
influence and shape policy, but you also get to interact
with my favorite which are kids. It's always been, it
was seven years ago, it's going to continue to be
in the future. Focus on the kids, because if you
focus on kids, everything else falls into place.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
I have a question for you before we get off
here to put a boat one regatta A Jim had
a question for that, but I wanted to talk a
little bit about the Municipal League first and then I'll
ask that before we get off the here. You've been
part of the League for a long time, so I mean,
this isn't a new organization verything to you. But with
your experience that you have there and kind of now
ascending to the leadership role in it, do you have
a vision for your short medium term as far as

(43:44):
initiatives that you would really like to see either continue
or something that you would like to try to see implemented.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Sure.

Speaker 19 (43:49):
I think the thing that is most important to me
in representing the two hundred and thirty two cities, towns,
and villages across the Mountain State is just simply this.
I mean, yeah, sure, Charleston, West Rgia is the capital city,
and we're the largest city in the state. But we
need to represent all cities, and all cities need to
have a voice because we take directives through not only

(44:13):
our own research and our own initiatives, but also from
the legislature. I mean, many of the things that they
implement at a federal and state level impact our cities, towns,
and villages, and I think it is important to make
sure that not just the capital city is represented, but
that all cities are represented. I mean, most of the

(44:33):
cities that we have are far and away less than
ten thousand, So we need to make sure that folks know.
And people say all the time, oh, well, you're the
big city. Oh this is you know, you don't have
these issues. Oh honey, we all have the same issues.
The same issues of Charleston, West Virginia. I promise you
are the same issues they have in Beach Bottom. That's

(44:53):
not an opinion, Dell, that's a fact. And so over
the past seven years being mayor, and of course in
my twenty year career doing federal and state government as well,
and traveling I've been to every single county uh in
the state of West Virginia minimum five times.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
Wow.

Speaker 19 (45:08):
Because because the years that I used to travel with
Bob Wise and Governor Wise and Governor Tomlin, they traveled
as they should have. Which governor should I learned a lot.
I learned a lot about each one of our great cities.
And so it is, it is my goal and is
my job, as as former presidents have done with the

(45:31):
West Virginia Municipal League, is to make sure that we understand,
and not just that we understand, we do a good
job of communicating our challenges. I'm not you know, I'm
not sure that we always do such a great job
of doing that because quite frankly, you know, we're.

Speaker 5 (45:47):
Mayor.

Speaker 19 (45:48):
It may seem sometimes and your daughter may think, oh,
they're on they're on TV a lot. Well, most of
our we work nights and weekends and holidays. If our
police are out, I'm up. If there's a fire, we're
on it. It is the heavy lifting work, and so
we do a very good job. Mayors do, and city
council members and city managers all across the state do

(46:09):
a very good job at that meat and potatoes work.
The heavy lifting, if you will. Boots on the ground.
I just want to make sure that we always do
a good job in making sure we communicate our successes,
for sure, but also our challenges, and sometimes I think
we focus on our challenges and telling people, oh, what
is us? Here are the difficult things that we are

(46:33):
going through, which is of course important, but also sharing
our successes and implementation.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
The Municipal League in your relationships with all these other
two hundred and thirty plus municipalities across the state, they
could almost be like many laboratories with initiatives, overcoming challenges,
different things like that you can work together and try
to come up with some best practices.

Speaker 5 (46:52):
You know.

Speaker 19 (46:52):
I was with our treasure state Treasurer Larry Pack yesterday,
who's doing a phenomenal job, and he even said it
best Municipally, we need to start listening and allowing our
cities and towns and villages to take action because they
are boots on the ground and they know. The one
thing that I wanted to certainly make mention and I
do every time I talk about the Municipal League is

(47:14):
that this is a non partisan group. Guess what mayors
are non partisan? It makes no matter to me if
you are in any political affiliation. Listen, I am raising
two boys. He are likeugh, do we have to have
a political party? This is crazy. It is the place

(47:36):
in the space where we get work done. It doesn't
matter what party affiliation that you have. And that is
what I am most proud of at the municipal league.
It doesn't matter to us. We're talking about issues, we're
talking about people, we're talking about projects, and we're talking
about policies. We're not talking about politics.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
And that's where the good work can get done is
when you just have people talking about those successes and challenge.

Speaker 5 (48:01):
It's hard.

Speaker 19 (48:02):
It's not that it's not that difficult. I mean families
do this every day. Dale, you know this. You do
this with your family every day when you have an
issue in your family or even in your business. Politics
is not involved. It's practical solution. That's all that it is.
And we need to get back to a place in
a space that that's what we're focused on because that's

(48:24):
how normal people run their lives, run their households, run
their businesses. That's how we should be running our governments
as well.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
Got a text line in from uh let's see you
got a text from the three zero four seven sixty
seven when my son was eleven. He met mey or
a good one and left the meeting also wanting to
be mayor. So thank you well.

Speaker 19 (48:46):
That is that is that is very sweet, and that
is encouraging because I will tell you right now the
numbers that I see all across the country. I'm in
the US Conference of Mayors, in the National League of Cities.
What is disappointing is more people do not want to
get into government or run for public office because, by

(49:06):
the way, it's tough when they say it's a blood sport,
oh buddy, But it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. It
should be a it should be what it used to be.
It's true public service. I mean, I'm standing here at
my desk. I'll be working all day, I'll be out
working in the community. It should not be this type

(49:28):
of vitriol, this heat, and this terrible rhetoric that's being
passed along because it's scary quite frankly. But what I
want to see is more common sense solutions, more level
headed discussions. You know, you can't lead if you are

(49:48):
screaming and yelling. You also, I don't think because I
wouldn't want it for Listen, you don't want it for
your baby. I don't want it for my babies. Looking
at somebody who is yelling and screaming at one another
to get a point across, we don't have to do that.
And that is why I'm so excited to spand with
other mayors and city council members across the state to

(50:10):
speak calmly and rationally and come up with good solutions
to our state's biggest challenges.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Before I got you loose, Mayor, our buddy Jim had
he was waiting on the phone and he had some
connection issues, but he just wanted you to summarize regarded
numbers this years compared to previous years.

Speaker 19 (50:25):
Oh man, it was great. I'll say this. The temperature numbers, Jim,
as you well know, my little buddy, were certainly higher.
We don't have those in yet. As a matter of fact,
we had a meeting about it yesterday. They're still collecting them,
but I would say they're probably a little on the
mark where they were last year. Maybe a little. You know,

(50:46):
the heat was gross. I mean, at one point we
got to ninety eight degrees with high humidity, and quite frankly,
some of those temperatures as we've seen Mother Nature into
us this summer, have been non negotiable for some of
our families, and we quite frankly don't blame them.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
Yeah, that's very true. Mary good one, Thank you so
much for your Thomas. Were appreciate you taking the time
out on your business the kiss for me, would you?
I sure will, no problem at all. We are, Amy
Shuld're joining us on the air of our final out
of office guests for this morning. I have about a
minute left on the program, and coming up next, of course,
is going to be Talk Line with Dave Wilson and
TJ Meadows. TJ has popped into the studio right before

(51:28):
his show. What's going on on the Big Show today?
Hey Dale, good morning. So Joey Garcia, Marion County Senator,
is going to join us. A lot of talk about
those hospital sales.

Speaker 20 (51:36):
One of those hospitals is in Joy's district, so we're
going to talk about that and get his perceptions. We'll
talk nil and we'll also talk about the Apple ectionpower
rate increase company spokesperson.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
A lot of good stuff today.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
That's good stuff that's coming up on Talk Line. After
that will be midday where Jef Jenkins is filling in
with Channel thirteen's Amanda Baron, and then I'll be back
this afternoon with Dave Weekly on Metro News Hotline. Thank
you so much for tuning in today. Had a great time.
I hope you did as well. Thanks to all of
our guests that we had on as well. That's going
to do it for me. Thank you so much for
tuning in. My name is Delle Couper. You've been listening
to FOB eighty love. This is FOB adw c HS.

(52:10):
We are the Voice of Charleston. Oh yeah, I love somebody.
I love somebody right.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Hs A M ninty six point five Am Charleston one
oh four point five truss Labe WVRC Media Station. We're
proud to live here to