SCHOOLS

The speaker is discussing the financial troubles of the city of Radford and the mismanagement by the City Council. They mention that the city is running out of money and has had to apply for a loan of four million dollars. The speaker believes that the current council is starting to realize the extent of the financial damage. They also mention that the city owes money and has spent millions of dollars in reserve funds. The speaker criticizes the mayor and city manager for trying to refute the facts and states that the city is in bad trouble. They discuss a recent meeting where the city council discussed the new loan and the financial situation. The speaker believes that the city has not made any payments on the previous loan and will have to pay more in taxes to try to fix the situation. Welcome to one more round podcast where we find the truth. No matter how deep we have to dig. Let's get in the rain Hey, welcome to one more round podcast. I'm your host as always Keith Marshall. Welcome to the rain Today, we're back on my favorite subject. Definitely your favorite subject by the numbers and that is the city of Radford I'm really disappointed. I'm really not happy That I'm gonna have to bring out a couple things that we're going to talk about today they're personally I Find them personally disgraceful personally devastating to what I always thought was just the best parts of the city in the direction that our City Council and our City government actually has gone Now I will say this I think people are starting to really wake up to what's happened here in the city They're starting to see how our wealth and our prosperity has been squandered Quite frankly by an inept couple of council people that run the show For the last few years before the present council I'm not talking about the present council now, but I am happy to say that I think I'm not positive, but I think the present council is starting to wake up to those facts They're starting to realize and this is me talking my opinion just from listening from a distance Not getting it directly from anyone but from watching and listening from a distance from listening to meetings From readings the news from following the events that are going on in Radford. I think the new council are starting to realize That this ship That's been built By great hands over the years has been Potentially permanently damaged It's taking on water fast It's listing And it needs a steady hand at the till we don't have one there. I'll just say that right now I don't believe we have one there. I believe we're in bad trouble and I believe we're running a shell game in the city of Radford with our finances In order to quite literally to survive month to month week to week We're broke we're still broke we were broke a year ago or even more broke now To illustrate that and to talk about that. I want to go through The Monday night meeting there was several actual meetings that was held Monday night with City Council That's Monday the 13th. And by the way, I would strongly encourage you to listen to those There's two or three meetings that are available that happened that night and you can find them if you just Google Radford City YouTube Generally, it will pop right up. Now. You can't always tell which session you're picking I want you to focus you should listen to them all but I want you to focus on the work session That went over a new loan that Radford City will be applying for a New loan of four million dollars and we're going to get into that a little deeper as you know There was a pretty important episode that I did back a while back Called will Radford City remain an independent city and in that episode we talked about the fact That Radford City had applied for or was wanting to apply for Basically, I will call it a payday loan. It's a temporary loan To help you pay your bills when you do not have the cash or the funds to make those payments They needed that four million dollars and it was mentioned in that meeting. This has been by the way It's tried to have been walked back But it was actually mentioned in that meeting that payroll the cost of payroll was a significant concern When they ran it as they were running out of man money Quite obviously inferred that they weren't going to make payroll If they did not get this money we found out or I have found out That they owed a backlog of money to a P They literally needed to make a payment that was a couple months behind to keep the lights on in the city They had run the money out in their reserve funds in In nearly every enterprise fund including electric to fund and the general fund They had spent up millions of dollars in ARPA funding. They had flat-out run the city out of money Malfeasance mismanagement, you can think of a lot of things to call it. I believe all the words are correct. They did that Now I know for the last little bit since that's happened our mayor and some within the city have ran around the city to try to refute the facts and say ah, I Don't keep Marshall one more round podcast. He's just causing trouble He's just putting a negative light on everything. He's hurting the city. No, no, you took care of that on your own Congratulate yourself pat yourself on the back. No one has done worse I can say you can search the annals of time in Radford City and no one has done worse So if you're going for the prize of worst ever you got it, you got it hands down But anyway, they tried to refute what was going on. They tried to say that these things were not really happening We weren't out of money and then of course the audit report come along and we found out they were down to $66,000 in the bank So you heard the truth here? And you heard a lie from them. They had run the city out of money There was a kind of a Laurel and Hardy routine I think you should watch between the mayor and the city manager of some pre-designed questions to ask to kind of try to refute What's being said quote-unquote by some? Couple people have asked me, you know that little thing that they say politicians say when they want to make a point But the truth of it is Oh Marshall here on OMR was right all along with they were out of money They'd spin us dry and I'm sad to report as I come to you today that things are not Getting better. You could probably make a strong case that they're getting worse Because in this meeting and we're going to go over some quotes and some other things that happened in the meeting I want to dig into that Laurel and Hardy routine a little bit for some questions and some actual Mistruths, I think that we're told Based on some facts that I have been able to dig up and I've got some good one for you today I do I've got some pretty important breaking news News that I promise you that no one else is going to tell you about But I'm going to tell you about You're not going to read it in the run-up times because they're not going to cover anything negative when you have a bunch of Democrats Blowing up a city government. They're not going to tell you about that There's very little coverage anywhere else and these details and these facts That I've been able to uncover are not going to come to you. Probably any other way I wish they would I would like to retire from podcasting. I do not have a lifelong desire to be a podcaster I really don't I don't want to be a reporter. I don't want to be a blogger at this point I want to be a fisherman. I want to fish But I feel an obligation at least to my friends to my family to the people in the city Definitely to the city that I love to get this truth out there Number one so it'll stop so we can turn the ship around we can repair it. We can quit thinking and Also, secondly to make sure it never happens again. I want you to understand what exactly you voted for and what exactly you got and where it's leading us and I'm doing my best to get this information out and I'm going to continue to do so as long as the Lord allows me to Have the ability to do it and I have the knowledge and I'm able to find the facts I'm going to bring them to you as best I can but I want to jump right into this meeting on May the 13th It was a work session that they had To go over a new loan that the city was deciding to get in order to pay their bills again payday loan Number two now officially they call this a revenue anticipation note They're anticipating having some money one day, but I like the acronym RAN. They ran flat out of money So so maybe that's a better name than payday loan. Maybe we should just call it the RAN loan. I ran out of money loan well They had promised us And I believe the meeting was on September 11th of 2023 when they dropped this bombshell on the citizens of Radford that they had spent us dry and That they were going to borrow four million dollars at four and a half percent interest I believe it was it was going to cost us a couple hundred thousand additional dollars in financing fees in order to get that loan and Again, this one is going to cost us again somewhere between two fifty three hundred thousand dollars just in fees For the privilege of borrowing money to help us survive But they came to us in that meeting September 11th 2023 and let us know that they were broke That they were going to have to borrow money just to get Through the day to get through the month to get through the next cycle, but they promised us in June They would have this money paid off They would be taking care of this. It was a bump in the road. It was just a just a rough patch They like to use this word rough patch Hey rough, all right Just a rough patch. So they promised us they'd pay that off. Well, let me tell you what they didn't pay it off to my knowledge They didn't pay one dollar of it off to my knowledge And I'm pretty sure about this. I could be wrong But I don't believe they even made an interest payment on it They may have but it's my bet That they owe more than the four million dollars In order to pay it off with the fees that they had to pay because they didn't pay interest on it Maybe they did but they definitely did not pay off any of the principal So they have a new plan The new plan as was presented Was that when the revenues come in now you you realize you all realize now You are paying your new taxes for the upcoming year You have gotten your bills. I think it's due somewhere around June the 5th And it has the new increase on it. You should notice you are paying more in taxes a Direct result of the malfeasance and mismanagement of our government. We're all going to pay through the teeth to try to bail us out Will it be enough? Well, I hope so. I'm not sure The trend is not looking good To be honest with you But we're going to pay more so the plan is as we make those payments as they come rolling into the city now keep this In mind that's about half of the revenue maybe slightly less than half because you're December You also have personal property along with real estate taxes So this is not quite half but it's a big chunk close to half of the revenue that comes in It's definitely half of the revenue that comes in from real estate taxes. So you're looking at about Somewhere in the neighborhood of a little over four four and a half million somewhere four point two four point three somewhere in that neighborhood Is the amount of revenue that they're going to bring in? From taxes that are going to be paid and that are due on June the fifth hurry down and pay it by the way They need the money fast So anyway, they're going to take that money pretty much all of the money that we collect In real estate taxes, and they are going to pay off Their original their original four million dollar loan. They're going to pay it off So we don't owe any more money on that specific loan Now they had looked and I think I mentioned it in the last episode. They were looking at refinancing it. I think that blew up Possibly they were not allowed to do it. Possibly the fees were too high I know it was supposed to cost around three hundred thousand dollars to refinance it Instead they decided to take all of the revenue that comes in in taxes almost all of it and Pay off that loan and turn right back around and borrow four million more dollars to continue This idea that hey if we borrow it if we can borrow it long enough that things will turn around I hope that it does For our sake. I hope that it does but it was quite an interesting discussion and I and I encourage you to dig in there Listen to that kind of start to understand how counsel is starting to feel about this I really think at some point they're starting to realize That the light that they saw at the end of the tunnel May be a train. It's I think they've been promised that it's a light and it's a good light But I don't think it's a good light. I don't I think it's a bad light at the end of the tunnel I hope I'm wrong. I'm praying that I'm wrong, but I don't think that I'm wrong, but I guess to give you my overall impression of that work session to tell you how You know what I drew from it I'm not sure. I know somebody's lying Possibly several people are lying, but I definitely feel like some people are still in denial about what's going on Maybe the fact that this information is being disseminated into the public the truth is being brought out Maybe that fact is just the fact that they cannot control it is just driving them crazy that they have to Continuously try to refute it rather than embrace the truth and fix it And I mentioned I was gonna go over this Lauren Hardy routine. I'm going to And you'll have to listen for yourself. I tried to write down the quotes. It's kind of hard to do But I tried to write them down in my chicken scratching and I and I want to go go over an exchange that happened between Mayor Horton and the city manager as they went through the need for this loan and Truthfully this whole exchange here that I'm about to go through it was really done to refute the podcast people are talking about it people have heard the truth and Now they're starting to realize that the things they heard are true Again, I mentioned when I said that the city was out of money and they'd ran us out of money People were lied to and they saw it's not that bad We're in a great shape things are looking up until the audit report happened and he realized that they had $66,000 in the bank then we talked about the hotel and Some under the table things that were going on about the hotel that you know That I didn't feel like we should be a part of That we were giving our money to that and and in my personal opinion It should the the financing for that or excuse me the incentive for that should have never been approved I just felt like it was dirty money and You know, of course again people Mayor went out in the community and told people that's not true and other people refuted it and tried to Try to change the truth But then of course we had this article that's come out in the run-of-times and we clearly could see That Rafford University was an investor someone else actually in court documents from a lawsuit there showed Rafford University He is invested in this process. Mayor Wharton is an employee that he shouldn't have been voting or involved in that process and Again, once again one more round podcast. I told you the truth and It was refuted now. It's proven again And I'll tell you this I do my best to get the facts out That doesn't mean I can't make a mistake But I'm never purposely going to tell you something or put something out there that I know is not true I'm not gonna put something out there that I believe is only halfway true If I do not know that it's personally true. I have not seen the evidence with my own eyes Then I'm gonna be very careful. I'm gonna let you know in those circumstances that I believe this is true I'm not sure. It's my opinion. But when I tell you something's true It's gonna be because I believe with all of my heart that it's true and I believe that I have irrefutable proof That it's true, but let me get back to this exchange And let me just start with this is a question from Mayor Wharton. He actually had to ask three questions He didn't give the city manager time to answer. I don't know. I couldn't see the city manager's face. So maybe the additional questions were warranted but Here's kind of how the exchange went. This is from Mayor Wharton Talking about the four million dollars that they're want to borrow again And he asked is this us borrowing money just to be able to finance our budget Example Would we not be able to run our city the city of Radford on the tax revenue? We collect in a 12-month period if we did not have this money and he continued the third question Are we spending four million dollars more than we have? Well, I mean Of course the city manager said no Which I don't believe is true, but I just can't believe that you would ask that question. It just seems dumb Are you kidding me? You borrowed four million dollars in September. You have not been able to pay one dollar of it back You used the whole four million dollars you spent it you borrowed the four million You used it to pay your bills to keep yourself afloat from September until now And you're asking the question Could we have made it? Without this money. Is it true that we couldn't have paid the bills on a monthly basis without this money? Well, of course, it's true You borrowed four million and you spent it all. Of course, it's true You're using this money to make payroll. You're using this money to pay debt. You're using this money to pay the light bill You're using this money to pay all kinds of residual costs within the city Matter of fact, if I understood it, right almost all of it was owed the day they got it So the question is obvious you can't make it without this money and there's a good chance you can't make it with it But the city manager replied he said no It's because we have the debt we have we have that we are paying it off with the new But it's not Financing anything. It's just going towards the the cash flow to help us over the hurdles. You see that we're a lot of hurdles And then he goes on and he says something that Really bothered me here because I don't think it's true. The information I have tells me it's not true He says we and you know, I could be wrong But from the information I've been able to gather I don't think I am he says we probably could pay some of this this June payment But I'm afraid and of course, I don't I hate to put inflection in his voice. It's hard to do You go and listen to that yourself But I'm afraid to run the risk of not having enough cash to get us through the year The year end and to the transition to the next year. Well, doesn't that answer? Right there He says if we don't have this money, I'm afraid we're not gonna make it to the end of the year So, how did you answer? No to the mayor's questions? When he asked, you know, if we didn't have this revenue, could we make it through a 12-month period well answers? No, you couldn't he says right here because I'm afraid to run the risk of not having enough cash To get us through the year in into the transition to the next year. You don't have any money So it goes on it goes on. Let me let me continue So so Horton comes back and says so the so the way this has been portrayed by some by the way That's me. I got my hand up the way. This has been betrayed by Marshall. Is that the city is insolvent and bankrupt? What is your response to that? Well, that's a nice plan question and I kind of like the response because They didn't he said, you know, let me read it again So the way this has been betrayed by more I'm excused by some is that the city is insolvent insolvent Insolvent, excuse me and bankrupt. What is your response? Not bankrupt. This is the city manager saying not bankrupt. Certainly not with the assets we have in the revenue We have and opportunities that arise out there We've made all of our obligations Bankruptcy would be you know, I don't know even know in course the mayor interrupted It says well, that's part That's the hard part. It's it's being portrayed very differently than what it is. Well Is it really being betrayed differently than what it is? Is the city not out of money is the city not able I? Mean, let me ask it this way is is the city able to pay all the bills that it owes Can it cover all of its obligations is it meeting All of its obligations has it met timely all of its obligations? Well, I'm gonna tell you that it has not and that it is not now is it to the point of insolvency? We're close Have we declared bankruptcy? No, we haven't declared bankruptcy. I don't know how that process would work either But let me go back to Horton I want to finish what he said he says that's the hard part It's being portrayed very differently than what it is. Well, I'm gonna tell you that it's not he went on to say now I know that our frustration is that we thought we would be done with this that a year ago when we Basically, what he's saying is we thought we were gonna be done with this We thought we were gonna borrow this four million dollars. It was gonna fix this little quote-unquote rough patch We paid off in June and we'd be done We are right back where we started Behind in our debts and in our payments or in our obligations, maybe not our debts, but certainly our obligations We have mounting Unpaid obligations and when I say obligations, I think I think you know what I mean But you know when you get your light bill when you get your bill from the city your utility bill That's an obligation you have to pay You don't pay the first month you're gonna pay that obligation is still going to be due the next month along with that month's obligation and An additional fee you understand that you have a car payment. That's an obligation obligation. You have a Your divorce you have alimony. You have a child support. That is an obligation. Well, the city has obligations, too I'm glad that he used the word we're meeting our obligations because we are not Meeting them at least not in a timely way In fact, I've learned that at last count the city had about seven hundred thousand dollars in the bank Much better than the sixty six thousand don't you think? But I'm hearing that their obligations right now are totaling six million dollars Six million dollars 700 in the bank six million in obligations They have risen to six million because we're not meeting them in a timely manner They're growing we owe it and do not have The amount of cash needed to make the payments now, we're borrowing four million that doesn't add up to six Now I know things come and go I do not know the cycles with which the payments are needed and made But I was told by a good source that we were down to 700 and we owed six million But I want to point out something else that I found Just and I mentioned it at the beginning of the podcast. I found it particularly egregious and I have mentioned this fact in Another podcast and again, it was another one of those things that I mentioned that I was hearing was true It was refuted out in the public as something that was not true. I was told But it is true and I have now been able to proven is true. And that is that we are not Meeting our monthly obligations to Rafford City Public Schools We agree and it you know, and by the way, I did an episode About the confrontation between the Rafford City Council and Rafford school board in the in our new superintendent. Dr. Joyce About the new raise that they were giving and I still haven't changed my opinion on that. I think they were given too much That's my opinion it's just it's not a huge thing. I thought it was tone-deaf. I mentioned it But something that I mentioned in that Was the fact that Rafford City had always And it was very important to us when I was on City Council. We took great pride in our funding of the schools We couldn't give more than as much as some other localities, but we gave well above our means I felt like we tried really hard to have the best funded schools. We could afford to have And over the last four or five years There's been just a horrible deterioration in the relationship between Rafford City Public Schools and the Rafford City Council It's been terrible. I find that quite ironic Because during the elections of 2018 the schools and the people, you know within it were Definitely supporting one side of the island and it wasn't the side that I was on I'm just like not that I'm mad about it or anything I've tried to forget about it, but you know when you run for office It's a personal thing When you put yourself out there and you work hard and you give up your family time and you miss Ball games and you miss those things, you know, it's a personal thing, but you know, you got to get over it You win some you lose some People make their choice and you live with their choice and they'll have to live with their choice And truthfully, I'm I'm glad to be doing more fishing Just the podcast keeps drawing me But I do enjoy bringing these to you. But anyway, I digress So so anyway, they've developed it's developed into a horrid relationship to the point that they Couldn't hardly speak to each other. It's there's a lot of animosity there And I know there's some new council members and there's some new school board members and I'm not drawing them into that mess I think they're trying to work hard to have a good relationship Because it's the best thing for our kids and our families not just our kids, but the parents of those kids They need to work together. It's very important And I think they're trying to do that in spite of some bad influences that seem to keep them apart So I think they're trying to work together But one of the things that was important to us was school funding and you should understand how it works as I have been Told that it works The city has an obligation and it's been pretty much spelled out by state law And it there's a whole equation based on your population based on your income levels and everything within the city about how much the local government needs to contribute to their public schools and For the and for the previous fiscal year. It was a little over five million dollars as I understood it and That is paid those obligations are paid in Monthly stipends or monthly payments, however, you want to whatever you want to call it and you can do the math but basically a monthly payment runs about $486,000 per month That goes to the school and you multiply it by 12 and you'll get a little over five million dollars That's how it's done. Now. I want to go back to this statement about the city meeting its obligations Well, I'm gonna have to report to you that they're not meeting that obligation in fact Counting the month of May Rapid City government has not made a payment to Rapid City Public Schools in five months In fact the last payment that they made was in February of 2024, but it was to pay the amount due for December of 2023 so basically for the year 2024 they have paid nothing to the public schools as far as their monthly stipend If you do the math They're in the hold to our kids about 2.4 million dollars Don't tell me you're meeting your obligations. You're not paying your bills and guess who suffers from that? I'm hearing there's some potential concerns about meeting payroll within the school system Because the city of Radford is not meeting its obligations Now this is a far cry from the song and dance that was presented to the public About the pro-education candidates that were running in 2018 About how they were really going to work with the schools and get things done. Well, they're working. All right, they're working them They're not paying them, they're hosing them and to the point that after learning this I'm a little angry at myself for even bringing up the race and talking about it Feel free for some of y'all to say I told you so Keith I still don't agree with the race. I still think it was a bad idea, but you know what? Had I known how bad things were I'd have kept my mouth shut. I would have Just said well you did something dumb, but my goodness as bad as you're being treated You know who I will tell the public schools this hold on to your wallets They're going to try to take your extra money if you ain't careful It sounds like the schools. I'm sure they're not perfect. I'm sure if I dug deep on them I find some areas over the last few years that I would not like or appreciate But they've done a decent job managing their funds and that has not happened in the city government has not happened and I don't think we can mention those two in the same sentence because truthfully There's some other areas within the schools. I think that needs some correcting There's some other situations that I haven't liked over the years some things that I probably would have liked to have talked about But I'm not I'm gonna shut my mouth because I tell you what Yeah, I find this so egregious that you're not making your obligations for our schools You're not making the payments that you're supposed to make you're 2.4 million dollars fine I just I'm ashamed I even mentioned the the Raise even though I think it's a bad idea No, seriously, I try to I Try to be fair. I try to tell you give you my opinion I try to use common sense and logic and and that applied to the raise but this right here goes beyond Common sense and logic this goes to just a dereliction of one's duty And by the way both the mayor and the city manager knew That they were not meeting their obligations to the schools During this meeting when they went through this whole moral and hearty routine of exchanges City manager knew That it was not meeting their obligations to the schools and the mayor knew it, too Now, how do I know that? Well, I'm gonna read it to you and normally I would give them plenty of time to go out and say I'm lying about this too and Then it would circle back around boomerang back and hit them between the eyes the truth would But let's just go ahead and get the proof done tonight. I Have in my formerly Copenhagen stained fingers here a letter From dr. Joyce from the Rafford City School Board and it is written to Mayor David Horton and city manager manager David Ridpath and This particular letter Was sent this week. I believe it was May 10th that it was sent Or somewhere in that neighborhood But here's what it reads and I'm not gonna read the whole letter Because it goes into some extra stuff that doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm talking about Or at least not directly But here's what it says. Good afternoon, Mayor Horton and Mr. Ridpath as the end of our 2023-2024 school year draws near Rafford City Schools respectfully requests from the city of Rafford a payment schedule Outlining how Rafford plans to make available to the school division all outstanding monthly installments dating back to January 2024 for clarity Our last payment from the city was received in February for the scheduled December 2023 obligation Now I've added additionally to that the month of May January February March April May five months five months times 486 thousand six hundred some dollars. It comes up to about 2.4 million dollars of Not meeting your obligations, you know One has to wonder When it's time to call for a complete change of leadership in Rafford City, I Don't want to throw things like that out there lightly And I generally that doesn't cross my mind but this denial this continued malfeasance this idea that somehow a magic wind is going to blow across the city and all of our debts are going to be paid and our Obligations called up without bankrupting every citizen in the city to catch up the bills that you squandered and the in the money That you squandered. I I think we need to start thinking about that And I think it should start with those that were a part of this malfeasance over the last four or five years We need to start talking about that Because this is not getting better this is not improving and somehow When all of this was going on you did not manage To make the necessary cuts Whatever you needed to do to make sure you met those obligations and you chose Rafford City public schools not to make your payments to them That's what you chose You just wrote that off So forget it. I Don't understand that Now if it's a common practice to not make your monthly payments and to pay it every six months I've never heard of that and certainly the schools have not heard of that because they're sending a letter saying hey We need our money. Can you tell us how you're going to get it to us? You know, they got to be worried You know, they've got to put the lunches on the table tomorrow They've got to pay their teachers and janitors and workers and administrators They've got to pay their light bill This is ridiculous, you know, I'll go back to the questions that the mayor asked Is this us borrowing money just to be able to finance our budget? Yeah Your monthly payments to the schools are budgeted. You're not making the payments You are borrowing the money in order to pay the bills that are within the budget. Duh. I Mean you should know the answer to that question. You got the letter You know that you're not paying the bills Again question would we not be able to run the city of Radford on the tax revenue? We collect in the 12-month period if we did not have this money. Well You're not doing it now You know when you got the first four million dollars or you should have known if you've not dug and figured this out You should have known that you owe the whole four million before you got it No, you weren't bringing enough money to pay your bills are we spending four million dollars more than we have. Oh My goodness, you don't have four million dollars You have seven hundred thousand dollars right now and six million dollars in obligations. Yes Guys I tell you I'm not a wizard math I'm a little slow. Sometimes it takes me a while for to pick up on things But I'm pretty astute when it comes to looking at how much money you have and how much money Oh and knowing which is the bigger figure. I think most of us get that So, where do we go from here I tell you where we start we start by all of us getting involved in demanding more of our leaders I Did not see significant cuts in that budget not real significant cuts. They certainly were not outlined to us We need Drastic cuts in the city in order to survive and it has to hurt. It's not hurting us now We are simply going and borrowing more money and in addition to barring the four million and having to pay it off we're having to pay financing costs of two hundred fifty three hundred thousand dollars and Now we're squandering the future of our children We're putting our we're putting our schools in a bind because we're not paying our obligations to them It's time for real leaders to step up It's time for men and women that care about the city and don't care about themselves Personally that put the city first and I don't care which side of the aisle you're on even the ones that made this mess It's time for you to quit worrying about what Marshall says and do the right thing You're either just living in a shoe and you can't understand common sense or You're part of the problem You're I believe you caused the problem the fact that you weren't running your government like you should the fact that you were spending on Every one of these things that you thought would make yourself look better the whole if we build it they will come Routine we saw the movie, you know, that's the only time it worked. It doesn't work any other time. There's a movie. It's good But it doesn't work you can't go out and put lipstick on every pig and all of a sudden think that you have a Stands and horses pulling the carriages. No, you're pulling the carriages with pigs. They just have lipstick on We need drastic cuts within our city government in every aspect You cannot just go and take the money and let me tell you what they do. This is what I think they do. I Think oftentimes Extra money is built in departmentally across every department in the city. They'll go in and say well It's going to take let's say a hundred and eighty thousand dollars that we're going to spend on books. It's a Raven City Library I don't know what they spend on books. I have no idea But we're gonna spend a hundred eighty thousand. I'm gonna budget for that. They're not gonna spend hundred eighty. They will spend fifty But they've built in there a hundred and thirty extra money that are hiding there They slip in and say well, we're going to cut ten thousand from the library budget. We're really doing a lot Well, you're not doing anything. You're cutting money that you were hiding anyway in my opinion That's the kind of cuts that happened not real cuts not cuts that hurt Not cuts that say yeah, I know so-and-so retired. We're not hiring anybody new. How are we going to get the work done? We're going to work harder That's the way it works in the real world You're gonna have two jobs to the one. It stinks. Hey, I've been there. I don't like it either But when you're broke, you're broke. I Feel like I'm screaming on top of a mountaintop. We're broke. The ship is sinking. You're almost underwater and And there's there's a captain and a couple captains at least three That are all holding on to the steering wheel trying to drive it and they're just telling everybody around them don't don't bother Don't listen to him. Don't I know there's water around your ankles. That's not really water. We're not really sinking Well, we are We're sinking. Could it change? Good things really picked up Could this new tax increase and new electric rate increase and new water and sewer? Increase and and all these things. Will that help? I hope so Because if we have to go back and dip again, you know I don't know where some of the people are gonna get the money to pay this Will it help I think it will help some But let me point out one other thing and I've mentioned this over and over and over and over again. I Really believe in my heart of hearts if you ask me and someone did ask me this the other day They said Keith, is there any hope for Radford City and I told him I said just a little hope There's a little hope in it and it lies in the foundry property If we can get that developed and develop quickly and by the way, I understand I've heard from Multiple sources that our EDA is chomping at the bit to get going to develop that property There are people that may be interested now that we can get that moving quickly that little hope To generate the the huge revenues that a stronger industrial base can generate There's a little hope if we get that process moving, but I come to you today After all may the it today's May the 15th I it is still not in the hands of the EDA It is still being held up and I will submit this to you. The reason it's being held up is political I believe that with all my heart the mayor and some people within the city government possibly the legal team are Purposely trying to hold this up until after the election in November and out into January They want to make sure they have their people on council. They want to stack the EDA in my opinion They want to control it and you know, if our mayor controls it Then you really know who controls it and that concerns me and we're going to squander the next six eight months Just for politics just for personal control of one or two people Rather than getting it moving and trying to turn this around. It should have been done six months ago Longer than that But it's being held up it sat for five years I campaigned on that That was what my largest issue was. Look we need to develop this property. It's one of my biggest issues It was I was made fun of for it Then then the city bought it They bought it after a new council was on their way and the EDA was gonna buy it Themselves because they knew they were smart men and women they knew that had to be developed So our mayor jumped in there he wanted to take credit and now that he's got it He's holding it and he's not doing anything with it And it's a it's a sham and a shame It's our last hope We're not going to make enough pizzas. We're not going to make enough doughnuts. I'm sorry. We're not going to be able to Whatever come up with enough liquor creation businesses in order to get this done. We need a stronger industrial base we just lost a major component to that in mode closing and We're still sitting here So two things I mean two things that please start doing this now do some real major cuts Don't approve any more huge vehicle purchases find something used Fix something do whatever you have to do to survive and to keep everybody safe. You can do that without spending Tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars No more digger trucks. No more stop. We don't have the money Act like we're in trouble. If you don't believe that you're in trouble. You cannot work yourself out of the problem. I Don't mean quit it means get busy And don't just take people's word for it. Make them prove it Make them prove it Who knows maybe this is what I've told them as news to some people within the city government, maybe our elected officials Maybe they didn't know we were behind in our payment or schools Maybe some do and some don't I know the mayor knew that because he got the letter So I'm going to end this here I'm not gonna go any further I think I covered what I need to cover I think I've brought you the truth yet again Just another example and this time Our kids are suffering for it directly our kids our families that depend on the public schools Our teachers that are you know, yeah, can you imagine being a teacher today? Should they even have to think about the payroll for the schools? Are you kidding me? They shouldn't I can't imagine Having to deal with some of the things that are going on now and and certainly if we're gonna fund anything We need to fund our schools our fire rescue EMS and our schools top three, baby. We got to do it You can't fall behind in those You cannot put them in the position that you put yourself because you're not making your payments making them suffer because of your malfeasance That's wrong. That's wrong. Now. I'm gonna end it here. We've jumped. We're about to hit 50 minutes We're getting close to it. So it's about time to quit. Sorry to bring you the bad news, but I brought you the truth I brought you the truth as I've found it as I've been taught it and showed it and as I've been able to read it myself You take it for what it's worth. I suggest you get involved By the way, I think the city could use Another or two strong Conservative candidates running for different offices coming up in November. We need those people If you're just a liberal tax and spender, I'm gonna work against you. I promise you that but if you're a fiscal conservative and you want to Save this city. I Think you should consider getting on board fight the good fight. Let's turn this thing around It can't be just my voice. It's got to be multiple voices out there speaking getting involved. You don't have to be rude You don't have to be hateful Sometimes the truth is tough Sometimes you have to say it like it is. I Don't really enjoy Having to do it all the time But I feel obligated to do so and I think it'd be a good idea if there were a lot of voices standing up Speaking loud and clear about what is right and what is wrong and how to move this city in the right direction Because we are certainly we are certainly lifting and heading down to the bottom And I don't want to see that happen All right I'm gonna finish this episode as I always do with our theme verse and that is found in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verses 13 and 14 and God's Word says this Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter fear God and keep his commandments For this is the whole duty of man for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing Whether it be good or whether it be evil. Hey, thanks again for joining me here on the podcast Always enjoy the time we have together and I look forward to talking to you next week until then I hope God richly blesses you and your family Good day