Latest / The SEANC View / The legislature gets to work, and needs persist in the West

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The legislature gets to work, and needs persist in the West · The SEANC View

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Music.
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Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm Jonathan Owens, your communications director here at Scenic.
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Joined today by the usual group, Artis Watkins, Scenic Executive Director.
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Hello, Artis. Hey, John.
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Got you right before you drink a sip of water.
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Hey, John. Sorry about that. It's okay. Hydrating. Suzanne Beasley,
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our government relations director.
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Hello, Suzanne. And Sam Klein, our podcast producer in this room. I'm back.
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Yay. From a long trip west. We may hear a little bit about that later,
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but I hear you had a good time. It was a great time.
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So a big week this week for you, Suzanne. The legislature came back in earnest
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to do actual work from what I understand, right? They came back.
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The session started January 8th, I think. Right.
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And yesterday was like the first day of business. It actually ended up being
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skeletal sessions. But the Hurricane Helene Relief Committees met yesterday.
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Other than that, I think they pass floor rules for both chambers,
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and the House has done something different.
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Speaker Hall has set a calendar that is marked with specific days that they'll
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hold committee, specific days that they'll hold votes.
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I think the tweet said, you're welcome, lobbyists.
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That is helpful. Well, it is helpful, but, you know, we all know that can change
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on a whim. A whim, you know, if they need to vote on something, it's not like that.
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Yeah, I saw his tweet about that was pretty popular, especially even with the
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journalists. Well, it's awesome if you have some idea of how the days are going to go.
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I mean, the majority of my career here with Scenic, we just had to sit and wait. We still do.
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Hurry up and wait. Yeah, what's on the calendar tomorrow? I don't know. It's not out yet. Yep.
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So maybe a good start for Speaker Dustin Hall there. I'll go with that. We appreciate that.
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I'll go with that. What else happened, Eddie? I saw you mentioned a few bills
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that had been proposed, but not a... Yeah, I went through the bills last night.
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I think I did send to our illustrious management team, the ones I had picked
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out that were interesting.
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So you did give us a list. The big scenic related or state employee ones weren't on that list yet.
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But some that may be interesting for us. But, you know, none of the big spending
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that we would be asking for, like pay raises and, you know, something for retirees.
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Of course, all of that is handled in the budget.
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So we've still got a ways to go. And, you know, it's funny because every year
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the way that's approached feels like what gifts do we give to public employees?
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It is not a gift to have your pay move up with inflation.
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It is not a gift to get the benefits that go with your job. And it's definitely
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not a gift when you've been doing the job of more than one person.
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And that is the situation across state government. So it's kind of interesting
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to me. It's a cost of business.
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And, you know, scenic's a business. We understand it's not fun,
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but it's a cost of business. If you want to have a business that thrives and
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can provide good service. Then you have to have people. Yeah.
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So looking forward to the session, I think, do you think that people will be open to that concept?
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That this is not whether or not you're going to be generous and give a gift to state employees.
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This is how are you going to make sure you can maintain your workforce?
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Well, that's I mean, that's clearly got to be our conversation.
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And we already started those conversations.
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Obviously, you know, they came out for the special sessions to deal with relief
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funds and funding for Hurricane Helene.
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And appropriately so, we needed to address that immediately.
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But then we reached the point where we had to start going back to our legislators
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and reminding them that all of these issues that we had, like the vacancy crisis, low wages.
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You know, and their benefits being slowly eroded, eroded.
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Time. It catches up. There are effects on the public. There are effects on the public.
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And if you don't have quality public services, businesses are not going to want
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to come here. You got to have the infrastructure to attract businesses and people in general.
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So yeah, we started having those conversations again. We've got to go back to
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those issues and address them. They didn't just disappear into thin air.
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Yeah, well, you know, I did an interview last week with Pete Calliner out of
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Charlotte, and he's got a very popular conservative radio show and podcast and all kinds of things.
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But it was an interesting experience because the people who called in or emailed
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him after the segment where we talked about the state health plan and benefits
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generally for state employees,
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there's a perception out there that public employees make a whole lot of money.
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And it was interesting because one guy's email referenced like a city manager
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or an assistant city manager somewhere.
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Which I mean, that would be an incredibly good job,
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like not remotely that would be multiplied multiple
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times of your basic state employees salary so
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I thought that was really kind of instructional for us
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to realize how much of the public thinks state employees are making money yeah
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well I mean we've always had the issue of the disconnect the perception of well
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government employees period right but yeah they're working people just like
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everybody else and when they're not working people who are making a couple underground a year.
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No, and they're making less, less, definitely less. And that was the other thing.
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People were very convinced without anything they were going to that was factual, but very convinced.
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And it does matter how people feel because we do have to address that.
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But I think going into the legislative session, that's something y'all will have to realize.
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A lot of the freshmen, for instance, who may not have been around state government,
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if I had coming into the legislature as a freshman, had only been involved with
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the private sector, no public employee relatives.
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Based on just the things you hear people say, you would be pretty convinced,
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yeah, they get paid just as much as the private sector. They just get better benefits.
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We've had conversations this week already with legislators who have been here
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for a while who don't understand.
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Right. We've talked to several this week where we've made appointments.
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We got to go sit down and educate them. Yeah.
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Because it's not, we're not mad at anybody for having that perception because
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it really is more widespread.
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It is. And it's good to get a reminder of that sometimes. So if you're listening
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to this and you're not a public employee, they are not making bank. At all. They are not.
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Yeah. I think in the, I was listening to the aftermath of your interview,
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the next segment after you were on, So I think it was the immediate person,
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the person right after you was saying something about if you make $250,000 a
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year, $20 more a month in your premium.
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Because it was about health care premiums. I'm struggling to think in state government. Yeah.
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Literally who that would be. I'm not saying you might not have a medical professor
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who's been there forever that may get to that level or certainly like the investment.
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It's not a correctional officer. Chief investment officer, maybe over at the
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treasurer's office, because those jobs, that would obviously still be a fraction
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of what that person would make out in the private sector.
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But that's not like a price point for state employees.
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But I get it. People think that. And look, Pete was very fair in the discussion
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about transparency with regard to the health plan. And the piece that he wasn't
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buying was that state employees can't afford to spend more on their premiums.
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And the piece that kind of got lost, because what happens is the public likes
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to talk about each other.
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Instead of getting mad at corporations for not being open with what they're
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charging in terms of hundreds of millions of dollars to the state,
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they'd rather be mad at a neighbor and say, you know, that public employee neighbor
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is already getting paid enough. They can pay a little more.
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Forgetting that the state health plan, that's 10 percent of the market.
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So what happens to state employees health care wise is going to happen to you
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if you're in the private sector.
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Because if 10% of the market starts to pay more, you're going to be paying more, too.
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Yeah, and I know we're going to, I guess we can just launch right into the health care situation.
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But I struggle to understand why raising premiums is going to really help that
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huge deficit they're facing when you could save a lot more money if you actually cut the cost, right?
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Transparency being the key factor there. So, okay, went into it backwards,
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and the treasurer's office is indicating they're wanting to look at premium
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increases on state employees in order to make up a half-billion-dollar shortfall
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in the state health plan.
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And maybe those premium increases would be staggered depending on your income.
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The question I was asked on Pete Callender's show is, what's the problem with staggering?
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If somebody makes $250,000, why can't they pay more?
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What that question itself is ignoring is that there's not a need to get to that question.
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That's assuming the only way that we can ever make things right and transparent
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in government is just to keep going to the working people and put more costs on them,
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but keep the secrecy of these contracts that are negotiated by an insurance company.
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And for whatever reason, well, we know the reason, it's considered an exception
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to the Public Records Act and these contracts and the charging in some cases,
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which we know is three and four times what it takes to make a profit,
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charging the government that much is just swept under the rug and kept secret.
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They are protected by the law, protected to rip you off if they want to.
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And your rank-and-file taxpayer doesn't know that. And so the solution is always,
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well, let's just go to the, let's have each employee give some more.
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I think that's the whole thing, that it is such a complicated issue that you
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wind up. It's not complicated.
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I mean, like, it's hard. Like you said, let's just go to the employees.
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Like that's the easiest route. Well, of course it is. That's the people who
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don't have the power. Yeah. That's the low hanging fruit.
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You know, the employees can't punch back with millions of dollars against you
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in a political race. Or it's much easier to pick on working people.
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I thought it was kind of funny that two days ago we did an interview with a
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publication that's going to come out in the next few days with their story on this topic.
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And when I was talking to the reporter, you know, it was like,
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oh, we'll just have a few questions, just a few. We'll spend a few minutes talking about it.
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So then we get into the interview, you and I, and Suzanne was there as well.
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And we just kept unraveling things.
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And by the end, we talked about an hour.
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It's just, I think, once you start doing it, she's a good reporter.
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It's a unique position that the treasurer is in.
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Treasurer Briner literally can take a state, North Carolina in this case,
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that he's responsible for, which is number one in the country in the cost of
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health care, and third from last in quality of health care.
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This is according to Forbes magazine survey, and we keep coming in in these
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positions, most expensive and all but the crappiest in outcome.
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He's in a unique position to do something about it. With 10 percent of the market,
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again, he can move the market by the decisions he makes.
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So his choice right now so far is not to demand transparency and to demand that
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the protecting the secrecy of corporations is less important than protecting
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the rights of North Carolinians to affordable health care.
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Where he's going to go in the future with that, I don't know.
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I hope at some point he'll publicly choose to say, I will not stand by and let
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this happen to everyone in North Carolina.
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Yeah, it seems like a lot of teachers are commenting on our Facebook posts about
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the health plan because they're maybe looking for information.
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Well, I mean, traditionally, that's what we hold down.
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You know, teachers, I don't think they've had opportunity or resources to this kind of information.
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The scenic covers. I mean, this is something we've always done.
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We stay on top of the state health plan, which is for teachers and state employees.
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So I'm glad that some are finding their way to us for this important information.
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But at the end of the day, the bottom line is that it's not likely you're going
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to secure a massive raise for public employees, right?
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Because of all of the things, the challenges the state faces.
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Post a lien with rules and regulations coming down from the presidential administration and Congress.
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Therefore, if money's very limited and inflation's still inflation,
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it costs a living, in fact, for a lot of things is going up.
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Then if these health care costs increase, this is a pay cut for public employees.
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So I'm sure they are worried about it.
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They should be. Another thing that happened this week, I guess today,
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the Retirement System Board of Trustees met and past president Martha Fowler,
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retiree council chairman Jamie Robinson and retiree council vice chair,
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past chair, Benny Brighman,
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retiree council guru Benny Brighman were on hand there to make sure our retirees were represented.
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What happened at that meeting? There was a lot of introductory information,
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you know, just shared with the board. They did their, you know,
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the usual vote that you do this time of year.
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The board did not recommend any changes in benefits to the plan because the
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plan didn't make enough gains to
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actually pay a COLA or even a one-time non-recurring bonus or supplement.
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So that leaves us obviously going to the legislature for something for our retirees,
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you know, put something in their pocketbook too. So I saw, I'm sorry,
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it seems like I've spent all my time on social media for what it sounds like.
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But I saw that Treasurer Bronner is getting more active on Facebook, by the way.
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But I saw a post that Mo Green is now on the board of trustees.
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Is that common? It is. Okay.
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Superintendent. And Stacey Meyer as well, who is the HR director.
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Yeah, Barbara Gibson was on there before. Okay. They had the resolutions for
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Barbara and Catherine Chewett as well.
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A little tidbit, though, you know, in the past, your first check when you retire,
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your first payment of your benefit payment has always had to be a paper check.
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And then things are on, you know, you're on a roll. But now that can be electronic.
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Nice. That's a big difference. Yeah, that'll make people happy. That's pretty much it.
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So I think that wraps up what we have for this week.
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Just kind of things are starting to get going, it sounds like.
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But we did want to include an interview that we did at our retreat in Wilmington
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a few weeks ago with the folks who were heavily involved in our clean relief efforts in the West.
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Our Western Region Rep, Cliff Johnson and Jamie Robinson, our Retiree Council
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Chairman. Jamie's everywhere.
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Also District 9 Chairman. And so they kind of spearheaded a lot of the efforts
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that we did up there, and they were gracious enough to give us 10 or 15 minutes at our meeting.
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And so we just want to provide kind of an update and a wrap-up of what we did
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out west and what the needs are right now.
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So we're going to play that here in a second, but I understand that there are
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some fires going on at the west. Right, and we're recording this Thursday.
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The 30th of January, so I guess those fires started yesterday.
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They just can't catch a break out there, it seems like.
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So it's very timely to have this update from Cliff and Jamie about work going
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on out there, relief work.
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But here's the latest that we see today.
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Firefighters continuing to make progress in McDowell County.
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One of the areas hit really hard by Hurricane Helene a few months ago.
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And there's three different fires, areas of fire raging with different percentages
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of containment at this point.
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But the bottom line is nobody out there can stand anything else. Yeah.
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I mean, we've had the fires in California. We've had fires now here.
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Is it because of any kind of drought or is it just seasonal?
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I think my understanding was the wind was really whipping. It's dry and windy. Okay.
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And I don't know. I mean, I still don't know exactly. I don't know.
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They know exactly what started it, but things happen.
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We are not fire experts. You're not. We're talking about everybody out there.
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Our entire state is under, I don't know if you call it a warning,
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but, you know, like high wildfire alert kind of thing.
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There was even a fire in outside of Bunn, a wildfire last night.
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And I was talking to my son who lives in Spring Hope. He was like,
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yeah, they were telling everybody around Bunn to be prepared to evacuate.
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Apparently they got it under control pretty quickly. But yeah.
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Interesting considering that they are still doing prescribed fires,
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too. Yeah, I mean, things are damp most places. We've had precipitation.
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I don't know. That's weird. Maybe we need to interview the fire. We do.
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Hey, Suzanne's all about it. Let's give a shout out to the folks who work in
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fire. Absolutely. We have the Forestry Service up there. They're amazing.
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So I guess they're probably tackling these fires, correct?
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And some of them actually went out to California as well. Yeah.
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So a big ups to those state employees.
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Way big. So let's listen to our interview with Cliff and Jamie.
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And we'll join you afterwards for a little wrap up.
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Hello, everyone. This is Jonathan Owens, Communications Director here at Scenic,
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and we're here today with some fine folks from Western North Carolina.
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We have our Western Region Representative, Cliff Johnson, and our Retiree Council
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Chairman, Jamie Robinson, here.
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We're going to talk a lot about the Hurricane Helene relief efforts.
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We also have Lynn Cody, our Member Relations Director, and Suzanne Beasley is
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joining us just for moral support, but she's going to chime in as well.
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I just wanted to get you guys in here. I know you guys have done so much work
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on the relief efforts and just want to let our members know what you guys have
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done because it's pretty remarkable.
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So first off, you guys are both obviously residents up there in the Western region.
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Let's start at the beginning. What happened? What was the date? September?
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September the 27th is when it moved into Western, Hellene moved into Western
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North Carolina. Okay, so let's start there, although I know it kind of started
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a few days earlier than that, correct?
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Actually, on September the 25th, a cold front came into western North Carolina,
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and the parts of western North Carolina that were heavily impacted were already
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flooding before Helene actually made its way through western North Carolina.
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So all the rivers that were the drastic impacts were already at flood stage before Helene hit.
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And I think that's a point that's really been lost, is that it wasn't just the
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hurricane. It was a lot before then, right?
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Jamie, what were your memories of that day and when it started?
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Well, my memories of it that day, in my county, I live not as far up in the
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mountains. And we just had a lot of the tree damage.
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And we had some house damage. It's not compared to what they had further up
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in the mountains. And you live in Taylorsville, is that correct? Yes, sir. I do. Okay.
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And you live in Asheville, right? No, I live in Waynesville. Waynesville.
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Okay. So you're way up in the- Which is the other side of Haywood County, far side of Haywood.
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I'm nearly in Jackson County. So it seems like a lot of the significant damage
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was right between you guys, right?
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Correct. So was it bad where you lived? It wasn't bad on my side of Haywood,
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but when you went into eastern Haywood where the Pigeon River goes through, there it was drastic.
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The town of Canton and the town of Clyde both were severely impacted and had
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a lot of loss of property, and we did have a loss of life in Haywood County. Okay.
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And for scenic purposes, do you have a lot of state employees in that area,
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and what are the major employers? We do, because Buncombe County is the largest
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group of state employees in the mountains.
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Okay. In the extreme mountains, Buncombe County probably has the largest concentration
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there for our district. There are six counties in District 2.
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All six of those counties were severely impacted by Hilling. Okay.
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And also, Morganton is right there, and it's got a lot of state agencies as well.
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Old Fort at the foot of Old Fort Mountain. Old Fort was severely impacted.
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Back Cave. Yeah. Jamie and I actually did some recon.
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Okay. We actually rode the roads in these areas after it was safe enough.
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We couldn't get into a lot of areas. We tried to get into downtown Marshall in Madison County.
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We couldn't get there. We couldn't get into parts of Old Fort because the roads
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were still closed and inaccessible.
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So Jamie and I rode a lot of the roads to try and, I guess you'd say,
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recon where the most need was. When we stopped and asked folks in the different
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agencies where the need was, a lot of them couldn't even respond yet because
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everything was still so fluid and still happening.
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They didn't really know. Yeah. So what were some of the largest impacted state
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agencies or centers, prisons, centers?
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I know that in Buncombe County, it was Black Mountain Center.
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Western Women's, Craggy Correctional, ADAC, and Black Mountain.
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Then we go up to Avery Mitchell County, where Avery Mitchell Correctional Institution
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and Mountain View Correctional Institution are.
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And their lift station and some of their other infrastructure was severely damaged,
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and they're still not reopened.
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They are still closed. The inmates are spread out at different locations.
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Craggy was reopened as medium custody increased their population.
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So there's inmates spread all the way to the East Coast down here because of Helene.
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So I know that when something like this happens initially, you know,
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you're in a kind of a rescue effort, kind of in a stage of kind of almost shock.
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But at what point did you guys start thinking about your relief efforts that CNET could be a part of?
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Well, and let's go back on the question that Clifford was answering.
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It was a recon and was looking for locations, but we checked at all the agencies
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and the ones that we could find somebody at. And we were asking them, what do you need?
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And a lot of times, and one of the worst remarks that we got was we really haven't
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even gotten in touch with everybody.
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It took a period of weeks to two weeks before we realized, you know,
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they couldn't even get in touch with their own personnel.
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But, John, I'd like to back up also on how this got started.
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It got started by a phone call.
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Artists, our executive director, Kurt Montgomery, our president,
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and Lynn Cody, our membership director. That's what I call her, too.
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So that's your new title, Lynn. All of this started out as a conference call.
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And Scenic Cares came up into it.
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And that's the part I take so much pride and honor in what we tried to do.
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You know, was trying to be able to do what we could for the state employees
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and our membership up there and anything else that we could do also.
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And that was in, from what I've gathered, I think that was like the night after
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or right when it happened, right?
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It was just a few days afterwards. It was a Saturday morning.
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September the 28th, we started a text tree.
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We were using Scenic Cares, and like he said, Lynn, Scenic Cares jumped in headfirst, basically.
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So they played a big role in getting this thing going.
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So Lynn, tell us how you sprung into action and saved the day.
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Well, so basically what we did was the three of us talked with counsel from
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Artis and Kirk and decided we would go ahead and reach out to our members from
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the western part of the state to see what they needed.
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And, you know, it was slow at first because people didn't have power or phones.
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But eventually we had calls coming in saying, can you go check in this particular
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area? We haven't heard from our friends in days, that type of thing.
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So we activated all the Western Regional chairs and they were our resource.
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If someone like I know that Cliff had sent somebody up from his district down
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to this particular area to check on a person that needed to be checked on.
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We were able to circle back with that person and let them know that they were fine.
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And then we had a lady from Jamie's district who had some damage.
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And I think she was lonely.
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I think that, you know, she just didn't know what to do with the damage that
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she had and appreciated the visit and the time that y'all spent with her.
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So I wanted to get into that a little bit. Like, were there any stories that
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were just really touching for you guys? Lynn just mentioned this.
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We contacted all the district chairs. We started a text tree with all the district chairs.
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However, there was one district chair, District 5, Willie Jobe,
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that we could not contact, and we did not hear from him for probably close to three weeks. Wow.
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It was close to three weeks. We didn't know if he was okay, and we finally sent
23:37
somebody up there to check on him, and he finally texted me after about three
23:42
weeks that he was okay, but they had no communications.
23:46
Their bridge was washed out. they couldn't even get out. We've heard from,
23:49
well, not on the podcast, but at our board meeting, Mr.
23:52
Jobe did kind of tell us everything that happened with his, his,
23:55
his pretty heartbreaking what has happened around his neighborhood.
23:58
He said personally, he didn't have a lot of house damage, but a lot of farm
24:02
damage and things, but he saw some things that were pretty terrible.
24:05
The river through his property was totally rerouted. Yeah.
24:08
Totally. And he lost friends. He lost some good friends.
24:12
And the example he gave was the elderly couple. The gentleman survived. The lady did not.
24:17
And the gentleman, when they found her in the debris flow, he would not leave
24:20
the site until they got her out.
24:22
Did y'all hear a lot of stories like that? We did. The only state employee that
24:27
we are aware of that lost their life was Lola Ramsewer from Black Mountain Center.
24:32
She was a fairly new housekeeper there at Black Mountain Center.
24:35
And that's the only state employee that we confirmed that did not survive the
24:40
flood, her and her husband.
24:41
They both lived in the Suananoa area near the center there. She was a fairly
24:45
new employee, but they did not survive.
24:47
I think, and I don't know if you want to talk about this now or in a little bit, but I think,
24:52
The state employees that had to work during this time when they had devastation
24:58
at their homes, I think that it's just a testament to our state employees,
25:03
especially, you know, in the western part of the state.
25:06
And I know we had people come from all over, but it just felt like they were
25:10
taking care of their own.
25:12
Very proud people out west.
25:14
When we were trying to help, you know, Scenic's board, we came together and
25:18
got a disaster relief to help facilitate some of this.
25:21
And when we would call and say, you know, do you need A, B, C,
25:25
or D, especially in certain areas, we just, it was like, no,
25:30
we've got this, we've got it handled.
25:32
But then I think after a while with the hygiene bags and that type of thing.
25:37
They were, they took because they needed to, they had to.
25:41
And I think also the department heads with DOT, DHHS, DAC during that time were amazing leaders.
25:50
Artists and I had spoken with all of them, DPS, of course, as well.
25:54
And they all were so concerned about their state employees from that area.
25:59
The things that they saw that they had to witness and the devastation and the
26:04
cleanup, it was nice that, and that's not a strong enough word,
26:09
that they cared about the mental health of their employees.
26:12
Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of those state employees, some of them still had to go
26:16
do their duty and got pulled away. They lost their homes. They lost everything.
26:21
Yeah. So, you know, that's the state employees still doing their service to
26:24
the state of North Carolina.
26:26
We had a past president that lost his home.
26:29
And when we contacted him from Scenic Cares, he said, help those that need it
26:33
more to the stage where I don't need as much help. But he put off help.
26:39
For himself to help others. Yeah. So let's talk about that help.
26:44
We were able to get a lot of support from members all over the state,
26:48
lots of donations and things, and we took it up there to some sites.
26:53
Tell me a little bit about what all we collected and what we did with it.
26:56
So we put the word out to our district chairs, district members across the state, churches.
27:02
Scenic ended up on a list of where it was safe to bring donations.
27:06
So we had a lot of folks there, Brad Longhans coordinated it in Raleigh and
27:12
worked with Cliff, Jamie, and Adam. We should give Adam a shout-out.
27:16
Adam Weinbarger. Adam Weinbarger. He's our representative in the West. He was a huge asset.
27:22
When we couldn't get stuff up there all the way in, we would use him to pick
27:28
it up halfway, take it to Jamie's house, leave it there, meet Cliff.
27:33
And then we took a pod up there. Well, we got a pod, and then we took a Penske truck. up there, Brad.
27:39
And Adam and Cliff and Jamie were there, and I'll let them speak about that.
27:43
But I did want to mention that we partnered with Aetna, and they were there
27:48
at the relief effort, and they gave out hygiene bags, t-shirts, and that type of thing.
27:56
So they were a huge supporter of helping our disaster relief effort.
28:01
Yeah, District 1 and District 2 did over 400 hygiene bags that were distributed
28:07
to DOT Division 13 and 14.
28:09
And the first place that received those hygiene bags was the Mitchell County
28:14
Department of Transportation.
28:15
So Mitchell County was actually the first agency that was touched by Scenic Cares.
28:21
Actually, the second day of this disaster, Adam, we had no money.
28:27
The ATMs weren't working. The banks weren't open.
28:30
None of the places were accepting credit cards because the machines were down.
28:34
So we needed some supplies the very first thing.
28:37
And Adam, I picked up the phone, called Adam Weinbarger. Adam went to several
28:41
locations in the Hickory area, the Taylorsville area, picked up goodies and
28:45
some water and things and brought them.
28:48
And my District 2 members from probation parole stood in the parking deck in
28:52
Buncombe County and put together goodie bags and hygiene bags to get initially to get started.
28:58
That was like the second or third day after this disaster. Yeah,
29:01
let's talk about the variety of items because I know that Brad sorted lots of
29:05
bars of soap. I saw some heaters out there.
29:08
Margaret brought a bunch of blankets. Blankets. We had coats, water.
29:13
We had an abundance of water because that's what everybody needed in the beginning.
29:18
And then it transitioned to clean up stuff.
29:22
Shovels, and then they needed trash bags and that type of thing.
29:26
So we went through a lot and prioritized what needed to go when and that type of thing.
29:31
Our board did give us some money, so we were able to buy.
29:35
Cliff found out that they needed chapstick because when they were cleaning the
29:39
roads with all the dust and debris, et cetera, their lips were getting dried
29:43
out, and that they also needed hats.
29:46
Yeah, I think we all learned a lesson in what is needed during relief efforts,
29:50
because I know we updated that flyer several times. The school supplies was on there, right?
29:55
Things we take for granted. Yeah, things you take for granted.
29:58
As far as distribution centers, we actually have two.
30:01
And I'd like to give a shout out to a young lady named Anika Harper,
30:05
who's a training coordinator at Black Mountain Neurological Medical Center there in Black Mountain.
30:10
Jamie and I went by there when we were doing our recon, and we talked to the
30:14
deputy director, Courtney Shetley, and she agreed to let Anika Harper do whatever
30:20
we needed to pursue scenic care.
30:22
So we set up a distribution center like a store there.
30:25
We showed the video at the Board of Governors, and she set it up like a store
30:30
and had different rooms with different items, like clothing in one room,
30:34
dry goods in another room, cleaning supplies in another room.
30:37
And that distribution center is still functioning to this day because there's still a lot of need.
30:42
There were 104 confirmed deaths, and there were over 125,000 structures and
30:49
homes damaged or destroyed in western North Carolina during this storm.
30:53
The other location, we went to Avery Mitchell, serviced Yancey County,
30:58
Avery County, Mitchell County, and that general area of the Boone, Watauga area.
31:03
We went up there for that distribution center.
31:05
First VP, Wendell Powell, came up and helped us.
31:07
District 3, with Janice Smith as the chair, they took an active role in that.
31:12
And came out and helped and provided a lot of goods there.
31:15
But we did the two-day. That's when Brad brought the Penske truck up there.
31:18
Yeah. It was bitterly cold and raining.
31:21
The warden there, Mike Slagle, the captain, loaned us his outdoor patio heater
31:26
and two of his propane tanks to keep us a little bit warm and dry.
31:31
But they let us also use their carport structure to set up under because that
31:35
first day it was absolutely pouring the rain. Well, that's where I wanted to kind of end.
31:39
So where are we at now? What's going on up there now? Now, I know folks are
31:43
still living in tents from what we can tell, right? Some are still living in tents.
31:47
The temporary structures that they're building, some of them have some heat.
31:51
But I'd like to give a big shout out to all the districts that have taken an active role.
31:55
Anika Harper wanted to specifically thank a couple of the last ones.
31:59
We've stopped taking goods at the office. We've asked everybody that still wants
32:04
to donate, if they will, go to Amazon and order it and have it shipped directly to the center there.
32:10
And we can get anika harper's information if you
32:12
want to give it out we can have we can put that
32:15
in there they can contact anika and if they don't want
32:18
to do work there there's another valley strong is a fairly new 501 c3c organization
32:25
that just got their certification and they are begging for volunteers in the
32:30
swananoa area which was as jamie can tell you when we drove through there it
32:34
was just heartbreaking and devastating.
32:37
So it's going to forever change that whole area, from what I understand.
32:41
Any final thoughts? Yes, John. I'd like to mention Tim Southern,
32:44
his wife, and out of District 4.
32:47
The West is broke down with nine districts in it, and all the district chairs,
32:51
when we finally got to talking to one another and texting each other,
32:54
they all stood up and took care of all their own, like Lynn just spoke.
32:59
But they've done a good job in that area, reconning their self in that area.
33:02
But the work that has been done up there, and there's plenty more to do.
33:06
But Scenic Cares, and I can't get off of here without saying a big shout out
33:10
to all the districts from across the east back to the mountains.
33:13
Everything you sent to the district and up in the western part,
33:17
it's been amazing. It's helped a lot of people.
33:19
Awesome. Well, we're very appreciative of the work you've done,
33:21
and thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you.
33:25
Okay, so that was a cool interview with Cliff and Jamie. They're cool people.
33:28
Such good people. They work hard for our members, and we're very proud of what
33:33
we've done so far out there, and we'll continue to work for the folks in the West.
33:36
Stay safe with the fires as well. We're going to do something different today
33:40
for my wacky weird question of the week.
33:42
John's wacky weird question of the week.
33:48
The only person in the room that's done something amazing in the last two weeks. In the last forever.
33:55
In the last year and a half or two years.
33:59
Sam Klein. Sam, here's my question. Where did you go?
34:04
For the last two weeks or a week and a half? Because I was there for a full week.
34:08
I went to Oahu, Hawaii. Cool.
34:12
Tell us the circumstances of how you get to Hawaii. Yes, please tell us.
34:16
How did you get, yeah. For me, it was my dad had a work trip and he goes on
34:20
a lot of different work trips. He's been to San Diego.
34:23
We just figured out he's going to Key West in March.
34:26
Unfortunately, I just spent all my money in Hawaii. So now I'm not going to Key West.
34:31
But he goes on a lot of work trips and will spend two to three weeks in different
34:34
places training military personnel in physical and technical surveillance.
34:39
Wow. Can you say that on the air? I don't know. Is it classified or no?
34:45
And he looks it. He does. I heard you got to meet him. We did.
34:51
They came by the office the other day, her mom and dad.
34:53
And he looks like he'd be, you know, top gun. Cool. I didn't get to meet him.
34:58
So how was it? It was amazing. I truly just can say that it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
35:04
I had so much fun. We went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial.
35:09
We did some 5 a.m. sunrise hikes.
35:13
We did like 5 a.m. or hike. Sunrise is neat.
35:19
Oh, it was beautiful. We hiked to the top of the Makapua Lighthouse and got
35:25
to watch the sunrise there, which just meant that we had to be awake at 5.30
35:28
in the morning to get there by 7.15.
35:31
A lifetime of memories out of that. Oh, yeah. Also, we did it like the day after
35:34
I got there. So the time difference hadn't hit me yet. So even though it was 5 a.m.
35:39
There, it felt like I was waking up at 10 a.m. here.
35:42
Gotcha. So you left on a Friday, right? I think it was Saturday.
35:45
I left Saturday at like four o'clock in the morning.
35:48
So that's, I guess later that day, I get an alert on my phone that's like volcano exploding.
35:55
I was like, oh, here we go. We're going to have to hear about this.
36:00
Sam's going to be in the volcano. So did you see it? Did you fly over it or
36:04
anything? I couldn't see anything when we were flying there because it was dark.
36:08
It was around 3 a.m. here when I got there. there. It was like 8 p.m.
36:14
In Hawaii when I got there, but 3 a.m.
36:16
In North Carolina. So we couldn't really see anything, which we also flew home
36:21
in the dark. So I didn't get to just like look over and see the pretty islands as we were flying out.
36:26
See, here's my concept of Hawaii is the little, the five little islands on the map.
36:32
And you just think that probably you can just hop from one island to the next.
36:36
I guess that's probably not the case, right? No.
36:38
So the cheapest The cheapest one to fly into is a Wahoo, from what my research
36:42
was. It's the cheapest one to fly into.
36:45
But once you are there, they are much cheaper to fly from island to island.
36:50
But you do have to fly if you wanted to go to Maui, or the Big Island,
36:54
or other islands. Are there bridges from either island? No.
36:57
My brother had that misconception, too. My brother was like,
37:00
well, yeah, everyone just drives between the islands. And I'm like,
37:02
there's not a bridge connecting the islands.
37:05
There's that old saying, I don't know.
37:08
But it's like, why are there interstate highways in Hawaii, right?
37:12
Because they can't connect to any other state, right?
37:15
They're still horrendous. The traffic there is hard. It's difficult.
37:21
We went to the North Shore because my dad wanted to show me the waves.
37:24
This time of year, the waves are humongous in the North Shore.
37:27
They're amazing for surfers. And so he wanted to. Yeah.
37:31
He wanted to take me up there and show me that. And so whenever we went up there,
37:35
it was a 30 minute drive to get up there.
37:37
We left at like 5 p.m. because my dad had gotten off early that day.
37:40
We left the North Door at like 5 p.m. It took us an hour and 30 minutes to get back to our hotel.
37:46
Wow. Sounds like my commute home. Because of how horrific traffic is.
37:49
Sounds like going down 440. From here to Garner.
37:52
Yeah. But typically it only takes an hour to get from one end of the island
37:57
to the other end of the island with no traffic, but there's always traffic because
38:02
so many people live there, but it's such a small island.
38:06
So I just got a couple more questions and we'll wrap up. I won't put you on the spot too much.
38:10
Now, first off, what was your favorite food you ate? One of my favorite foods was Spam Musubi.
38:15
Yeah, Spam is big right there, right? Spam is huge. You get Spam and eggs for
38:18
breakfast, like with rice.
38:20
Spam Musubi is massive. I make Spam Musubi at home myself because I love it so much.
38:26
Nice. what is spam musabi spam
38:29
musabi is basically spam sushi and
38:33
there's so many different ways you can do it it's just a little brick of rice
38:37
you can tell this generation didn't get force fed spam as children it wasn't
38:42
a force feeding for me my parents introduced it to me and i loved it no spam
38:46
and craft singles for sam ham remember devil ham yeah.
38:50
I like that, too. I like that. And then we took viny weenies out in the boat.
38:55
But you would sear the Spam in a pan and then make a teriyaki sauce that goes over it.
39:01
It goes on top of this little brick of sushi rice, and then they wrap it in seaweed.
39:05
But some people add eggs. You can add other things to Spam musubi, avocado, eggs.
39:09
I mean, I would eat that. That's pretty delicious. This is our new cooking segment
39:14
of our show. So I bet there's a reason that Spam, because Spam is like easily imported or something.
39:20
Yes. But also because pork is so huge out there.
39:23
Pork is a very big thing in Hawaii.
39:26
You just see pigs running along the side of the highway. You see chickens and
39:30
roosters everywhere. Did you go to a luau? I did.
39:34
I went to a luau the first night that I was there.
39:37
They had fire dancing. They had haka dancing.
39:40
They really embraced the whole culture there. You see more than just the Hawaiian
39:46
islands. You see all of the French Polynesian culture. And it's so cool.
39:51
They had people doing dances that are traditionally Samoan.
39:55
They had them doing traditional dances from other islands.
39:59
And we kind of got to hear the different languages because there's a different
40:02
way to say hello on each of these islands for the most part, besides just aloha.
40:08
That's very cool. I think of like 50 First Dates and Forgetting Sarah Marshall
40:13
when I think of Hawaii. Grass skirts.
40:16
Two movies. Well, it sounds like you had a good time and you're excited to be
40:21
back at Scenic ready to work for state employees and retirees, correct?
40:25
Yes. Still recovering from jet lag, though.
40:28
Well, thanks for joining us this week and hope you enjoyed our little podcast
40:32
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40:39
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40:42
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40:46
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40:51
Subscribe and then anything we do, you'll get an update of when it's been posted.
40:55
So thank you for joining us and have a good week.
40:57
Music.