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Introducing Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, we're so excited to introduce Crooked's newest limited series, Dreamtown,
0:04
Speaker 1: the story of Adelanto. Dreamtown is the zany true story
0:08
Speaker 1: of a down-on-its-luck town in California's high desert, and the scrappy,
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Speaker 1: sometimes morally dubious cast of characters determined to reinvent it.
0:16
Speaker 1: In 2014, the city of Adelanto was so broke, there
0:19
Speaker 1: was talk of dissolving it completely. Then, a stranger came
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Speaker 1: to town with a wild idea to make Adelanto great again.
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Speaker 2: Weed.
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Speaker 1: And it worked for a while, until, spectacularly, It didn't.
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Speaker 3: This is great.
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Speaker 1: It's hosted by David Weinberg, very talented journalist, host of
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Speaker 1: the award-winning pod, The Superhero Complex. It's an official Tribeca selection,
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Speaker 1: and it's another great limited series from Cricket. If you
0:41
Speaker 1: loved Mother Country Radical, you'll love this one. It's fantastic.
0:45
Speaker 1: And we just wanted to share this first episode of
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Speaker 1: Dreamtown with you here on the Pod Save America feed.
0:51
Speaker 1: If you like it, you can subscribe to Dreamtown right
0:54
Speaker 1: now to hear episode two and new episodes each week
0:57
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.
1:06
Speaker 2: In the beginning, all this was underwater. Then, about 100
1:12
Speaker 2: million years ago, the water receded and these 56 square
1:17
Speaker 2: miles of desert land appeared. Eventually, humans appeared too. A
1:24
Speaker 2: Native American tribe called the Van U. They discovered this
1:29
Speaker 2: part of the Mojave River Valley and they called it home. Then,
1:35
Speaker 2: a period of violence and conflict. In 1542, the Spaniards
1:42
Speaker 2: showed up and claimed authority over.
1:44
Speaker 4: The land and its people.
1:46
Speaker 2: But, as you will soon see, when it comes to
1:50
Speaker 2: this place, things don't often turn out the way people
1:54
Speaker 2: expect them to. Other Europeans showed up and told the
1:58
Speaker 2: Spaniards that this land was theirs. They said it was
2:02
Speaker 2: God's will, of course. Blood was shed. Treaties were made
2:08
Speaker 2: and broken. Borders were drawn and redrawn.
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Speaker 3: More violence.
2:14
Speaker 2: Eventually, the dust settled, and these 56 square miles were
2:18
Speaker 2: nestled inside a much bigger piece of land with a
2:22
Speaker 2: new name.
2:24
Speaker 5: California.
2:25
Speaker 1: Then in the early 1900s, a new plan.
2:35
Speaker 2: An American inventor by the name of E.H. Richardson purchased
2:39
Speaker 2: the land with the money he'd made from one of
2:41
Speaker 2: his inventions, an electric clothes iron. He'd come up with
2:45
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of gadgets. He called them the L-series.
2:49
Speaker 2: L was short for electric. The El Perco was an
2:52
Speaker 2: electric coffee pot. The El Tosto, a toaster. The El Ego,
2:58
Speaker 2: it was an egg cooker. When the inventor first stood
3:03
Speaker 2: on his new.
3:03
Speaker 4: Land, He gazed upon a sea of Joshua trees and
3:08
Speaker 4: creosote bushes ringed by mountains and envisioned a remarkable city
3:13
Speaker 4: unlike any other.
3:15
Speaker 2: He would build it from scratch. He knew exactly who
3:19
Speaker 2: should live there. All the poor soldiers returning from the
3:22
Speaker 2: Great War. He figured he could sell one acre plots
3:26
Speaker 2: to these men whose lungs had been ravaged by mustard
3:29
Speaker 2: gas on the front lines. Wide open spaces and dry
3:33
Speaker 2: desert air was just what they needed to heal. Curious thing, though.
3:44
Speaker 2: Richardson's dreams never came true. Turns out soldiers didn't want
3:49
Speaker 2: to live in the middle of nowhere. So, despite his
3:52
Speaker 2: big plans, Richardson didn't leave much of a legacy in
3:55
Speaker 2: this desert. But he did give his new home a
4:00
Speaker 2: new name. Adelanto. That's a Spanish word that means progress.
4:08
Speaker 2: But Adelanto didn't see much of that. About 50 years later,
4:13
Speaker 2: in 1970, the population had only grown to about 2,000 people. Still,
4:20
Speaker 2: these people had new dreams for this place they called home.
4:24
Speaker 2: They wanted to make it an official bona fide city.
4:28
Speaker 2: Even though the organization in charge of all that kind
4:30
Speaker 2: of stuff told Adelanto... They shouldn't become a city at all. Well,
4:36
Speaker 2: they went ahead and made themselves into a city anyway. Now,
4:40
Speaker 2: some might say that was a foolish thing to do.
4:44
Speaker 2: But the citizens of Atalanta looked at this place and
4:48
Speaker 2: went all in on a bet with terrible odds. Things
4:51
Speaker 2: went as you might expect. That bet didn't pay out.
4:56
Speaker 2: Atalanta never could pay its bills. And by 2014... Whew,
5:01
Speaker 2: things got real bad. There was even talk of ending
5:05
Speaker 2: Atalanto's short life as a city. But then, a new
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Speaker 2: man showed up with a big idea how to save
5:15
Speaker 2: the town. I suppose that's where our story begins.
5:23
Speaker 3: From Crooked Media, this is Dreamtown. The story of Atalanto.
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Speaker 3: I'm David Weinberg. Chapter one, Bug's Plan. Adelanto, California, a
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Speaker 3: small city in the high desert, is split down the
5:40
Speaker 3: middle by Highway 395. And when you drive into town,
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Speaker 3: you're greeted by a huge sign with Adelanto's motto, the
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Speaker 3: city with unlimited possibilities. When I see the sign, I
5:57
Speaker 3: often think about this quote by Richard Misrach, a photographer
6:01
Speaker 3: who who spent much of his life in this desert.
6:04
Speaker 3: He said, the human struggle, the successes and failures, the
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Speaker 3: use and abuse, both noble and foolish, are readily apparent
6:13
Speaker 3: in the desert. It is a simple, if incomprehensible equation.
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Speaker 3: The world is as terrible as it is beautiful. But
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Speaker 3: when you look more closely, it is as beautiful as
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Speaker 3: it is terrible. I've been a reporter covering Southern California
6:35
Speaker 3: for the past decade, and I've spent a lot of
6:37
Speaker 3: time in Adelanto, a city that's often referred to as
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Speaker 3: a bedroom community. Hardly any of the roughly 30,000 residents
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Speaker 3: work in the city. There aren't many jobs in town.
6:50
Speaker 3: There's not much of anything, really. A handful of industrial businesses,
6:54
Speaker 3: some prisons, a few local restaurants, some liquor stores and churches,
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Speaker 3: and one grocery store. And that's about it. Don't get
7:03
Speaker 3: me wrong, there's a lot to love about Atalanta, but
7:06
Speaker 3: only if you appreciate emptiness, and heat, and high winds,
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Speaker 3: and the slow pace of small-town desert life.
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Speaker 1: I didn't like it.
7:18
Speaker 3: This is Stivana Evans. She moved here from Riverside, California
7:21
Speaker 3: when she was 10 years old.
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Speaker 6: You know, typical kid. Had to leave all my friends
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Speaker 6: and and come to this city that appeared to have
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Speaker 6: nothing to do. To come here where there was pretty
7:31
Speaker 6: much nothing, everything was kind of far away.
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Speaker 3: Riverside, where Stivana came from, sits inside the Inland Empire,
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Speaker 3: a gargantuan sprawl of cities and suburbs in Southern California
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Speaker 3: that is home to more than 4 million people. But
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Speaker 3: when Stivana arrived in Atalanto, there were just under 7,000
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Speaker 3: people living in the city. It was a big change.
7:56
Speaker 3: What did you do for fun as a 10-year-old at Adelanto?
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Speaker 6: Well, we rode our bikes a lot. There was a
8:01
Speaker 6: big dirt hill. We used to fork, which was fun.
8:03
Speaker 6: Whoever started it would go to Costco and buy a
8:07
Speaker 6: pack of forks, literally like plastic forks, and we would
8:10
Speaker 6: fork one person's yard, literally, with hundreds of forks. So
8:14
Speaker 6: they'd come out and their yard would be all jacked up,
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Speaker 6: and then they'd have the forks to go to the
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Speaker 6: next house, and we'd just.
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Speaker 5: Boring life, I guess.
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Speaker 6: I don't know.
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Speaker 3: Since its founding, Adelanto's population had been overwhelmingly white. When
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Speaker 3: Stivana and her family, who are black, moved to the
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Speaker 3: high desert in the mid-90s, they were part of a
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Speaker 3: larger demographic shift, not just in Adelanto, but in exurbs
8:39
Speaker 3: and suburbs all over the country. People of color who
8:42
Speaker 3: were priced out of bigger cities found themselves migrating to smaller,
8:47
Speaker 3: more remote towns like Adelanto. As a result, these towns
8:51
Speaker 3: that were once mostly white became more diverse.
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Speaker 6: You know, for me, it's, you know, the negative connotation
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Speaker 6: that people have when they talk about Atalanto. It's out
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Speaker 6: of ghetto and all these negative things. And it's like,
9:03
Speaker 6: I've lived here forever and I've never had any of
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Speaker 6: these problems that you speak of. So let's keep it real.
9:08
Speaker 3: One of the reasons Atalanto hasn't always had the best
9:10
Speaker 3: reputation is that it was known as a prison town.
9:14
Speaker 3: On the off chance that you have heard of Atalanto,
9:17
Speaker 3: it's probably because of the immigration detention center there, which
9:21
Speaker 3: is often referred to as Atalanto. It's the state's largest. Plus,
9:26
Speaker 3: the city has a correctional facility and a federal prison
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Speaker 3: just outside the city limits. Every time a new prison
9:32
Speaker 3: was built in Adelanto, there were high hopes that it
9:35
Speaker 3: would bring enough good jobs and tax revenue to keep
9:38
Speaker 3: the city afloat. But by and large, those prisons have
9:42
Speaker 3: not delivered on that promise. Research has shown that most
9:46
Speaker 3: small towns end up worse off economically after they build
9:49
Speaker 3: a prison.
9:50
Speaker 6: Atalanta was a city where people come here to sleep.
9:54
Speaker 6: They have their house, they sleep here, but they drive
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Speaker 6: out of the city for work, they come back, they
9:59
Speaker 6: pick up their kids, If their kids are involved in sports, whatever,
10:01
Speaker 6: they may do that around town. But then if they
10:03
Speaker 6: want to eat, they're going to Victorville. They're not live, working,
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Speaker 6: and playing here.
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Speaker 3: There is no movie theater in Atalanto. No gyms, no
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Speaker 3: department store or rec center for the kids to hang
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Speaker 3: out in. As the former mayor, Kerry Thomas, said, you
10:18
Speaker 3: can't buy a pair of shoes here. and Atalanto.
10:21
Speaker 6: One issue that I've always had with Atalanto is we've
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Speaker 6: watched the cities around us grow and develop and prosper.
10:27
Speaker 6: And so watching the cities around us, Apple Valley, Hesperia, bloom, blossom,
10:31
Speaker 6: freaking blow up. And Atalanto is still the same. You know,
10:35
Speaker 6: we can count, in the time I've been here, I
10:37
Speaker 6: can count four developments that have happened. That's the Stater
10:39
Speaker 6: Brothers Shopping Center. We got the Family Dollar, Family Dollar General,
10:42
Speaker 6: which whoop-de-doo, right? And the Cactus Shopping Center.
10:46
Speaker 5: That's it.
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Speaker 6: So why is everybody else blowing up, but we're not?
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Speaker 3: Once Stivana got older, she could have moved to any
10:55
Speaker 3: of those more prosperous towns just down the road. But
10:59
Speaker 3: she didn't. She got used to the slower pace of things,
11:03
Speaker 3: came to appreciate the lack of traffic, the neighbors and
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Speaker 3: local spots she knew well. When she was a teenager,
11:10
Speaker 3: she got a job at a local fast food restaurant
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Speaker 3: in the neighboring town of Victorville and later moved on
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Speaker 3: to a job in retail at Staples, a job she loved,
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Speaker 3: even though it meant commuting out of Atalanto. But leaving
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Speaker 3: the city for work or to shop, that's the price
11:26
Speaker 3: you pay to live in an affordable city in an
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Speaker 3: expensive state. And later, Stivana would make a career change
11:34
Speaker 3: that would have an impact on the entire city. A
11:38
Speaker 3: city that many people believe should never have existed in
11:41
Speaker 3: the first place.
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Speaker 7: It is a small population to be considered like a
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Speaker 7: city in California.
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Speaker 3: This is Brooke's self. a reporter who covered Adelanto for
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Speaker 3: the Victor Valley Daily Press.
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Speaker 7: And if you dig into the history of the city,
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Speaker 7: there was this commission board called LAFCO in California that,
12:02
Speaker 7: I guess, approved the incorporation of cities, and they had
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Speaker 7: recommended that Adelanto not even become a city. They didn't
12:07
Speaker 7: think there was enough tax revenue there, enough population.
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Speaker 3: And LAFCO wasn't wrong. By 2014, Adelanto had a massive deficit.
12:17
Speaker 3: and not a lot of prospects for generating tax revenue.
12:21
Speaker 3: Like a lot of places around the country, Adelanto had
12:24
Speaker 3: been hit hard by the 2008 recession. It was a
12:28
Speaker 3: city made up of mostly single-family homes that had taken
12:32
Speaker 3: a huge hit during the subprime mortgage crisis, and it
12:35
Speaker 3: was struggling to recover. Nearly a quarter of the city's
12:39
Speaker 3: staff had recently been laid off, and city leaders had
12:43
Speaker 3: begun steps to file for municipal bankruptcy. That was the
12:47
Speaker 3: kind of the atmosphere that was there in City Hall.
12:50
Speaker 3: They fired almost, I don't know how many people. They
12:53
Speaker 3: started firing, firing, firing. And it was like, you know what?
12:56
Speaker 5: This is crazy.
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Speaker 3: I mean, that city can't afford anything. Rachel Carranza worked
13:02
Speaker 3: in City Hall at this time. In the wake of
13:05
Speaker 3: all these firings, there was talk around town about dissolving
13:09
Speaker 3: the city entirely, closing City Hall, laying off all the employees,
13:14
Speaker 3: and letting the county take it over. There simply wasn't
13:18
Speaker 3: enough revenue coming in to keep the city afloat. And
13:22
Speaker 3: there didn't seem to be any hope in sight.
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Speaker 7: They were just in such a state of desperation with
13:27
Speaker 7: their deficit that they didn't really have a lot of options.
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Speaker 3: In fact, ever since it was founded, the city of
13:34
Speaker 3: Adelanto has struggled financially. There was just never enough money
13:37
Speaker 3: coming in to cover the city's expenses.
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Speaker 8: It was just a lack of vision, a lack of
13:43
Speaker 8: actually planning for the future, and that's what the problem
13:45
Speaker 8: was in the city.
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Speaker 3: This is Jermaine Wright, a retired pastor who was the
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Speaker 3: only Black member of the city council at the time.
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Speaker 3: He had a shaved head, a mustache, and a penchant
13:57
Speaker 3: for three-piece suits. Reporters knew that he was always good
14:00
Speaker 3: for a colorful quote, and he seemed to relish having
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Speaker 3: his name in the local paper. Jermaine was one of
14:07
Speaker 3: Adelanto's four city council members. In addition to the council,
14:12
Speaker 3: Adelanto also had a mayor, and it was these five
14:15
Speaker 3: officials who who presided over the town and got to
14:18
Speaker 3: vote when the council met to make decisions. Are you
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Speaker 3: from Atalanta?
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Speaker 8: No, I'm originally from L.A. County. I was born and
14:27
Speaker 8: raised down in the Monrovia Duarte area in L.A. County.
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Speaker 8: And then I spent 10 years in Michigan. I moved
14:35
Speaker 8: here in 2009. What brought you to Atalanta?
14:39
Speaker 5: My wife.
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Speaker 8: We were finishing up our time in pastoring in Michigan.
14:46
Speaker 8: I told her we want to go home to California.
14:49
Speaker 8: She came to Atalanto first because she has a friend
14:53
Speaker 8: that lives here in Atalanto. She looked around. She found
14:55
Speaker 8: a place to stay in Atalanto. When she first said,
14:57
Speaker 8: we're moving to Atalanto, I'm like, where is that? She
15:02
Speaker 8: explained to me where it was at, and I'm like, okay, okay.
15:13
Speaker 3: As soon as he moved to Adelanto, Jermaine jumped right
15:16
Speaker 3: into public service. He ran for a spot on the
15:19
Speaker 3: school board and for a seat on the city council
15:22
Speaker 3: and won both. One of the big issues back in
15:26
Speaker 3: 2012 was the city budget.
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Speaker 8: The city of Adelanto, when it was incorporated, did not
15:33
Speaker 8: have a large enough tax base to actually make it work.
15:37
Speaker 8: And they never did anything to actually get a tax
15:40
Speaker 8: base to move forward.
15:43
Speaker 3: As a city council member, Germain had some success leaning
15:46
Speaker 3: into Adelanto's prison industry. He renegotiated the city's contract with GeoGroup,
15:52
Speaker 3: the private company that owns the immigration detention facility. He
15:56
Speaker 3: got the city a few more cents per prisoner per day.
16:01
Speaker 3: But the new revenue the city squeezed out of the
16:03
Speaker 3: private prison company was a drop in the bucket compared
16:06
Speaker 3: to what was needed to balance the city's budget. So
16:10
Speaker 3: in 2014, Germain decided that in order to fix things properly,
16:14
Speaker 3: he needed more than just a city council seat. He
16:18
Speaker 3: would run for mayor, which wasn't necessarily a risky move
16:21
Speaker 3: on his part. If he won, he'd become mayor. If
16:25
Speaker 3: he lost, he would remain a city council member. And
16:29
Speaker 3: it was in the midst of his mayoral campaign that
16:31
Speaker 3: Germain met the man who would challenge both the future
16:35
Speaker 3: of Adelanto politics and eventually be a part of a
16:39
Speaker 3: scheme that would change Jermaine's life forever. This chance encounter
16:46
Speaker 3: happened when Jermaine was driving near his home. And he
16:49
Speaker 3: noticed a white guy with long gray hair and a
16:52
Speaker 3: big scraggly beard. And this stranger was messing with one
16:57
Speaker 3: of Jermaine's campaign signs. So Jermaine pulled over to investigate.
17:03
Speaker 8: I'm like, who are you? And he's like, oh, I'm
17:06
Speaker 8: Johnny Buttwater. And I'm like, Okay, and he just looked like,
17:10
Speaker 8: to me, an old hippie.
17:14
Speaker 3: Johnny Bug Woodard Jr. told Jermaine that he was running
17:17
Speaker 3: for city council in the upcoming election. There were two
17:21
Speaker 3: seats up for grabs, and Bug had his sights on
17:24
Speaker 3: one of them. When they met that day, Bug claimed
17:28
Speaker 3: he was putting up one of his own campaign signs
17:31
Speaker 3: when he noticed that Jermaine's sign was broken, and he
17:34
Speaker 3: was simply being a good Samaritan by fixing it for him.
17:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I was fixing his sign, maybe. We
17:41
Speaker 5: came up to each other. He was on the campaign trail.
17:44
Speaker 5: I'm on the campaign trail.
17:47
Speaker 3: Bug was relatively new to politics. This was his first
17:50
Speaker 3: run for office, though he had been a board member
17:53
Speaker 3: of the High Desert Tea Party. As Bug and Jermaine
17:57
Speaker 3: got to talking, Bug laid out his political platform, which
18:01
Speaker 3: was pretty radical for the time. Bug had taken a
18:04
Speaker 3: look at the city's dire financial troubles. and realized that
18:09
Speaker 3: something needed to be done.
18:11
Speaker 5: And then I decided, you know what, let's do a
18:13
Speaker 5: little research on this. I got on old Google. I
18:17
Speaker 5: did a little Googling, and I found out the secret.
18:23
Speaker 3: The secret, according to Bug, via Google, was marijuana. Specifically,
18:29
Speaker 3: marijuana cultivation. And at this time, that was a radical idea.
18:35
Speaker 3: No city in Southern California had ever legalized commercial weed cultivation.
18:41
Speaker 3: According to Bug, it would be a way for Adelanto
18:44
Speaker 3: to get into the black without having to cut spending
18:47
Speaker 3: or increase taxes, like the other council members at the
18:50
Speaker 3: time were proposing. But Jermaine was against the plan.
18:56
Speaker 8: Well, I'm a retired pastor. So on the Christian side,
19:00
Speaker 8: I had a real hard time with the doctrine that
19:03
Speaker 8: I've gone through throughout my life.
19:06
Speaker 3: As much as Germain was against Bugg's plan, he wasn't
19:09
Speaker 3: all that worried because he felt that Bugg's chances of
19:12
Speaker 3: winning were slim at best. Yes, California voters had legalized
19:17
Speaker 3: marijuana for medicinal use 20 years prior, but commercial cultivation
19:23
Speaker 3: and recreational use were still illegal in the state. And
19:27
Speaker 3: the reality was that the vast majority of cities and
19:30
Speaker 3: counties in California, including relatively conservative Adelanto, did not want
19:36
Speaker 3: pot being grown or sold in their community. It would
19:40
Speaker 3: take a pretty savvy political operator to pull off Bug's
19:44
Speaker 3: plan in this part of the state. And Jermaine's first
19:47
Speaker 3: impression of Bug was that he did not have the
19:50
Speaker 3: political knowledge or skill to make that happen.
19:54
Speaker 5: I remember he goes, you ain't got a chance in
19:56
Speaker 5: hell now. It's good luck. I went, well, good luck
20:00
Speaker 5: to you too, Jermaine.
20:08
Speaker 3: Sometimes, out here in the West, A stranger comes to
20:12
Speaker 3: town and saves the city from whatever peril is threatening
20:16
Speaker 3: the townspeople. And sometimes, a stranger comes to town disguised
20:22
Speaker 3: as a savior, but turns out to be just another grifter.
20:30
Speaker 3: Bug and Germaine represented two very different ways of doing things.
20:35
Speaker 3: Germaine was a part of the old guard, the regime
20:38
Speaker 3: that was in power at the time. And the general
20:42
Speaker 3: consensus among the old guard was that the way to
20:45
Speaker 3: save Adelanto from bankruptcy was to raise taxes. And the
20:50
Speaker 3: proposal they put forth was an 8% tax increase on utilities. Bug,
20:56
Speaker 3: on the other hand, was like, why raise everybody's taxes
21:00
Speaker 3: and just balance the budget when we could get rich
21:04
Speaker 3: growing pot on land that nobody's using? It seemed like
21:08
Speaker 3: a no-brainer to Bug, but he was not prepared. for
21:11
Speaker 3: the shitstorm that he was about to stir up. That's
21:16
Speaker 3: after the break. One thing I'm always curious about when
21:35
Speaker 3: I meet people in Adelanto is how they ended up here.
21:38
Speaker 3: This was a question I asked Bug when we met.
21:41
Speaker 3: And it turns out his move to the high desert
21:44
Speaker 3: was driven by two things. Cheap housing and spite.
21:51
Speaker 5: I ended up in Atalanta on a challenge from a
21:55
Speaker 5: very rude, obnoxious lender that said, oh my God, you
22:00
Speaker 5: only have $ 800 a month coming in. You can't afford
22:04
Speaker 5: anything in California. He goes, you might as well forget that.
22:07
Speaker 5: Maybe you're lucky if you can go rent someplace. I'm like, well...
22:12
Speaker 5: I couldn't believe how snobby it was. When that guy
22:15
Speaker 5: was that rude, screw that dude. I said, let's go
22:17
Speaker 5: see what we find.
22:19
Speaker 3: At the time, Bug was living in a 66 Chevy van.
22:23
Speaker 5: I lived in the van in the barn out back
22:26
Speaker 5: because me and my ex, we had a little falling out.
22:29
Speaker 5: I formed rock bands. I managed rock bands. We played
22:32
Speaker 5: in the local nightclubs there. It was one of our
22:36
Speaker 5: happy times.
22:37
Speaker 3: None of Bug's bands ever made it big. but he
22:40
Speaker 3: did manage some pretty promising acts.
22:42
Speaker 5: Maximum Force was one of the hottest bands in San
22:45
Speaker 5: Luis Obispo. We were all loadies back then, you know?
22:48
Speaker 5: It's like part of the status quo. It was a
22:52
Speaker 5: normal way of life, you know?
22:55
Speaker 3: Bug says he doesn't smoke weed these days. But back
22:58
Speaker 3: in the day, he was a big partier, and doing
23:01
Speaker 3: drugs was just part of the lifestyle. That's how he
23:03
Speaker 3: earned the nickname Bug. He had some friends who sold weed,
23:07
Speaker 3: and he got a tip that they were about to
23:08
Speaker 3: be raided by the cops.
23:10
Speaker 5: So I frankly gave him a little heads up. Anyways,
23:15
Speaker 5: they told my whole circle of friends, hey, the guy's
23:18
Speaker 5: name is Bug because the bug in the phone, man,
23:21
Speaker 5: saved our butt.
23:24
Speaker 3: So back to the story of how Bug ended up
23:26
Speaker 3: in Adelanto. Despite his happy times living inside a van,
23:30
Speaker 3: inside a barn, he and his girlfriend decided that they
23:33
Speaker 3: wanted to buy a house. That's when they talked to
23:36
Speaker 3: that lender who told them they couldn't afford anything in California. Eventually,
23:41
Speaker 3: they ended up in Adelanto.
23:43
Speaker 5: I said, we like that house. So I go back
23:46
Speaker 5: to my lender, a bonehead by the name of Winston. Bam, bam, bam, bam,
23:52
Speaker 5: the house was ours.
23:55
Speaker 3: Bug was moving from the laid-back city of Pismo Beach,
23:58
Speaker 3: where it wasn't uncommon to smell weed drifting through the air,
24:02
Speaker 3: to Adelanto, a small desert town where the political climate
24:06
Speaker 3: was very different. Here's reporter Brooke Self again.
24:11
Speaker 7: The high desert in general is very politically conservative. Like
24:15
Speaker 7: California is a blue state, but the high desert is
24:17
Speaker 7: very red. Pro-guns, pro-military.
24:21
Speaker 3: Since then, the high desert has become less red. But
24:24
Speaker 3: back then, Bug had his work cut out for him
24:27
Speaker 3: in terms of campaigning on a platform like the one
24:29
Speaker 3: he was proposing. And Brooke says the reactions to Bug
24:33
Speaker 3: among her colleagues at the paper were all pretty much
24:36
Speaker 3: the same.
24:37
Speaker 7: What is this guy doing? Like, he's kind of a joke.
24:41
Speaker 3: What was this guy doing? Bugg's campaign didn't seem to
24:45
Speaker 3: make a lot of sense. His values and political leanings
24:49
Speaker 3: were a little all over the place. Even though he
24:51
Speaker 3: was pro-weed, which was an arguably progressive stance to take
24:54
Speaker 3: at the time, he was an active member of the
24:57
Speaker 3: High Desert Tea Party. He was a guy who loved
25:00
Speaker 3: to go grocery shopping with a firearm proudly displayed on
25:04
Speaker 3: his hip. And it was clear that he was a
25:06
Speaker 3: staunch conservative at least in that way.
25:09
Speaker 5: I used to direct traffic with my car being on
25:12
Speaker 5: my back and my 357 on my side. Direct traffic
25:16
Speaker 5: right on into the cocky bull over here, which is
25:20
Speaker 5: long gone now. I stand up for what's right. My
25:24
Speaker 5: Second Amendment rights are very important. Without the Second Amendment,
25:27
Speaker 5: believe me, you don't have any other rights. You read
25:30
Speaker 5: the Constitution and you find out the real true meaning
25:32
Speaker 5: of the Constitution. The Second Amendment is in place to
25:37
Speaker 5: protect all the other rights that are given to us
25:42
Speaker 5: by God.
25:44
Speaker 3: So many of Bug's political views were very much in
25:46
Speaker 3: line with Republicans, but his stance on marijuana was not.
25:51
Speaker 3: Republicans were largely responsible for the anti-marijuana policies in California
25:56
Speaker 3: and the nation. But Bug believed that his pro-pot campaign
26:00
Speaker 3: would attract a new generation of young conservatives who would
26:04
Speaker 3: propel him to victory in in a town that had
26:06
Speaker 3: long been dominated by conservative politicians. But when an organization
26:11
Speaker 3: of young Republicans reached out to help Bug fundraise, he
26:15
Speaker 3: turned them down.
26:16
Speaker 5: They asked if I needed a pack or anything like that,
26:19
Speaker 5: and I said, you know, I got a few bucks
26:22
Speaker 5: socked away. I said, you know, I think I can
26:25
Speaker 5: just handle it on my own.
26:27
Speaker 3: Bug decided he would spend his own money, but no
26:29
Speaker 3: more than $ 1, 000 on his campaign.
26:33
Speaker 5: I own my own printing company, so I can print
26:35
Speaker 5: my own signs for wholesale. And I said, if I
26:38
Speaker 5: can do it, I can pull it off with a
26:40
Speaker 5: thousand bucks, that's fine. If I can't, at least I
26:43
Speaker 5: try to do something.
26:45
Speaker 3: Bugg says he ended up spending about $ 700 total on
26:48
Speaker 3: his campaign. And the climax, if you could call it that,
26:53
Speaker 3: of the campaign for city council came in the form
26:56
Speaker 3: of a debate hosted at the local high school. Here
27:00
Speaker 3: is reporter Brooke Self again.
27:03
Speaker 7: The debate was set in the newly built Adelanto High School.
27:08
Speaker 7: I remember the red curtains kind of felt like high
27:11
Speaker 7: school musical or something. And the candidates all sat on
27:15
Speaker 7: the stage in a long table.
27:16
Speaker 3: It was September 2014, two and a half months out
27:21
Speaker 3: from the election. And the debate was not a particularly
27:24
Speaker 3: hot ticket.
27:26
Speaker 7: I mean, honestly, it's such a small town, there weren't
27:28
Speaker 7: very many people in the audience. It was like their
27:30
Speaker 7: family members and like a few kind of quirky people
27:35
Speaker 7: in the public who would always complain about the same thing.
27:39
Speaker 3: Two of the four seats on the city council were
27:42
Speaker 3: up for grabs. There were five candidates running for these
27:45
Speaker 3: two seats. Two incumbents running for re-election, a guy who
27:50
Speaker 3: had previously been a planning commissioner, a former mayor of Adelanto,
27:54
Speaker 3: and Bug. the political newcomer of the group, and a
27:58
Speaker 3: noticeable latecomer to the debate. Bug still remembers how the
28:03
Speaker 3: press described his arrival.
28:05
Speaker 5: A guy walks in late, he's got on a Hawaiian shirt,
28:08
Speaker 5: he's got this big silly straw cowboy hat on, and
28:12
Speaker 5: I swear that was a beer he was holding in
28:14
Speaker 5: his hand. No, it was a Monster Energy drink.
28:18
Speaker 3: But Bug did confirm that he was indeed wearing a
28:21
Speaker 3: Hawaiian shirt and a straw cowboy hat. He sat there
28:25
Speaker 3: listening as the other candidates laid out their plans to
28:29
Speaker 3: save the city. They ranged from the unoriginal, building yet
28:33
Speaker 3: another prison, to the aforementioned tax increase on utilities. And
28:38
Speaker 3: it was at this moment that Bug sensed an opportunity.
28:44
Speaker 5: When it came to my turn to speak, I just
28:47
Speaker 5: let him have it. I said, these things, you guys
28:49
Speaker 5: are failing. I said, I think it's time to talk
28:51
Speaker 5: about marijuana. Oh my God, I was in the school,
28:56
Speaker 5: the high school, you know, and all the teachers were
28:59
Speaker 5: there going, oh no, not that. You know, then all
29:03
Speaker 5: of a sudden I let it out of the bag,
29:05
Speaker 5: you know. I got beat up real bad by the press.
29:10
Speaker 3: After the debate, it was up to the citizens to
29:13
Speaker 3: cast their votes. And in the Adelanto City Council election
29:18
Speaker 3: of 2014, just 10% of the residents bothered to show
29:22
Speaker 3: up to the polls. Which is a shame, because local
29:26
Speaker 3: government has a really big impact on your life. Also,
29:29
Speaker 3: the stakes were very high in this election. Depending on
29:33
Speaker 3: what happened, it could mean the difference between the city
29:36
Speaker 3: prospering or throwing in the towel and calling it quits.
29:42
Speaker 3: And when all the votes were tallied, Bug, the political newcomer,
29:47
Speaker 3: the gun-wielding weed guy, had won a seat on the council.
29:53
Speaker 5: I won by the senior vote. I thought I was
29:55
Speaker 5: going to win by the younger vote. I thought I
29:58
Speaker 5: was going to teach these kids how to go out
30:01
Speaker 5: and vote because they're voting for weed. And by golly,
30:06
Speaker 5: they still sat on their ass pretty much. I think
30:10
Speaker 5: it was my 26 votes I won.
30:13
Speaker 3: It was actually 24 votes. That was Bug's margin of victory.
30:18
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you a few more numbers here
30:19
Speaker 3: because they're bonkers. 676 people voted for Bug. That's only 2%.
30:26
Speaker 3: of Adelanto's total population. He'd spent about $ 700 on his campaign,
30:32
Speaker 3: which comes out to a little over $ 1 per vote,
30:35
Speaker 3: enough to put him on a city council in charge
30:38
Speaker 3: of a budget of roughly $ 13 million. In the election
30:43
Speaker 3: for mayor that year, Jermaine Wright wasn't as lucky as Bug.
30:48
Speaker 3: The winner against the incumbent mayor, Kerry Thomas, was Rich Kerr,
30:54
Speaker 3: a retired Marine veteran who worked as a cell tower technician.
30:58
Speaker 3: Germain remained on the city council. So, to save Adelanto
31:03
Speaker 3: from the brink of bankruptcy, the ex-Marine, the former preacher,
31:08
Speaker 3: and the right-wing hippie would have to work together. This
31:14
Speaker 3: was a huge change in the political tide of Adelanto.
31:19
Speaker 3: Both incumbents lost their city council seats, and the incumbent
31:23
Speaker 3: mayor lost. The old guard had been replaced by a
31:28
Speaker 3: new majority. And this new council was about to take
31:32
Speaker 3: Adelanto in a different direction. The city was about to
31:36
Speaker 3: blow up in a very big way. I don't think
31:42
Speaker 3: anyone expected just how crazy things would get in the
31:45
Speaker 3: months and years ahead. The money that would pour into
31:49
Speaker 3: this small desert town. Celebrities, professional athletes... a Russian oligarch,
31:56
Speaker 3: and eventually, the FBI.
31:59
Speaker 2: I seen that duffel bag of money come in, and
32:01
Speaker 2: it didn't go to the bank.
32:03
Speaker 3: And I knew that cannabis was going to become just
32:05
Speaker 3: absolutely a fucking battleground for the wealthy. It's a story
32:10
Speaker 3: about what happens when people with a half-baked idea suddenly
32:14
Speaker 3: find themselves in power.
32:16
Speaker 5: The wheels are in motion. Ain't nobody getting in the way.
32:19
Speaker 5: You know, I don't care if you're the sheriff. I
32:21
Speaker 5: don't care if you're the governor. I don't care who
32:23
Speaker 5: you are.
32:24
Speaker 3: And the unintended consequences of a modern-day gold rush.
32:28
Speaker 1: To developing news, the FBI served several search warrants this
32:32
Speaker 1: morning in Adelanto.
32:34
Speaker 3: According to the Victor Valley Daily Press, agents raided City
32:37
Speaker 3: Hall and the mayor's home. And of picking up the
32:40
Speaker 3: pieces when everything comes crashing down. What is the city
32:44
Speaker 3: budget like these days?
32:46
Speaker 1: You funny!
32:48
Speaker 6: So, it is just a bunch of made-up numbers that
32:51
Speaker 6: they pulled from God knows where. and put into a
32:54
Speaker 6: book and called it a budget. And I'm like, what
32:56
Speaker 6: the hell? Who approved this?
32:58
Speaker 7: So, it's deep.
33:02
Speaker 3: That's this season on Dreamtown. The story of Adelanto. Adelanto
33:17
Speaker 3: is an original podcast from Crooked Media. It's hosted by
33:22
Speaker 3: Written and executive produced by me, David Weinberg. Nick White
33:26
Speaker 3: is our story editor. Angel Carreras is our associate producer.
33:31
Speaker 3: Sound design, mix, and mastering by Brendan Baker of Phenomophon.
33:37
Speaker 3: Our theme song is by Icarus himself. And our original
33:41
Speaker 3: score is by Eric Phillips. Fact-checking by Amy Tardif. Additional
33:47
Speaker 3: production help from Inez Maza, Sydney Rapp, and Kobe Copeland.
33:52
Speaker 3: Thanks to Betsy Zyko for narrating portions of the show.
33:57
Speaker 3: From Crooked Media, our executive producers are Sarah Geissmer, Katie Long,
34:02
Speaker 3: and Mary Knopf. With special thanks to Allison Falzetta, Lyra Smith,
34:07
Speaker 3: Andrew Leland, Richard Parks III, Shaka Mali, and Katya Epikina.