Latest / The SEANC View / Arctic Alert: Snow, Ice and the State Workers Who Keep Us Safe

Transcript

Arctic Alert: Snow, Ice and the State Workers Who Keep Us Safe · The SEANC View

0:00
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
0:03
We're holed up in an igloo getting ready for this winter weather.
0:07
Got something to warm you up here and enjoy the episode.
0:21
So, like I mentioned, this is the Scenic View podcast.
0:24
I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, joined by Artis Watkins, Executive Director of
0:29
Scenic, Government Relations Director Suzanne Beasley, and Sammy Clown's Scenic Podcast Producer.
0:35
And we are anxiously anticipating, is that the right phrase,
0:40
blast of Arctic weather coming our way, right? I'm kind of excited.
0:45
Oh, yeah. I am not. I went to school in the mountains, loved the snow up there.
0:50
And then also when I was little, before I moved to North Carolina,
0:53
we had a little bit of snow almost every single year that I used to go out and play in.
0:59
And my dog loves snow, so I'm excited for a little bit of snow.
1:03
My kids are very excited.
1:05
I don't know. I mean, I grew up here, too, and, you know, you did get excited once or twice a year.
1:11
Yeah, but it would be that North Carolina snow that comes one day,
1:14
and then the next day it melts away.
1:16
That's the kind of snow I like. It doesn't sound like that's the kind of snow
1:20
we're going to get. I know. Yesterday, the projections were going crazy.
1:23
Today is Wednesday, by the way, but yesterday— 16 to 20 inches.
1:28
I think today it seems like it's shifted north a little bit, the forecast.
1:32
So maybe it won't be that bad. We're at 14 to 18 inches now.
1:36
Oh, really? According to weather app. That's doable around here, as long as it's not ice.
1:41
I mean, I remember years where we got like 13, and that one year we got two feet.
1:47
Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. 2000, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
1:51
That crippled things more than 13 by a lot. Yeah.
1:54
But the question is, does it have ice in it? Yeah.
1:58
And it sounds like there's quite a bit of that coming out. Especially where
2:01
we are. That's a different animal. Yeah, one report I saw, you see the line
2:05
with like 14 inches of snow, but then you don't want to be south of that because
2:09
that's got like three inches of this ice, and that's even worse.
2:13
That's where my parents are, so I'm a little nervous for them because my dad's
2:16
supposed to fly out for a work trip that day.
2:18
My brother and all of his friends are supposed to fly home from Utah on Sunday.
2:24
Well, it'll just look like what they left, probably. Probably.
2:27
Yeah. I would anticipate the worries.
2:29
But check on your people, too, because this is the kind of storm where we'll lose power. Yeah.
2:34
Yeah. And, you know, some people may not have an alternate heating source.
2:39
But, you know, one group it won't stop is the state employees out there taking
2:44
care of the roads and the prisons and all the other vital public services out there.
2:48
So we're happy you're there.
2:51
Go DOT right out the gate. I was behind a truck on my way here,
2:54
so my car looks off. Well, they're all over it.
2:57
And I know that for prisons and HHS facilities, people just have to stay there.
3:01
They can't come and go from it if it's that bad.
3:04
But bear in mind, some of the state employees have to be on the roads to protect
3:09
you and to keep these services going to you. So please honor what the governor
3:14
asked us all and just stay off that road unless there's an emergency.
3:18
And, you know, this is a public perception thing about state employees.
3:21
We talk about it often that y'all don't realize that how many essential positions
3:26
there are and they have to be at work or if they can't get to work, then like Artis said,
3:32
they have to spend the night in prison facility or one of our residential hospitals.
3:37
Yeah. My mom used to work in a hospital and they used to tell them if there was weather coming.
3:43
All right. Get a room nearby. Do what you got to do. You are going to be here
3:48
tomorrow no matter what.
3:49
Yeah, God bless the people working in the hospitals too It's just going to be It'll be tough,
3:54
it'll be beautiful I'm with you, Sam It's kind of exciting It'll be beautiful
3:57
But hopefully there's not much ice in it Yeah For anybody in North Carolina
4:02
And Yeah Pray for the best It's funny.
4:06
I grew up in a rural part of the state, and it seemed like every time you were
4:11
just saying to stay at home and not get out on the roads.
4:14
But every time there's a snow, everyone with a four-wheel drive truck wants
4:18
to get out and play in the snow.
4:21
Or a four-wheeler. Or a four-wheeler. Yeah, those are fun. I used to be one
4:24
of the worst about that. Yeah, it's not helpful.
4:26
Boogie board and a four-wheeler, man. It was on. Yeah.
4:29
There's always that person who says, I want to go out and see what the roads are actually like.
4:34
Boogie board and a four-wheeler. We do not recommend this. Just want to be very
4:37
clear. The scenic view says do not do that. Very bad idea.
4:40
Well, unless you're not on roads. If you're. No, no, no, no.
4:44
We don't recommend pulling the woods boogie board with the four wheeler anywhere.
4:48
Is there like a storied hill around Raleigh where people sled or anything? Where artists live.
4:54
Oh, really? You're. We won't tell that.
4:58
Dorothea Dix Park near NC State campus for those students who just want to go
5:02
out and do some sledding. OK. But yeah, there's a street called Manual.
5:06
And it's spelled Manuel, but everybody in Raleigh has always called it Manuel.
5:11
I don't ask these questions.
5:13
And used to be back in the day, the city would set a big oil drum up there and
5:18
people would make bonfires in it and stuff.
5:21
And just, it's an incredible sledding hill.
5:24
The problem is you've got to walk back up it if you come down. I would do that one time.
5:29
In this day and time, yeah. Well, I think that's weather talk.
5:33
It's going to be interesting, exciting, and possibly scary. So be careful out there.
5:38
Before we get into our topics, let's talk a little bit about our last podcast.
5:41
I thought it was an awesome podcast with Billy Lasseter, the Deputy Secretary
5:47
and DPS for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
5:51
That's a long time. That's a
5:52
title, yeah. He didn't make me repeat it more than once, so that was good.
5:55
But he was very engaging, a fascinating interview.
6:01
Such an awesome person. Really, I did not know all the challenges that he's facing in that. Yeah.
6:06
I actually really enjoyed listening as I was editing.
6:10
It was a lot of things that I had no clue were a thing. I know. Me too. Yeah.
6:16
Like I said, I learned a lot that day. Yeah. I was struck by,
6:20
you know, he mentioned all the kind of unfunded mandates and things that he's dealing with.
6:24
Like he has to have one staff member per eight.
6:27
Yeah. And I thought it was interesting because we were talking about lab salaries
6:31
a little bit and he was talking about the ratio.
6:33
You know, it's mandated that he has to have a certain number of staff per kid that's in the system.
6:40
And that's what he uses lab salaries for is temporary employees.
6:44
Yeah. I was wondering about that. So temporary employees, you probably have
6:47
to pay them more or how does that work? Or is there a reason to use temporary?
6:52
I guess maybe it's just because you can't find permanent, right?
6:55
Well, I think that's the top reason. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't think it saves
6:58
you a dime because, you know, temporary help usually is more because you have
7:03
to go through someone to get it right.
7:05
And they have to make a profit. So they take a cut of that.
7:09
It's definitely not a cost saver, but it's a desperation measure.
7:13
And that's where most agencies are. I think a lot of agencies have said,
7:17
we have to use this for temps.
7:19
But also, Deputy Secretary Lassiter pointed out,
7:22
Part of what he uses his lapse salary money for in his agency is a mandate from
7:28
the General Assembly about, I think it was the safe.
7:33
Firearm safety. Yeah, it's about
7:34
firearm safety. And he was given that mandate, but no money to do it.
7:38
So by law, he has to make this happen.
7:42
So he uses lapse salary money to make it happen. I mean, he didn't ask for it, is my understanding.
7:48
He said it was nearly unanimous. Yeah, it was a bipartisan. Yeah.
7:52
Things like that sound great, but you have to fund them, right? Yeah.
7:56
And I think— Yeah, it wasn't bad legislation. It was great. But if you're not
8:00
going to fund something like that— Because I also listened and noticed that
8:03
he mentioned there was funding for it initially, and then it went through the
8:07
Senate, and the funding disappeared.
8:09
Yeah, the House included it, but the Senate didn't.
8:13
Which is often the case the House is going to have something that the Senate doesn't want.
8:17
The Senate's going to have something that the House doesn't want.
8:19
And that's where you come down to negotiations, except for now.
8:24
But his experience is, from what we're hearing, it's a theme.
8:28
There's a theme going, for sure,
8:29
from the agencies. They're speaking out a lot now, it seems, Suzanne.
8:33
Agreed. Yeah, last week was very busy for that.
8:37
I guess, I mean, we started with State Auditor Dave Bullock's report about LAP salaries.
8:42
And then Leslie Dismukes from DAC spoke in a committee. Where are all these reports coming from?
8:51
So it's kind of oversight committee reporting that, you know,
8:54
was due to happen anyway.
8:56
So Secretary Dismukes presented in the J-LOC Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on JPS last weekend.
9:03
I tell you just about every statistic or comment that she gave,
9:09
she ended it with, we don't have enough staff and it's pay. Right.
9:13
Yeah. And then Secretary of State Elaine Marshall spoke up in the Council of State meeting, right?
9:19
Oh, and at the legislature. Oh, and at the legislature. She was very blunt.
9:23
She said, look, we literally as an agency not only help businesses facilitate
9:29
getting all their paperwork and required legal hoops jumped through,
9:35
but we make money for the state in doing that.
9:39
So we help keep the economic engine of the state going in two ways.
9:42
We help business get up and running faster, and we bring in money doing it.
9:47
And so we're losing on both ends, according to Secretary of State Marshall.
9:50
Yeah, and she made the point that the state's grown so much, but her staff has not.
9:55
Yeah. Yeah, and just to recap, since 2009, North Carolina's grown by 2 million
9:59
people, from 9 to 11 million, roughly.
10:02
That's a massive jump. But the number of state employees is less than 1% higher than then.
10:09
And if the cuts go through that were recommended between the House and Senate,
10:13
we will actually have less state
10:15
employees serving two million more people than we did in 2009. Right.
10:20
And this was I mean, this was a big deal with the DMV stuff.
10:24
I mean, DMV had not had enough employees for years.
10:28
And then we've grown our population by 2 million people, still with the same
10:32
number of employees up until this past year when I think it was 62 new examiners were hired, finally.
10:38
And I've seen that people, in response to us giving that information out,
10:42
which, by the way, is not our information. It comes from the General Assembly's
10:45
website under the Fiscal Research Division, their portion of the General Assembly's website.
10:50
When we give those numbers out, some people say, well, that just shows we can
10:54
do with less state employees. Yeah.
10:56
Really? Because if you were in one of those DMV lines, not so much.
11:00
If you were a family member or friend of any of the five correctional officers
11:05
killed about eight years ago, murdered because we didn't have enough staff,
11:09
then you wouldn't think so.
11:11
If you had a newborn who didn't get newborn screening on time,
11:14
you wouldn't think so. Even the people who have to commute to a job every day
11:17
and get frustrated with traffic because of constructions going on on roads.
11:23
Not enough DOT workers to get those projects done faster.
11:26
Right. And the Division of Emergency Management actually just put out a study
11:31
that was commissioned that shows Hurricane Helene relief was delayed.
11:36
We all assumed it, but they verified it was delayed in part because state and
11:42
local governments were not fully staffed.
11:45
The vacancies hindered our ability to help Western North Carolina bounce back,
11:49
and that's not acceptable.
11:50
So it's wrong to state employees to do this, but to think that we're doing just
11:56
fine by not giving our taxpayers the amount of services we were willing to give
12:01
them almost 20 years ago.
12:04
That's not the reality.
12:06
And even if you don't care about the state employees, another thing from the
12:11
General Assembly's website we've been sharing, states like Virginia and Georgia,
12:15
who have increased their number of state employees.
12:18
Have had a gross state product that's grown higher.
12:23
It's grown at a faster rate than ours. Ours is not terrible,
12:27
but why would you not want it to be that much better?
12:30
So the investment, I think it's sometimes sold to the public as,
12:35
hey, we got to cut these jobs and then we can do more for business.
12:39
And it appears that's not the reality. And by the way, this is gross state product per capita.
12:45
You can look at it two ways, and it's my understanding the per capita way is
12:48
actually the more efficient of the ways.
12:52
So you sent a letter to Governor Stein, Speaker Hall, and Senate President Phil Berger.
12:58
I wouldn't say you are arguing with the DAVE Committee's report,
13:02
but you were absolutely pointing out maybe some of the things that should have
13:08
also been addressed in the report.
13:10
Well, I think you can't help, if that's the only thing out there you can't help
13:14
but be left with the impression, and especially the headlines,
13:17
and to a degree, the way it was presented in the legislature.
13:20
I was in that committee room.
13:22
You're left with the impression that agencies have all these positions they're
13:26
not filling. They haven't been filling them forever.
13:28
They're just using it as a slush fund.
13:31
Auditor Bullock and his staff never used that word, that term.
13:35
They never said they're using it as a slush fund.
13:37
But you were left with that impression. And that's the way it's been written about.
13:41
And that's kind of the alarmism that we've seen since that time.
13:45
And I feel like, number one, if we want to talk about inefficiency,
13:49
these vacancies and the amount it costs in turnover when people don't stay in
13:55
a state job because you're not paying enough, that costs so much money.
13:59
So that's one thing. That's the first thing you should look at.
14:03
No one ever talks about what it costs us, you know, to have to pay the cost of turnover.
14:08
And then you didn't hear things in that report. We were told.
14:12
You know, we're going to come back and we'll tell you what the agency said.
14:15
And I'm sure it's all there. It's on the dashboard. It's in the report and whatnot.
14:20
But is anybody ever going to come back to the microphone and say,
14:23
you know, Deputy Secretary Lasseter couldn't fill jobs because he was trying
14:28
to keep North Carolina in compliance with federal law.
14:31
And by the way, you lose money if you don't stay in compliance with the law
14:35
on top of it, just being unlawful.
14:37
Are people going to come back to the mic and say those things?
14:40
And I'm concerned the answer to that would be no. So that's why we wrote the
14:44
letter on behalf of our members who are, they're working for agencies that are underfunded.
14:49
We were able to uncover part of the statute that was kind of strange as well.
14:53
I don't think we uncover, I mean, we just, we really.
14:57
Point it out, we'll point it out. Yeah, we're not thinking, and no one in the
15:01
room was thinking about it or talking about it.
15:04
The fact that there is a statute that says any job that the House or Senate proposed to cut.
15:11
That's frozen. So you can't even try to fill it.
15:14
So when you see these numbers the auditor's office was putting on the screen
15:18
of days those jobs had been vacant, well, since July 1, they've been vacant.
15:24
So that's, what, seven months because they're not allowed to fill them.
15:30
So you've got some agency heads who are really frustrated over that,
15:34
and they don't feel but so free to go complaining about that at the same time.
15:38
It's a tough position to be in as an agency head.
15:41
So put your constitutional lawyer cap on for just one second.
15:45
How is that constitutional?
15:47
That it's like a de facto cutting of jobs, right? Because it's not passed into
15:53
law, and yet it still has the same effect, right?
15:55
I mean, they can cut the jobs if they want to cut the jobs. So I don't think there's anything.
15:59
No, I was just taking it to the extreme. You're trying to stir it.
16:02
I do think, however, we're missing a couple of key points here.
16:07
And it was disturbing that that committee didn't talk about the fact that,
16:11
hey, media, you know, so that y'all are aware, about 200 days of these jobs,
16:16
they couldn't have filled them.
16:18
But there's the other dark side of all this that I like to call it.
16:22
In 2023, we know, we've talked about it on this podcast, the state budget,
16:28
over a billion dollars, went back to the state that was sent to the agencies to be used for salaries.
16:34
Vacancies were so bad in 2023. I mean, just awful.
16:39
So over a billion dollars goes back to the state.
16:42
Well, that makes the state look like it's in better financial shape than it
16:46
technically is if it's able to keep a 2009 level of staffing for its taxpayers,
16:53
giving the same amount of services.
16:54
We can't possibly give the same amount of services to 2 million more people. So that's one thing.
16:59
And then in 2024, the total receipts brought in to the state were $471 million
17:05
over what they projected.
17:07
But $571 million went back to the state coffers because it wasn't used on jobs,
17:14
like the billion plus the year before that.
17:17
So there would have been a deficit if that hadn't happened, right?
17:20
Well, I mean, I don't know that receipts, I think you still came in with your
17:24
receipts over, but you came in that much over.
17:28
So it makes the state look like, look at us, we're A, doing great because we've got all this money.
17:34
Well, not really because we're not providing the services we were back in the
17:39
day. We're providing less services.
17:41
But, you know, it also gives a lot of fuel to the arguments to cut taxes.
17:47
And the concern there is, at some point, you're going to run out of this money
17:51
that's reverting because of these vacant salaries.
17:54
And in the meantime, your taxpayers are standing in lines longer than they should.
17:58
Your businesses are waiting for longer than they should to get things processed
18:02
and get their businesses up and running.
18:04
And God forbid, somebody's going to die or get terribly hurt because we don't
18:11
have enough people in these law enforcement-type jobs, prisons,
18:14
HHS facilities. I mean, we've seen that happen.
18:17
And we hear from these folks every day. Literally every day,
18:22
somewhere, something happens. Oh, yeah.
18:24
You know, both in the DHHS facilities and in prison facilities.
18:29
DAC Secretary Leslie Dismukes said exactly that in her testimony.
18:34
She said, if we do not address these issues, something bad will happen.
18:38
It's not a question of if. It's a question of when.
18:41
And I feel like we've been living in that same world at least since 2017 when
18:47
we had those five deaths.
18:48
It hasn't improved dramatically. And I think it's kind of a testament.
18:54
Actually, John, where we are now, your overall vacancy rate across the entire prison system was...
19:00
Is at least where Pasquatank and Bertie, the two prisons involved in 2018, were at that time.
19:08
And at that time, those vacancy rates for those two prisons were considered outrageously high.
19:14
And that's now— The north.
19:16
Yeah. And in some cases, we had prisons recently as high as 50% or 60% vacant.
19:22
Yeah, like wasn't craggy up in the mountains. Yeah, and these are employees,
19:26
too, that are, they're working mandatory overtime because there's not enough
19:31
staff to cover the floor, you know, so they're burnout, they're tired.
19:36
It's just a bad mix, period. So the next person that gets on our Facebook page
19:41
and says we need to fire all state employees and they're they're useless and
19:46
all the jargon they always throw at us.
19:48
Just remember that that's why things are still just by the grace of God and
19:53
and their courage, I guess.
19:56
But, yeah, it's yeah. Anyway, I had to bring the mood down there a little bit.
20:01
But I think it's real. It's truth. So where do we go from here with the,
20:04
I guess, with the DAVE report on lapsed salary?
20:08
And I guess all of this will just be sorted out in the legislative session?
20:12
I would assume a lot of it. Legislature comes back on April 21st.
20:17
See where they are at that point. Primaries are on March 3rd.
20:21
So between now and then, legislators can't actually do any business while they're
20:27
campaigning. So there won't be any voting sessions or anything to address issues
20:32
until after the primary elections.
20:35
So, you know, possibly something could happen between the primaries and the time they come back.
20:39
There's a little chatter of that, but we don't anticipate that being a realistic thing.
20:45
Agreed. You know, it sticks in my head that Auditor Bullock has said in the
20:50
last couple weeks publicly that part of what his report showed in his mind is
20:55
that we need to invest more in certain places in state government.
21:00
We wholeheartedly agree with that. The problem is this focus on the lapse salary
21:06
money with the presentation being the way it was, and then no one acknowledging these frozen jobs,
21:13
accounting for at least 200 days of that mess.
21:17
I appreciate his comments, but it's like you can't unring the bell that was
21:21
rung in committee and that people are running with.
21:24
And so what we have been saying is, look, it seems that there's a lot of folks
21:28
in the legislature we've talked to who seem to kind of want to use this as a
21:33
pretext to push those cuts It's on through.
21:36
Yeah. We've had a lot of media response to this issue, which I've been excited about.
21:42
You were on the radio this week. It was WPTF Morning News.
21:46
And then. Yeah. We're recording on Wednesday. And it was yesterday, Tuesday.
21:51
Tuesday, yeah. And we've had several stories. Shout out to Stephanie Mashey
21:55
for doing an interview with WRAL.
21:58
She's our DHHS Study Committee chairwoman. And also she works in Medicaid, which I didn't know.
22:04
Yeah. So she's got a very tough job. She does, and she's a plethora of information. Yeah.
22:09
So you'll probably see us in the news, but shout out to Stephanie.
22:13
Yeah, we need folks to, I mean, you get an encouragement from us all the time
22:18
to reach out to your legislators, but this is specific.
22:22
We need more people like Stephanie, right? Yeah, to speak out,
22:26
to talk about this. Talk about this with your friends and neighbors, your family members.
22:30
Don't just call your legislator. I mean, I want you to do that,
22:32
too, because they need to hear this from state employees everywhere.
22:36
But, you know, most people know somebody who's a state employee.
22:40
So have conversations in your community.
22:43
Stephanie is very much that kind of a person who's going to be talking about
22:46
the situation with Medicaid with anyone who will listen.
22:50
So I think that the default with the public, as we've talked about several times,
22:55
is always, you know, negative towards state employees.
22:58
But if our members can, you know, show them that they are state employees,
23:02
that this is who this affects. Well, I think people don't know what they're
23:06
not getting that they used to get routinely.
23:09
Yeah, that is one of the things that I love when talking to my friends about
23:13
it because we're all Gen Z's.
23:16
Me and my friends, they like to complain. It happens.
23:19
Sometimes when we're talking to each other, it turns into political conversations
23:22
of them being upset about certain things.
23:25
And sometimes it has to do with the lack of state employees because my friends
23:28
will say, oh, I can't get into the DMV. I haven't been able to get into the DMV.
23:33
And I'm like, you know why that is.
23:35
Yeah, because there's a whole story about that.
23:37
There's reasons that that's happening that just your average citizen doesn't
23:42
stop and think about. They don't know.
23:44
They would have no reason to know. My parents, half the time,
23:47
wouldn't know that that's the reason because I'll talk to them about certain
23:50
DOT projects. I'll look on the DOT website because they'll say there's been
23:55
construction going on on this road and this road and this road.
23:58
And I'll look at it and I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's a that's a contracted project.
24:01
That's going to take a while. She's stepping up. Hey, I was an intern for them.
24:06
I love them. They're great.
24:08
Oh, I did see one of my friends. She lives in Fuquay, Verena.
24:12
And the other day she posted a picture at the DMV and she was like,
24:16
there was nobody in there.
24:18
And she was like, no lines at the DMV. It took me seven minutes to get my everything I needed done.
24:23
Shout out to. And she's not a state employee, but.
24:27
And what happened? They gave some jobs to them. I know, exactly.
24:30
That they needed to give forever because they had not gotten any jobs to match
24:33
the two million people that we added.
24:35
And, you know, let's be honest. The auditor's office got, what,
24:40
50 jobs added to do this vital work on looking at efficiencies.
24:44
And they've been throwing out report after report. Right. So it would be great
24:48
and appropriate and productive.
24:51
And by the way, looks like it would help our gross state product the way it
24:55
did Virginia and Georgia if we did that in other agencies as well.
24:59
So why should it be limited?
25:01
We need services across the board and our university system, for goodness sakes.
25:07
Yeah. They're having to do so much more with so much less as well.
25:12
They are providing the workforce that we hope would stay here, but.
25:18
Because you also think about more and more people moving to North Carolina,
25:21
which means more students at the universities in North Carolina.
25:25
Yeah. Yet they don't have enough teachers and professors to teach all the classes
25:29
that are required for them to produce the workforce that they're producing.
25:33
Because it is shameful what we pay people to be professors, to be clear.
25:39
Shameful. And sometimes people question why it's so hard for people to finish
25:43
a bachelor's degree now in four years because you can't get into the classes
25:47
you need to graduate with that degree because they can only offer so many of
25:52
that class because there's only so many professors qualified to teach those classes.
25:56
And to bring us full circle back to Billy Lasseter's interview,
26:00
I thought it was, it surprised me that I guess, you know, he has a 40% vacancy rate.
26:06
And he said that's partly because he has to attract people who have bachelor's
26:11
degrees to these jobs and they're making very little.
26:15
37 grand a year. Yeah. And that's almost impossible. Yeah. I mean,
26:19
who can live on that? Because they're trying to do a job.
26:22
I mean, these are, it's with juveniles. You especially want to make sure you've
26:27
got people in there that are not sketchy people,
26:30
in addition to being trained to deal with apparently multiple mental health
26:35
issues many times, to educate while you're doing all of that,
26:39
and to try to get them ready for when they turn 18.
26:43
Because, again, we cannot scream when things happen, when crime happens,
26:49
untreated mental illness and untreated, you know,
26:53
things the system didn't deal with causes the obvious result.
26:58
And somebody goes out and they victimize somebody else or they become a victim.
27:02
And then we think, why in the world is this happening? Well, come on.
27:07
If you don't invest in something, something bad is going to happen.
27:11
If you don't change the oil in your lawnmower, eventually it's not going to run.
27:15
Exactly. Well, I think that'll do us for this week. We'll slide on to Gen Z
27:19
moment. What's going on in the world of Gen Z, Sammy?
27:22
Yeah, so people have probably seen the monks who are doing their walk for peace.
27:28
They are currently in North Carolina. They've already gone through Charlotte.
27:32
They're expected to be in Raleigh by Friday or Saturday.
27:35
I've done a little bit of research on it. So hopefully the weather is good for
27:39
you guys to go out and support them.
27:41
So are they going to walk through the snow, I wonder? Probably. Oh, wow. Probably.
27:46
Okay, I have a question for you, Sammy. Why is this a Gen Z moment?
27:50
Because the Gen Z's have been going out a lot to support the monks who are doing the walk for peace.
27:58
And it's also been talked about that it's not a common thing.
28:03
The monks only do the walk for peace when it's drastic and you need it.
28:08
This is not something that they lightly said, we're going to do a walk for peace.
28:12
Are they Americans or are they from somewhere else? They're from different places.
28:15
Okay. But a lot of people have been going out there giving them food, giving them water.
28:19
They are not asking for food and water.
28:22
The most respectful thing that I've seen that you can do when going out to support
28:27
the Walk for Peace is to simply bow in respect to them.
28:32
And just be out there in support, in silence, rather than cheering and handing
28:38
them all these things. I need much of my life.
28:41
Yeah, look, their energy has affected the collective. I mean,
28:45
you literally can feel. Yeah.
28:47
That is why so many people are going out and supporting the Walk for Peace.
28:51
Yeah, the crowds have been crazy big and they've grown. They started off in Texas.
28:55
I think so. I believe it was that thing. That's where they're.
28:57
Is it a monastery? I wonder why they selected to go through the south.
29:03
Cruising right through the bubble. Yeah. Maybe they thought it wouldn't be cold
29:07
and snowy. Well, they've got to get to Virginia somehow.
29:09
Yeah, they're headed to D.C. Yeah. They're doing the Sherman's march.
29:14
Anyway Okay Well that's cool Anything else going on?
29:18
You Know Taylor Swift news That I can think of I mean I do know some Taylor
29:23
Swift news More text messages About the Blake Lively Taylor Swift Justin Baldoni
29:29
Ends with us Stuff have been released That's a problem Yeah
29:33
I mean, it's hard to say where things are going with that right now,
29:37
because it seems as though Taylor was a little more involved in those messages
29:42
and stuff than we were first led to believe.
29:45
But at the same time, if she was only hearing Blake's side of the story,
29:48
she doesn't know Justin's side.
29:51
Yeah. Then she might have. That's that's something any girl would do for their
29:55
best friend. They they hear that someone's making them uncomfortable.
29:58
They're like, OK, I got your back. I'm here.
30:00
What do you need from me? I'll burn the world to the ground for you.
30:03
But if she's only hearing one side, she doesn't know Justin Baldoni's side,
30:07
then she might have, once that side came out, she might have been like,
30:10
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not my problem.
30:12
Taylor's in the middle of some drama. Yeah. So at the end of the day,
30:15
what I take from that is we need some Gen Z women particularly to get to know
30:21
the problem with the state employee issue. Oh, yeah.
30:24
And have their back. You get one of them. Yeah, they're apparently quite loyal.
30:29
Oh, yeah. Well, next week we'll have a treat, hopefully.
30:33
Probably going to have Secretary Dismukes on the podcast next week.
30:37
That'll be a great conversation.
30:38
I always say probably because you don't know what's going to happen,
30:40
especially with the weather.
30:42
We have weather permitting. Yeah. And if not next week, soon.
30:46
She had such great things to, not great, but, you know, important information
30:50
to share at the legislature. And we want to share that with you.
30:53
I don't think we've, she hasn't, I don't think we've talked to her.
30:56
No, we tried to schedule her initially, and then our building stuff happened,
31:00
our little mess with our building. So my question of the week this week.
31:10
Is what is one thing you love about the snow and one thing you hate about snow slash cold weather?
31:17
And I'll start, I guess the one thing you love, I love is to see my kids and
31:22
dogs having fun out there.
31:24
And the reason I brought this question up is the thing I hate about it.
31:28
It's like I have terrible eczema on my hands.
31:30
And when it gets cold, it like explodes.
31:33
And so I'm dealing with an issue right now. I don't know why.
31:36
What's the cold got to do with it? I guess it's dry.
31:40
Yeah, but I'm dealing with that right now. So that's mine. What about you? I am.
31:45
Well, the joy of grandchildren seeing the snow because they're still baby-ish.
31:50
So the snow is exciting for them. And it's just cold, man. I'm not down with that anymore.
31:56
Yeah, you just get to a certain point. You're like, no. Well,
31:59
I mean, I can remember going through a certain point in life when,
32:01
you know, I had my own personal summer every day. But that time has passed,
32:06
and I find myself cold more than I used to be.
32:10
So, yeah, that's, I don't know. You age, you get a little arthritis,
32:14
things start hurting. I don't like the cold.
32:16
For me, it's sledding still is my favorite thing.
32:20
And then. Do you get out there and do it? Oh, yeah. Okay. I still have my original flexible flyer.
32:25
That's so awesome. But several other. I mean, sledding is a serious issue at my house. Oh, okay.
32:31
And then, yeah, I know. Don't get hurt is on my mind. Then...
32:35
Look, for me, the negative has become this almost irrational fear of the power going out. Oh, me too.
32:42
Yeah. As though we would, like, actually freeze.
32:46
When people, not really, it's not like we're at the Arctic Circle or something. Anyway.
32:52
It's bad. I think it's worse now because the Wi-Fi goes out,
32:55
too. I don't even care about that.
32:58
Honestly, it's all about the thought of being cold. I guess I got Suzanne on
33:01
that. Oh, I got several books on my shelves that I'll read if I lose power.
33:05
I'm ready. Got something to do. Or you can burn them if you need to get.
33:08
I don't have a fireplace.
33:10
I have nothing. I live in an apartment.
33:13
My favorite thing about the snow mainly is when you go to sleep the night before
33:17
and you see it starting to fall.
33:19
And then you wake up to that gorgeous white blanket. And nobody's messed it
33:23
up. No one's messed it up.
33:24
And I sleep like I have the sunrise facing my window. So I get to wake up with
33:30
the sun and see that beautiful blanket of snow.
33:33
I'm so excited for that part because the snow is supposed to start in the evening on Saturday.
33:38
So it's going to be getting dark and then I'll just get to wake up to just snow everywhere.
33:43
And it's so quiet, too. I guess it's because people aren't on the roads. Yeah, peaceful. Yeah.
33:49
I think my least favorite thing about the snow is that just the going out in it.
33:54
I'm like, I'll go out, walk my dog. I'll throw on my snowboarding clothes,
33:57
what I wear when I go snowboarding.
34:00
Maybe take my snowboard out to a hill in my apartment complex.
34:04
Just slide around. You know what is also a bad thing?
34:07
This is my honorable mention, is how people from up north make fun of us for
34:12
our snow driving abilities.
34:15
And like, oh, that's all you got was like two inches and you can't drive it.
34:19
Oh, I want to redo my negative. My negative is how much the maintenance yards
34:24
at DOT have been cut in the budget over the years because they do not have,
34:29
according to what they tell us, near the equipment that we need to handle things,
34:33
much less in this kind of situation.
34:36
So, see, we got one more thing in about the budget. So, if you're from up north
34:39
and you've moved down here, there you go. I'm telling you, nothing happens that
34:42
the budget and the lack of state employees isn't a part of it. Why are you mad?
34:47
Why are you mad that the whole state is shutting down and that you don't have
34:50
to go to work? You don't have to go anywhere.
34:53
Why are you mad about it? Well, Sammy, back in the day, that was a beautiful
34:57
thing because there was no way to work if we were stuck in. But see,
35:01
that's the thing. And now nothing changes.
35:02
The people from there were still going to work. I mean, if the power goes out and we're not.
35:06
But the northerners, they get so mad because they're just like,
35:09
oh, like these people don't know how to drive in the snow.
35:11
They canceled work. They canceled this and this. And it's like,
35:14
OK, and you're mad about that?
35:15
And like that is an interesting point you bring up artists Like what why did
35:20
they get rid of is it possibly because it's been so warm like they don't need
35:24
We privatize so much that we've just sold equipment sold equipment sold equipment
35:28
And then our maintenance yards in some counties like in Durham County I know
35:34
it's just a few years ago.
35:35
I was told that it was at 12 people. Yeah Now you can't handle a county that
35:40
size and trying to take care of things So, you know, that goes back to begging
35:45
the question, what are we paying if we're adding?
35:48
If the answer to that is, hey, don't worry, we've contracted with some people
35:52
to help us with that, at what rate?
35:55
What are we paying? We need to go in-depth on this because that is like a microcosm
36:02
of our whole problem. What does a snowfall cost?
36:03
I mean, and when you look at the forecast for this snowfall,
36:06
it is literally across our state. Yeah.
36:09
And if you sell all the equipment, the people who buy that equipment,
36:13
they're not going to start a snow-removing company here in North Carolina because
36:17
it's only two snows a year.
36:18
They're probably going to sell that to up north, right? Just because global
36:22
warming is real doesn't mean snow still doesn't happen in the South. Whoa, okay.
36:29
All right, that's a good place to end. Big Gen Z proclamation.
36:34
Thanks, everybody. Build a snowman of us, all four of us. And we'll see you
36:38
next week, weather permitting.