Latest / Chuck Douglas / COVID Funds Trucker English Law and your calls

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COVID Funds Trucker English Law and your calls · Chuck Douglas

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  Speaker 1: Check out us in the Power hour six ten double
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  Speaker 1: UTVN eight two one nine eight eighty six is my
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  Speaker 1: number eight to one WTVN or eight hundred and sixty
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  Speaker 1: to TENU WTVN. All right, so here's the news store.
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  Speaker 1: I an't get it from any of several sources. Here,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to pick UH. Let's see here, let's go
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  Speaker 1: with the kirk o'neial version. All right, correction or competition
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  Speaker 1: in the pizza restaurant industry growing over the last couple
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  Speaker 1: of years. Total number of dining locations increasing almost one
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  Speaker 1: percent from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four. You
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  Speaker 1: would think that's right, are good? The number of businesses
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  Speaker 1: reaching seven thousand or seventy seventy four thousand, seventy seven
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  Speaker 1: last year. This is all data from UH. It's called Statista.
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  Speaker 1: I guess they keep tracking this stuff. Now. With all
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  Speaker 1: that the growth, the positive momentum pizza sector growing, so
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  Speaker 1: do all all their economic challenges that present or prevent
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  Speaker 1: many businesses from achieving success. Food costs increase by an
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  Speaker 1: average of twenty nine percent, labor costs by thirty one percent.
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  Speaker 1: This is between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four. Restaurant
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  Speaker 1: industry doesn't have any statistics for twenty twenty five yet,
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  Speaker 1: but the National Restaurant Association has projected the industry would
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  Speaker 1: add two hundred thousand new jobs to bring total restaurant
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  Speaker 1: employment to about fifteen point nine million by the year end. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: this all sounds good, and you know, you know, we
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  Speaker 1: as Americans love food. I mean, we keep going out
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  Speaker 1: this place. This place was iconic once upon a time.
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  Speaker 1: But amidst all that good news, all that growth, they
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  Speaker 1: are announcing the closing of even more locations. There's one
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  Speaker 1: that I still I can't believe I can go and
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  Speaker 1: have lunch. I am talking about Pizza Hut. They filed
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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven bankruptcy already in twenty twenty four, sold off
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  Speaker 1: seventy seven restaurants as part of that bankruptcy. Domino's largest
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  Speaker 1: franchise of the global pizza chains out there, in February
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  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, said it's shutting down two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and five of its low performing stores. This may sound trite,
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  Speaker 1: but I have strange barometers. If America cannot keep the
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  Speaker 1: pizza places alive, I think that's a bad sign. It's crazy.
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  Speaker 1: I know, I'm not looking at the stock market. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not looking at the DOW. I'm not looking at the
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  Speaker 1: S ANDP. I'm not looking at the overseas after hours training.
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  Speaker 1: I'm looking at our habits. And if we can't keep
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  Speaker 1: the pizza places going, this is bad. On the same page,
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  Speaker 1: you know Big Lots purchased by another company. They are
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  Speaker 1: opening like one hundred and sixty four of the stores.
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  Speaker 1: They were going to close down everything, but they are
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  Speaker 1: reopening in maybe one hundred and I think it's one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four. None of what you're here, by
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  Speaker 1: the way, but they are coming back from the death grip.
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  Speaker 1: I just I don't know what to think anymore. It's
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  Speaker 1: hard to tell whether we're on an upswing or a downswing.
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  Speaker 1: I know there's going to be challenges. I know we
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  Speaker 1: have some rough patches to get through. But when news
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  Speaker 1: like that comes out, I just I don't know. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what I'm thinking, how I feel about it
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  Speaker 1: because it's counteracted. Like I was talking about gas prices
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  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago. In the same day you
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  Speaker 1: get the report gas prices are down around central Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: You go to the corner and gas jumped up so
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  Speaker 1: you can't even keep up with it. I saw a
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  Speaker 1: story today, what are we down ten cents over the
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  Speaker 1: last week. I'm scared to go get gas because it's
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  Speaker 1: probably going to jump thirty cents when I want it. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: want to put that out there in it kind of
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  Speaker 1: a lead up to this story as I've been hounding
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  Speaker 1: everybody lately about the utility cost AEP saying they want
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  Speaker 1: more money, water bills being Lisa rontell Over at Channel
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  Speaker 1: sixty to a story on the water bills. Some people
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  Speaker 1: seeing just outrageous. I think mine are outrageous. I'm already
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  Speaker 1: through the first two quarters of this year. I've already
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  Speaker 1: laid out one thousand dollars for the water bill. Crazy,
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  Speaker 1: five hundred and ten dollars for the first quarter, four
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  Speaker 1: hundred and forty seven dollars for the second quarter. Crazy
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  Speaker 1: that it costs that much. So the City of Columbus
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  Speaker 1: has now agreed to spend about six hundred and seventy
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  Speaker 1: dollars or six hundred and seventy thousand from lingering federal
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  Speaker 1: COVID nineteen dollars to help some low income residents with
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  Speaker 1: their utility bills. Council voted on Monday the twenty eighth
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  Speaker 1: to authorize using up to six hundred and seventy three
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  Speaker 1: thousand on hundred and seventy five dollars for sixty five
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  Speaker 1: dollars credits for qualifying water and sewer customers. The credit
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  Speaker 1: is intended to help offset the six percent rate increase
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  Speaker 1: from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five. Council approved
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  Speaker 1: that rate increase. By the way, low income customers could
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  Speaker 1: already get twenty five percent off their water and sewer bills.
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  Speaker 1: I believe you have to show that you're low income
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  Speaker 1: enough to be getting public assistance like food stamps or
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  Speaker 1: something like that. Council Member Chris Weisch, chair of the
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  Speaker 1: Public Utilities and Sustainability Committee, sponsored the ordinance to contribute
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  Speaker 1: the program or to continue the program for a third year.
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  Speaker 1: Why said there will also be some COVID dollars for
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  Speaker 1: continuing the program in twenty twenty six. My question, I
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  Speaker 1: think it's a legitimate question. It's a basic question. If
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  Speaker 1: you can do this, why not just lower the rates.
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  Speaker 1: If you can shuffle around COVID money or move something
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  Speaker 1: from capital improvements over to public utilities, or why not
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  Speaker 1: just lower the rates. The bureaucracy required to administer the
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  Speaker 1: receiving of the maintenance, of the distribution, of the transferring
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  Speaker 1: of those dollars would be another savings because you wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: need all that anymore. So you can put that money
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  Speaker 1: against it too, and lower the rates even more. Too
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  Speaker 1: many times, too often, from too many people. And it's
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  Speaker 1: not a Republican or Democrat thing. It's pretty much all politicians.
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  Speaker 1: They make it look like they're doing something when what
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  Speaker 1: they could do is just not do what they did
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  Speaker 1: in the first place, and then there'd be no need
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  Speaker 1: for anybody to do anything because life would be better.
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  Speaker 1: And I think this is yet another another instance of
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  Speaker 1: this money that was supposed to be for COVID that
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  Speaker 1: we never used. Shouldn't that have been returned to the
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  Speaker 1: federal government anyway? Why is it still sitting in a
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  Speaker 1: bank account somewhere or wherever it sits if we did
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  Speaker 1: not use it for its intended purpose, shouldn't it have
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  Speaker 1: been returned? But we still have it, so we're going
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  Speaker 1: to spend it. But why not just lower the rate
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  Speaker 1: instead of creating yet another bureaucracy justifying more city paychecks,
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  Speaker 1: more staff to move that money from where it is
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  Speaker 1: to where you wanted to be, and then to administer
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  Speaker 1: that money to the programs and the way you wanted
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  Speaker 1: to be administered to the right accounts and all that
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  Speaker 1: just lower the rates. Or maybe that's just me. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know. A two one nine eight eighty six. A
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  Speaker 1: two one WTV is the number. Aaron wants to talk pizza. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because that's the important thing. What's up, Aaron?
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  Speaker 2: Hey man?
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  Speaker 3: You know, I know that a lot of the pizza
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  Speaker 3: huts closed, but I don't think we're consuming less pizza.
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  Speaker 3: Somebody took that spot and people have gotten kind of
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  Speaker 3: bougie about pizza. You got Portanoy out there with this
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  Speaker 3: scale system and and and and people. You know. I'll
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  Speaker 3: tell you, man, we got some good pizza in this town.
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  Speaker 4: Bro.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, well, I like it.
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  Speaker 1: I like a lot of the independence I did. I
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  Speaker 1: stopped back around Christmas stopped that there's a pizza hut
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  Speaker 1: still in Grove City where you can go in and
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  Speaker 1: sit down and actually have pizza, which is really cool.
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  Speaker 1: So when did they close it?
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  Speaker 3: Remember we we you talked about this about three months ago.
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  Speaker 3: Dead the last day Josh was talking about he tried
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  Speaker 3: to go down there with his family. I don't know,
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  Speaker 3: let's see what is it. Is it April? I'm thinking
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  Speaker 3: it was around December November.
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  Speaker 1: It was because we were there doing Christmas shopping week
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  Speaker 1: before Christmas. That might be education. This is on Columbus Street,
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  Speaker 1: right at Columbus Street and Hoover and Grave City.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's I don't think it's there anymore, buddy.
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  Speaker 1: Well, thanks thanks for depressing me, Aaron. It's started off
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  Speaker 1: all happy because I got to talk to Bill Farmer,
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  Speaker 1: and now Aaron's going to depress me with pizza. Huga.
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  Speaker 1: Now I'm going to have to leave here tonight and.
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  Speaker 4: Go drive down there, says it's still open.
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  Speaker 1: Not that I can eat the pizza right now anyway,
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  Speaker 1: because I'm doing the awake on one to eighty, But
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  Speaker 1: still is.
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  Speaker 4: The when do you go down and set down in
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  Speaker 4: the pizza? Does it tastes like it used to?
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  Speaker 1: It was wonderful? Was it tasted? And we even got
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  Speaker 1: personal pan pizzas they still had them. I don't think
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  Speaker 1: they were five dollars anymore. But you know what, I
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  Speaker 1: don't even remember what it costs because I was just
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  Speaker 1: having so much enjoyment going in there and smelling the
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  Speaker 1: pizza hut ambiance like it used to be. And the
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  Speaker 1: guy who was working was like the our waiter, and
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  Speaker 1: the store manager. He had somebody back in the kitchen.
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  Speaker 1: That was it. It was a Tuesday, I believe, and
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  Speaker 1: I think it was a Tuesday. No, it was a
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  Speaker 1: Monday because on Tuesday they had a great deal and
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  Speaker 1: I said, oh, we got to come back down here
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  Speaker 1: on Tuesday. And we have yet to get back down there.
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  Speaker 4: I have a great I don't know, I can't remember what.
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  Speaker 4: Maybe after a baseball game, going to a pizza hut
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  Speaker 4: with a bunch of kids eating pizza. Everybody was smoking
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  Speaker 4: and the adults were drinking beer.
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  Speaker 1: I remember, and it was great. It was great those
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  Speaker 1: why the days. Yeah, I mean, pizza place is such
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  Speaker 1: a big part of a big part of our lives.
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  Speaker 1: No matter where you are, chances are you go, oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that was the best pizza. Oh yeah, we grew up
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  Speaker 1: with that. I love that. It's just it's a thing
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  Speaker 1: on the West Side. You know, there's like three or
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  Speaker 1: four places that have been there forever. After high school
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  Speaker 1: football games and stuff like that, people would would go
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  Speaker 1: there and they would the hangout. So the taste the
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  Speaker 1: memory of the taste is generally better because you have
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  Speaker 1: the memory of all those other things, the friends, the family, whatever,
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  Speaker 1: while you were remembering how the place tasted. And pizza
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  Speaker 1: is iconic is literally and I food. When I was
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  Speaker 1: a child, it was a treat for us to order
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  Speaker 1: a pizza was a big deal. If we ordered pizza
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  Speaker 1: like once every two months, that was a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: And then it became kind of an erity thing. People
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  Speaker 1: got pizza all the time, so it lost a little
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  Speaker 1: of its luster in that respect, but we continued to
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  Speaker 1: be for a long time. We were called the pizza
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  Speaker 1: capital of the world. There were more pizza places here
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  Speaker 1: per capita than the other city in the country. If
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  Speaker 1: pizza falters, it makes me nervous just saying that's my
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  Speaker 1: economic indicator. Uh, you want me to get one in
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  Speaker 1: before I go? Can I do it?
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  Speaker 2: All? Right?
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  Speaker 1: Well, who's been on hold the longest? I guess Steve.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go to Steve. You're on sixth ten DOBLUTV.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm surprised you guys didn't talk today about Trump's
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  Speaker 2: executive order of requiring all the truck drivers to speak English.
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  Speaker 2: All the truck drivers throughout the country are happy as
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  Speaker 2: hell today because it has been far too long coming.
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  Speaker 2: Ohio has for about twenty years allowed not just car drivers,
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  Speaker 2: but truck drivers also to bring in an interpreter to
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  Speaker 2: read the testing, the written test, and then tell a
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  Speaker 2: person how to answer it. Actually, they were just answering
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  Speaker 2: the questions for them because they couldn't understand the questions either.
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  Speaker 2: But they were also allowed to have the interpreter in
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  Speaker 2: the driving test.
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  Speaker 1: The thing of it is Steve, that's going to get
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  Speaker 1: pushed back because if you apply it only to the
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  Speaker 1: trucking industry, it's going to be a selective law that
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  Speaker 1: should apply to anybody who is on our roads. If
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  Speaker 1: you cannot pass our test, if you can't read our signage,
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  Speaker 1: if you can't communicate with our law enforcement, you should
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  Speaker 1: not be behind the wheel of a car.
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  Speaker 2: And Arkansas, Arkansas has already been doing it for a
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  Speaker 2: couple of months to their local drivers that if they
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  Speaker 2: pull over a local driver and he can't read a
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  Speaker 2: piece of paper and speak English, they put his license
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  Speaker 2: from him on the spot.
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  Speaker 1: That's why I'm not talking about it yet. I want
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  Speaker 1: to see what happens with it. I appreciate the intent,
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  Speaker 1: but I think as long as it is limited to
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  Speaker 1: commercial truck drivers, this is probably going to get pushed
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  Speaker 1: back in court and it will fall apart. I wish
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  Speaker 1: they'd just do it for everybody who operates a motor
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  Speaker 1: vehicle on our highways.