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Tallahassee Elections Mischief? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Five past the hour. It's second hour. It's Thursday here
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. About to get
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: real busy in here. I am joined, as always, on
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Thursdays by the executive editor at Tallahassee Reports, the website Tallahasseereports.com.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: He is Steve Stewart.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Hello, sir. Good morning, Preston.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Story came out behind a paywall at the Tallahassee Democrat
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: talking about a $ 30 million potential loan needed to make
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: payroll for Leon County Schools.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Do explain. Yeah. Well, look, we've been covering the financial
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: problems with the school board for the last year or so,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: and we're starting to see things. And I'm going to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: talk about the school board. I'm not going to single
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: out Rocky Hanna or any specific board member. This is,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I think, a collective problem. And we're starting to see,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I think now that it's been a problem for a while.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Chickens are coming home to roost. So evidently you get
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: your tax, your property tax money around December. And so
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: you've got to budget, right? And so what we're hearing
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: now is they don't have the money between now and
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: when they're going to get their cash from the property taxes.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: That's bad budgeting. Well, and so this is not the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: first time. If you look at what has been reported,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: so right now they don't have reserves to go to
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: make up the shortfall until they get paid. And so
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: they're looking at considering a $ 30 million loan. And then,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: but if you, if you look at the facts, they
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: did this last year, but just didn't tell anybody because
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: they had the reserves to sort of tide them over.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: So this is an ongoing problem. And now you, you know,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: you don't have the reserves, so you got to go
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: do something else. And the thing about this is, is
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the board has said, well, look, you know, if they
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: had distributed this tax money on a monthly basis, we
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have this problem. Why don't I think they would,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: because if you, Well, it's about budgeting.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: It's about budgeting. And if you had it, so why
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: can't you just distribute it on a monthly basis and
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't have had that problem last year? So the
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: key here is that they had the problem last year,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: but it didn't make the news because they had the
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: reserves and they didn't really have to, they didn't have
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: to go out and they could do that without, you know,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: having to go out and get a loan. So again,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I think the, if you look at this from a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: broad sense, there are other school districts that are doing this.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: across the state. That's their sort of defense. We've had
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: plenty of warning of what's going on here. There are
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: school districts that aren't doing this. This on top of
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: what's going on, decline in students here in Leon County,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: high administrative costs, which they have cut a little bit,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: but they didn't get to this soon enough.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And it's like, But they're still way overstaffed at the district,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and they're overstaffed in the schools.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, and they're not closing any schools. Yeah. And Alva
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Smith has brought this up, and now this even looks— it' s like,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: what are you doing here? And so this is a
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: systemic problem. This is not— look, you've got school board members,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: you've got Rocky Hanna, you've got professional people that are hired,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and— Not to mention, you've got the issue with this foundation, again,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: finances with the foundation. You've got people that are suspended.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: This is just a systemic problem, and you've got to
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: start to figure out or you've got to start to wonder, really,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: who is really mining the store? And it's a problem.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Steve, there are organizations in all different kinds of sectors.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: There are nonprofits. There are missionary organizations. There are for-profit
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: that rely on donations. And they get a lump sum
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: donation and they have to take that and divide it
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: about by 12 until they get the next one.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Why didn't the county do that?
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Why didn't the county take their tax dollars and divide
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: it by 12 and wait for the next year?
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And that's the problem. And, you know, again, if you've
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: got professional budget people, I'm sure they're telling them this
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: and they're giving them the heads up. But I got
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: to tell you, and I know this sounds self-serving, but
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: what we're seeing, a lot of these things we're seeing
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: around this community is a direct result of a lack
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: of resources from local media to cover these things, or
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: if they are covering it, they're not digging into it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And we started with the administrative, you know, we were
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the only, we were the first ones on this. Okay.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And this is, you're starting to see the impact of
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: a lack of media coverage and we're trying to do
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: what we can, but we can just imagine if we
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: had a couple more reporters to be digging into this stuff,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: because if you look at the reporting, how does this
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: sneak up on somebody? Yeah. $ 30 million loan.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this real quickly because we've got
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to go to break. Is there any part of this
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that is attempting to be used for leverage on the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: property tax increase?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think no doubt. I think it's a reality
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: because they haven't made the cuts, but there's no doubt
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: about it. But then you've got to start– at some
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: point you get too far past that and you're saying,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, they can't manage money. So why give
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: them more? Exactly. You've got to be careful there. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: so this is what I start thinking. If you look at,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: again– that they did this last year but just didn't
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: tell anybody? They were short last year also. Back with
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Steve Stewart. Again, subscribe.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: It's how you support independent journalism. Keep this paper growing.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: It's growing in circulation. And TallahasseeReports.com is the website. Steve Stewart,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the executive editor. Steve, more with the campaign for mayor
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: here in Tallahassee.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: This is becoming a little... It's not comical because it's
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: not getting a report on, but we're starting to see
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: a picture of sort of not just Commissioner Matlow, but
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: his sort of campaign framework and the people that are
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: supporting him. And it's, from my opinion, is not a
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: pretty picture. And so the latest character has sort of
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: become part of the campaign. And that's a gentleman named
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Stanley Sims, who has been, you know, I would describe
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: him as a paid for professional agitator.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Well, he seems to be angry every time I read
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: anything he writes. He's angry about things.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Right, but he's on the payroll of Commissioner Jeremy Matlin. Oh, really? Yes,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: he is. And so he goes to the commission meetings,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: and he basically stands up in the unagended speakers and
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: goes after the majority. And it's sort of been going on,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: and it's sort of become sort of part of the community,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: and people sort of laugh about it and stuff. First
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of all, he's had a lot of run-ins with the law.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Can I just, does he ask, does he, I'm sorry,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: is he required to announce that he's on the staff
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of one of the commissioners?
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: He's being paid, no. And, you know, that's another thing
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: that usually you have to register that if you're lobbying. But,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: you know, again, these people don't follow rules. But years ago,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: he had a restraining order against him. That's an ethics violation. Yeah,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: a restraining order on him because he was too aggressive
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: with Alva Smith when she was with a non-profit. So just, again,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: a character. But this character has been paid about 10
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: grand by Commissioner Jeremy Matlow since July and just was
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: cut a check in September. So he posts on Facebook
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: going after Osley, Lorraine Osley's family and her health, basically
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: indicating that she's disabled and shouldn't be mayor. Well, I mean,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the post generated about 250 comments and they were not
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: favorable to his post. They were like, what are you
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: doing here? This is, you know, talking about Osley's family
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: from 120 years ago. And again, showing a video that
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: he really focused in on somebody to make them look
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: a little agitated. And it's just, again, and he's a
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: paid worker for Jeremy Matlow's campaign. And so this is
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: the next step. This is commissioner Matlow who likes to,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I call him his enforcers and they may be employees
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: of city hall. If you know, if, if he wins,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: but you've got, first of all, you've got the Ryan
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Ray issue with the anonymous post that, that, Not only
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Tiles reports, but the question was asked to Commissioner Matlow
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: to address it. He won't address it. All right, so
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: they're doing anonymous hits, you know, from City Hall. And
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: he is the aide to Commissioner Matlow, making $ 90, 000 a
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: year on the city dime. And also the head of
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: the local Leon County Democratic Party. Exactly. That's the first one.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: The second one, Chris Estanga, who was part of the
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: fake Facebook post that tried to pick conservatives against African Americans.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Commissioner Matlow didn't know anything about it, banished her from
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: the campaign. Oh! You know, the Toss Democrats reporting that
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: she's still being paid. Magically. Yeah, magically. And now you
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: have this character, Stanley Sims. And, you know, he is, again,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: you know, when you're being paid tens of thousands of
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: dollars for a campaign and then you start, you know,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: you go on your Facebook and you start posting things
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: about the campaign. I mean, at some point, Commissioner Matlow
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: bears a little responsibility for this also. Of course. But
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: he seems to be. You know, these enforcers, he likes
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: to say he doesn't know anything about. Plausible deniability. He
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: either doesn't answer the questions or, in the situation with Astanga,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: likes to say, you know, he knew nothing about it.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: And now we've got Stanley Sims going after Lauren Osley's
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: family and, you know, mischaracterizing her health. So, you know,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: I can't get, and we'll continue to cover this, but
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: this is, I don't think the people of Tallahassee are
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: ready for what, could be coming here uh... because commissioner
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: malice not being honest about exact you know what he's
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: allowing his campaign to do it's dirty tactics there personal
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: attacks and then you know he goes off and acts
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: like he has nothing to do with well.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Is clearly wanted to be mayor since before he was
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: ever elected to the commission it.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Twenty seventeen mayor from aloe was a u r l
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: it was bought and now he's you know turned out
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: i see and hiring these enforcers to go out in
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: cause problems.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And he's used these bullying tactics against his colleagues in
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: previous races for a few election cycles. So this is
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: an absolute coordinated effort. And it's up to you, Tallahassee voters,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: on what you want for the future of this community.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: 17 past the hour. With the iHeartRadio app and on
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: hundreds of devices like Alexa, Google Home, Xbox, and Sonos.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: And iHeartRadio Station.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: 22 minutes passed with Steve Stewart of Tallahassee Reports. And again,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you're just getting fact-based, data-driven reporting at TallahasseeReports.com. And it's
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: actually a place where opinion is separated from the reporting.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: And Steve Stewart, the executive editor with me. Steve, we've
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: talked about what I would maybe phrase as, you know,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: these are covert ops by a local campaign. But we
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: also have mis- and disinformation campaigning going on in local
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: races as well.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Look, in politics, timing is everything. When you want to
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: run for an office, you know, it's like sometimes it's
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: just not the right time. Like if you're trying to
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: overthrow an incumbent, you've got to have an issue, right?
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: And if things aren't bad... then you've got to make
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: things up. And as we've talked about, Commissioner Matlow, he's
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: wanting to have been mayor for the last 10 years.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: And so the problem is if you start looking at
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: what's going on in the city of Tallahassee, there are
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: some very positive things if you start looking at actual numbers. Now, listen,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: there's issues to address. Of course. There will always be issues.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Even in the best cities, there will be issues. But
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: some facts. The number of homeless people are down. Have
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: you seen that anywhere? No. The last two or three
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: years in the city of Tallahassee, the number of homeless
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: people dropped from 800 to this point in time count
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: in January. It's down the last couple of years. Okay. Crime, shootings. Okay.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Tallahassee Democrat keeps up the database, which I use and
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: report on. You know, three years ago. And credit them,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: which they don't generally do, but that's all right. Three
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: years ago, we had an annual rate of 32 shooting
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: deaths a year. Okay. It really spiked. We're down. It's
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: in half now. It's it, you know, of course, any
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: murder is too many, but it's down to like 15,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: you know, one a month down. Okay. Do you hear that?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: You don't hear that jobs. People roll their eyes, but
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: three-year job growth in Leon County. Okay. Is above the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: state average. Can it be better? Sure. Can. All right. Wages, wages,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: top 15. Okay. And so there are a lot of
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: good things, but you don't hear that because they can't run.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: You can't. You can't overthrow the status quo if they
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: talk about that. So what they talk about is data centers. Or,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: and this is what I want to talk about, you
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: see Donovan Johnson continually harping on the 25% poverty rate
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: in Leon County, which is a complete fraud. And the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Census Bureau, where she gets that 25% number, she rounds
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: the 21 up to 25, will tell you it's a fraud.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: They report the number, and then they say, look, this
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: number's driven because of the student population. If you account
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: for students, okay, this number goes down to like 13, 14%.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: But that's not, that doesn't sound as good as 25%. No,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: it doesn't resonate. It doesn't resonate, right? And so you
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: see this misinformation, and it just gets put out there,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: and then you say it two or three times, and
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: people start thinking this is true. It's not. It is disinformation.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And so another thing you hear, Commissioner
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Matlow say, we're going to increase renewable energy because that's
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: what we want to do ideologically, and we're going to
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: lower electric rates. It's not possible. It is impossible. Not
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: only is it impossible, is I did the research. Southeastern
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: part of the United States, because electric rates are determined
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: a lot geographically. We don't have access to hydropower in Southeast.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I can't find them. I make a post on our
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Facebook Help me out. It is impossible to increase in
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: this part of the United States renewable energy.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Well, to that point, you had experts post on Facebook
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: that are in this field that do this for a living.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Right. And Gainesville tried it in 2015 with a biomass plant.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Their rates went up 50%. They're just starting to recover
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: from this. And so it's impossible. But then again, so
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: here we go again, Commissioner Matlow putting this stuff out because...
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: A California group is helping finance his campaign, and that's
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: what they want him to say.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: So things in the city are relatively okay, and so
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: they're importing issues.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, are making them up. Data center is really the
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: data center is a really huge issue. No, it's emotional.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: They're going after the emotional side of this because they
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: can't talk about what's going on from the operations. Now, issues,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: you talked about the salary of the city manager. Yeah.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: All right. Definitely shouldn't be $ 317, 000. Nope. Right? But I
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: got to tell you, that's a problem for me, but
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: it's not one that I would consider letting the progressives fix.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's not a hill to die on at
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the expense of turning this over to.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: A bunch of socialists. Right, so the point is there's
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: some issues, but what we're not getting is the clean
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: picture of what's going on in our community. And I
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: will tell you one thing there is a problem with,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: and I've talked about this a little bit, is the
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: number of single-parent households in this community. And, you know,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: we can talk more about that later, but that is
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: an anchor on the quality of life issues that we're
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: facing here in Lehigh County. And it is a number
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: that we are in the top 10 on in the
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: state of Florida. It's quantifiable. Oh, definitely. Yeah. As always,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: thanks for the reporting. We'll talk again next week. Thank you, Preston.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Steve Stewart, again, subscribe. That's how you can make a difference.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to the paper. That means more reporters, more coverage.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: even more information and more exposure, which might drive other
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: media outlets to do some more reporting.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It's 28 past the hour.