Latest / The SEANC View / The races for State Treasurer, Governor heat up, Public Education Funding, and the SEANC Convention

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The races for State Treasurer, Governor heat up, Public Education Funding, and the SEANC Convention · The SEANC View

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Music.
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Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm Jonathan Owens, the communications director here at Scenic,
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along with Artis Watkins, the executive director. Hey, John. Hey, Artis.
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Suzanne Beasley, our government relations director, is joining us today.
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It's been a minute. And also, Sam Klein. Yay, Sam.
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I didn't forget you this week. I'm so sorry about the other weeks.
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Sam is our digital communications slash Gen Z.
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Expert. Expert. And she'll be speaking for the entire generation. Entire. That's scary.
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Anyone under 25, you're speaking for them, right? How old are you? I'm 23. Oh, okay.
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Suzanne and I both look, y'all have no visual of this, but Suzanne and I both
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had looks of horror on our faces when John asked a lady her age.
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Of course, 24 next week. She's so young. She was like, I'm 23. No problem.
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See, at some point you're proud of it, right? And then you're not proud.
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Then you're just, it's none of your business.
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But we're happy to be here. Every day. Definitely beats the alternative.
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Well, you guys, we had the best of intentions to do many podcasts at the old
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convention. We thought we were really going to do it.
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Took all of the equipment. Took it all. We were finding a room and everything.
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And just like every year, the convention gets in the way and you have to do a lot of work.
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And we just didn't find any time for it. But we have an awesome time at the
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convention, and we'll be recapping that a little bit later. The scenic convention
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is nuts, but it's just so busy.
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I don't think anybody realizes how much stuff is going on behind the scenes
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that we flawlessly belong.
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For a staff member, it's like drinking water from a fire hose for a week straight.
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Things are flying at you all the time. So maybe next year we'll get some podcasts in the can as well.
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But, yeah, I just wanted to kind of get back into the groove here and talk a
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little bit about, I know the legislature came back last week for a brief session.
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What went on down there? They did. It was very brief. They did pass the school voucher stuff.
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I'll explain what that stuff was.
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Tell us more about what happened. Okay, so they didn't address anything for
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state employees and retirees.
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No money in their pocket at this point.
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They are slated to come back in November. Remember, our understanding is they're
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going to address some of that then. I'm hearing some chatter about mini-budgets, so we'll see.
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But what they did do when they were in session a week ago was pass the school voucher bill.
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So almost half a billion dollars to fund people's tuition costs that want to
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send their children to a private school. A portion of it, anyway.
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A portion of it. Opportunity scholarships.
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Yeah. People who have already started school and paid tuition will get a refund.
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If they get the Opportunity Scholarship, you know, this falls into the privatization
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issue that Scenic is always opposed to because it diverts money from the public
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schools to these private schools. The money will follow the student.
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But the thing I think that jumped out at a lot of people, certainly state employees
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who don't make much money because state employees, you know,
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obviously we talk about it all the time. You don't go work for the state to get rich.
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But they took the income cap off of those Opportunity Scholarships.
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So I could make two million dollars a year and I could the state will give me
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money to send my child to a private school, which is kind of wild.
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I think that, you know, we hear from our members and we've said it before on
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this podcast that they're all about choice of where their kids go to school.
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But it seems to have taken a little bit of a turn when you talk about paying
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for anybody's kids to, you know, to be to have that partially supplemented by
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the taxpayers. And diverting it from the public. Eight in 10 children go to public schools.
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Eight in 10 students go to public schools. And public schools have to take every student.
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Like if they have special educational requirements, special needs,
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they obviously will be accepted by the public schools and they will be accommodated.
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So is the argument that this will open up private school opportunities for lower income families?
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I mean, I'm a little confused at this point what the argument is.
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Because that, I know from personal experience, we had a situation where one
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of my son's classmates was invited to play baseball at a private school,
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but he couldn't get there because they didn't have bus service to the other side of the county.
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And there's, you know, his parents weren't going to take him there every morning.
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So, I mean, there's a lot of problems with that. I mean, you know,
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it's not always just the money. Every family doesn't have the resources to provide
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transportation or whatever it may be for their kid to go to a private school.
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I mean, you know, you want to send your kid to a private school, that's great.
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But don't do it at the expense of a family who can't afford. Yeah.
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So, I mean, just to put that almost half a billion that went towards those scholarships in perspective,
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95 million, so less than a quarter, actually less than 20 percent of what went
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to the Opportunity Scholarship is going to DPI for enrollment growth.
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And that 95 million is spread across all 115 school districts.
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Now, which of those school districts are located in areas where there really
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aren't these private schools to kind of fill the gap, as it were,
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if you wanted to use one of those?
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That's still kind of a big question out there. But 95 million across 115 school
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districts is not going to do a lot. That's not going to replace that many.
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Well, if it's for enrollment growth, I mean, how are you going to build buildings?
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And what's stopping these private schools from just increasing their tuition?
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I mean, that'd be a smart business move. Yeah.
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You wouldn't get it anyway. So subsidize private schools.
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It comes back to the same argument we have about every privatization effort, you know?
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It doesn't make economic sense for taxpayers at the end of the day.
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Like, for instance, okay, public schools will still have to take everyone.
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So they're going to be playing with different rules. They'll have to do a lot more and then be judged.
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How many of your graduates went to college? How many did that?
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You know, that's not the end game for everybody that goes to public school is college.
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And so they're going to be judged by these rules that don't apply to other schools.
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But only $23 million was in this bill to go to State Educational Assistance
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Authority for children with disabilities.
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So, ah, I was feeling, you know, my, again, I said it a few episodes ago,
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if you work in our schools, my hat goes off to you.
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I'm sorry for everything you go through, the way people talk about you.
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It's not okay. Okay. And the fact that you're doing so much and so much more
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than anyone else is expected to do and with such a tiny amount.
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And, you know, we've been spending time out in the field with public school
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employees. So we're seeing it firsthand.
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And you know what we're hearing from them that they like about us is that we're nonpartisan. Yep.
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We don't come at the scenic as very nonpartisan as an organization.
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But we will always call out anything that looks like a boondoggle for an industry. street.
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And this is no different than when we looked at the health plan and it was pretty
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obvious. That's a boondoggle for some players in the corporate health care industry.
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This is a bit of a boondoggle, private schools. I mean, it's exactly like the
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private prisons this year. It really is.
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I mean, it's not a good thing to say, right?
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We don't want to compare those two things, prisons and schools, but it's the same idea.
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And we see how that turned out. Yeah. So that's a huge amount of money out the
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door at the General Assembly, but not on public services.
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So that's obviously going to be of concern to us.
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Anything else happen playing that mini, mini session last week?
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I think that was the big stuff. But something exciting happened in Congress.
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It did. So, you know, if you've been paying attention to our work,
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you know that we've been working with the state health plan and working with
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Bernie Sanders regarding specifically the cost of weight loss drugs.
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For all prescription drugs, yeah. But yeah, these just happen to be in the limelight,
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like Ozempic and Wegovy. And yesterday there was a roundtable meeting held in at Congress.
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Bernie Sanders, little group, he put together some experts.
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And one of those experts was State Treasurer Dale Falwell. Go Dale Falwell.
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Yeah. Yeah. The lead of the story in the News and Observer was obviously these
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two are from the opposite parties there.
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And I guess it shouldn't be partisan to tackle this issue. I mean,
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I wonder if that's speaking to anybody in politics right now,
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that, yep, they're working together.
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You know why? Because who's getting done dirty by the way our prescription drug
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market is done right now?
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It's all of us. all of the taxpayers.
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I don't care what consonant you have next to your name at the Board of Elections.
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We are all getting done wrong by this, and it definitely shouldn't be a partisan issue.
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So hats off to Senator Sanders and hats off to Treasurer Falwell,
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who made us very proud yesterday in his testimony.
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And of course, next week, the CEO of Novo Nordisk has agreed to speak week before
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the HELP Committee, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee of
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the Senate, which Senator Sanders chairs.
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And he's going to be answering questions that Senator Sanders and other committee
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members have about why are these prescription prices so many times greater for
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us in America than the highest cost anywhere else in the world.
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That should be a good hearing at the 24th, September 24th at 10 o'clock.
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And it'll be, if you get on X or I'm sure any other social media outlets,
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you can just look up the HELP Committee.
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Just Google the HELP Committee and it'll pull it up where you can click on it
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and listen to the hearings.
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So according to the News & Observer, the Novo Nordisk spokesperson Stacey Beard
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said in an email that the net price of Ozempic has declined by 40% since launch in the U.S.
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And WeCovi is following a similar trajectory. That was their reaction to the hearing yesterday.
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Now, doesn't that make sense, though? I mean, demand is going, I mean.
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No, they've reduced the price by 40%.
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If the price is already at a minimum on the best day, 500% more than it is anywhere
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else in the world, we're now getting a deal to pay 460% more than anyone else
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in the world or 440, whatever.
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Wait, they reduced it by 40%. So on a good day, we'd be paying 440% more than the rest of the world.
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Thanks for literally nothing, not moving the dial at all.
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Yeah. Ninety-nine percent of commercial plans cover Ozempic,
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and over 80 percent of Americans with insurance only pay $25 or less a month, Stacey Beard added.
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Now, who's paying $25? So, okay, Treasure Follwell brought this up on that roundtable
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yesterday with Senator Sanders, because Lester Holt from, is it CBS or ABC?
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Okay, not either of them. NBC. B.C., Lester Holt had interviewed Novo Nordisk
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and said, look, the treasurer of North Carolina said y'all are a cartel.
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And their response was, you can get this for $25.
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Talking about GLP-1s, $25.
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So what Treasurer Falwell said yesterday is, we can't find anywhere at all for even four times that.
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So tell us where it is so we can buy it.
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So next week, I assume, We might hear a little bit more about that.
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That statement shocked everyone.
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There is no $25 GLP-1 that we could find.
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Yeah, so I noticed it may have been on X or it may have been a story that I
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think Manjaro was offering $25 prescription for refills, but it was not open
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to any state plan, obviously.
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And it was specifically called out on the coupon. See, we're back to the school
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voucher thing. Charge the government more.
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Yeah. I mean, the government is not here to be ripped off as a customer.
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And that's why we need more people in public office who are like Dale Falwell
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saying, absolutely not.
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You're not going to take taxpayer money just because there's lots of it.
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And you're not ripping off this nameless entity called the government.
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You're ripping off the taxpayers. Right.
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That's who pays for the government. Every state employee, every retiree.
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Every citizen who pays taxes. Yeah, it's not a victimless thing.
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I mean, come on. And we see that a lot in our health plan, subsidization,
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is that the word, of other parts of health care.
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Just these big slush funds of money as far as, I mean, if you're doing your
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job, trying to make money in business, it's got to be a tempting thing to see
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those big pools of money, whether it's pensions, you know, government pensions,
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government health plans. It's a lot of money.
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And the treasurer handles more money than the legislature.
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By a lot. Oh, gosh.
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More than five. Four times? No, it's well over five times the amount of money.
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Yeah, one person. So one can see why, I mean, an interest in our politics,
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right, in our races, right?
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And the beauty of it, the Securities Exchange Commission said about Wall Street
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and, you know, investments for pension funds.
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Yeah, investment managers should not make campaign contributions anymore.
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They did that a few years back.
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But attorneys still could. And for every one of these alternative investment
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things, like a hedge funders, every one of those transactions involves so many attorneys.
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So there's all these, there's always a way around. Yeah, there's all these loopholes
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where you can still get very involved in politics in a way that feels a little weird.
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So that segues us right into our next topic, which was our ongoing elections
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or our ongoing political season. And we had the opportunity to have our endorsed
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candidates come to our convention and speak.
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Let's start with Wesley Harris, because that is the treasurer's race,
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and that's very important to us. What did you think about his speech?
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I thought Representative Harris gave a really good speech.
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And actually, Representative Harris gave props to Treasurer Falwell for some
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of the good work that he's done.
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Done taking up for taxpayers, taking up for public employees,
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and standing up to folks who are very difficult to stand up to because of the
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amount of money and power they wield in this country.
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So I thought he did a great job. I think he connected with the Republicans,
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the Democrats, and the unaffiliated folks, which are probably at our convention
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in practically equal numbers at this point. And I think he spoke to all of them.
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Yeah, so you can watch all of
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the videos from our convention with the candidates on our YouTube channel.
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It's Scenic Media, S-E-A-N-C Media. Go there and you can check them all out.
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But we're going to splice in a few of these speeches.
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Now you can hear from Wesley Harris.
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It is so incredible to be here. And I want to begin with just thank you.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for y'all's support of me and this race
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for this election this year.
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It is a huge election this year, and having y'all's support,
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it was critical to get us through the primary, and it is going to be even more
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critical to make sure we get through the general election.
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We get someone to follow into Dale Falwell's footsteps into the treasurer's
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office to make sure that we respect and we invest in the most important asset
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this state has, not only our people, but our state employees.
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So everything I am today is because of the people in this room,
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because I live in Charlotte now, but I grew up in rural North Carolina and we
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didn't have a lot going for us.
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But I was blessed in so many ways, namely in the fact that I had a state that
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invested in me and I had a state that invested in state employees so that I had a great teacher.
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I had great services provided for me so that I could have every single opportunity
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and every door open to me.
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And that's my commitment as we go into this treasurer's office to make sure
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that we do invest in our state employees.
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Okay, that was Wesley Harris. Yeah, I thought he enthused the crowd there,
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and I think everyone's cheering him on to victory. I mean, it's a tough crowd, you got to admit.
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This is a big Dale Falwell crowd, so it's a tough crowd to win over.
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It's a tough, yeah, tough act to follow.
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We also had Attorney General Josh Stein. Good evening, everyone.
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What a treat to be, you know, you all are not only the best state employees,
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y'all are the best looking state employees in America.
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President Montgomery, thank you for the kind introduction and for inviting me to join you all today.
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I'm honored to be with so many members of scenic and artists. Where's artists?
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And the entire team of the organization.
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I have to tell you, I'm pretty damn proud to be your candidate and endorsed
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candidate for governor of North Carolina.
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Carolina. Thank you for that honor. I genuinely, genuinely appreciate it.
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We have so much to be proud of here in North Carolina, and so much of that is
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thanks to the hard work of the people in this room.
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There are more than 70,000 state employees, including my wonderful wife,
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Anna, who has worked at the Department of Health and Human Services the past
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dozen years. Any DHHS folks in the room?
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Love it. North Carolina state employees bring a wealth of expertise and dedication
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to every problem they tackle and are a crucial part of our state's success.
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I know this firsthand. I've worked for the state and its people for the past 24 years.
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I've seen up close the dedication of state employees serving the people of North
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Carolina. Obviously, he is running for governor and we have endorsed him.
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What were your thoughts on his speech? You know, again, I thought he gave one
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of the better speeches I've seen him give, period.
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And I heard some positive comments from folks out there.
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Again, we have an equal, we've got folks from all over the political spectrum,
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so it's a great gauge of how somebody's message is playing.
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And I heard really positive comments from folks that kind of surprised me,
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based on what I know about where they fall on the political spectrum, partisan-wise.
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So I'd say he— Yeah, there were those kind of conversations.
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I was at the back of the hall, so I was hearing people talking while he was
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on our stage as well. So, yeah, I think he resonated.
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Yeah. What did you think, Sam? I was really zoned in.
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I struggle to pay attention to anything for a very long time.
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I have ADHD, which is why I mainly take the photos because it's fast.
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It's quick. I keep moving.
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But there's a couple of times where I was pausing and forgetting to take photos
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because I was like, oh, this is great.
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Okay, now I'm curious just from just politically, I'm curious,
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as a young person, what was drawing you in?
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I think it was the fact that he wasn't just trying to speak to one generation
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or anything. He was speaking about everyone.
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Topic-wise, like he was covering? He was covering exactly what people wanted
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to hear. It was what I needed to hear.
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Yeah. It was kind of surprising to me, some of the people that said,
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I like that. That was good.
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I guess that shouldn't shock us too much because, you know, polls are polls.
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They're worth whatever or nothing. thing.
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But according to polls, he seems to be resonating very well with most people.
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That's where I was going to go to.
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The polls have him up pretty high right now. Oh my gosh, it's in double digits.
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Well, I mean, they're polar opposite, Chow. Yeah, they're very,
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very opposite candidates. And that's rare.
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I saw a big debate on X.
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I struggle with the X Twitter thing. I still call it Twitter. It's still Twitter.
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Not really a debate, but, you know, people were wondering when the last time
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a governor or one by double digits.
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And I couldn't really think of easily or no.
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Did he? You know, I don't know, John. I really don't know. It's a good question.
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How's that going to reflect on the presidential race?
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I mean, do you think that that's funny? Well, one draw the other or the right.
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So North Carolina being, quote, a purple state, it's in most states.
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However, the presidential candidate goes, people are looking for them to kind
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of drag along the rest of their ticket.
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In North Carolina, it really is kind of flipped and people are looking to the
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gubernatorial candidate to be their party's standard bearer across the board,
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including helping the presidential candidate.
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I don't know that I would say Stein's popularity has anything to do with the
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presidential race because the polls are showing where he's showing some strength.
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For instance, the strength he was showing with white women, rural voters in
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one of the polls recently. That strength didn't parlay to Vice President Harris.
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So, I mean, it'll be fascinating.
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They'll be studying this one from North Carolina for years, no matter what the
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outcome is. They are going to be.
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But our particular election is going to be very, very interesting.
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And I mean, the presidential and vice presidential candidates are pepper in
21:57
this state with visits. Yeah.
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And you can see that I know that there are seven or eight states that are swing
22:04
states, but I would say Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania are the three big ones at this point.
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I think I'm not an expert in polling or anything, but it looks like Michigan,
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Wisconsin have kind of... You're not a veteran politico? No.
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So I think that what's interesting to me is all of the people who are unaffiliated,
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especially Especially the folks, Sam,
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in your age bracket, who are getting so many pieces of mail from the North Carolina
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Republican Party, but about past President Trump and not about Trump.
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Mark robinson or any other fascinating to me
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yeah yeah it's really that part
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is is strange because i'm registered unaffiliated so
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i get calls i get mail i get i do too yeah i
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mean the young folks seem to be y'all seem to be getting more of the mail which
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is kind of ironic because mail is not y'all's thing no but i check my mail maybe
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once a month but y'all are getting a ton of mail compared to the rest of us
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mail is like my favorite thing and my wife picks on me because I check it like every day.
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I check it when I know I'm getting a package. That's about it.
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But I'm getting probably, I'm
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unaffiliated too, and I'm getting probably five to one Trump to Harris.
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I don't even know if I've gotten a Harris. So it's interesting.
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Are they, because I always look to see who they're paid for.
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The North Carolina Republican Party, they're not the. Yeah.
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So maybe that's interesting. Maybe they think that he'll drive down ballots
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so much. That's what I'm thinking is that they're not relying on Robinson.
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They're not pushing Robinson to they're trying to throw Trump out there.
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I mean, because nobody would make decisions without thinking about the effect down the ballot.
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So it's interesting. I've gotten quite a bit of mail about Trump,
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but I've gotten quite a few phone calls about Harris.
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I feel like they're focusing more on the electronic methods.
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Maybe that's why people aren't necessarily giving as much paper.
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One of our endorsed candidates, scenic endorsed candidates, who is a Republican
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candidate is Commissioner of Insurance Mike Causey.
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And we got a call from a reporter, a national reporter, who said,
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you know, I was wondering what y'all think about the insurance at the coast
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and how much coastal property insurance has been affected or not affected by
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Commissioner Causey's.
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The interesting thing to me is, look, state employees and retirees,
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when they're making their endorse endorsements.
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It's about how the person has led the agency, how they've treated the employees.
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Did they care that there's a almost 25% vacancy rate that's carried on for almost two years?
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Do they care that the public gets the proper service from the employees and
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the employees know that?
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That's how state employees and retirees make their decisions,
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not how much a beach house costs in insurance.
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Because the bottom line is, unless you live at the beach, if you're a state
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employee, it is not likely you own a beach house.
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Yeah. Yeah, what does that say? We're not the right demographic for that,
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to think that's our biggest concern. I don't know if we talked about this. We need groceries.
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When we made our endorsements. In light of it. Yeah. But does that speak to
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our impact on the race, though?
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Like, that people are calling us about a topic like that? I don't know.
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I don't know. And, you know, again, that's a race that's, those are two very solid candidates.
25:25
It's actually, for North Carolina, that's a good thing.
25:28
When you've got two people in a race who are both solid candidates,
25:32
who I think are both very well-intentioned. But it's funny some of the things
25:35
national media latches onto, because for most North Carolinians,
25:39
unfortunately, the cost of how much it is to insure a beach house is not part of our reality.
25:43
Yeah, that's a weird couple. No, we're much, you know, we're much more,
25:47
if you talk about insurance, we're much more worried about health insurance
25:50
being added, because we all need the doctor.
25:52
We don't all need a trip to Bald Head, because we can't stay there.
25:55
Parents so yeah definitely nothing against baldhead i think it's beautiful and
26:01
we'd be happy to come anytime yeah but we will do a podcast from there if you invite us.
26:06
Invite us to your baldhead beach house and we will podcast from there but i
26:11
think one of my friends has a beach house up there we can see if we can borrow
26:15
that for a weekend at sam's friends beach they rent it out i'm sure they rent
26:19
it for us We could pool all our money together.
26:23
So one of the more exuberant candidates that visited, is that the right word?
26:28
Depends. One of the exciting, excited candidates that came and spoke to us was
26:32
Congressman Jeff Jackson.
26:34
I know you all have heard from a bunch of people, this is the most important
26:37
election of our lifetimes. I don't think about it like that.
26:39
I think about it like this.
26:41
This is going to be a wonderful election.
26:44
We're going to win a ton of these races. and when we do, we're going to have
26:50
the opportunity to serve the way that we campaigned, not just with joy,
26:54
but with honesty, with decency, with integrity,
26:57
and to be a part of turning the page from the darkest chapter of American politics
27:02
that any of us has lived through recently to show people across the country it is still worth it.
27:08
This experiment in self-government to show young people that a career in public
27:13
service is still worth it.
27:14
It's something you can aspire to. It's something you can dedicate yourself to.
27:17
Our job will be carrying out the function of the office, but also a symbolic
27:23
component of showing people a new day has arrived.
27:28
For our state, for our country. His speech was pretty fiery and I enjoyed watching
27:34
him because I had just watched his TikTok the night before about the upcoming government shutdown.
27:38
I think he's become kind of a celebrity. He's got a pretty big social media following.
27:43
Well, he's really good at breaking things down in a minimal amount of time where
27:48
everybody can understand what's going on.
27:51
All right, so I'm curious, Sam, because you always have me curious about your demographic.
27:55
What do you think of Jeff Jackson's speech
27:58
and did anything resonate with you in the way it
28:01
did josh stein i feel like his was very similar with
28:04
josh stein i was very into it and
28:06
very focused whenever it was happening as i
28:09
mentioned before i can't focus for a very long time but i
28:13
can't think of particular things that stand out in this moment but when i was
28:17
going back and watching his speech and putting together the video for it to
28:21
go on youtube it was very easy to follow along with he knows exactly what he's
28:26
talking about and he's not afraid to say what he's thinking he's a excellent an excellent,
28:33
speaker yeah and i think he has figured out this social media the way to communicate.
28:39
Some of the more mundane aspects of government to be kind of quasi interesting
28:44
to to all of us but especially younger people yeah and do you think he has national
28:49
it just seems like he has He has national aspirations,
28:52
you know, like I could, you know, I'm watching him speak.
28:56
You can certainly see him being a viable. Yeah. Yeah.
29:00
Tons of charisma. And that race, there was a poll out this week.
29:04
He was ahead in that poll by seven points.
29:07
And I know that race had been pretty close up until recently.
29:10
Yeah. And I don't you know, those two were supposed to you know,
29:14
we were hopeful they would debate and we would again. end. And I know they debated
29:18
a few months ago, but I don't know if they're going to debate again.
29:23
Yeah. And there was a debate, not a debate. There was a kind of a debate today
29:28
on X of whether there should be another gubernatorial debate as well.
29:34
Robinson is kind of pushing for it at this point, and Stein is kind of not wanting to do it.
29:39
Yeah, Stein's camp is saying their concern is that Robinson's on tape saying
29:47
things that are different from what he has said in speeches to smaller venues.
29:52
So they're concerned that having the two of them get up on a stage and say things
29:58
and who's going to, I guess who's going to fact check that, you know what I mean?
30:01
Like, it's a thing now that sometimes the candidates are kind of a little bit
30:07
all over the map, and there's a concern that voters won't know where they really stand.
30:10
And then somebody that was not able to be at convention,
30:14
one of our endorsed candidates, who would have brought the House down just because
30:18
everyone loves him and because he has fought so hard for his employees trying
30:25
to do the work of the taxpayers,
30:26
is Commissioner Steve Troxler. He couldn't be there because he was working.
30:30
The Mountain State Fair overlaps with our convention, so he couldn't be there.
30:34
And yeah, I mean, that's where he should have been. It's appropriate.
30:37
We missed him. But I know, Suzanne, he's been a fighter. He has been a fighter.
30:42
He joined us, which I mean, we had lots of agency heads that joined us in our
30:46
plea for help regarding the vacancy rates across state government.
30:51
It's still right at 20, 24 percent, I think. I mean, you know, yeah, just bad.
30:57
It hasn't gotten any better. But yeah, he was quick to say yes, absolutely.
31:02
It's horrible in my agency.
31:05
He actually went into a meeting and unprompted from us, made that point one time. Yeah.
31:10
Before we ever had the press conference, he's he's his own man.
31:13
He's exactly what you would want in a commissioner of agriculture.
31:16
He speaks his mind. He's he's who you'd want is anything.
31:20
Yeah. He's a good old country boy who's going to tell you like it is.
31:24
But who's going to stand up and fight when it's necessary in terms of calling things out?
31:30
And he knows this is a real problem for the services his agency is able to provide
31:35
to taxpayers and to farmers or to people who need the state labs that do such
31:41
important work, making sure that whatever is in substances,
31:44
whether it's pesticides or things like that, that can be super dangerous to us.
31:48
He's got people making sure whatever's on the label is, in fact, what's in the bottle.
31:52
You know, what always struck me when we were in the middle of that press conference
31:56
and everything that was going on, we were gathering information about the effect
32:00
of the vacancy rate across public services and something that I didn't know.
32:03
And it just stuck with me because there was such a lack of meat products in
32:08
the grocery store after, you know, during and after COVID.
32:12
And I did not know that every time an animal is slaughtered for public consumption,
32:17
an inspector has to be there when it's slaughtered. if it's not just for your
32:21
private consumption. Guess what we have vacancies in?
32:24
Inspectors for our food. Right.
32:27
Or folks who make sure the gas pumps. You know, agriculture does that too.
32:31
When we pump a gallon, how do we know if it's actually a gallon going in?
32:35
Because Department of Agriculture people get out there and check it.
32:38
If they've got enough people.
32:40
This directly speaks to public perception, which we talk about often because
32:44
just, you know, the regular Joe, regular citizen out there may not realize what
32:48
services they are actually getting.
32:50
From state government employees, the people who work so hard to keep us safe,
32:54
keep our roads going, make sure our food's safe, make sure...
32:57
Yeah, they think of state employees as costing them money rather than actually
33:01
saving their money, safeguarding their money, safeguarding their lives.
33:06
And here's the thing too, businesses don't want to come somewhere that doesn't
33:09
have quality public services. So... Infrastructure. Yeah.
33:14
Speaking of offices, I don't think a lot of people understand or know a lot about.
33:19
Jessica Holmes also came to our convention. Yes, our state auditor. State auditor.
33:25
Let's first talk a little bit about state auditor. What do they do? Oh, my goodness.
33:29
The state auditor has to make sure, first of all, they have a hotline and they
33:33
take any complaints from the public regarding any allegations of misuse,
33:38
misappropriations, anything people see that they think is maybe a problem with spending public funds.
33:43
And then they do, my understanding is routine audits, but also audits based
33:49
on information they get.
33:50
And then oftentimes those end up at the legislature and they are sometimes kind
33:56
of blockbuster events, but almost always more mundane events.
34:00
And like all audits, they end with, you know, here's the problems we found and
34:04
here's what needs to be done to the corrective action that we recommend.
34:09
Yeah, I think that Auditor Holmes, is that the title?
34:12
Correct. I think she did a great job of explaining kind of what the office does
34:18
in her speech and also why she's qualified for it.
34:21
I think there was some controversy about that the week coming into her.
34:26
Well, yeah, there was controversy manufactured by folks who were opposing her for the other side.
34:32
But she is, you know, we talked about this earlier when we talked about Scenic
34:37
endorsing her. She's a very independent-minded, well-respected attorney.
34:44
Well-respected longtime public servant.
34:47
She was one of the county commissioners here in Wake County.
34:51
She's got a wealth of experience in government and all things government that
34:57
deal with finances and protecting the finances and making sure that everything
35:02
stays in order so that taxpayers can have confidence in that.
35:06
I think she's come into this job with tremendous energy.
35:09
And she, again, she's an incredibly intelligent person who knows to surround
35:15
herself with great people.
35:16
And if you're the state auditor, you're not sitting at a computer crunching
35:22
the data for an audit. it.
35:24
You're picking a staff that can do an amazing job of that.
35:28
And then you know enough about it to go speak again to people like the legislature
35:33
and be able to explain what went right about a public entity that was audited
35:39
or what might need correction.
35:40
Elaine Marshall came to the convention as well. She always comes and speaks
35:44
no matter if she's running or not.
35:45
She's a longtime member, so we appreciate her coming.
35:49
And also Mo Green came.
35:51
He's running for state superintendent. He He spoke on Saturday.
35:55
So we had pretty much all of our candidates for statewide office come see us.
36:00
And we also had a special guest.
36:02
He always comes, too. But it was his last speech as state treasurer.
36:07
And I think there were some tears in the audience when Dale Falwell came to speak yesterday.
36:12
There were tears on the stage when Dale Falwell was born.
36:16
State employees and retirees have come to believe in Treasurer Falwell because he gave them reason to.
36:22
He definitely had their best interests at heart. He walked the walk.
36:26
So it's hard. It's hard to say goodbye to the rare public servant that will
36:31
put you at the forefront of everything he does in a way that puts himself, he makes enemies.
36:37
He had to make enemies, a lot of them, and powerful enemies.
36:42
But he was willing to do it for all the taxpayers, but especially the ones he
36:47
had direct responsibility over taking care of, and that was the folks in the
36:51
state health plan and the retirement plan.
36:53
He's a unicorn. You very rarely run across a Dale Falwell in politics, but it happens.
36:59
Yes. So his eyes were a little red himself when he was up. It's an emotional time. Yeah.
37:04
I wish we should splice together all of his crazy, wacky speeches with props.
37:11
He likes his props. And even this time, he carried up a large stack of papers. He always has that.
37:18
And you know, it's an award that's not given very often.
37:23
It's been given twice. That's it. Yeah. He received the Unsung Hero Award. Congratulations.
37:29
And I saw that he had posted something about that on his ex-account.
37:33
So he was proud of it as well.
37:35
But I think our members, if anyone deserved it, it was him. Truly.
37:40
And across the board, they love him. And I mean, it was interesting to sit there
37:45
watching that speech and watch the reception and the reaction and think,
37:49
wow, is there buyer's remorse going on anywhere right now?
37:53
Because this guy really speaks to a crowd. Did you expect him to be like this
37:58
eight years ago when we endorsed him?
38:01
I'll tell you, because we endorsed the Democrat in the primary.
38:05
Ron Elmer. Ron Elmer. Great guy. And when he lost the primary, we were kind of.
38:10
We did a town hall and you had to both answer questions.
38:13
Yeah. And it was, we were undecided about where we were going to go in that
38:17
race. And, you know, he kind of stole the show in that town hall.
38:21
And then he made good on his promises. Yeah, he stuck to what he said he'd do.
38:25
Well, I mean, that's, but that's the scenic way. We're always open to anyone
38:30
who wants to step up and do the job and put our members first.
38:36
Our members will always have their back. Yeah.
38:39
And I think he would have won this year if he had won at a race,
38:43
right? I'll tell you what. Oh, yeah. If he had run for treasurer again, yes.
38:48
Again, I think there's a lot of people out there with some buyer's remorse right
38:50
now. Yeah, for the governor's race, you mean. Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
38:55
Now it's on to voting. I guess we've got about a month until early voting starts
39:00
on October 17th. It runs through November 2nd.
39:04
We'll have a lot more information about this in the next two plus months.
39:08
So just pay attention to our Facebook and our scoop that we send out each week.
39:12
We'll definitely be asking for folks to go out and work for us and support our candidates.
39:18
Election day is November 5th. And yeah, it's hot and heavy now, right?
39:22
It's election time is here. It is definitely here.
39:27
Rallying the troops started at convention. Yeah.
39:30
Our statewide PAC members were walking around with a clipboard,
39:33
getting phone numbers and email addresses for people who are planning to work
39:38
for the campaigns of our endorsed candidates.
39:41
And I think you talked about this in your report to the convention that our
39:45
biggest asset in an election is we have we can put boots on the ground. Absolutely, we can.
39:51
And we're going to put boots on the ground in a way I don't think we've done
39:55
that I don't ever remember us doing.
39:57
But we are also able to influence so many votes.
40:01
If you talk about a state employee or retiree, a scenic member,
40:05
and then their spouse and their kids over 18 and their sisters and brothers-in-law
40:13
who care about them and their neighbors that they talk to.
40:18
Just getting that information out that influences
40:21
an awful lot of voters yeah and again
40:24
these are voters of every type they've got a
40:27
list of endorsed candidates from our pack that is non-partisan and sometimes
40:32
you know we get criticisms from both parties about our list of endorsed candidates
40:36
that's perfect great because guess what our members are deciding these candidates and like Like I said,
40:44
our members are really good at getting behind people that all the people in
40:49
their community tend to get behind because those people usually win.
40:52
So pay attention because we will be calling on you to take action.
40:56
So now it's time for John's Wacky Weird Question of the Week.
41:00
John's Wacky Weird Question of the Week.
41:07
So the Steve Troxler talk that we were talking about, Steve Troxler,
41:11
the commissioner of agriculture.
41:14
It made me think about the state fair that's coming up in, I guess,
41:18
less than a month, right?
41:19
We'll have to get those dates. Beginning of October? Yeah.
41:23
So we had this county fair in Lee County this weekend, this past weekend,
41:27
and Clara was dying to go.
41:30
And so I made a promise that we had to go to the state fair to make up for it
41:35
because we didn't get to go to the county fair, which, I mean,
41:38
come on, you can't compare those two, right?
41:40
But we actually do have a pretty good county fair. But so when was the last
41:44
time you guys went to the fair you go every year every year?
41:48
What's your favorite part of the fair used to be?
41:52
A couple decades, it was the pig races. Oh, let's do that. No,
41:55
they went away. They went away like two years ago.
41:58
Yeah, the pig races were the best. Yeah. You're right. Yeah.
42:03
And the lumberjack show down there.
42:07
Hey, shout out to the folks. Everything about the village of Yesteryear and all of that is so cool.
42:13
But shout out to the people in the forge showing people how blacksmithing happens.
42:18
It's so cool. The Village of Yesteryear is such a huge part of my life.
42:24
Oh, yeah, with the pottery. So my aunts, they live in Blowing Rock,
42:29
and they married brothers, and they live in a valley, and they have pottery
42:32
shops down there, Bolick Pottery and Traditions Pottery.
42:37
Shameless plug. Shout out to them. But they're always in the Village of Yesteryear.
42:41
They've been there my whole life, and they have a booth there,
42:44
and they can't leave because they'll lose it.
42:47
All right. Yeah, so we've always had to go by the village of Estrella,
42:51
which is not exciting when you're eight and you want to go ride rides. It's so wholesome.
42:56
I love it. But it is a cool place.
42:59
Suzanne tells me that she hasn't been in quite a while.
43:02
Yeah, so my son will be 34 next week, and I have not been since he was four.
43:08
Wow. How did you avoid that for so long?
43:12
Well, his dad started taking him, which was fine with me. At four years old,
43:17
and I didn't have any money.
43:19
And I realized when we got a cheeseburger that had a quarter of a slice of cheese
43:23
inside of it, and it was like six bucks that, you know, that just kind of did
43:29
it for me. But I grew up going to the state fair.
43:32
Every year. My parents loved to go. We loved to go when we were kids.
43:35
The Himalaya was our favorite ride.
43:38
A frozen banana with nuts on it. That was my favorite snack.
43:43
So the food has really become a draw, hasn't it? Well, I don't know.
43:46
They fry everything now.
43:48
I mean, the fried dough used to be like a nafty, but now everything's fine. Yeah, that's tame.
43:58
What about you, Sam? Last time I went, I believe, was two years ago.
44:02
Go we meant to go me and my friend meant to go
44:04
last year but we just never found a day that worked for all
44:07
of us we went two years ago people not prioritize the
44:10
fair more than they do i don't understand that close to
44:13
it so i i live close to it i live
44:16
like three miles away from it but i still didn't find
44:19
time to go yes last year see i have to make like a huge
44:22
deal yeah it's a huge deal for us to go to the
44:25
fair we went i guess maybe two
44:28
years ago but yeah but i think my favorite thing is going
44:31
to the barn and seeing all of the sheep
44:34
showings and all of that because then i get to see my high
44:37
school agriculture teacher the kids that
44:40
are showing the animals that they've raised and they're so proud they
44:43
work these kids very hard these kids are little dynamos because i i was on the
44:51
cross-country team in high school so i was doing sheep showing because i was
44:54
in agriculture classes but i didn't get to continue because i had cross-country
44:58
practices and you have You have to work with those sheeps every single day,
45:03
walking them and training them. And it's very hard.
45:07
They work so hard. Yeah, they raise turkeys. So they show up. That's awesome.
45:12
I mean, I was pleased when my kids would mow the yard. They could never have
45:16
raised those animals. Are you kidding? I don't know.
45:19
My daughter, Clara, she loves the rabbit barn. The rabbit is the best part.
45:23
Ah, that's your show. Oh, it's all, it's awesome.
45:26
It's the best of North Carolina. I may end up back.
45:30
She's getting the bug. Look at her, let's go. I have grandchildren,
45:33
although that does sound like fun.
45:35
But I've not ever been to the Mountain State Fair, which we were talking about. Oh, where is that?
45:39
In Fletcher, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. It's in Fletcher, just outside of Asheville.
45:43
I've always wanted to go. Again, road trip. You should also,
45:47
if you get the opportunity, I believe it's next weekend this year,
45:51
Mountain Heritage Weekend at Western Carolina University. It's so much fun.
45:56
That sounds fun. So my birthday is in September.
46:00
It was always between Parents Weekend and Mountain Heritage Weekend.
46:04
And my parents would call me every year saying, do you want us to come up for
46:07
Parents Weekend for your birthday?
46:08
Or do you want us to come up for Mountain Heritage Weekend? My answer was always
46:12
Mountain Heritage Weekend. We had so much fun.
46:14
I feel like that on the left. I feel like Sam works for WCN.
46:17
I know. Are you on their payroll?
46:19
I did work for them when I was in college. That's right. Their best.
46:23
It's a wonderful thing if a university produces someone who loves the university that much. Yeah.
46:28
I do have a question for you guys to ponder. I heard this earlier.
46:33
What is the one state that ends in the letter K?
46:36
Anybody got a guess quickly? No. We'll leave that for you guys to decide, to figure out.
46:43
Are we going to have a new like weekly quiz question of the week right i don't
46:48
like that because i need to study clearly that was just a random question yeah
46:51
i mean we can have a good good afternoon.
46:56
Music.