Latest / The KFAB Comment Line with Jean Stothert / OPPD and Iowa Governor Candidates

Transcript

OPPD and Iowa Governor Candidates · The KFAB Comment Line with Jean Stothert

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And today Jim Smith is with us. Good morning, Good
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: morning mare. How are you.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: I'm great, Thanks for inviting me to be on your show,
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: and congratulations on your new show.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, this is fun.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: You know, people will call in all the time and say, oh,
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: you just want to be mayor.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Still, you know what I don't. I mean this.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: I loved being mayor. I love being on the city council.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: I love being on the school board. But retirement's the
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: best job I've ever had, let me tell you. And
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: this is so much fun being able to come here
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: every day and do this show and talk to people
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: and have guests like you on. So I'm enjoying I'm
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: enjoying it a lot right now. But Jim Smith and
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: I've known each other for a long time. I was
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: doing a little research on you last night and looked
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: at your bio.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: You were born in nineteen fifty nine. That means I'm
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: older than you.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Let's not talk about it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Let's not talk about that so much older, Not really.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: But Jim Smith was a member of the unicameral You
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: represented Legislative District fourteen from twenty eleven to twenty eighteen.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: You know you have worked in invested in public power
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: utility operations in the past. You're a small business owner.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: You were CEO and president of Blueprint Nebraska for a while,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: which is in Nebraska, thank Tank, and now you are
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: running for the OPPD board. And I think this is
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: so interesting to me and to our listeners because there
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: is so many questions out there about power. This is
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: beyond my area of expertise that people ask all the
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: time about what our power needs are, what our power
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: demands will be. And I know that the president of OPBD,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Javier Fernandez, has said many many times, in the next
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: ten years, our demands in this area will be well
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: double what it currently is now, and so those demands
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: are going to be out there. A lot of people
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: are asking me and on the show, which you can
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: address today, about these data centers and the impact of
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: the data centers. They're asking about what our options are
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: for power in the in the future, and that correct
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: me if I'm wrong. But all I can think of
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: here is coal, wind, nuclear, liquid gas, natural gas, you bet,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: natural gas, and I think that's about where we are.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: So many people ask me in Nebraska to why don't
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: we have more wind farms? So we're going to address
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: all those today. So, and you know, the one thing
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I remember Jim being mayor is that twenty twenty three
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: storm when about fifty percent of oppd's customers were out
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: of power for a long time and they kept on
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: calling the mayor's hotline saying, what is my power going
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: to come back on? So let's talk about it. Let's
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: talk about OPPD first. First of all, if you could
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: just talk a little bit and explain to our listeners,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: which I think is very very interesting, is it is
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: public power and it is one of the few, if
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: the only, state in the United States that is one
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: hundred percent publicly owned for our electric utility. So talk
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: a little bit about OPBD itself.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, Geane, you know I spent thirty years in
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: the electric and gas utility business, about half of it
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: back in the days when I was in Texas and
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Louisiana with investoral utilities. And then I joined public power
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: here in Nebraska. And you know when I spent eight
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: years in the legislature and I left the legislature much
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: you know, you move on from an office, you think
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: you've put that behind you, and I felt the call
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: to go back into public service and to lend my
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: experience to OPBD. OPPD uh is you know, one of
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: the major utilities in Nebraska. It's the twelfth largest public
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: utility in the country, and Nebraska, as you mentioned, is
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: one hundred public power. And so what that means is
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: that we don't have the normal regulatory structure that other
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: states have. All of the GUP and authority rests on
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the shoulders of the elected officials. And at OPPD we
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: have five thousand square miles thirteen counties on the eastern
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: part of the state that pretty much housed the half
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: of the population of the state. And OPPD is critical
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: to the state's economic growth and prosperity. And so that's
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: that's why I decided I wanted to step back in
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: and bring my experience from all those years in the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: utility environment back to OPPD.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: And the OPPD board. Then it is elected board. How
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: many members, there's.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Eight I believe eight members elected for six year terms.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: And they're nonpartisan terms. And then the board is responsible
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: for hiring the president and CEO, which currently is Javier Fernandez. Correct, Okay,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: and you already mentioned this, but it covers about five
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: thousand square miles, nearly half of the state's population, So
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: it's very important covers a lot of area and talk
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: you were meant a little bit about the unique regulatory structure,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: going to a little bit more detail about that.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Sure, at most states, the Public Service Commission provides a
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: backdrop to power supply and price setting for utilities. Not
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: so at OPBD. All of that authority rests with this
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: eight member board, and so it's just critical that you
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: have people that have an understanding of how utility works
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: and how business works to make certain that we are
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: able to keep the rates low, have an abundant supply
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: of reliable power. And back in the thirties when public
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: power was created and energy can sound a little bit
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: intimidating and complicated, but it's really quite simple. The way
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: public power was created with three principles one affordability, two reliability,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: and three accountability. And if we can adhere to those
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: three principles, we will be able to return public power
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: back to where it is supposed to be for this state.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And let me go into that for just a moment.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: With affordability, you know, we are ranked about third lowest
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: based on twenty four rates as a state among the country. However,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: in twenty four and twenty five, OPPD raised rates six
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: point three percent each of those two years, and they
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: are on track to raise your rates six to nine
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: percent per year through twenty thirty. Okay, so we're losing
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: our affordability on the reliability you mentioned.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Be sustainable for many families and businesses. No, it will
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: not with the with the rates going up that much. Okay.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: See you mentioned reliability. You know, we have the generation,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: so we have to have dispatchable power. We can't have
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: an economy based on intermittent power, which is are the renewables.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: It can be part of the mix, but we can't
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: be fully reliable on them.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And then on the.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Outages, we have an increasing number of outages and duration
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: of outages. We need to address the root cause of.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: That, okay.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: And then you know the other thing is far as
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: OPPD that people ask a lot about is should should
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: this issue of be revisited of the net zero emission
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: strategy by twenty fifty. I mean that that is a
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: that is a plan or a goal. I would say
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: for OPPD, is that something that you think needs to
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: be revisited. And that strategy led to close the North
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: Omahall Coal units, correct, that's right.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, So the Border Directors has created this plan a
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: net zero by twenty fifty. So what that means for
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: your listeners out there is that OPPD is saying that
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: they will have zero emissions, net zero emissions by twenty fifty.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And the only way you can achieve that is to
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: close your cold generating generating units, and that's roughly fifty
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: to sixty percent of the generating capabilities of OPPD today.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: We cannot rely on intermittent power renewables alone because it
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: does not produce the clean and I'm talking about clean
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: in terms of reliable power that a growing economy needs.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: So that's the net zero and then you have any
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: remaining emissions. The only way you can get to net
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: zero is through carbon capture and some of these other
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: mitigation efforts that just are not proven and are tremendously expensive.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: So what does OPBD currently, What is the main source
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: of where we get our power in this area? And
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: then like the second largest source of.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Power, sure, so Nebraska City in North Omaha, we have
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: cold generating units and that makes up probably fifty to
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: sixty percent at least maybe a little bit more. Then
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: there natural gas combustion turbines that are run off of
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: natural gas. About thirty percent roughly thirty percent of opbd's
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: generating capabilities is through renewables, and it's not just by
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: their what they own, but it's also what they have
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: in terms of purchase power contracts with other owners of
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: renewable projects. So there is a generating mix. And the
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: more diversity you have in a generating mix, you can
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: control prices better and you can have greater reliability in
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: your your generating capabilities.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: What about and I get this a lot, is it's
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: so windy here when I drive through Iowa, I see
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: all of these these wind farms are, but we don't
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: see a lot of them in Nebraska. Why don't we
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: have a lot more capability to use wind as far
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: as a source of power.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Probably a lot of.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: It began and back whenever renewables and wind farms began
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: to see them developed, probably ten to fifteen years ago.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: And it was because the private utilities of investoral utilities
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: in the states surrounding US where there's also wind, they
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: had access to the tax credits, the federal tax credits,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: which at that time Nebraska did not because of it
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: being a public power state. Okay, so Nebraska was a
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: little slow to the development of the renewable projects, but
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: I think that Nebraska has picked up the pace.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, we are talking to Jim Smith here,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: who is a former Nebraska legislator and he is also
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: running now currently running for the OPPD Board of Directors.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Jim with the wind also, aren't they They're not really
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: as reliable as we would want them to be, correct,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: And they are very expensive and they tend to break down.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Is that not correct? That's true.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: They're inner right, They work when the wind blows, and
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: you have to put in very expensive transmission facilities to
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: deliver the power from the remote locations that the wind
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: turbines are located to where the demand is.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, now let's talk about nuclear too. I mean that's
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: the hot button right now. I think there's new nuclear
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: plant options out there i'd like you to address. And
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: then the many nuclear reactors are something that seems like
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: it's a hot item now that people are talking about.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Address those two.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Sure, of all the topics. Whenever I'm out in the public,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: people like to talk about the prospects for new nuclear
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: and I think it's pretty exciting of course, unfortunately we
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: close for Calhoun Nuclear Station, which we delivered about five
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: hundred megawatch of generation, which is about equivalent to supplying
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty homes. One hundred and fifty thousand homes.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Now that's closed. Nebraska still has Cooper station down in
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Brownville that's about eight hundred megawats. But there's a new
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: there's a new consortium called the Great Planes new nuclear
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: consortium made up of Laes, MPPD, OPPD, and an Oklahoma utility,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: and they are exploring small modular reactors and locating them
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: across the Great Planes. They've identified sixteen locations and they
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: are exploring that. I think by twenty six or twenty
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: seven they will have a vendor identified and a plan
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: on the books as how they go forward. But small
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: modular reactors, I know, is probably something you've heard a
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: great deal about.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, but these options are not likely to materialize for
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: quite a few years.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: That's right, there's such a there's long lead time. I mean,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: if you look at even a microreactor which is like
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: one to twenty megawatts for remote locations, maybe military installations
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and off, it would be ideal for that even that's
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: mall of a unit is going to be probably five
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: to seven years in the making. A small modular reactor
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: you're probably looking closer to ten years, and then a
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: full scale reactor or a full scale nuclear plant is
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: anywhere from ten to twenty years.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: So where do you think we stand? Again, I've heard
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: Javier Fernandez say we're going to in this area. OPPD
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: will need to double its capacity in the next ten years.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So how do we do that?
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: And let's go into also the impacted data centers and
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I think that's what people say if and that's part
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: of this issue, that our demands are going to increase
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: so much. I think a lot of people don't realize this.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: But with the facility over in Iowa, the facility south
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: of here, and the new facility that is being built
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: in northwest Omaha, I think people a lot of people
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: don't realize, but this area will have the biggest presence
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: of the cloud in the entire world, not just in
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: you know, States, the entire world. But the demands with
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: these data centers for power is really really great. So
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: how do we address that and how will OPPD address that?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to first start by saying data centers
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: we are so we're so fortunate to have the investment. Now,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I may not have been a huge fan of some
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: of the tax increment or not tax increment, but some
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: of the financing that the state helped with or the
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: communities helped with to get those located. But they now
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: provide a competitive benefit advantage to us. And the concern
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: over the amount of generation that's available and the pricing
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: that is not driven by the data centers. That's driven
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: by the decisions of the board of directors of the utilities.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: The data centers are on certain rates and they have
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: to pay the cost to deliver power to their facilities.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Now are we short of power, absolutely, and so we
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: were looking to legis you know this last session LB
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: twelve sixty one, which was an imminent domain restrictions law
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: that was passed. It allows more opportunities for there to
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: be a third party ownership of generation to supply to
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: a single user like a data center, to meet some
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: of these growing demands. So we need to loosen up
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: some of our restrictions of our public power state to
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: be able to look to the private sector to meet
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the demand. Because we are one hundred percent public power.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of restrictions as to who can
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: own the generation that is interconnected and right now, but
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: the private sector is not really allowed to do that
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: until these laws have come along.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, we do.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: We have Jim Smith here who is running for OPBD board.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: So are you saying that the the development of these
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: data centers is very, very important for the area. But
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: to say they're responsible then for the shortage in our
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: capacity for power and the price increases, you're saying, not
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: so fast. You're saying it's more the responsibility of those
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: utility boards in the management.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Not so fast. It's this board that had voted to
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: close the North Omaha power plant.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Why would we.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Want to take load offline when we have people waiting
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: to be served with the load. We cannot retire these
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: generating units early. We've got to keep them online until
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: we have new generating sources to meet the demands.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and when you go back to that reliability, I
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: still go back to the twenty twenty three storm when
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: so many people were out of power for so long,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: and they're saying, what the heck, what's going on here?
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Another thing people I think don't realize is with those
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: coal facilities that we have, they're along the river, they
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: need the water. But when we had the flood, that
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: affects the generation of power through our coal plants because
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: they can get flooded down there too, So you have
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: to have something to back up on to provide the power.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: And when we had those those big power outages, I
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: thought OPBD did an excellent job. I talked to Javier
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: almost every day. But the lots of mutual aid you
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: had to bring in and explain that to people. It's
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: not just that it's fifteen hundred workers with OPPD or
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: so that are our alignment trying to get the power
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: lines back up. But when there's an issue like a
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: big storm, that power goes out, you bring in mutual
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: aid and you have other people helping.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Mutual aid is when you bring in employees that from
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: other utilities, neighboring utilities, sometimes from across the country. All
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: utilities use level of mutual aid to meet the unexpected
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: outages that occurred. Now, how far do you draw down
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: your own workforce to where you have that increased reliance
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: on mutual aid. I think that's something that needs to
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: be looked at very carefully. Also OPBD uses a lot
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: of contract labor. You'll see crews out around town putting
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: in new services on behalf of OPBD that OPBD has
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: contracted with to do that instead of using opbd's crewise
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: to do so. So again, how far do you draw
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: down the number of linemen uh line workers at OPBD
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: and rely too much, too heavily on mutual aid and
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: contract labor.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: And then another thing, I still go back to that
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: that windstorm we had when all the power went out.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: But one thing that was discussed and brought to my
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: attention a lot that people on the east side of
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: the city, the older parts of the city in Omaha,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: were saying, well, wait a minute, OPPD should come and
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: bury all of our power lines. That would prevent this
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: from happening in the future if there's a bad storm,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: why can't they just come in and bury the power lines.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: And I would always say, cost cost, costs, cost prohibitive
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: to come in and try to bury all those lines.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Like some of the newer areas in town. Just speak
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: a little bit to that. If you have some better
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: knowledge than I do, or know.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: You're right on the money gene. And also you know
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: vegetation management is a major part of utilities operations. They
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: have to go in and sometimes it looks fairly aggressive,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: but they have to go in. They need to keep
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: these trees trimmed in order to keep the lines out
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: of the trees. Now, no one wants to have their
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: trees cut, so that's part of the problem in some
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: of these areas of town where we have a lot
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: of overgrown vegetation, but we have to maintain a very
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: strong vegetation management program at OPBD in order to keep
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: their outages down.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Now, and I know there was a big difference whether
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the lines went down in somebody's backyard for instance, and
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: there was maybe six houses affected to the bigger areas
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: and there was whole neighborhoods affected. It was, it was something,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: it was, it was something that took a long time.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: I remembered in the West Side area their power was
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: out for quite a while. So this is all about
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: why OPPD is so important and that board is also
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: so important to get the right people elected.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: It's a three billion dollar annual budget.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I was going to ask you what their annual budget was,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: and three billion dollars. It's a big budget, but it's
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: so important for everybody, and any any last items that
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: I didn't ask you here that you want to cover today,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: because I think this is so interesting to me and
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: it's so important because people rely on this so much.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: You just expect every day when you get up, your
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: power is going to be on. And and how how
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: difficult lot of this is to work through these sources
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: of power and what we're going to have in the
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: future and what our needs are in the future.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Well, we have a very unique form of energy here
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: in this state, with public power, and we just need
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: to make certain we adhere to the original principles of
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: public power, of reliability, affordability, and we didn't touch on it,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: but accountability as well. We need to make certain that
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the Board of Directors are accountable to the public that
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: they represent. And a couple of years ago they voted
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: to double, if not triple, their compensation. At the same
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: board meeting, they voted for a six point three percent
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: rate increase. That shouldn't happen.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: No, people don't like to hear that when their costs
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: are going up and yet an elected board is compensated more.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, you dealt with that in the legislature for
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Pete's sake. The legislator's got twelve thousand dollars a year
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: and every time that they would vote to increase their salary,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: it would have to go on a ballot. Was the
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: answer is.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: You know, it's service, and you were a CEO of
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: a major corporation called the City of Omaha, and you
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: certainly were not compensated like most CEOs are compensated for it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Well, you don't do it for the money. Let me
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: tell you.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I don't do it for the money. You do it
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: for the service.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: That's absolutely true. Jim Smith is with us today. But
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: you've had a great career. I really I love what
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: you did when you were in the legislature. I know
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: that that was that could be crazy town down there too,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: but it's changed down there. They have a lot more
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: challenges down there. I think now. I watched closely what's
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: going on in the legislature, but you dealt with some.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Tough issues while you were there too.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Taxes, taxes, taxes.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Well, Speaker Arch did a fine job over the last
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: eight years. He followed me from my district, so he
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: ran from the district fourteen as well. And it's going
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: to be interesting to see who the speaker is next.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Year, and I think there's a few that are buying
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: for that title. Yes, uh huh, that'll be interesting. But
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: got a lot a lot going on in the state
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: of Nebraska. But I really appreciate you being here today
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: explaining a little bit about this with our power needs
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: and how important OPPD is.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: You know what we did at my house. We actually
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: bought a generator.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I know a lot of people and it.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Was probably one of the best things we have ever done.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: And you know, Generak makes most of them, but you
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: you know, you can have multiple different people put it
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: in for you. But boy, I tell you they work,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: They really do, you know. And they test themselves every
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Monday morning and my husband has a little app on
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: his phone and it goes through a test and you
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: don't even see a flicker. But those things really do work.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: I know where to come from. My cup of coffee
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: next out and can you met it?
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, come on over. You know, I got to tell
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: you one quick story. So we were out when a
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: bad storm hit. One time, we were out at an event,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: came home. All the power was out in my neighborhood,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: but my house was glowing and I thought, Holy cal
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: We're going to go and in turn on the lights
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: off because I don't want people to think for some reason,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: because she's mayor, her house is still you know, has
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: power to it. No, no, we bought a generator for it.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: But we shouldn't really have to be doing those things.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, we should have that reliability with our public power,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: like you said before, but issues sometimes happen. So Jim Smith,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: thank you so much for being with us today. I
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: appreciate you walking us through this public power. It's an
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: important thing for all of us. Thanks for being with
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: us today, and we will be back.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Maar.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: I have another guest that we're going to talk to
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: for a little bit. Zach Lane is going to be
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: on the show right now.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Zach, Good morning.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: And Zach is a candidate for the governor of Iowa.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: We have had a lot of people say, well, you
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: broadcast all the way to Des Moines, why don't you
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: ever talk about Iowa. Zach, We're going to talk about
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Iowa today. Welcome to the show.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me on, Jim.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: You bet and you know, I just had to look
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: at a picture of you online, Zach, and I'm the
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: First of all, I'm going to tell I ask you
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: to tell us about yourself. But I count seven children,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: am I correct?
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: Seven children from fourteen to two the youngest.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Holy cow, you and your wife are a bit busy,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: aren't you.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Yes, very busy. Actually, a couple of the kids just left.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: We're in the campaign bus right now, and so some
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: of the family just left and we're head to des
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: moin right now.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I'll be darn well tell us about who Zach Lane is.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Then you know.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: I'm a sixth generation Isoland. My family's been in Iowa
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: since since the Civil War, and I grew up in
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: northwest Iowa, just north of Sioux City. My family's been
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: involved in agriculture in the state for one hundred and
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: thirty years. And I was, like many of I was
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: kid that thought I had to leave to find something better,
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: but came back in about twenty fourteen and I ended
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: up buying back the family homestead into the family outside
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: of belt Plane. And over the past twelve years, I've
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: been you know, rebuilding that restored the home board by board.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: I've been running businesses and starting schools and now we
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: run our family farm today.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: And you're in your family farm is east about east
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: of Des Moines, Is that correct?
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: Correct, it's east of the Morning, in between Marshalltown and
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: Cedar Rappids, And so we operate that and the kids
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: actually really enjoy helping out that too.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: And you know, Zach, I've been in nine campaigns myself,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and when you talk about the primary, that's eighteen times
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: on the ballots.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: That's a lot.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: But I will tell you that it should be the
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: easiest question, but it's always the hardest to answer.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Why are you running for governor?
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, you said it right, you know. Really the
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: reason I'm running I've never ran props before. I'm not
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: a politician, I've never been elected. I'm really running because
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: I think we're losing our culture and our heritages of people.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, I think from the Republican Party platform, go,
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: I'm very pro life, I'm very pro Second Amendment. I'm
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: for low tax and low regulations. But the thing is,
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: we also have large systemic issues that have been facing
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: our state for a very long time and facing the Midwest. Frankly,
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: you know, things like we're fourth highest in the nation
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: for our kids leaving the state. Our kids are leaving
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: Iowa faster than forty six other states. We've lost ten
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: thousand family farms in the past twenty years. A quarter
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: of our land in Iowa is now owned by people
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: who don't live here, investment funds and out of state
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: investors who are treating Iowa like an annuity. And our
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: education system, which was once number one in the nation
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: in Iowa, is now in the bottom half. And to
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: top all that off, we have the fastest rate of
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: new cancer of anywhere in the history of the world.
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: So I say, I'm all for low taxes and regulation. However,
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: if your kids are leaving and your people are dying,
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: you're not winning. We have to focus on these large
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: systemic issues to make life better for the people of
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: Iowa and for our farmers and for our rural communities especially.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: And one of the.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Things that you stated was you said the system is corrupt,
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: and you said nobody else is talking about it would
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: explain why you feel like the current system is corrupt.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty strong word.
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: I think, oh it is. And you know, I think
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: if I just asked many of your listeners, they would
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: be nodding their head. They see it. Look, the system
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: is set up to support, for instance, and agriculture set
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: up to support the big companies and big producers. I'll
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: give you one example. Over the past ten years, the
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: agribusiness lobby has spent one and a half billion dollars
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: in Washington, d C. Lobbying Congress. At the same time,
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: the top five companies have made one hundred and fifty
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: billion dollars in profit, all while we've lost two hundred
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: thousand family farms in the country. So who are they
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: lobbying for. It's not for the farmer, it's not for
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: the producer. They're lobbying for their bottom line. We're seeing
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: consolidation after consolidation and agriculture and our farming, and we're
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: losing life in our communities. And so many of the
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: programs that were set up to help small family farms
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: are not to help the big guys. And I think
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: that people are just looking for something they can count on.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: They're not asking for handouts. They want to level playing field.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: And I'm running to hold these companies to account. And
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: you know, in the agriculture industry, for instance, when I
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: was growing up, there's three hundred seed and input companies
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: doing business in Iowa and around the Midwest. Today, three
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: companies control eighty five percent of the market, and they're
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: extorting our farmers and they're in treatum as price takers.
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: So I've called for anti trust suits to break these
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: companies up and to bring competition back to our markets.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm talking to Zach Lane, who is a candidate
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: for governor of Iowa. Zach, one thing you said interests
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: me because I'm a former nurse. And when you mentioned
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: that Iowa has the fastest rate of new cancer, said
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: if you live in the top ten counties in Iowa
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: for cancer. You mentioned that, and you said you want
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: one of your top priorities is to make Iowa healthy again.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: So how are you going to do that as governor?
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: What do you propose and what do you have in
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: mind that you are going to make Iowa healthy again? Yeah?
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: Well, first, we're actually the first campaign that's ever been
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: endorsed by the Make America Healthy Again organization that's there
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: to support Bobby Kennedy's work that he's doing. They chose
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: Iowa because of some of these issues. Well, first, I
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: look at things that we could do to bring healthier
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: products to our kids. You know, I would like to
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: have when I'm governor, eighty percent of the food served
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: in Iowa's public schools grown in the state of Iowa
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: have nutrient events, locally grown food that's healthy for kids.
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: So who can start giving our kids good, good, refreshing,
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: healthy meals and start them off with that to start with.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: But number two on the big agricultural side, I would
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: say that you know, we have a lot of cancer
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: in our state, and at the same time, we have
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: a company like Bayer that is lobbying at the state Capitol,
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: in the Farmville and through executive order and in the
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: Supreme Court yesterday for immunity from lawsuit. Look, no company,
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: no product should have immunity from liability. If your product
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: is harming people, especially farmers and consumers, they deserve to
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: have recourse. That's step number one. And number two is
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: we need to have independent research about the safety of
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: these products. Because the EPA is a captured organization, they're
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: doing the bidding of industry, and we need to have truth.
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: We're not called band products. We're probably to say people
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: deserve to know what the truth is about the safety
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: of the products so they can protect themselves properly and
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: have wheels science to back that up.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right?
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: And then one other thing I really wanted to touch
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: on today is one of your priorities is to re
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: you say, to restore our education system. And again I
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: was a former school board member for Miller Public Schools,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: and I know we are always working with the legislature.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: You know, the state aid funding is always a big
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: topic that we always are working on. What what do
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: you what are you going to do as governor? What
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: will you propose to restore the education system in the
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: state of Nebraska. I mean the state, not the state
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: of Nebraska, the state of Iowa.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: You're running for the governor of Iowa.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: One of the ways we make Nebraska better too is
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: by having Iowa be number one so we can compete.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: There you go, makes better? Good answer, Iowa's ioways passed
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: these education safs accounts, which gives parents more more salber
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: where their kids go to school, and more sale where
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: their tax dollars are spent. That is good. We should
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: have that foundational freedom. But I always say this, the
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: governor of Iowa has to be the number one advocate
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: for public school kids in the state. There's a battle
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: for the hearts and minds of our kids going on
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: these public schools, and we need to be in that fight.
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: I would like to create innovation zones. I spent eight
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: years building schools myself, some very innovative hands on learning
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: by doing type of schools. And it's not one size
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: fits all for kids. Your kids need to have a
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: very variety of options. The governor can create innovation zones
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: within the state to help teachers and superintendents who want
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: to innovate and by different practices. Okay, and you do
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: have the problem.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Okay, good, go ahead. I think you're skipping out a
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: little bit.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: Sorry. We do have the problem of political positions being
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: pushed in the classroom. So I have been very clear
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: that there's no place for that the State of Iowa.
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: The law says that, and we need to use the
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: resources that we have to bear to suspend and revoke
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: teaching licenses of teachers. Do that because that's not what
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: parents are sending their kids to school for. They're just
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: looking for something they can count on.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: All right, All right, this is Zach Lane who is
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: running for governor of Iowa, not Nebraska.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Of Iowa.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Governor Kim Reynolds is not running for re election. How
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: many candidates are there right now for governor of Iowa.
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: There's currently five candidates and our primary is on June second.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, and you are a Republican candidate, and how many
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Republican candidates?
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: There's five Republican candidates in the race right now, and
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: there's one candidate on the Democrat side.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, any last comments that you'd like to make, You.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: Know, I think whether it's Iowa or Nebraska, I think
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: what people are looking for is politicians that will step up,
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: that want to put their state first, in their people first,
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: ahead of corporate interests, lobbyists, and special interests. That's why
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: I'm running for governor, is to help level that playing
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: field and bring a voice to the people of Iowa.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: All right, Zach Lane, thank you so much for being
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: on the show today, and good luck with your kid,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: good luck with your campaigning.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: Thank you, good day.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: That was again Zach Lane, running for governor of Iowa,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Republican candidate Peyton. You know, I said recently that I
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: was going to try to to detach myself from social
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: media because we had a long talk about how how
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: mean social media has become. It's difficult to look at
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: it when I left the Mayor's office. Excuse me. One
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: of the best days I had is when we took
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: my official Facebook post down because I had about forty
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: five thousand followers, and I swear every one of them
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: said something mean every day. But you know, you don't
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: even know who's real anymore when you're when you're looking
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: at social media, we would have, you know, comments that
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: would just pop up and there would be like ten
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: comments in a row by you know, by Susie Q
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: or two dy Fruity, and you would look at it
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: and it was a brand new Facebook with a picture
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: of a cat on there. So you don't know how
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: much reliability you could put in social media at all.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: But I was shown a couple comments on the kfab
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Facebook line and several people said that gene SnO there
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: when she was mayor also had a gag order like
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Mayor Ewing is doing and not allowing her staff to
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: be interviewed.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I have to address that, because well, that's false.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Is it true? That is, did you have a gagwarder,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Gene No? That is totally false. What I did do
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: when I first became mayor is I asked the directors
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: if they are going to be interviewed, which I gave
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: them free ability to do that whenever they wanted, just
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: to let me know, because I didn't want What was
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: happening is they would be interviewing with say a TV station,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: and then the TV station would call me and say, well,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: so and so said this about the streets.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: What do you have to say?
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: And I wouldn't even know what they said, so I
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: would just say I would ask them if they were
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: going to be interviewed, which any of them could be interviewed,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: and I wanted them to be interviewed as much as
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: possible by any media outlet, just to let me know.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: That's all I did.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Never put a gag order on anybody, never said that people, staff,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: directors could not be interviewed. And I obviously had twelve
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: years of being mayor to prove that that nobody was
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: restricted on what they could do or not do with
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: the media. They were free to interview whenever they wanted,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: And like I said, I wanted to especially public safety,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: something like the police chief, the fire chief. I wanted
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: them to be available as often as anybody wanted them
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: to talk as far as on the media, so that
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I had to address this morning to say not true.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: So do we have any calls for us Peyton today
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: or any emails? And then there's a couple other things
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about because well I'll talk about
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: it now.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Guess what.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: I Am not going to be here Thursday, Friday or Monday.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Scott is not going to be here Wednesday, Friday or yeah, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: So it's going to be a little bit different around here.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: Yes, actually this is a good time to announce. I'll
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: be covering for Scott on the morning show and then
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: I'll be staying in the chair.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: I'll cover for you as well.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Scary, Scary, this is not truthful. Truth, No, this is
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: not truthful all. He's just kidding us right now. But
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Scott is going to be gone and Gary's going to
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: cover for him in the morning. I'm gonna be gone,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: like I said, Thursday and Friday and Monday. I am
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: going to go to the New Orleans Jazz Festival with
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: my own government. My husband did his internship down there
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: at TWU Lane years and years and like fifty years ago,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: and he's been going every since. I've never been down there.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: The lineup is terrific, so we're going to go down
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: to the Jazz Festival and my husband knowing him. On Monday,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: we're coming back to Omaha. He has a five am
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: flight out of New Orleans.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Leave it. It's terrible. It's terrible. Leave it to him.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: But anyway, Chip Maxwell will be filling in for me,
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: and so he will be here those days that I'm gone,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: and I will be back in the studio on Tuesday,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: and we have a lot of guests next week. I've
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: already up for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. On Wednesday, Tony Connor
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: is going to be on, who is an Omah police officer,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: but he is also the Nebraska State FOP president. On Thursday,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Brett Linstrom is going to be on, former state legislator
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: and former candidate for governor and for the congress. He
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: was a candidate for a while for the second District
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: congressional race. And then on Friday we have Adam Straight.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: And Adam Straight is the new CEO and President of MECCA,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: which is Metropolitan Entertainment Convention Authority, and he is only
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: the second president and CEO ever and so he is
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: the MECCA manages city owned property which now includes the arena,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: convention Center, the ballpark and the riverfront parks. And so
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: he is new he is from New Orleans. He came
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: from New Orleans and not originally from New Orleans. But
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: we're going to talk to him, talk about what's going
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: on downtown, talk about the expansion in the arena convention Center.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: So we have some really good guests coming up next week.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: I love the sound of that.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Gin.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: I hope you have a good time in New Orleans.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: We can talk about that when you get back. Let's
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: jump to the phone lines real quick. Todd, you are
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: alive here on news radio eleven ten KFB. Todd, you
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: are alive with Jeans Author.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Good morning.
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: Next time you have an oppde board candidates there or
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: one of their board members, ask him about the percentage
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: and raises I gave. I believe it's to Airs, the
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: gentleman's name that's in charge of the board. If I'm
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: saying that right, yeah, he's the president of the high
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: close to six figures or right at that the heck
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: of the rays. And you know, I want to bet
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: the percentage wise that was even close to what the
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: average worker got warm than the other thing they recently
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: they're expanding their turbine station down in Cass County there
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: where I live. They came in and average Jagland prices
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: for roughly half of what OPPD paid just to get
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: the extra ground they needed. So in effect, once that
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: was hit the tax assessor's office, you know the sale,
• 40:03
  Speaker 6: they're also raising property taxes on us. So I just
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: they need to get under control of my.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Opinion, yes, And you know, the one thing that Jim
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Smith did mention today is how the board gave themselves
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: raises and that we didn't bring up the president and
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: CEO so that, you know, I would assume that other
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: candidates might want to come on the show and talk
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: a little bit about it, and that is certainly something
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: that I will bring up.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: But I understand what you're saying there.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: One of the things that Jim said is they have
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: to be reliable, but they have to keep the cost
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: down for everybody to make it affordable to.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: This is the cafae B comment Line with your host
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: of the show, Jean starth where every day from ten
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: to eleven you we hear your questions, comments and concerns.
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: Gene.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to asking you some questions tomorrow about
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: a lot of different things, maybe the streetcar, maybe.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: A little bit of COVID, we'll see.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: We talked about the streetcar daily. But I thank you
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: all for spending the time with us. We'll take those
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: questions as they come in. Whatever you want to talk about,
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: we will. I'm Jean Stothard, thank you so much for
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: being with us today. And this is eleven ten kfab