Latest / The Dave Allen Show / 01/06/2026 The Dave Allen Show on 580 Live - Delegate Kayla Young, Mayor Amy Goodwin, Senator Tom Takubo

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01/06/2026 The Dave Allen Show on 580 Live - Delegate Kayla Young, Mayor Amy Goodwin, Senator Tom Takubo · The Dave Allen Show

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Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
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Speaker 1: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five AD, wchs
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Speaker 1: it's employees or WVRC Media. From the studios of WVRC Media.
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Speaker 1: The country, the United States of America, the state West Virginia,
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Speaker 1: the city Charleston. This is the Dave Allen Show on
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Speaker 1: five eighty Live, and your host.
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Speaker 2: What we've got here is failure.
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Speaker 3: The newcase's kind of a big deal.
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Speaker 4: I have come here to chew bubblegug and kick out
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Speaker 4: a fall out of bucket.
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Speaker 3: Dave Allen, Hey, folks again Tuesday morning, to you and
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Speaker 3: welcome to the show. Senior Producer Ryan Nicholson is in
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Speaker 3: charge of things this morning. Bigley Pigly Wiggly Hotline three
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Speaker 3: zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Tony
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Speaker 3: provided by West Virginia's Finance min Store. Tony the Taylor
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Speaker 3: on Virginia Street. Checkout Bestmaster Taylor dot com. Tuesday ndition
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Speaker 3: of the show one week and a day away from
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Speaker 3: the beginning of the twenty twenty sixth legislative session of
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Speaker 3: the Dome, and this morning, we're going to talk to
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Speaker 3: not one but two different legislator. Democratic House Member from
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Speaker 3: the fifty six Kaylee Young, who's patiently standing by now,
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Speaker 3: and Republican State Senator Tom Tacubo from the seventeenth. Both
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Speaker 3: are going to join us a little bit later on Well, Actually,
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Speaker 3: Kaylo is second's wave. She's already here. Hi, Kayla, she's
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Speaker 3: already here. Tacubo, a senator to Cubo, will be in later.
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Speaker 3: We'll talk to both of them about their goals, predictions
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Speaker 3: for the upcoming session, et cetera. That's on the way.
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Speaker 3: Plus Charleston Mayor Amy Schuler Goodwin will stop by second
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Speaker 3: straight day. She's here. Last night at Charleston City Council,
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Speaker 3: the mayor alluded to the fact that the city has
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Speaker 3: been in discussions or planned to be, with the whole
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Speaker 3: group who owns the Town Center about transferring ownership, possibly
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Speaker 3: over to the city. What exactly are those plans? Is
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Speaker 3: it too early to tell. We'll get into all that
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Speaker 3: with the mayor coming up. Puts. Your calls and text
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Speaker 3: are always welcome. Big Ley Pigley Wiggly Hotline three zero
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Speaker 3: four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Tony the
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Speaker 3: Taylor Text three zero four nine three five five zero
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Speaker 3: zero eight Democratic House Member from the fifty six. Kaylee
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Speaker 3: Young is here. Good morning, Welcome to the show.
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Speaker 5: Good morning.
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Speaker 6: How are you Happy New Year?
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Speaker 3: Happy New Year to YouTube. You have a good holiday season?
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Speaker 6: It was great. Yeah, just getting getting geared up for
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Speaker 6: session now like the rest of us.
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Speaker 1: Isn't it.
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Speaker 3: We and I still talked about this Kaylee yesterday on
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Speaker 3: the show. That first day back after, you know, especially
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Speaker 3: when we had it was just really weird because you know,
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Speaker 3: I mean not but it's not happened before. But Christmin
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Speaker 3: New Years both falling on Thursdays, and then a lot
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Speaker 3: of people had that Friday off and nobody knew what
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Speaker 3: day it was, and in the week between and then
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Speaker 3: everybody comes back Monday and suddenly Christmas decorations are down.
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Speaker 3: The traffic on I sixty four just you know, doubled
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Speaker 3: or tripled, and uh, well we're back at it again.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, everybody's circling back to the emails put off for
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Speaker 6: a month.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, this seems like an after the first of the
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Speaker 3: year thing. Guess what? All right, So the fun begins
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Speaker 3: next week. But I want to get to this first.
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Speaker 3: And you may have covered this in the past, but
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Speaker 3: I'm old and forget things. House members are up every
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Speaker 3: two years. You are running for reelection.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm planning on it.
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Speaker 3: Okay, just making sure. I think you covered it last time,
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Speaker 3: but I.
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Speaker 6: Don't know that I've actually said it out loud. So
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Speaker 6: breaking news.
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Speaker 3: I guess, break breaking news. Say it.
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Speaker 6: I'm running for reelection to the House.
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Speaker 3: Okay. All right, Well, we wish you the best of luck.
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Speaker 3: Why should people vote for you for a house again?
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Speaker 3: Why should they re elect you?
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Speaker 6: I really want to bring a lot of transparency and
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Speaker 6: accountability to state government, like I have done in the
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Speaker 6: past five sessions and hopefully continue to. We need to
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Speaker 6: make sure that the people's voices being heard in the
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Speaker 6: state House.
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Speaker 3: All right, all right, so what's on your mind for
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Speaker 3: the upcoming session?
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Speaker 6: You know, a lot of the same stuff We've seen
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Speaker 6: a lot come out from the governor now in his
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Speaker 6: second year. Really get and go. We've seen the House
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Speaker 6: Republican caucus come out with their agenda, and my caucus
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Speaker 6: and myself are focused on, you know, a future and
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Speaker 6: a present that the West Virginians can afford. Because I
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Speaker 6: don't know about you, but everything's really really expensive.
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Speaker 3: We can what can the legislature do about that?
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Speaker 6: Though so many things, There are so many things we
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Speaker 6: can do. We can do lots of things to help
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Speaker 6: folks with their utility bills. We can help with childcare,
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Speaker 6: we can help with housing, we can help with healthcare,
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Speaker 6: pretty much everything, and we haven't really addressed a lot
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Speaker 6: of those. And since I've been there.
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Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about a couple of
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Speaker 3: weeks ago. I guess week two before Christmas, House Speaker
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Speaker 3: Handshaw get together with some Republican members of the House,
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Speaker 3: and you know, they came out and said that in
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Speaker 3: the twenty twenty succession, we want to focus on jobs.
4:41
Speaker 3: We want to focus on the economy. Didn't come right
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Speaker 3: out and say no social issues, because there will always
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Speaker 3: be some. I mean Democrats you know have some too,
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Speaker 3: but they kind of delegate, they kind of leaned in
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Speaker 3: the direction of we are flaser focused on jobs and
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Speaker 3: the economy.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, they did say that, which is interesting because they've
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Speaker 6: been in power since twenty fourteen and they're just now
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Speaker 6: starting to get focused on jobs in twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 6: I mean, most of the bills that I heard about
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Speaker 6: sound great. So I'm excited for that agenda and excited
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Speaker 6: to actually work on things that matter.
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Speaker 3: What is on your wish list for twenty twenty six?
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Speaker 6: Honestly, I feel like a broken record because I've been
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Speaker 6: here six years in a row.
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Speaker 3: Oh you go back and play re interview for my
5:20
Speaker 3: last tear, You.
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Speaker 6: Quite frankly could pay all of them in a row.
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Speaker 6: It's always still childcare. And right now the Trump administrations
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Speaker 6: withholding all the funds, all the federal funds for childcare
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Speaker 6: due to what we've seen across the country. And so yeah,
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Speaker 6: it's hundreds of millions of dollars that we're going to
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Speaker 6: have to figure out, plus all the cuts to the
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Speaker 6: Big Bill, where we don't exactly know the dollar amount.
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Speaker 6: I've seen the Governor talk about a tax cut. I
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Speaker 6: don't know how we're going to afford all this.
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Speaker 3: I wanted that it was going to be. My next
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Speaker 3: question was about the Governor. Yesterday we played part of
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Speaker 3: his press event on Metro News Midday yesterday at the
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Speaker 3: governor coming out and said he's floating that idea. Brad
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Speaker 3: writes about it wv metronews dot com. Quote, my proposal
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Speaker 3: for the upcoming session, this is the it are talking,
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Speaker 3: will provide several additional tax cuts that will help provide
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Speaker 3: relief for taxpayers while maintaining fiscal responsibility we've set as
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Speaker 3: a standard for the first day of my administration. In quote,
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Speaker 3: he went on to say somewhere between five and ten
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Speaker 3: percent would be a good place for him. Of course,
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Speaker 3: pending legislatives support your thoughts.
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Speaker 6: Interesting because the math just doesn't math for me. The
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Speaker 6: tax cut that we did in twenty twenty three, which
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Speaker 6: I did support, was a twenty one percent cut twenty
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Speaker 6: one and a quarter percent cut. Since then, I think
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Speaker 6: we're up to like twenty eight percent now. So how
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Speaker 6: that works is that there was a trigger law built
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Speaker 6: into that tax cut where every year they would look
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Speaker 6: at the baseline budget and if it was inflation adjusted
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Speaker 6: based on the twenty nineteen budget and it was higher
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Speaker 6: than that, an additional tax cut would trigger. To me,
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Speaker 6: that's some level of physical responsibility. It's not going to
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Speaker 6: show you the full fiscal health of the state. But
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Speaker 6: that's at least some measurable way. That didn't happen this
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Speaker 6: year because we didn't hit that baseline because our revenues
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Speaker 6: are not up period, and we've been cutting budgets at
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Speaker 6: state agencies ever since. Our revenues are not up from
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Speaker 6: before the pandemic, so those tax cuts aren't coming in.
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Speaker 6: They didn't come in this year. I don't know how
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Speaker 6: we're going to afford another tax cut.
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Speaker 3: So how is it that different people can look at
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Speaker 3: the same numbers and come away with different views? Because
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Speaker 3: there's going to be some people that say, Hey, the
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Speaker 3: state's doing fine, and there are others that say they're not.
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Speaker 3: And so so how could people everybody look at the
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Speaker 3: same numbers and get a different takeaway?
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Speaker 6: Delegate, Are they the same numbers because they're the numbers
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Speaker 6: that they estimate. I'm looking at the numbers that actually
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Speaker 6: come in, and the budget is what's estimated for this
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Speaker 6: next year, So they're not quite the same numbers. They
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Speaker 6: say we can do this. They're talking about future numbers.
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Speaker 6: I'm looking at the numbers that are actually coming in.
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Speaker 6: We get a report once a month of what those
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Speaker 6: numbers are, and in the law, those tax cuts are
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Speaker 6: going to trigger if if, if our revenues are up,
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Speaker 6: and they just simply aren't up.
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Speaker 3: Talking again with Democratic Delegate to Kayla Young from the
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Speaker 3: fifty six to Dave Allen Show and five eighty Live
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Speaker 3: is Broad to You, parted by Morgan to Morgan, America's
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Speaker 3: largest injury law firm. All right, So, as I said,
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Speaker 3: Speaker Hanshaw a couple of weeks ago said that they
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Speaker 3: were going to focus on jobs in the economy, and
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Speaker 3: you applaud that. How I'm not asking to speak ill
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Speaker 3: of your fellow legislature, but how likely do you think
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Speaker 3: that is that? Because and that was just the House.
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Speaker 3: I mean, there's a Senate really hasn't said anything. I'll
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Speaker 3: talk to Senator Takubo about that a little bit later on.
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Speaker 3: But how likely are you that they're able to stick
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Speaker 3: to that, or that there's the desire from all members
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Speaker 3: just to stick to me?
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Speaker 6: I think there will likely be the desire from the
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Speaker 6: members of the House. But for those who aren't laser
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Speaker 6: focused on the legislature, I don't blame you because you're
8:34
Speaker 6: living your life and getting through the day today. But
8:37
Speaker 6: for those who are laser focused on the legislature. They
8:39
Speaker 6: know that there are several civil wars going on within
8:42
Speaker 6: the legislature. The Senate has one, there are two Republican
8:45
Speaker 6: caucuses that are duking it out. Campaign finance reports are
8:49
Speaker 6: starting to come out, and you're really starting to see
8:51
Speaker 6: the pressure build between the Senate itself. Then you've got
8:53
Speaker 6: the Senate in the House, and then the governor somewhere
8:56
Speaker 6: in the mix. So depending on the day, you don't
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Speaker 6: know who's fighting with whom. The minority caucus in the House,
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Speaker 6: but that really doesn't mean a lot when you've got
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Speaker 6: one hundred. It's like a chessboard, right, and sometimes we're
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Speaker 6: all against the governor. Sometimes it's the Senate versus the House.
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Speaker 6: We'll see. I think the House priorities are pretty good.
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Speaker 6: I'm excited to do tangible things, but we haven't heard
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Speaker 6: anything from the Senate, and they can't seem to agree
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Speaker 6: with each other.
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Speaker 3: We have a text here, and I know you're always
9:22
Speaker 3: really good about taking text from us. Whatever says, can
9:25
Speaker 3: you ask her about foster care and adoption subsidies. Most
9:28
Speaker 3: of us do not do this for the money by
9:30
Speaker 3: any means, but we depend on it.
9:31
Speaker 1: YEP.
9:32
Speaker 3: And the subsidies have been the same for years while
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Speaker 3: inflation has skyrocketed. They need to do a cost of
9:37
Speaker 3: living increase or something.
9:38
Speaker 6: I completely agree with that. We need to do cost
9:40
Speaker 6: of living increases for a lot of things, retirees included.
9:44
Speaker 6: You know, the cost of living has gone up for
9:45
Speaker 6: absolutely everyone. But again we have had years and years.
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Speaker 6: I've been in the legislature since twenty twenty. A flat
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Speaker 6: budget means you can't increase anything. It's the same amount
9:56
Speaker 6: of money, and the baseline has not gone up in
9:59
Speaker 6: that time. It's gone down. We've spent half as much
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Speaker 6: dollars amount than we've spent on childcare from ten years ago.
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Speaker 6: The dollar amount is cut in half to go down.
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Speaker 6: That's not great. The same thing has happened with foster care.
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Speaker 6: We do need to increase these subsidies, but you can't
10:14
Speaker 6: do that with a flat budget and constantly wanting to
10:17
Speaker 6: cut spending all the time. At some point, government just
10:21
Speaker 6: doesn't work anymore. Maybe that's the goal. I'm not sure.
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Speaker 6: That's certainly not my goal. But I mean, you can't
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Speaker 6: just like keep cutting, cutting, cutting, and expecting the baseline
10:30
Speaker 6: to be paid for.
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Speaker 3: I talked last week, Now get with the state Democratic
10:34
Speaker 3: Party chair Mike Pushkin on the Midday Show, and he
10:36
Speaker 3: talked about trying to get around the state of West Virginia,
10:39
Speaker 3: trying to get folks to run in these run against
10:42
Speaker 3: Republicans and you know, in the House and also in
10:46
Speaker 3: the Senate statewide. As as someone who is as a
10:50
Speaker 3: proud Democrat as you are, what would you how would
10:53
Speaker 3: you go about maybe getting that message to people about
10:56
Speaker 3: running for office about Democrats Because the reason I say
10:59
Speaker 3: that is it is an uphill climb. As you well know,
11:02
Speaker 3: thirty years ago we're having this conversation about Republicans running
11:04
Speaker 3: in West Virginia's it's a cycle, but it is an
11:08
Speaker 3: uphill climb, you know, especially when you get into some
11:11
Speaker 3: of the more rural areas. For somebody in you know,
11:14
Speaker 3: in fill In County here it's a more rural area.
11:17
Speaker 3: What's your advice to somebody like that, like yourself, that
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Speaker 3: may want to get involved and what what would you
11:22
Speaker 3: say to them?
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Speaker 6: I mean, I think I'm interested in people that aren't
11:24
Speaker 6: that you know, step up to fights that are difficult,
11:27
Speaker 6: because that's the right thing to do. It is hard
11:29
Speaker 6: to run for office, it's hard to be in office.
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Speaker 6: See We've seen a lot of political violence this last year,
11:34
Speaker 6: these last few years, I mean, heck gets January sixth,
11:36
Speaker 6: We've seen a lot of political violence recently. So it's
11:40
Speaker 6: not great for people that want to run for office.
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Speaker 6: It's it's a tough sell, really, But if people are
11:45
Speaker 6: up for the fight, I think the state of West
11:47
Speaker 6: Virginia and her people are worth it.
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Speaker 3: And why should that be with the D after their
11:51
Speaker 3: name other than an R.
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Speaker 6: I mean, I personally, those are just my values and
11:56
Speaker 6: my morals, and I can sleep well at night and
11:59
Speaker 6: that that's what matters to me at the very end
12:01
Speaker 6: of the day, is can i look myself in the
12:02
Speaker 6: mirror and say, I'm proud of the choices that I
12:05
Speaker 6: make my kids would not be embarrassed by the things
12:07
Speaker 6: that I do. And looking at the legislature and some
12:09
Speaker 6: of the things that we've dealt with over the past
12:12
Speaker 6: few years, I mean, these foster care families. We've got
12:15
Speaker 6: seven thousand kids in foster care, and we spent more
12:18
Speaker 6: time legalizing standing up on a motorcycle last year. It's there.
12:22
Speaker 6: We do a lot of embarrassing things, and so I
12:24
Speaker 6: can understand why people wouldn't want to be in that room.
12:29
Speaker 6: But I just think we have a lot. We have
12:31
Speaker 6: a great future ahead of us if we so choose.
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Speaker 3: Delikat Kaylee Young, It's always a pleasure to have you
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Speaker 3: on the show. Good luck in the session. I say
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Speaker 3: good luck because you never know what's going to happen.
12:39
Speaker 3: You know, I need it put to put the helmet
12:41
Speaker 3: on and going. You're always welcome on the show. I
12:43
Speaker 3: appreciate you being here.
12:44
Speaker 7: Thanks.
12:44
Speaker 5: I have a good day.
12:45
Speaker 3: Byt nine twenty, We'll take it bright Charleston marre Amy
12:47
Speaker 3: sure a good one on the town Center. Coming up
12:49
Speaker 3: a little bit later on the show, Senator Tom Takubo
12:51
Speaker 3: is here. We'll take a break, come back after this
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Speaker 3: Amy Sheil, A good one is here, Welcome back to
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15:34
Speaker 5: Good morning, say to this city.
15:36
Speaker 3: Last night from Charleston City Council, lots discussed, but of course,
15:40
Speaker 3: of what everybody's talking about this morning, what's making the
15:42
Speaker 3: rounds news, social media everywhere starting last night. Lead story
15:46
Speaker 3: in fact this morning wv Metronews dot com and WCHS
15:49
Speaker 3: network dot com about the mall. Last night, you said
15:52
Speaker 3: the city has been in discussions with the whole group,
15:54
Speaker 3: the owners of them all about transferring ownership of the
15:57
Speaker 3: mall to the city. Take it from there.
15:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, let me do this, Yeah, because.
16:03
Speaker 12: There was intention behind my drafting of the state of
16:05
Speaker 12: the city, and to be specific about it, and I
16:10
Speaker 12: won't answer that question with Gusto here in just about
16:12
Speaker 12: sixty seconds, but let me say this the story last
16:16
Speaker 12: night and the body of the state of the city,
16:19
Speaker 12: and if you want to read it fully like my
16:21
Speaker 12: mom did last night, you can get on our city
16:23
Speaker 12: website and read it. But it was about the private
16:28
Speaker 12: investment that is going into the city currently. So while
16:32
Speaker 12: I was thinking about this as I was coming into
16:33
Speaker 12: the studio, and I knew this was going to be
16:35
Speaker 12: the first question as it was last night with all
16:37
Speaker 12: the reporters after the State of the City, three hundred
16:39
Speaker 12: and fifteen million dollars, three hundred and fifteen million in
16:44
Speaker 12: a handful of years of developers who are coming in
16:47
Speaker 12: and building massive structures in the city of Charleston. They're
16:51
Speaker 12: building housing, they're building energy headquarters, they're building banks, they're
16:56
Speaker 12: building high end living lofts. Charm COO built twenty two
17:01
Speaker 12: million dollars in less than two years of wonderful housing
17:07
Speaker 12: on Charleston ze Send and West Side. So I bring
17:10
Speaker 12: that up initially because that's not the lead today.
17:14
Speaker 5: It should be.
17:15
Speaker 12: The lead is people are investing in the city of
17:19
Speaker 12: Charleston because they know they're going to get a return
17:21
Speaker 12: on investment. It's so easy for folks to get up
17:24
Speaker 12: and do a state of this city. Typically as they're done.
17:26
Speaker 12: Look what I did, me my eye, We're very good
17:28
Speaker 12: at doing that, right. What I wanted to show is
17:31
Speaker 12: there are people investing in this city with purpose and
17:35
Speaker 12: intention because they see things rising. But back to the mall, Yeah,
17:41
Speaker 12: I mean, you know, every time I'm on this show, Dave,
17:44
Speaker 12: I mean not every time, that's an exaggeration. Almost every
17:46
Speaker 12: time people talk about the sports complex they talk about
17:50
Speaker 12: the immunispaudatorium. They ask about the mall. What are you
17:53
Speaker 12: going to do about the mall? Well, people started asking
17:55
Speaker 12: me about the mall seven years ago, and on his
17:57
Speaker 12: way out the door, Danny Jones literally said the words
17:59
Speaker 12: to me, hand to the heavens, this is your anvil
18:02
Speaker 12: around your neck. Now, Well, I didn't buy them all.
18:06
Speaker 12: City didn't buy them all. I don't buy a lot
18:09
Speaker 12: of businesses in town. It's a really municipal government's job
18:11
Speaker 12: to go in and number one buy up malls. Hasn't
18:16
Speaker 12: been it is now, by the way, but initially it
18:21
Speaker 12: is when somebody buys a business, which the whole group did,
18:25
Speaker 12: by the way, they bought the business.
18:27
Speaker 5: It is theirs people.
18:30
Speaker 12: Somebody texted me last nine you should have never let
18:33
Speaker 12: them buy the mall to begin with. What that's like
18:36
Speaker 12: saying I shouldn't allow you to buy the salon down
18:39
Speaker 12: the street. No, I mean this is a private investment,
18:42
Speaker 12: private business. And so I will say this. The history
18:47
Speaker 12: of the mall has been a good one. It really
18:50
Speaker 12: has malls across the country. You know, in the eighties
18:53
Speaker 12: and nineties were like twenty five hundred malls across the country.
18:57
Speaker 5: Dave, because that was the model, right.
18:59
Speaker 12: That closed super block of stores facing inward. That's not
19:03
Speaker 12: the model anymore, but it was it was the right
19:07
Speaker 12: thing to do at the time. I really believe that,
19:09
Speaker 12: and having watched and studied malls probably more than I
19:13
Speaker 12: would have liked to, it was probably the right thing
19:17
Speaker 12: to do at the time to find an error, as
19:19
Speaker 12: I said last night. But times have changed, and so
19:24
Speaker 12: for me to take the next step in development of
19:29
Speaker 12: the Capital Sports Complex or reimagining the municipal Auditorium, we
19:36
Speaker 12: started discussions with the Hall group. You know, we met
19:39
Speaker 12: them when they came in and have met since and
19:43
Speaker 12: you were part of the absolutely, absolutely, and so we
19:48
Speaker 12: want to be as supportive to businesses as we possibly can.
19:51
Speaker 12: By the way, we still are and we still want
19:53
Speaker 12: to be. It's not my job to manage or run
19:55
Speaker 12: your business. My job is to make sure that there
19:57
Speaker 12: are people in front of your shop, your stores, that
20:01
Speaker 12: there are people on the streets, that it is a
20:03
Speaker 12: good and safe and clean place to live, work and play,
20:05
Speaker 12: and we do that with Gusto. However, over the past
20:09
Speaker 12: year we started these conversations of what does this look like,
20:12
Speaker 12: and you know, Matthew Sutton, my chief staff, who you.
20:15
Speaker 13: Know very well.
20:15
Speaker 12: They've said just to me a couple of days ago.
20:19
Speaker 12: You know, if I just got on social media and
20:21
Speaker 12: type in the words maw and post it, I think
20:23
Speaker 12: I'd get like a thousand likes and a whole bunch
20:25
Speaker 12: of comments. What should you do? People have a vested
20:28
Speaker 12: interest about the mall. We haven't been posting or talking
20:31
Speaker 12: about this because that's not the way that conversations work
20:34
Speaker 12: in business and development works. However, we have come to
20:39
Speaker 12: a point in our discussions that we have to start
20:42
Speaker 12: thinking about what this structure would look like. We have
20:46
Speaker 12: looked at other malls across the country. What does that
20:50
Speaker 12: structure look like the entity who would hold the title
20:55
Speaker 12: before we accept a donation. That's why I made the
20:59
Speaker 12: announcement last night, because I'm gonna have to go through
21:01
Speaker 12: council establish a government body of development council that's going
21:06
Speaker 12: to take ownership of this, you know, when the transactions
21:09
Speaker 12: are finalized, and so now is the time to talk
21:13
Speaker 12: about this. People say to me all the time, you
21:14
Speaker 12: need to do something about the mall. And when I
21:17
Speaker 12: would say we are, we are, it was it's not enough.
21:20
Speaker 12: Sometimes for folks, they want to know instantly right now
21:22
Speaker 12: what's going to happen. And as a matter of fact,
21:24
Speaker 12: even in the green room, somebody said, what what are
21:26
Speaker 12: you going to do with it? It's not it is
21:29
Speaker 12: not for me to decide what that mall area is
21:35
Speaker 12: going to look like in the next four years. I
21:36
Speaker 12: can help set up the best structures I think should work.
21:41
Speaker 12: To have folks who do this every day, day in
21:45
Speaker 12: and day out. But let me manage expectations. Because somebody
21:47
Speaker 12: else had just said to me, boy, I hope they
21:49
Speaker 12: bring back the XYZ store.
21:52
Speaker 5: That's probably not going to happen.
21:53
Speaker 7: Amen.
21:54
Speaker 12: The mall is not going to be the mall of
21:56
Speaker 12: yester year, by the way, we don't want it to be.
22:02
Speaker 5: We don't want to.
22:04
Speaker 12: By the way, I have I have a Barbersville. It's
22:06
Speaker 12: called South Ridge. It's great. Most people don't know that
22:11
Speaker 12: that's part of the city at Charleston.
22:13
Speaker 5: Those shops. If you if you have studied.
22:16
Speaker 12: And watched what has happened to malls in particular of downtowns,
22:20
Speaker 12: why they, you know, injected a lot of economic development
22:25
Speaker 12: for that period of time. Certainly in the eighties and nineties,
22:28
Speaker 12: they have been reimagined and redeveloped. Look at cities that
22:34
Speaker 12: we have looked at. You know Columbus, they're downtown mall
22:37
Speaker 12: in that structure, Raleigh, Charlotte, Big states, you know Massachusetts
22:46
Speaker 12: with their population in Boston and what they have, what
22:49
Speaker 12: they've done, Connecticut, Utah, what those mall structures now look like.
22:56
Speaker 12: Guess what they most And give big generalities here, because
23:00
Speaker 12: people are trying to tack me down.
23:02
Speaker 5: Are you going to open up them all again? Folks?
23:05
Speaker 12: The best might And by the way, somebody said to me,
23:07
Speaker 12: a reporter asked me last night, what would you like
23:09
Speaker 12: to see it become? That doesn't have anything to do
23:12
Speaker 12: with the price of eggs, As my grandmother used to say,
23:15
Speaker 12: it doesn't have anything to do with it. My job
23:17
Speaker 12: is to make sure it has the highest and best use,
23:20
Speaker 12: that it has a gener a revenue generating element to it,
23:25
Speaker 12: that it serves the community, and that it serves the
23:28
Speaker 12: community for the next generations. Not Amy and Dave. My
23:33
Speaker 12: husband loved the Charlestontown Center Marl when he lived in Ripley.
23:36
Speaker 12: Want to know why that's where you got your blue
23:38
Speaker 12: jeans in your shoes because that was the only place
23:39
Speaker 12: to get blue jeans and shoes to start school. It
23:42
Speaker 12: was the place that you connected and met. Those days
23:45
Speaker 12: are gone. That's okay to say those days are gone.
23:49
Speaker 12: What can it be? The models that are working across
23:52
Speaker 12: the country have several different elements. That are two of them.
23:56
Speaker 12: They are Everybody likes to say the word mixed use.
23:58
Speaker 12: What does that mean, Well, it means housing, it means shops,
24:02
Speaker 12: it means offices. It does mean coffee houses and eateries.
24:06
Speaker 12: And but there are a lot of things that have
24:08
Speaker 12: to be done for those things to happen. Let me
24:12
Speaker 12: also manage expectations by saying the development of them all
24:16
Speaker 12: took a decade. This is this is not going to
24:20
Speaker 12: be six months a year. This is years in the making.
24:25
Speaker 3: What do those trains? What are those conversations? And the
24:29
Speaker 3: transaction from the whole group will look like, how is
24:31
Speaker 3: this whole thing going to work? I mean best case scenario, Well, the.
24:34
Speaker 12: Best case scenarios the city accepts is as a donation,
24:37
Speaker 12: we put it into a development organization.
24:39
Speaker 3: Is that what's happening here is the is the whole
24:41
Speaker 3: group donating. The whole group is donating the town center
24:44
Speaker 3: to the City of Charles.
24:45
Speaker 12: Those are the discussions that we're currently having, yes, and
24:48
Speaker 12: what does that look like for them and for us?
24:51
Speaker 12: There are let me and let me also go backwards
24:53
Speaker 12: as well. You can't have a strategy about what happens
24:56
Speaker 12: to that property without talking about this super block and
25:01
Speaker 12: this massive structure. Just like having vibrancy all through the city,
25:07
Speaker 12: you need oxygen and air that flows through it. It's
25:11
Speaker 12: not working. Super blocks and malls are not working. They
25:14
Speaker 12: are being cut up into pieces in that it opens
25:18
Speaker 12: up blocks. Roads are going through these megablocks now and
25:24
Speaker 12: so think of think of malls that you've gone to
25:26
Speaker 12: that now have you know roadways down or walkways through them?
25:32
Speaker 12: So you have to talk about the super block structure.
25:34
Speaker 12: Look at that planning. How do you how do you
25:36
Speaker 12: get air and oxygen through, how do you get people through,
25:39
Speaker 12: how do you get cars through?
25:40
Speaker 5: How do you open that up?
25:41
Speaker 12: That's number one, Well, not in any particular order, because
25:44
Speaker 12: there's ninety things on the checklist, but also what what
25:52
Speaker 12: are the things that you need to do to make
25:54
Speaker 12: sure that we have parking. By the way, if Terry Allen,
25:57
Speaker 12: our director of parking, were on she would say, in
25:59
Speaker 12: the City of Charles, in the downtown proper area. They're
26:01
Speaker 12: twenty seven two hundred and five parking spaces. Do you
26:05
Speaker 12: believe me? There are there are for folks to park
26:10
Speaker 12: and walk. But we've become a society where I just
26:13
Speaker 12: want park right up.
26:13
Speaker 5: By the way. So do I, folks.
26:15
Speaker 12: That's why I love going out south through sometimes like
26:17
Speaker 12: park and just jump right in by the way. That's
26:20
Speaker 12: why I like to go to Sarah's breaker. I just
26:22
Speaker 12: park right up and jump on in and get some
26:24
Speaker 12: her great soups. So you have to talk about the
26:28
Speaker 12: parking strategy. You have to talk about what does that
26:31
Speaker 12: block look like? And you have to talk about what
26:34
Speaker 12: revenue generating entities are you going to put in that
26:39
Speaker 12: place and that space that will make it worthwhile. Those
26:44
Speaker 12: are for developers who do this across the country. And
26:47
Speaker 12: you're probably looking at me because we need to take
26:49
Speaker 12: a break, and I can talk about this on the
26:50
Speaker 12: flip side of a break, because I do want to
26:53
Speaker 12: talk about this. This isn't again, this isn't wave a
26:57
Speaker 12: magic wand and it's done. We have talked to developers
27:00
Speaker 12: all across the country, the folks who build Marshals and
27:05
Speaker 12: TJ Max and home goods, to the folks who have
27:08
Speaker 12: torn down malls completely, who have redeveloped shopping centers, the
27:12
Speaker 12: folks who hold the entities of retail outlets. But it
27:23
Speaker 12: is a long process period. It's just a long process.
27:27
Speaker 12: And what is working in oh I went to Xyz
27:31
Speaker 12: City last weekend. We could do that here maybe, maybe,
27:35
Speaker 12: But what is required of this time is to make
27:39
Speaker 12: sure that we are bringing the right people to the table. Listen,
27:42
Speaker 12: I feel like I have a thousand good ideas. Those
27:45
Speaker 12: ideas might not work. And by the way, we were
27:48
Speaker 12: chit chatting and kind of joking before we got on
27:51
Speaker 12: the air day about well, don't read the comments online.
27:54
Speaker 5: People want this or people want that.
27:56
Speaker 12: I don't think people are saying it for nefarious purposes purples.
28:00
Speaker 12: Most of the time, let me give a benefit of doubt,
28:02
Speaker 12: I'll say ninety percent of the time.
28:03
Speaker 5: You know what, I think.
28:04
Speaker 12: I think people want something good and they remember something
28:07
Speaker 12: good and I like the shop, or they like the
28:09
Speaker 12: coffee house, or they like that place they used to.
28:11
Speaker 6: Go to to.
28:12
Speaker 12: They want to have something that they feel as good,
28:14
Speaker 12: and so they're giving their opinion about it.
28:16
Speaker 5: I'm down with that. I think that's great.
28:18
Speaker 12: But it is much more than Amy wanting her favorite
28:21
Speaker 12: women's shop where she likes to, you know, try on clothes,
28:25
Speaker 12: or that one shoe shop. It is so much bigger
28:29
Speaker 12: than that. When we start to say, if you put
28:31
Speaker 12: a Dave and Busters in it, it'll save it. As
28:33
Speaker 12: my good friend Tony says all the time, by the way,
28:35
Speaker 12: it's not going to I hate to say that to you.
28:37
Speaker 3: No it's not.
28:38
Speaker 5: It is not going to do that. By the way.
28:39
Speaker 5: That's okay. I appreciate you want a Dave and Busters.
28:42
Speaker 5: It's okay to say that. But what you're really.
28:44
Speaker 12: Saying is you want activity, you want vibrancy, you want light,
28:48
Speaker 12: you want oxygen, you want people moving around. And again,
28:51
Speaker 12: the way that is structured right now, that's not working.
28:54
Speaker 5: That's okay.
28:55
Speaker 3: It hasn't for some time.
28:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that's okay.
28:57
Speaker 3: And so here's what I'm hearing from that. I don't
28:59
Speaker 3: want to boot put words about it. And I'm hearing
29:01
Speaker 3: this multi use. If it comes to that, this is
29:04
Speaker 3: not going to be retail, or at least not all.
29:07
Speaker 3: There could be possibly could be some retail in there.
29:11
Speaker 3: But what I'm hearing from you, Mayor is that the
29:13
Speaker 3: future of the Town Center is not as a retail establishment.
29:16
Speaker 12: The most successful places in the United States that succeed,
29:22
Speaker 12: especially in downtown areas, have a mixture of a couple
29:25
Speaker 12: of different things. People who live there, people who work there,
29:30
Speaker 12: and most important, traffic Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
29:36
Speaker 12: and in the evenings there's lots of air and oxygen
29:39
Speaker 12: and people moving through that area. So what does that
29:43
Speaker 12: look like, Probably, David, looks like mixed use. That's what
29:47
Speaker 12: we're talking about. And you know, I mentioned them in
29:50
Speaker 12: the speech last night, certainly worth repeating. Think about that area,
29:55
Speaker 12: Think about what Linda Ashley did with PoCA Valley. Think
29:58
Speaker 12: about what TC and in Remington, Canadian based Development Group,
30:04
Speaker 12: first project in the United States of America, sixty million
30:07
Speaker 12: dollar project. It's right here in Charleston. Super proud, super
30:11
Speaker 12: proud of that. But look at what has been developed
30:15
Speaker 12: in and around there. This is a place that has momentum,
30:19
Speaker 12: but the most totally disconnected from all of that momentum,
30:22
Speaker 12: all of that investment. And that is why it is
30:25
Speaker 12: so important for the City of Charleston to be engaged
30:28
Speaker 12: in this conversation. And again it's gonna it's gonna take
30:32
Speaker 12: a while. We're going to engage the public. But these
30:34
Speaker 12: conversations needed to be had and they needed to be
30:38
Speaker 12: shared with the public now because we need engagement. We
30:41
Speaker 12: need public engagement on this. We think this is the
30:44
Speaker 12: best and right time to make these make these announcements.
30:49
Speaker 12: My friend Tara ellis from Advantage Valley. She says to
30:52
Speaker 12: me all the time. She was there last night, and
30:54
Speaker 12: I shouted her out for it because she says to
30:57
Speaker 12: me when I said, I think we need to do this,
31:00
Speaker 12: and she said, I think you're brave. I think this
31:03
Speaker 12: is a tall order, and she's not. She's not wrong.
31:05
Speaker 12: I almost threw up this morning when I woke up.
31:07
Speaker 12: But I will also say that she reminds me weekly.
31:14
Speaker 12: If these were easy projects, everybody would have done them
31:16
Speaker 12: a long time ago. These are not easy projects. These
31:19
Speaker 12: are complicated, but that's okay. I think that we have
31:24
Speaker 12: the people on the ground and a knowledge base of
31:26
Speaker 12: people who have connected us with people all across the
31:29
Speaker 12: country to make really good decisions. The City of Charleston,
31:33
Speaker 12: the mayor and city council are not going to decide
31:36
Speaker 12: if there's going to be an XYZ store. Combat That's
31:39
Speaker 12: not our job.
31:40
Speaker 5: That is not our job. Our job is to make.
31:43
Speaker 12: Sure that this area is fully revitalized. These are our
31:47
Speaker 12: largest city assets, and the infrastructure investment that is being
31:52
Speaker 12: put into this area in the City of Charleston is monumental.
31:55
Speaker 12: We haven't seen this in decades in the city. But
31:59
Speaker 12: if you light a buyer and you keep it going,
32:01
Speaker 12: it grows. That's what we want to have happen. We
32:07
Speaker 12: need another hotel, folks. We are gaining momentum with the
32:12
Speaker 12: coliseum and convention center. That's the reason why we're putting
32:16
Speaker 12: investment in it, because we get a return on investment.
32:19
Speaker 12: You know, I mentioned also last night about the local
32:23
Speaker 12: folks who are investing, but let's not forget about the
32:25
Speaker 12: fact that we have a lot of national folks investing.
32:28
Speaker 12: And oh, by the way, they're not putting money in
32:30
Speaker 12: the City of Charleston unless they know for sure, Dave,
32:33
Speaker 12: they're going to get a return on their investment. Kenas
32:36
Speaker 12: city number one, you think sheets and Dunkin Donuts and
32:40
Speaker 12: Chipotle and Jersey. Mike says, we're just going to give
32:43
Speaker 12: it a try. We're just we're just going to take
32:45
Speaker 12: a chance to see this work.
32:46
Speaker 3: No, they don't, They've done their homework.
32:48
Speaker 12: They don't they don't do that. By the way, we
32:50
Speaker 12: will continue to do our homework. We don't have all
32:53
Speaker 12: the answers. We don't know what it is going to
32:56
Speaker 12: look like in ten years, but by golly, what we
32:59
Speaker 12: do know is that it must serve our entire community
33:03
Speaker 12: in this space and place. We need to work with
33:05
Speaker 12: the folks who own the property currently and its future
33:10
Speaker 12: use and what that looks like. We need to make
33:13
Speaker 12: sure that we're doing right. Somebody asked me, well, how
33:15
Speaker 12: much money have you wasted on this?
33:17
Speaker 5: Nothing?
33:19
Speaker 12: Nothing, I mean our time, our energy. But in the
33:24
Speaker 12: future it's going to be something that the city has
33:26
Speaker 12: to decide, as it did in the late seventies and
33:30
Speaker 12: early eighties, what does this look like and how may
33:33
Speaker 12: we do our best job to set it up whatever
33:37
Speaker 12: it is so it benefits the city, it's businesses, residents
33:42
Speaker 12: for decades to come. This isn't an easy project, but
33:46
Speaker 12: it is one that will have rippling effects for years
33:49
Speaker 12: to come. And true to form is the people who
33:52
Speaker 12: fled it into city council chambers last night. We have
33:56
Speaker 12: a really good base of really smart people here in
33:59
Speaker 12: the city that are doing great things. They should also
34:02
Speaker 12: be recognized for their good work.
34:04
Speaker 3: Charles Mary mischiela good. We're going to have you back
34:06
Speaker 3: on Metro News midday today because this is I'm sorry
34:10
Speaker 3: to inform you that, but you're coming back well, and
34:13
Speaker 3: because this is a story of statewide significance, because when
34:16
Speaker 3: people come to Charleston state tournaments, concerts for God or whatever,
34:19
Speaker 3: it's first place they go to. So I appreciate you
34:22
Speaker 3: coming on the show this morning.
34:23
Speaker 5: Thank you, thanks for having me. Appreciate it absolutely.
34:25
Speaker 3: Nineteen minutes away from ten but Dave Allen showing five
34:27
Speaker 3: Indyline brown Shoe part by Husband's Pizza this month get
34:29
Speaker 3: a large a ten inch Pepperoni pizza and a pizza bowl.
34:32
Speaker 3: Twenty two ninety nine finding Neares Hustan'sizza for delivery Pickupper
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Speaker 3: dined in a Husbandspizza dot Com. Senator Tom Tacubo coming
34:38
Speaker 3: up next on the Voice of Charleston WCCHS.
34:41
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35:49
Speaker 2: There's a lot to be thankful for during the holiday season,
35:52
Speaker 2: and the number one thing the folks at Walker, Chevrolet
35:54
Speaker 2: and Nitro are thankful for is you.
35:57
Speaker 6: You.
35:57
Speaker 2: They're friends that put their trust in Walker for an honest,
36:00
Speaker 2: fair deal on your next vehicle. You they're neighbors that
36:03
Speaker 2: stop in to visit from time to time and bring
36:05
Speaker 2: holiday cheer. And it's you that makes the Canal Valley
36:08
Speaker 2: one of the greatest places in the world. It's folks
36:11
Speaker 2: like you that keep Gene and Ryan in the car
36:13
Speaker 2: business and made them want to build their business the
36:15
Speaker 2: old fashioned way by making friends. By now you know
36:19
Speaker 2: there are no gimmicks or games at Walker, just the honest,
36:22
Speaker 2: fair deals that you've come to expect. And you know
36:24
Speaker 2: that if you have a vehicle to sell, Walker Chevrolet
36:27
Speaker 2: will buy it from you and give you top dollar
36:29
Speaker 2: for it, even if you plan to buy somewhere else.
36:31
Speaker 2: So to you and your family from the entire gang
36:33
Speaker 2: in Nitro, Merry Christmas, and don't be surprised if this
36:37
Speaker 2: year Santa's on his way in a brand new Walker Chevrolet.
36:40
Speaker 2: Walker Chevrolet in the shadow of the Interstate Bridge just
36:43
Speaker 2: off the Nitro exit of I sixty four. Walker Chevrolet
36:46
Speaker 2: making friends, one deal at a time. Welcome back to
37:07
Speaker 2: the show.
37:07
Speaker 3: It is sixteen minutes away from Tampa Day Island Show
37:10
Speaker 3: and five Any Live has brought to you parted by
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Speaker 3: four three four five fifty eight fifty eight, Tony the
37:26
Speaker 3: Tailor text three zero four nine three five five zero
37:29
Speaker 3: zero eight. Let me knock out a couple of texts here,
37:31
Speaker 3: because I could honestly say, we got a lot of
37:33
Speaker 3: text to get to it. I'll do the best I
37:34
Speaker 3: can to get through them before we get Senator Tom Tokubo. Uh, Texas, Okay,
37:40
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to keep it to the mall here, Okay,
37:43
Speaker 3: Texas mayor invest in a casino for the mall. One
37:46
Speaker 3: floor for restaurants, one floor for hotel rooms, one floor
37:49
Speaker 3: for all games. Makes perfect sense to me, says a
37:52
Speaker 3: Texter about the city wanting to take over the mall
37:55
Speaker 3: after the failure of this multimillion dollar sports complex. Be honest,
37:58
Speaker 3: how long until a talk of pill for even more
38:01
Speaker 3: from the fifty thousand workers not citizens aka the user
38:04
Speaker 3: feed gets raised even more of us to five or
38:06
Speaker 3: ten dollars a week. I think we ought to just
38:08
Speaker 3: wait and see where the plan goes from here before
38:11
Speaker 3: we start making, you know, comments. I appreciate the text,
38:14
Speaker 3: but I mean, they're in discussions right now with the
38:17
Speaker 3: whole group. The whole group from the Mayor's interview says
38:21
Speaker 3: that they are at least willing to have the conversation
38:23
Speaker 3: about donating them all to the City of Charleston. We're
38:27
Speaker 3: not even to that point yet. We're just have it's
38:29
Speaker 3: just discussions at this point. Does the mayor think, says
38:32
Speaker 3: a text, there'll be any housing availability downtown that isn't
38:34
Speaker 3: close to one million dollars for a condo or one
38:37
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty thousand dollars for a stripped out, fixer
38:40
Speaker 3: upper level condou text says, well, now the city of
38:46
Speaker 3: Charleston is trying to take over the town Center. You
38:48
Speaker 3: know what they say about government operating things. Hopefully they
38:51
Speaker 3: run it like a business. Oh wait, the whole group
38:53
Speaker 3: runs the town Center like a business. And look how
38:55
Speaker 3: that's been going. Anyone says business, does it better? I'll
38:58
Speaker 3: direct them to the whole group as a rebuttal Well,
39:01
Speaker 3: that's that's one particular group I would say to the
39:03
Speaker 3: texture doctor and Senator Tom Tacubo's here. How you doing?
39:07
Speaker 3: My friend doing great? Thank you for being here, Glad
39:09
Speaker 3: to be here. All right, you want to weigh in
39:11
Speaker 3: on the mall? You just want to talk about it?
39:13
Speaker 3: You know, that's I heard as I walked in. I mean,
39:15
Speaker 3: that's you know, potentially more exciting than seeing a big
39:18
Speaker 3: empty vacant space there. You know, I've got a lot
39:20
Speaker 3: of fond memories of them all, so hopefully they can
39:22
Speaker 3: above that. Well, I don't revitalization, yes, what it was
39:28
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty five, eighty eight when you and I
39:30
Speaker 3: may have been running, or maybe early nineties. No, it's
39:34
Speaker 3: not going to be that.
39:35
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's not coming back. But but you look at
39:37
Speaker 15: projects all across the country where they do things like that,
39:39
Speaker 15: and there's some exciting new projects. I'll stay hopeful.
39:43
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I want to talk about the session.
39:46
Speaker 3: You excited about the upcoming session. You know it's uh
39:49
Speaker 3: he takes a deep breath first.
39:51
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, so you know this, that's kind of like
39:53
Speaker 15: a box of chocolates, right, You never know what you're
39:55
Speaker 15: going to get exactly until you get there.
39:57
Speaker 7: Yeah, So.
40:00
Speaker 3: What's on your wish list for the session. Is there
40:02
Speaker 3: anything in particular that you'd like. I mean, I know
40:04
Speaker 3: every legislator goes in with a whole list, but there
40:07
Speaker 3: are a couple of things that you think just absolutely
40:09
Speaker 3: on doctor Tom Tacuba Center Tokuba's list that we got
40:11
Speaker 3: to get taken care of.
40:13
Speaker 15: Yeah, I think, you know, the speaker Hanshaw did a
40:16
Speaker 15: great job. He came out and I think he tried
40:19
Speaker 15: to set the tone early, which is important, which is
40:23
Speaker 15: it's time to get really back laser focused on economic development.
40:27
Speaker 15: You know, I've been very fortunate. I came in when
40:30
Speaker 15: the switch happened back in twenty fourteen and for ten
40:33
Speaker 15: years as part of that leadership team where we probably
40:36
Speaker 15: led the most aggressive conservative agenda across the country. You know,
40:40
Speaker 15: we did everything from pro life, pro guns, economic development.
40:45
Speaker 15: We really cut our spending. I remember when we first
40:48
Speaker 15: came in, it was a five hundred million dollars death
40:51
Speaker 15: that we couldn't keep the lights on at the Capitol,
40:53
Speaker 15: and I spent many nights until close to midnight with
40:56
Speaker 15: DHHR trying to figure out where we could cut make
40:59
Speaker 15: savings at the same time not hurt people. We were
41:02
Speaker 15: able to do that and and as a consequence of
41:06
Speaker 15: all that, we we've done a lot of great things
41:08
Speaker 15: in West Virginia. You know, you look at the forum
41:10
Speaker 15: energies and the new cores and the time it's and
41:13
Speaker 15: and the educational reforms. I mean, you can just check
41:16
Speaker 15: off the list. The problem is past. You know, a
41:19
Speaker 15: year or so we got off track, and so there
41:23
Speaker 15: became a more radical focus on on extremes of social issues.
41:29
Speaker 15: You know, I'm a I'm a big Reagan Republican. And
41:32
Speaker 15: he said that the foremost dangerous words and government is
41:34
Speaker 15: how can I help?
41:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm from the government. I'm here to help you.
41:37
Speaker 3: It's a lot of people say that as well.
41:39
Speaker 15: And and we we believe in small government, but not
41:41
Speaker 15: so small that you're peeping through the keyhole of the bedroom.
41:43
Speaker 15: So that's that's kind of where we lost focus. And
41:46
Speaker 15: so what what we're not doing a great job as
41:49
Speaker 15: of recent is looking affordability, making sure that you know,
41:53
Speaker 15: people can can have a great life here, that the
41:57
Speaker 15: elderly population can afford to stay here. And that's where
42:00
Speaker 15: we got to We've got to put our focus back.
42:03
Speaker 3: Let me ask you, and this is a question I
42:04
Speaker 3: posed also to a delegate Kaylee Young, Democrat, who was
42:07
Speaker 3: on the show a little bit earlier. What can the
42:09
Speaker 3: legislature do about affordability? Because that's the big buzzword, as
42:12
Speaker 3: you said right now. But but what what can a
42:15
Speaker 3: what can a state legislator do about about affordability?
42:18
Speaker 15: Yeah, I think there's several things. So so first and foremost,
42:21
Speaker 15: you've got to do things that don't do the opposite
42:24
Speaker 15: that make things less affordable. And you know, I've heard
42:27
Speaker 15: some recent proposals that I think would do absolutely that.
42:30
Speaker 15: So you've got to stay away from those type things.
42:34
Speaker 15: We can't go backwards. You know, last session there were
42:36
Speaker 15: twenty six causes of action that we're trying. You know,
42:38
Speaker 15: we're going to sue banks, we were going to sue
42:39
Speaker 15: businesses and and I don't know where that came from,
42:43
Speaker 15: but we got to be careful with that. You know,
42:44
Speaker 15: when we came in legislature, West Virginia's legal climate was bad.
42:48
Speaker 15: We were on the judicial hellhole list, right and and
42:52
Speaker 15: we've made some meaningful reforms. We've worked with a lot
42:54
Speaker 15: of people to do that. We've got to a fair balance.
42:58
Speaker 16: Now.
42:58
Speaker 15: I think you got to be careful because if you
43:00
Speaker 15: you go too tight when somebody's actually harmed, they got
43:03
Speaker 15: to be able to have some recourse. But at the
43:06
Speaker 15: same time, you know, there should be a balance there.
43:09
Speaker 15: You shouldn't be able to just sue businesses out of existence,
43:12
Speaker 15: but that affects affordability. Looking at things for PI, I
43:17
Speaker 15: know that's always a big hot button topic, but there's
43:20
Speaker 15: still some significant things we can do there to help
43:23
Speaker 15: with savings with PI, which helps affordability. There's been proposals.
43:28
Speaker 15: You know, President Trump has come out with no tax
43:30
Speaker 15: on tips in overtime. That's not necessarily going to create jobs,
43:35
Speaker 15: but in terms of affordability, I think that helps because
43:37
Speaker 15: for I'll take health care for example, you go into
43:39
Speaker 15: a hospital and you're in an er and sometimes you're
43:41
Speaker 15: there for twenty It doesn't matter which which hospital system
43:44
Speaker 15: or which hospital. You know, everybody's doing the best job
43:47
Speaker 15: they can. But the problem is if you go up
43:49
Speaker 15: in the in the actual hospital, you're going to see
43:51
Speaker 15: empty rooms and that drives families crazy. They will say,
43:54
Speaker 15: why were we waiting in the r for twenty four
43:55
Speaker 15: to thirty six hours? You don't have enough nursing staff,
43:58
Speaker 15: you don't have enough ancillary staff. If we get rid
44:03
Speaker 15: of tax on tips and overtime. Not necessarily going to
44:06
Speaker 15: create new jobs, but certainly you may incentivize people to
44:10
Speaker 15: work some more and open up more beds and move
44:12
Speaker 15: those things along. But there's now some incentive for that
44:16
Speaker 15: person or more, which is going to make things more
44:17
Speaker 15: affordable then because they're making more and they're keeping more
44:19
Speaker 15: of their money for willing to do extra. So there's
44:23
Speaker 15: things on the table we can do.
44:24
Speaker 3: Talking to State Senator Tom Kakoobo, can you hang out
44:26
Speaker 3: with me during the break care I get some more
44:27
Speaker 3: questions for you? All right, all right, it's nine to
44:29
Speaker 3: fifty one. The Day Island Show in five eighty Live
44:31
Speaker 3: brought to you apart by Live Healthy West Virginia presented
44:33
Speaker 3: by WVU Medicine, a podcast promoting healthier lifestyles than to
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44:40
Speaker 3: Unto the podcast menu. You back after this on the
44:42
Speaker 3: Voice of Charleston WCCHS. Brought to you by the Eric
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44:53
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44:57
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Speaker 4: The high school basketball season is underway and you can
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Speaker 7: Mark Patrick Hypnosis is coming to Charleston Wednesday, January fourteenth,
45:57
Speaker 7: for one day only. Here we talk about how hypnosis
45:59
Speaker 7: works to help you lose weight or stop smoking.
46:01
Speaker 11: We all have an image of ourself and that image,
46:04
Speaker 11: if we have an image of a non smoker, we
46:06
Speaker 11: attract non smoker behaviors and beliefs. So we have an
46:09
Speaker 11: image of a smoker, we attract the habits of a smoker.
46:12
Speaker 11: If we have the image of a person who is overweight,
46:14
Speaker 11: we live up to those expectations. So one of the
46:17
Speaker 11: things we focus on with our programs is this is
46:20
Speaker 11: we work on at the subconscious level, the image or
46:23
Speaker 11: snapshot of yourself. If you have a healthy image, you
46:26
Speaker 11: attract healthy habits. We work on under hypnosis, taking the
46:29
Speaker 11: pleasure association nowt for smokers that they have towards smoking,
46:33
Speaker 11: putting back in what they already know consciously that it's
46:36
Speaker 11: a filthy, disgusting habit that they'd never wish they start
46:39
Speaker 11: in the first place, that's killing them dead. And we
46:40
Speaker 11: get them out of these sessions still ago about themselves
46:43
Speaker 11: and guess what they want to do these things instead
46:45
Speaker 11: of feel like they have to do them.
46:47
Speaker 7: Don't miss Mark Patrick Hypnosis, Wednesday, January fourteenth at the
46:50
Speaker 7: Holiday Inn and Suites in South Charleston. For more information,
46:52
Speaker 7: go to Markpatrickseminars dot com.
47:07
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show. Six minutes away from Sama
47:09
Speaker 3: Day Island, showing five ady Line brought to you, parted
47:11
Speaker 3: by your hometown baseball team, the Charleston Dirty Birds. Maybe
47:13
Speaker 3: wintertime now we're already thinking about baseball over Gomart Ballpark.
47:17
Speaker 3: That would be a great time to get your season tickets,
47:19
Speaker 3: merchandise and more. It's available all at dirty birds baseball
47:21
Speaker 3: dot com. Senator Tom Tacuba is here. Yesterday a senator
47:25
Speaker 3: of the governor came out and said on his on
47:28
Speaker 3: his wish list, if you will, he'd like to propose
47:31
Speaker 3: a tax cut. Your thoughts on that, I'd like.
47:35
Speaker 1: To see it.
47:35
Speaker 15: So, when you know, I was a majority of leader
47:38
Speaker 15: in legislature, we led the largest tax cut must Virginia history.
47:40
Speaker 15: So when we did that, we placed triggers in place
47:46
Speaker 15: with the goal of eventually getting air tax burd and zero.
47:49
Speaker 15: And as our economy grows, those triggers would jump in there.
47:52
Speaker 15: So the Governor's plan, if he can show us away
47:56
Speaker 15: that the math works, I'm excited to see it.
48:00
Speaker 3: But math's got to work. And then you're concerned about
48:02
Speaker 3: the math on this, Yes, foster care. It is every
48:08
Speaker 3: year it seems like, you know, tragically, Senator, the stories,
48:13
Speaker 3: the situations seem to get worse in West Virginia. What's
48:17
Speaker 3: what's on your agenda or what are you looking at?
48:19
Speaker 3: What can a legislature do to try to do something
48:21
Speaker 3: with foster care in West Virginia.
48:22
Speaker 15: You look at probably the two biggest reasons for that.
48:25
Speaker 15: It's a subscet abuse disorder. And so West Virginia, under
48:28
Speaker 15: the direction of doctor Stephen Lloyd, has got probably the
48:31
Speaker 15: most aggressive plan. If you look at overdose rates in
48:35
Speaker 15: West Virginia, we are exceeding the rest of the country
48:37
Speaker 15: in dropping those overdose rates. So that's going in the
48:40
Speaker 15: right direction. As the subs abuse disorder gets in better control,
48:44
Speaker 15: I think that's gonna but again, this is a long
48:46
Speaker 15: term impact. And then the others the economy. You know,
48:49
Speaker 15: I've said so many times a job is so much
48:51
Speaker 15: more than just a paycheck. What it brings to the
48:54
Speaker 15: family household and what it brings to education of those
48:58
Speaker 15: children's keeping family units together. So we've got to be
49:01
Speaker 15: laser focused on that. In the meantime, we've got to
49:04
Speaker 15: be working with our DHHR trying to see, you know,
49:07
Speaker 15: where the problems are, where the fixes are, what we
49:09
Speaker 15: can do in the short term. You know, one of
49:11
Speaker 15: the concerns I have is do we have enough providers
49:15
Speaker 15: out there or we are we paying them on time?
49:17
Speaker 15: Are we doing the things we got to do to
49:18
Speaker 15: support these kids? But it's it's complex, it's an ongoing
49:22
Speaker 15: issue for sure.
49:23
Speaker 3: You mentioned some of the earlier the economic announcements that
49:25
Speaker 3: we've had for New Core and several others. You know,
49:29
Speaker 3: the announcements are great, and we've already seen I live
49:31
Speaker 3: in Putnam County, I've already seen the growth of New
49:33
Speaker 3: Core in my county, you know, not even talking about
49:35
Speaker 3: Mason County in the other areas, and everybody's seeing it
49:38
Speaker 3: right now. But how do we get more of these
49:40
Speaker 3: folks to want to come to West Virginia. What does
49:42
Speaker 3: our message need to be to the rest of the
49:44
Speaker 3: country or the world for that matter, for the business world,
49:46
Speaker 3: that West Virginia is a place to come in to
49:49
Speaker 3: not only do business, as you said, it's not just
49:51
Speaker 3: a job, but to raise a family. And what does
49:53
Speaker 3: our messaging need to be to the rest of the
49:55
Speaker 3: country and the rest of the world.
49:56
Speaker 15: Yeah, we've we've you know, I've been fortunate to travel
49:58
Speaker 15: all over the country meeting with business and an industry
50:01
Speaker 15: to come in here. We were doing a great job
50:03
Speaker 15: with that. I think we still have to be refocused
50:05
Speaker 15: on that. One of the bills that we've been working
50:08
Speaker 15: on for the past years of Jobs West Virginia, very
50:11
Speaker 15: similar to Jobs of Ohio that's had about seven billion
50:13
Speaker 15: dollars worth of investment into Ohio. We actually had Governor
50:17
Speaker 15: caseykas Want of our consultants and so we've worked aggressively
50:21
Speaker 15: with a plan. He showed us the kind of the
50:24
Speaker 15: highs and the lows of what they did right and
50:26
Speaker 15: what they got wrong. So we're trying to get that
50:28
Speaker 15: put together now. But that economic driver to get these
50:31
Speaker 15: companies in here. I mean, we've got a great population,
50:34
Speaker 15: We've got the lowest turnover eate in manufacturing of anywhere
50:37
Speaker 15: in the country. We just got to get these people here,
50:40
Speaker 15: and once we get them here, they see what a
50:42
Speaker 15: great place it is to do business.
50:44
Speaker 3: Cenator Tome Takob, I appreciate you joining us this morning,
50:47
Speaker 3: and I hope you have a great session to get
50:50
Speaker 3: through it all. Okay, you never know it'll be fine.
50:53
Speaker 15: I'm sure we'll try the happiest day of the years
50:56
Speaker 15: around mid March with my wife when I get to
50:58
Speaker 15: come home and didn't.
50:59
Speaker 3: Say I don't have to go back at least for
51:00
Speaker 3: a while anyway. All right to sitor, Tom Tacubo, I
51:03
Speaker 3: appreciate you being here.
51:04
Speaker 1: Thanks.
51:04
Speaker 3: Just hang out with me for one second. You can
51:05
Speaker 3: hear the always entertaining cross talk section between me and
51:08
Speaker 3: mister Meadows. I will remind you at the Dave Allan
51:10
Speaker 3: Show on five at Eylive is broad to you part
51:11
Speaker 3: by Bridge Valley Community and Technical College, Bridge Valley dot
51:14
Speaker 3: EEDU visit the website Bridge Valley Community Technical College. Your
51:17
Speaker 3: career starts here.
51:18
Speaker 1: TJ.
51:18
Speaker 3: Meadows comes up with talk line ten o six. But
51:20
Speaker 3: you got my friend.
51:21
Speaker 10: Well, first off, I'll say, my wife loves mid January
51:24
Speaker 10: to mid March because I'm not home as much. She's
51:26
Speaker 10: sad at mid March. Tom, So you must be doing
51:28
Speaker 10: something right. I must be doing something wrong at any rate.
51:30
Speaker 10: Stephen Allen Adams coming up, we'll set the tone for
51:33
Speaker 10: the legislature. Talk about the Governor's remarks yesterday when it
51:35
Speaker 10: comes to taxes. That's at ten o six. Jim Cruz
51:38
Speaker 10: at ten thirty three. He's a longtime oil and gas
51:41
Speaker 10: man here in West Virginia, but he's also tied in
51:43
Speaker 10: nationally and internationally in the oil markets. What's gonna happen
51:47
Speaker 10: in Venezuela. How does the oil issue and industry factory
51:51
Speaker 10: into what's happening here?
51:52
Speaker 3: What should we expect to see Jim? We'll get into that.
51:55
Speaker 10: Eric Tarzan at eleven thirty three talking taxes. Pat mcgeeon
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Speaker 10: at eleven o six, Hancock County School in trouble day.
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Speaker 10: They can't make payroll, They barely made it this last
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Speaker 10: go around. There having trouble. Familiar story here in West Virginia.
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Speaker 3: What do we do to fix it? We'll find out,
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Speaker 3: all right, And Uh, you're bringing me on the show
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Speaker 3: today under Senador? Did I get canceled?
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Speaker 12: No, you're on.
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Speaker 3: I heard the music so shut out. I was just doing.
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Speaker 3: I'm gonna They're bringing me in for some reason as well.
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Speaker 3: I will be on later today Metro News Midday with
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Speaker 3: thirteen News and Tonight Live anchor Mande Bearon and me.
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Speaker 3: Amanda is back from assignment. The Senator mentioned the job's
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Speaker 3: Ohio program. That's what she was doing. She was up
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Speaker 3: there interviewing the governor, so we'll talk to her about that,
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Speaker 3: plus more coming up Metro News Midday, See you later.
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Speaker 3: We then have fun and love somebodys.
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Speaker 1: A Mayty six point five Ste. Four point five Cross Lane,
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Speaker 1: WVRC Media Station. We're proud to live here too,