On The Mark
KCAA: On The Mark with Mark Westwood (Thu, 27 Jun, 2024)
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KCAA now presents Crossroads, a program in the public interest, bringing you the issues you need to hear about here in our community. Now here's your host, Mark Westwood. That's right, crank it up. Mark Westwood with you here for this little music. KCAA 1050 AM 106.5. Good Thursday afternoon to you. That means there's only one more day in the week before we get a little weekend off maybe. Hope you're finding it the same way. We have one of my favorite guests already. She was so good last week. I brought her back for another dose, Tony Momburger. Tony Momburger is with us. Later on in the show, we're going to have Valerie Tabor. Valerie is a school board trustee candidate for Redlands Unified School District, and we're going to get to know her. But that's going to be the second part, the first part of the show. Welcome. Thank you. Hi, Mark. Hi, how are you today? Am I on? Am I testing? Just bring that a little closer there. Thank you. And we call that swallowing the mike. That's good. There you go. And you're going to be talking about follow our courts again, and the status of our courts in the Superior Court and everything else. And we had just broached the subject. I mean, it was like breaching the subject. We talked for almost a whole hour, and we still had more to talk about. Yeah, I listened to it, and I could hear how I was frantically trying to spew out as much information in the short amount of time. There's a lot to this possible. This is a very unique thing. It is actually like reporting on our courts and reporting the status and the events, everything from judgments to prosecutions to new judges, the shortage of judges, shortage of court reporters, things like that. We talked about this. And if you want to find more information, this is really interesting, folks. Go to followourquarts.com. Thank you. Followourquarts.com, and Tony is the editor of this website. She is formerly the editor of the Redlands Daily Facts back in the day, and she has a few other esteemed qualifications on her resume as well, as being a tremendously good singer and it's got great taste in music. She requested panic at the disco to come in here. We're going to go out of that. Out of this segment with that too. And so thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. Tony, the one thing I want to talk about today, and I know the one thing you, because you have copious amount of notes, and on your Redlands Chamber of Commerce, notepad, I see, they'd like that if they could see that. And by the way, you can see us on kcaradio.com, kcaradio.com. If you go to that website and you're able to do that, there we are in Live and Living Color. You can also find us on Tiki Live, Rumble, something called Kix, and you can also find this podcast at the end of the day. And last week's podcast, if you want to listen to it, at kcaradio.com, kcaradio.com. And then you can listen to it anytime in your bunny slippers, in your robe, out by the pool. You can just listen to this show anytime you want. So that's kind of cool. So getting on to the subject now, so we don't waste too much time because we have a lot to talk about. I was kind of amazed when I found out the, nobody's fault is pandemic, you know, things that happened, they got behind, and I found out that each judge has about 2,000 cases. Statewide, the average caseload is 2,000 per judge, like at any given moment. And how is that in the San Bernardino Superior Courts and the Civil Courts? Our average is 3,000 per judge. Oh my gosh, 3,000 per judge. That's to the end of the empire, that's Riverside County and San Bernardino County, San Bernardino is higher. So that means there's a whole backlog of cases, a whole backlog of justice, really. The underfunding, when you say this is nobody's fault, I would for sure disagree with that. Okay. I have seen that there are lawsuits already saying the metric that we're supposed to be using for funding the different county Superior Courts. There's one for each county in the state, right? So there's 57 Superior Court systems. We have the highest workload, and we are 2% of the state's resources for court funding. So it's not, we make up 20% of the state. So they got to kick down the money is what you're saying. We had been so chronically and drastically underfunded when COVID hit, we already had a devastating backlog. Here comes the COVID backlog, the COVID shutting down, right? We had some creative judges who, who in San Bernardino Superior said, okay, we're holding court in the parking lot show up and let's go because we just simply cannot afford in the parking lot in the parking lot. The creativity that I have seen, I cannot easy ups, but tell you how impressed I am with the way they have reframed policy in order to solve problems, mostly associated with a lack of resources. The court reporter issue that you had asked me to talk about some today has meant that they're changing the policy of how they get assigned, right? Because there are criminal cases, felony cases, family law, juvenile dependency cases, juvenile delinquency cases, where the state mandates you have a court reporter live in the building. And if you don't have one to assign, and you can't get that trial held within the 60 days plus reasonable extensions that the Constitution says we got, those cases get dismissed. Now you dismiss a domestic violence case because you don't have a courtroom, you don't have a judge, you don't have a court reporter. There's a problem. The restraining order goes away. Oh my god. I mean, this is Riverside County dismissed more than 3,000 criminal cases. 3,000 criminal cases dismissed. That's an excuse. And can you imagine this is a very important trial in your life for whatever reason. And they say, okay, it's going to be out in the parking lot. I think that, yeah, that went to San Bernardino County. I thought that was brilliant. I think this is really the people in charge in the right moment met that moment. I think that a lot of people came through. And when I say that Riverside County did this, I'm telling you, the presiding judge right now is Judith Clark in Riverside County. And I've heard her speak multiple times on the need for, you know, they've got to get some family law cases processed out in the desert. They've got to get, and she's just trying to shuffle around what resources she has to get this done. But they have done as much creatively as they could. This is not, I applaud them. I mean, this is not the judges in the court systems being irresponsible. This is them dealing with decades of underfunding, which some people say is discriminatory funding from the state, because you're not seeing this. Yeah, according to the allegations in the lawsuit that I was talking about last week in like tourist towns, wealthy towns, coastal towns. So it seems to be something a little bit disproportionate out of whack on this. And that needs to be looked at. And that needs to, you know, actually have a grand jury investigation on the, on the course. That's what might get something done there. So in case you're just joining us, you're driving down the road and you were KCA 1050 AM 106.5 FM. And we're talking with Tony Momburger, who has a website and a program called Follow Our Courts. And you can find it on follow our courts.com and we're talking about the courts today. And I want to get to the crux and what we really want to talk about right now. And that was something I found out about, which was one of the problems is the process that they don't have enough court reporters. And right now, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, they can't just turn on a tape recorder and record the court. It has to be manually transcribed with a court reporter typing as documenting every single word syllable noise that's made. You're right. And this is, this is something that is also, they have to physically be in the room. Right. In December of 22, the courts, the Association of the Superior Courts of California filed a request with the state to allow court reporters to work remotely. And part of the argument for that was, and I wrote down the exact quote out of their request, they said, at this point, they didn't say at this point, I'm throwing that in for context, they said, additional funding will not solve the problem as there is no one to hire. This problem has spun so deeply out of control. There's no one to hire. But I also want to point out, when you talked about recording in the courtrooms, every courtroom in the U.N. Empire has been outfitted just in case this becomes okay. They're ready to go tomorrow recording these and transcribing them later. So how do you feel about that? I think, you know, I'm a traditionalist, but at the same time, if it gets the job done, and they can be described, transcribed later, and put into words, or maybe they even use artificial intelligence to do it. You would hate my answer to this question. Okay, maybe I will, maybe I won't. Okay, tell me what your answer is. I don't feel anything, it's not my job to feel anything. What I have is curiosity. Because you are a reporter, and you understand, and you're just there to get the information out. So what I have been hearing from most people is that we are in a dire situation. We have got to start changing our policy regarding court reporting. We've got to start allowing remote. We've got to start allowing recording. And I've been very interested in hearing the other side, and I finally did. And I wish I had had time to get all of the details, but I sat next to somebody at an event recently who said, "Oh my goodness, thank goodness that they're not changing those rules." It's really, really important for these kinds of cases to have a human being in there, transcribing it in the moment where we can stop and say, "Can you read this part back to me?" What was that she just said, went to have a human being doing that physically in that space, contributes to accuracy, to a degree that we need to respect the seriousness of these cases. That's a very interesting point. I was so grateful to get the counterpoint. Yeah. And you think that's kind of a, you know, but you're right. I mean, if in the moment it's inaudible or the person swallows the words on purpose and it doesn't get recorded, then it doesn't get transcribed because the chances of them coming back and revisiting that and doing a do-over are just nil. There are benefits, and I had not understood what they were until somebody, thank goodness. I mean, if ever we have comments or opinions or people advocating for anything, and there's anybody out there who has the counterpoint of you, give me it. I want it. So tell me how bad the situation is with the court reports. We've talked about it being bad, but there's some statistics that might blow your mind here. I wrote some of this down. So in these are not probably in the best order, but in San Bernardino County, for our story, which I was looking at before I came in here, we wrote in 2023. We had 96 court reporter positions and 25 of them were vacant. So we're at about a quarter vacancy rate in San Bernardino County. The riverside numbers, I'm going to hedge a little bit because it was written in 2023, but it said by 2024, we will need 116 court reporters. So I'm skipping ahead to that number. Part of that is because we're opening, as we talked about last time, the Menifee Court House. So as a brand new courthouse and this is huge. It's like five stories and yeah, it's a big courthouse. So one of our crises, we have a judge vacancy crisis. We have a courtroom shortage, but the problem is when you solve these, it exacerbates the court reporter shortage crisis. So we're kind of in a bad situation, but of the 106 that we need, 72 were filled at the time we wrote our story, which is recent. I mean, probably they have filled some more, I don't know, we don't have people to do it. So in the state, we have a 19% vacancy rate statewide, which means we're short by about 3,000 bodies. Now interesting, okay, can you tell me some of the qualifications to be coming? Is this a really technical, hard, lots of studying, lots of testing? How do you become a court reporter? You have to complete a court reporter program, and there were multiple, I wish I could tell you exactly how many, a lot, a lot of the programs have closed down. There were schools dedicated to court reporting. You could just go take it. It's not like having to go to a four-year university. You don't have to get a college degree for this. But if you go through the court reporter program, there's one left and it's in Orange County. Why did they all shut down? There are nine programs left, two of them are in community colleges, and one is in Northern California out of a university, but they're shutting down because enrollment has gone down by 50%. So I want to give you just, I'm using the highest number we had in one month, but in 1995, the highest number of people who passed the test in one month was 309. That's 1995. Yeah. 209 in 1995. I like how many years ago that was. Yeah. In a month. In 2001, 40 people passed the test for the whole year. For the whole year. For the whole year. The most recent number I have is 2021-36 people passed. I know that the weight, like in 2019, I think Judge Ubuntu said in his state of the courts, we have the lowest percentage of passing. We had 8% of the people who took the test passed. So it's... Are they paying like minimum wage or substandard wages? Oh, you know they are not like, I like the way you pitch me that ball. They're recruiting so heavily. So in San Bernardino County, if you get a job at the Superior Court as a court reporter without a college degree, pays. If you take the base salary plus benefits, 158,500 a year. Whoa. Excuse me, I'm leaving. In Riverside, they listed differently. They said it's $57 an hour plus benefits. And I was trying to calculate that, but I had been told when I took this job, there would be no math. So I think it's even more. I think that comes to more, but... It can get lonely climbing Mount McKinley, so to entertain myself, I go to ChumbaCassino.com. At Chumba Casino, I can play hundreds of online casino-style games for free, like online slots, bingo, slingo and more. Plus, I get a daily login bonus. 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I'm going to lose my system running out now. Money. But again, keep in mind, this quote is why I wrote this down. "Additional funding will not solve the problem as there is no one to hire." So, where are they going? You mean no one to hire the people or no one? No one to be hired. There are no candidates for this. They're leaving for the private sector. The state of California has the highest accuracy rate requirement to pass the state test. You have to be 95% accurate to pass the California court reporter's shorthand exam. So, some people are leaving the state to take the exam somewhere else and work somewhere else. They're also working in the private sector. You, well, I want to say, the wording that I've been hearing from the courts is they can make more if they work in the private sector than if they work for the superior courts. Now, I don't understand the private sector. I kind of think that's not true. Court reporting? Yeah. They don't have to work the superior courts public. That's paid for by our tax dollars. We're becoming more, like obviously, these numbers are intended to be competitive. But I heard a judge out in the desert say to the attorneys, if I give you very precious, if I give you court time, if I assign a trial date and we reserve a courtroom for you, you better have a court reporter lined up. And if you don't have one, it will be cheaper for everybody. For you to add a pocket, hire a private court reporter than to wait until you can get one of them assigned. So, there are companies of private court reporters, maybe even for like to take depositions and things like that. They're coming into the trials. I mean, they're coming to the hearings and the trials. And the judge was saying, you're already paying for your witness testimony. You're paying for people to travel. It will be cheaper for you to just pay for a private court reporter if you have to. So, we don't lose that. Because what happens is, you know, we're wearing a courtroom crisis, courtroom shortage. So, if they're assigning a courtroom to somebody and then they waste it, that makes the judges mad. I hear them say, here are the things you should not do. You need to be ready. Don't come in here and ask, you know, and say you're not ready. And also, they're really, really pushing, negotiating for settlements, you know, arbitration, mediation, all of that stuff. Looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime, play anywhere. Play on the train, play at the store, play at home, play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win and get daily bonuses when you log in. So, what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play. Experience social gameplay like never before. Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games, including online slots. Bingo, slingo, and more. Live the Chumba Life at chumbecastino.com. BTW group, no purchase necessary. Avoid prohibited by law, see terms and conditions, 18 plus. If you're a facilities manager at a warehouse and your HVAC system goes down, it can turn up the heat. Literally. But don't sweat it. Granger has you covered. Granger offers over a million industrial grade products for all your operations, including warehouse HVAC maintenance. And even better, they offer access to experts and fast delivery. So you and your warehouse can both keep your cool. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. Because there's 3,000 cases per judge. They don't have enough courtroom. They don't have enough court space. They're stretched them. And they don't have court reporters. And they're stretched them. They're stretched them. They're stretched them. We live in a state with 40 million people. Evidently, you know, if even you get 1% of those coming into the courtroom, that's a lot of people. That's a lot of cases. And filings in San Bernardino County are up by 6% this year over last year. So yeah, it's like, you know, when I told you we're getting, we're getting judges. We're hiring judges. Well, also judges are retiring. Also, filings are up. We're getting more money. We're getting a higher percentage of our needs met by the state budget, but our needs are increasing. So it's a dance. So we've been talking with Tony Mumburger, who has a program called Follow Our Courts. And we just have a few minutes left, believe it or not, Tony. That's just the way it goes. It just goes fast. And you've given us so much information, and there's so much more information. I swear to you, we need to have a whole entire program where you come in an hour a week and we talk about this. Every day at dinner, I'm like, check out this case. I just edited this story about this case that I just edited. And it is fascinating. It really is fascinating. It's so interesting. Because we haven't even talked about the cases. We're just talking about the process, the cases that come before you. Very, very interesting. Give us an example of one of the most interesting cases. Oh, the other day, we had one about a Fontana police officer who had a man call because his father was, he thought missing. His father had gone to the barrier to visit his daughter, the father daughter. But he calls and says he's missing. The police tell him that his father is murdered and that he's accused of the murder. And then they take his dog to him to say goodbye. And they try to take a dog. They say that we're going to put your dog down. They coerce a confession out of him. There's a video of him hugging his dog and the dog goes off and they try to get it put down. But they were like, this dog is chipped. We can't put this dog down. Oh my God. The dog is fine. He got the dog back. But like the first sense of the story, they accuse him of a murder that didn't happen and tell him his dad's dead and then they try to kill his dog. I don't even know what to say to them. It's one of the most recent stories we have. But that's why it's so important what you're doing. Because sometimes things get really fouled up. Yeah. So then the dad comes home. Like he's not a dad. Home. This guy's already confessed to that he's got a coerced confession on the record. You hear me being silent because there's like no words to express this. No words to express. These stories are interesting. But I know you're interviewing Valerie Tabor next and Redlands, this particular election is dealing with the conflict from two factions to ideologies that we are seeing and covering in other school districts. And it's coming into the courts. And they're coming into the courts. The state Rob Bonta, the state attorney has sued the state attorney general. Yeah. Rob Bonta has sued the Geno Valley school board, right? And it could be Redlands school board too because they have exactly the same people. They're not even the same kinds of facts. The same people going to Geno, Temecula and Redlands. And these same issues are hot issues here. We're seeing them in Temecula. We're seeing them in Geno. I don't know if anybody who has children in three different school districts like that. So they're not, they're just activists coming in and causing problems. And it's going to be a very interesting interview the next time. I have seen some of the candidates in this race that Ms. Tabor is going to talk to you about being a candidate in are mentioned in the stories as speakers in these other school board. In our stories, they mentioned that they're there speaking. So that's very interesting. We're going to tie this right into the next time. I'm trying to segue for you. Thank you. Thank you. We have to segue with some spots. Congratulations. Tony Momburger from followourcourts.com. Thank you, Tony. Thank you. Stick around and we'll talk a little bit more. We'll sit in that chair right there and we'll talk afterwards. It's been a pleasure and always very, very informative, very fascinating. I'm Mark Westwood on KCA 1050 AM and 106.5 FM with community crossroads and we'll be back with more valid and very informative information right after this message. [Music] NBC News on KCAA Loma Linda is sponsored by Teamsters Local 1932, protecting the future of working families Teamsters 1932.org. [Music] And now the voices of KCAA was an exciting announcement. Want to hear NBC News or KCAA anywhere you go? Well now there's a nap for that. KCAA is celebrating 25 years in our Silver Anniversary with a brand new app. The new KCAA app is now available on your smart device, cell phone, in your car or any place. Just search KCAA on Google Play or in the Apple store. One touch and you can listen on your car radio, Bluetooth device, Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. Catch the KCAA buzz in your earbuds or on the streets, celebrating 25 years of top news and excellence with our new KCAA app. Just do it and download it. KCAA celebrating 25 years. [Applause] Open for takeout and delivery. El Tapioc Mexican food restaurant in the Tri-City Center of Redlands is back. Their entire family is on hand to serve up their delicious burritos machaka, chorizo, weavos maceros, steak and eggs just part of their mouth watering. Great food. Since 1531, people have marveled at the miracle of El Tapioc and now you can marvel at the great food, the Lugo family has been serving up for over two decades, nestled quietly in the corner of the Tri-City Center shopping mall next to Burlington Code Factory. Support them. They can't wait to serve you some of their delectable. Authentic South of the border Mexican fare at great prices served up with love. Support the area's best-loved Mexican food restaurant in these tough times. Order up a tasty meal on the phone for delivery or takeout for breakfast, lunch or dinner from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 909-307-0017. That's 909-307-0017 or Google El Tapioc Redlands and treat yourself. Here's the latest news and weather from the KCAA New Center. I'm Jay Gaetz, fatal victims of two Riverside County traffic mishaps on Tuesday, June 18th have been identified in Moreno Valley in pedestrian Enrique Ruiz, 43 perished on Freeway 60 near Frederick Street, near Hemmett, the coroner identified Casey Fryer 35 as the victim of an accident on Fairview Avenue. Metrolink riders on the 91 Paris Valley Line will be looking for alternate routes this weekend, service connecting the Paris South, Paris Downtown, Moreno Valley, Marchfield and Riverside Hunter Park Metrolink stations will be shut down. The two-day shutdown will allow crews to safely conduct system tests of an infrastructure enhancement. Nearly 18 months after Redlands began housing homeless residents at the former Goodnight Inn with millions of dollars from a state funded program, the former motels still hasn't passed fire and building inspections. According to a court document, due to those deficiencies, the converted motel now called Step Up in Redlands is still operating on a temporary occupancy permit. According to a declaration filed in the US bankruptcy court, another warm weekend is looming in Southern California as a high pressure system makes its way over the region, causing temperatures to slowly climb with some inland cities expected to reach triple digit heat by Saturday. The high pressure system known as a "heat dome" was making its way across the Midwest this week and was expected to be hovering over Texas into the weekend. Said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Moed, while the borders of the dome are unclear, it could potentially reach into the region, raising temperatures in the inland empire and parts of Orange County. In the inland empire, temperatures were expected to be among the hottest in the region with some areas nearly 10 degrees higher than average. Let's take a look at some weather. Today is the summer solstice as we enter the Tropic of Cancer. It is the longest day of the year. Inland Empire has some patchy fog clearing by mid-morning, becoming sunny, day to day warming, highs through Friday in the 90s, and near 101 on Saturday. Nighttime lows in the 60s, mountains, clear and quite warm, winds 10-15 miles an hour, resort level highs through Friday from the 70s into the 90s, winds mostly light and variable. Deserts, sunny and becoming hot, highs through Friday from the 90s in the northern deserts to 110 in the southern deserts, continued warming in the Coachella Valley over the weekend. Beaches, cloudy but some afternoon clearing, highs through Saturday in the mid 70s, surf, 2-4 feet, water, 60-69. I'm Jake Yates and you're up to date on KCAA 1050AM and 106.5 FM, the stations that leave no listener behind. Welcome Valerie Tabor. Thank you for having me. Welcome. I'm sitting here looking at Ruth and Wilhelm's granddaughter and I say that because back in the day your family was kind of like my family. I hung out a lot with them and your grandmother made me a whole lot of meals around this little table in the back of a little apartment that was in the back of a motel called the Civic Center Motel in San Bernardino, California. I'm pretty sure I still have that table. Oh, really? Yeah, it's like I got that in my dining room with my extender. I have my grandmother's table. So yeah, they were sure that in common. But Valerie Tabor, you were born and raised in Redlands. Yes, it was. In those years that I lost track with you guys and you graduated from Redlands High School. I sure did. I attended all our K through 12 schools. Okay, we won't say the year, but you also earned a bachelor's of arts in psychology from California State University, San Bernardino, my alma mater as well. Yes, congratulations. And before graduating from the University of Redlands with a master's in clinical mental health counseling. Yes, I am a therapist. Great. I need it later. She has an extensive history working with children, youth and their families in this community. What a great candidate for, you know, I'm kind of biased here, but okay, what a great, well, great credits for sure and a great candidate to be on the Redlands City Unified School District as a trustee. And that's what you're running for. You're a candidate. Okay. And you have been endorsed by Mr. Neal. I believe his name is. Yes, I am. Who was the outgoing person that you're going to be replacing? Yes. So he's still sitting on the board right now, but he has expressed that he will not be running for a third term. So he'll be retiring in November, and I'm hoping to take over for him. So you're active in the community, you're a child care worker at the local YMCA. Was was was for many years, huh? And you're currently a licensed therapist active member of the child's your child's parent teacher association. Yes, I have really enjoyed learning and getting involved with the PTA this year. It's been great seeing the way that our communities work together to support our schools. That's wonderful Kingsbury School. Yes. All right. And you're on the site council there as well. So you've got some experience, you've got some knowledge, we can see you're dedicated. Wow, value, you're committed to promoting special education inclusion, expanding early intervention, and addressing systematic issues within Redlands School District. Not creating the issues. No, solving them, resolving them. Not creating issues out of nothing that are really not issues for your own um promotion and political gain. And we'll get to that in a minute because Redlands is kind of going over going through the same thing that Chino Valley Unified School District went through. Their school board president just got recalled because people finally got fed up with like making issues of issues that really aren't issues. Let's talk about the issues that are at hand and have real solutions. That happened in Temecula. So they just got recalled. Just got recalled in wrong city. But same kind of stuff going on there. You know, people showing up that really aren't within the school district and you know, causing issues at school board meetings. Can't control that. People promoting themselves politically for an agenda for whatever reason. Maybe it's for their own self fame or whatever, but it seems to be actually those same people showing up at all of these school board meetings. So this is what you're running into and that kind of burns people out as well. You know, you've been endorsed though by Jim O'Neill, which we talked about and he's the current area five representative, which is the area you're running in. Yes. So we vote by districts. It used to be district wide. You can vote for anybody. But now as of, I believe it's two terms now or maybe one term. They are you now can only vote with for the person that is running in your district. So only people that live in area five can vote for me, even though this race affects everyone, even if your area isn't up for election. Absolutely. Absolutely affects everybody. It's about social policy. It's about educational issues. It's about getting your kids through school and getting them through all the tests and the scholastic achievements and all that stuff. Education is the most important thing about a school. It's truly and it's foundational. Like our entire community is impacted by our public schools. It is truly foundational. And if you're worried about who's wearing what or being addressed about what or some books that have been in our school systems forever and ever that, you know, maybe children read or don't read and you're not worried about test scores. You're not worried that they come out and they're proficient in writing and reading and arithmetic and social skills and political knowledge and governmental knowledge and civic knowledge. Those types of things are really, really important and come out well-balanced children in an atmosphere that's safe. I mean, I'm hitting all these points and you just... As I agree, you're saying exactly what I'm thinking. It should be about the academics and it should be about creating students that can think for themselves and are able to function in the greater world and have the foundation to do. So whether that's going on to college, whether that's going into a career field or a tradesmanship, it's... You need to have a school system that supports them to get into those roles and to give them the foundation for it. If you're just joining Community Crossroads and listening to KCA, I'm speaking with Valerie Taber, who's a candidate for the Redlands Unified School District Trustee Area 5 and she's making some very, very valuable points. She's very, very qualified by her list of things that I'm reading here, Mental Health Counselor and all those great things, you know, involved in child education, degrees as long as you're armed. Very qualified. She's not to somebody with a mouth, somebody's just coming in with an idea, an opinion. I would imagine that what you base your opinions on facts. I sure do. I have done my research, I have talked with many... That was the word I was looking for, research, knowledge, reading? Yes. It's not just a role that you can come into and do whatever you like on your own first holiday. Need your intuition and try to figure that out. You know, it's very, very important. I mean, the school district has a big budget, probably millions. They do. I mean, they do, but also this is statewide, but particularly in our district, there's a bunch of reasons why our funding is getting limited this upcoming year. So we have a couple of grants that are ending. We have COVID funds that have run out or needed to be used up by the end of this year. And then our enrollment overall is down, which is fine. And, you know, we fluctuate enrollment, but funding is based on the average last three years. And so, if enrollment is down, then that means we're getting less funding. And all of that is just our district, but when you add on the budgetary issues for the statewide education budget has been reduced quite significantly this upcoming year. And so you're already facing a lot of tough decisions on how to make the budget continue to work for the next couple of years. Yeah, you know, I'm speaking with Valerie Tabor and you can see by hearing and listening to her, she's very passionate about this. She's also very qualified and she's very knowledgeable. And that's why she's endorsed by the Redlands Teachers Association. Congratulations. Thank you. I am so honored to have their endorsement. I, you know, from a family of educators, my uncle is an educator, my mom taught kindergarten out in Fontana. My brother is also currently a teacher. So, having the support of teachers and educators is really important to me. They are a critical, vital part of our school systems. Right. Now you have Ron is your brother is a teacher out in Chino Valley, just coincidentally. And then you also have a, uh, no, Ron's your uncle. Excuse me. Yes. And your brother is a teacher as well. He's a music teacher. He is. He's out in like El Sonora. He is. I'm sure he's out there in the sun right now doing marching band. I don't, I don't envy him. He does be a dedicated teacher to be a marching band instructor truly in these in this heat. Oh my God. That's like being a coach. It really is. I mean, you really have to be in Ron's a social studies teacher in junior high school. So that's some really good things. And these teachers have to go through so much and they get so much feedback and so much flack and maybe not a whole lot of support. And one of the things I want to get out and I'm just going to say my personal opinion is before I started this next subject, we got about 15 minutes to talk about it. Folks, you cannot pad the walls. At some point or another, you have to do parenting. If you have a child, you've made a commitment to do parenting, real teaching, you're instilling your set of values. And nobody's trying to tell you not to instill your values. They're trying to help you and support you and provide the education, the academic part of it. So the social and moral values that you instill, you take up a church, you don't take up a church, whatever, you know, that's up to you to do. That's really not up to the school district. And so what we're having now in a problem in Redlands, in Chino Valley, in Temecula, these people showing up for their own political advancement to make noises, to maybe, you know, build themselves, I guess you have to say, they're showing up and making issues out of whether you call yourself he, his, him, she, you know, whatever, whatever pronouns. I like to call my students or not my students, but people that I know, by their names, I don't care who they are. Or, you know, this is not this is not an issue. And then they're making issues of things like, you know, oh, you're trying to teach all of our students to be gay. No. And that's not true. And not even close to being factual or true, but they take up, you know, minutes and minutes and hours of time at the school board meetings, you know, you know, and then they try to enforce policies. And here's what we were talking about with Tony Mumburger and follow our courts.com and that, that they're following this because they're causing lawsuits. They sure are. Title nine lawsuits. So title nine is a little bit of a separate issue. They can be related for sure. But in terms of these lawsuits, they are passing policies that are discriminatory and oftentimes illegal. And so either they are outwardly challenging established law or they are trying to pass things that there is no grounds for. And the hard part about this is that schools are having to balance parent rights with student rights. So students have a right to privacy. They have a right to control their human being. They're human beings. We are setting them up. Parents, you can't breathe for them. You can't eat for them. Excuse me. You can't poop for them either. But it's true. Yes. And so it's it's coming down to, you know, what what what is the focus of our schools? Is this is the focus of our schools to encourage our students to learn about the world around them and that encounter that means encountering people that are different from them that hold different values than that. Eureka. You know what? You cannot pad the walls. That's what I was saying. You know, as a kid, when I was young, my parents instilled the moral and the values set that they did with me, killing up Catholic and all that kind of stuff. And but I came across people that were different from me. I came across people that did different life decisions than me. And there's no way you can avoid that. No matter how many rules you make, you know, how many, you know, the idea of the notion that somebody just recently in a school district passed the idea that no other flags could be done except for the United States flag. Well, what about, you know, just getting to know the flags of other countries? What about the, you know, missing in action, M-I-A-P-O-W flag? Yeah. What there really is said, we don't want rainbow flags in there because diversity is a real big problem. But, you know, what's wrong with that? You know, I guarantee you kids, if you're listening or parents, if you're listening, you're going to walk into somebody or run into somebody or somebody you know and you have an idea might prefer a different gender than you do. You know, but the rule and the factor is that like there's not a whole bunch of little transvestite kids running around the classes. I mean, I haven't been in school for a while, but tell me that's not the case, right? There's not a lot of kids saying I want to change my sexual identity or gender, is there? I mean, I'm not in the school system, so I can't tell you whether or not how many of our students do identify as trans. I would hear if it were. But it's also like, what does it, how does that impact learning? Right. To create a safe space where kids feel like they are able to be themselves and they are in a safe place to learn is vital. It is important. And if we are creating this environment where we are policing their identities, we are outing them before they're ready to parents that may not respond. Just call them by their name, if their name is. They may respond harmfully. Yeah. And that's dangerous. And the bigger issue, I think, that I think crosses across, across lines is that these expensive are lawsuit, if these lawsuits are expensive, they waste a ton of time and they don't actually improve education. They are centering culture war policies when we should be centering, how are we helping these kids to become better, more well informed people? Right. So I'm talking with Valerie Tabor, Valerie, you're running for school board. If people want to get to know more about you, if they want to maybe possibly even support you with donations, how do they do that? Is there a website? There absolutely is a website, so you can visit at Valerie Tabor for RedlandsUSD.com. I'm also active on Instagram under the same title, Valerie Tabor for our USD.com. And money is the mother's milk of campaigns. Unfortunately, that's the truth. So, you know, these campaigns now are becoming more and more expensive as well. You know, my aunt, Elder Hunt, rest her soul, was the president of the San Bernardino Unified School District way back in the day. She served on the board with a guy named Jerry Lewis, not the funny one, but the former congressman. And when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, like five or six years old, I helped my aunt with her campaign, licking envelopes and stuff and envelopes. I didn't know really what I was doing, but I was helping my aunt, Eleanor. And so, you know, she was president of the school board when I was in kindergarten. I'll tell you a real quick and funny story. Just to really go. And my kiddo has been involved in mine too. He's been knocking doors with me. That's right. So, here's a little marquee. Going into kindergarten at Riley Elementary School, my teacher was named Mrs. King. She was great. I'm one of my favorite teachers of all times, and she was my kindergarten teacher. And I'm going to Riley Elementary School. I'm scared stiff. I don't want to go. I want to stay with my mom and my aunt, Eleanor. I like hanging out with them. Well, you know, I get pushed into the elementary school classroom at Riley by my mom. You know, my mom did my lay, but eventually, you know, you got to say goodbye to your kid because, you know, even in kindergarten, you can't pad the walls. You know, you can't protect them. And we were doing just like awesomely hard things like finger painting and eating graham crackers and milk and stuff, but I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be there. I was making a fuss. I was making a really, really big fuss. And the teacher's like, I don't know what to do. This kid is so self-willed and he's so noisy. And I'm like, I want to go home. I want to go home. And they said, well, you can't go home, Mr. Westward. She says to me, I said, well, I want to go home. I want to talk to my aunt. And she goes, well, who's your aunt? I said, she's down in that room over there. She's having a meeting. They're like, well, who's your aunt? My aunt, Eleanor. And I remember this Thursday. She went, Eleanor Hunt? Uh huh. Yes. They went and got my aunt. My aunt came down and got me. And yeah, I left that day, but then my aunt brought me back the next day and talked me into staying there. But that's kind of the kind of interaction that kids have. But it's the same way whether you're in junior high school or high school or even college. People that are homeschooled kind of run into this too, they don't get the same exposure. They don't have the way to develop the filters or anything else. If you've taught your kids well and you are a good parent, if your child comes across something that you don't really like or maybe challenges their set of values or whatever, talk to your kids. Yeah. Is that such a strange concept or a value? I certainly don't think so. And that is in line with what the Redlands School Board has been doing over the last couple of months is saying, you know, we're not going to implement these forced outing policies or what they call parental notification policies. Take care of it at home. Because this should be a conversation that you're having with your child at home with your student. And also, your student should be deciding when and with whom they are sharing parts of their identity with. Like, they are able to make those decisions. Why does the school have to step in and do that? Right. Making sweeping policies for something that is a very rare, really, occurrence. In the same with book banning, you know, if we're taking these books out because we are worried about the impact, the point of books is not to be consumed in a vacuum. The point of books is to facilitate conversations. You talk with your children about the things that they've read or you get involved and say, hey, I don't want my child to have access to these books. But we don't take away access to the whole community based on one family's beliefs. That is not equal. That is not fair. Right. When I grew up, you know, I used to like Cowboys and Indians movies and stuff like that. That didn't mean that I became an Indian or a cowboy and went around shooting people or anything else. Because I was taught by my parents who parented me that that wasn't right. That that wasn't the way you acted. That's not the way you behaved. The way you behaved was, you know, to help people in your community. Teach that. Teach them how to volunteer. Teach them how to feed the homeless, to give, to be charitable. Teach them to have empathy and caring and kind. These aren't radical. These aren't really liberal. These are just kind of middle of the road parenting kind of things. And it's helping them to learn how to be a community member. We live in community with one another. We are supposed to care about one another. It should not be us versus them. Right. And, you know, I'm talking to somebody Valerie Tabor who's running for school district board in Redlands. And, you know, I was kind of, you know, some people said, well, she's kind of really liberal and radical. But the things I'm talking about and, you know, all your degrees and everything, you're pretty like middle of the road, maybe almost, I hate to say, maybe even left right leaning a little bit. But, you know, that's the way most of America is. We have to find a way to meet in the middle. We don't need extreme radicals coming into our school board meetings, into our schools, and dictating what and what we can't or what your child is exposed to. It's just like being exposed to certain illnesses and flues and things like that. Build your immune system. Well, you need to build your child's thinking system. Their ability to filter. Their ability to make choices. You don't do that by patting the walls. Am I making your speech for you? You're making a great case for me. And, you know, it's a nonpartisan position. These are, they should be nonpartisan issues. We should be able to meet in the middle. We shouldn't be like, this is the side or that side. It's what is actually good for our students. What is good for our community? Build your child's thinking logic and intellectual in immunity so they can make choices and decisions so they can cope with life's challenges when they become older. Okay, I'm off my soapbox. But, we have been talking to Valerie Tabor and the election is November 5th for you, correct? It sure is. Yeah. It feels like it's going to be right around the corner. My website is Valerie Tabor for RedlandsUSD.com. And, if you want to put somebody who's logical, who's empathetic, who's compassionate, who, you know, born in Redlands, went to the school district here, you know, has these, you know, bachelors of arts degree in psychology, has a master's in clinical mental health counseling. You know, if you want those things, if you want somebody that's that qualified on your board rather than somebody who's kind of conjured up out of intuition or some sort of a political agenda, then you need to get on that website, support your children by working for Valerie. Money is great too, but she needs people to knock, she needs people to walk, she needs the people to talk about her, she needs to become known, so that when November 5th comes, people don't go okay. This is Valerie and Valerie lost the lotteries. This extreme is good on the board. Oh, exist. That doesn't mean you have to be extreme, you don't have to be radical about it. And, you also don't have to force your beliefs on others. Arts, public schools are for everyone of different religions, of no religion, coexist. There are Muslims, there are Catholics, there are Protestants, there are Lutherans, there are Baptist, there are Mormons, there are Jewish people. I mean, I could go down the list of all, you know, the schools of theology and thought and religious and faiths. And, you know, we all have to learn how to coexisting along. We do. And I want to particularly say that some of the people that are running, they are particularly anti-Muslim. They have spread a lot of Islamophobia in the community. And so, even if you don't end up supporting me, as long as you are educating yourself about who is running, I'm happy. Because there are quite a few strange folks running this election cycle. We're going to have an election, there's going to be a presidential election, that's very controversial. And, of course, that'll turn out a certain number of people for this side or that side. And there's a good number of people that they vote for the top choices, but they don't, what we call, vote down the ballot. Oh, yeah. Local elections matter more than anything else. I could probably talk for a whole other hour about local elections. There are city council people in San Bernardino got elected with less than a student body asp president in their elections. Got 5, 600. So, sometimes it comes down to a handful of votes. Right. We have a state assembly race that got lost in the desert by 85 votes. Yes. So, it is important that you vote. November 5th that you're registered to vote. You can register any time online through your DMV or whatever. Valerie, your website is again. Valerie Tabor for Redlands USD.com. Valerie Tabor for reslands USD.com and it's spelled T-A-B-E-R. It sure is. Very easy to do that. Valerie, it has been so good talking with you. Is there one speech you want to make real quick in the last two minutes to convince people to vote for you? You're on. Schools are for everyone. Every student, every teacher deserves to be and feel supported on our school campuses. And I am dedicated to creating that environment. If a vote for me is a vote for fiscal accountability, district accountability, and safe and thriving students, all of that is so important to me. So, I hope to earn your support this November. Thank you, Valerie. If you want to really hear this, it is kciradio.com. kciradio.com. Click your "see my ugly mug" there and it'll say "web" and "podcast." Click on "podcast." You can click "download." That way you can advance or rewind if you want to hear it. Or, you know, you just, you know, click "listen." And you can listen to it. It's also online at Tiki Live at Rumble at Kix. And you can hear and see us if you really want to see me. But anyway, Valerie, thank you for coming in. Thank you so much for having me. I sincerely wish you get to elect it. Thank you. I'm Mark Westwood for KCA 1050AM 106.5 FM and Community Crossroads. Thank you, by the way, also to Tony Mombour. And thank you to Mombourger. And thank you to Eric in the engineering room. Thanks to everybody. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next week. NBC News on KCAA Loma Luda sponsored by Teamsters Local 1932. Protecting the future of working families, Teamsters1932.org. Here's the latest news and weather from the KCAAA News Center. I'm Jake Yates. Fatal victims of two Riverside County traffic mishaps on Tuesday, June 18th have been identified. In Oriental Valley and pedestrian Enrique Ruiz, 43, perished on Freeway 60 near Frederick Street, near Hemmett, the coroner identified Kacey Fryer, 35, as the victim of an accident on Fairview Avenue. 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