On The Mark
KCAA: On The Mark with Mark Westwood (Thu, 1 Aug, 2024)
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You've got insurance you can use for your addiction problem and with the Family Medical Leave Act, it's completely confidential. Call now 800-398-7414. That's 800-398-7414. This is your favorite show, download the podcast at kcaaradio.com. K-C-A-A. (piano music) A. (piano music) The K-C-A-A now presents Crossroads, a program in the public interest bringing you the issues you need to hear about here in our community. Now here is your host, Mark Westwood. - That's right. - Break it up. Mark Westwood with you here for this little music. K-C-A-A-A, 10.50 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 gonna have Valerie Tabor. Valerie is a school board trustee candidate for Redlands Unified School District. And we're gonna get to know her. But that's gonna be the second part. The first part of the show, welcome. - Thank you, hi Mark. - Hi, how are you today? - Am I on? - You are testing. - Just bring that a little closer there. - Thank you. - And we call that swallowing the mic. But yeah, 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 the 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, 'cause 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 Kicks. 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 know, you could just listen. This shows anytime you want. So that's kind of cool. So getting onto 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 a pandemic. Things 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 here? Our average is 3,000 per judge. Oh my gosh. 3,000 per judge. That's the Inland Empire in-- 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. 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, just-- So they've got to kick that old 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 shutdown, right? We had some creative judges who in San Bernardino Superior said, OK, we're holding court in the parking lot. Show up, and let's go. Because we just-- we 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, 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 get, 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 gosh. I mean, this is Riverside County dismissed more than 3,000 criminal cases. 3,000 criminal cases dismissed. That's an excuse-- you know, and can you imagine, this is a very important trial in your life, for whatever reason. And they say, OK, it's going to be out in the parking lot. I think that, yeah, that one is 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 and 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 according to the allegations in the lawsuit that I was talking about last week in 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 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 followour 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, and 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 something that is also-- they have to physically be in the room. 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.S. Empire has been outfitted just in case this becomes OK. They're ready to go tomorrow, recording these, and transcribing them later. So how do you feel about that? I think I'm a traditionalist, but at the same time, if it gets the job done, and they can be transcribed later and put into words, or maybe they even use artificial intelligence to do it. You would hate my answer to this question. OK, maybe I will, maybe I won't. OK, 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 have been very interested in hearing the other side, and I finally did. And I wish I 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 kind 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? 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-- but you're right. I mean, if in the moment it's inaudible, or the person swallows their 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-o over are just nil. There are benefits, and I had not understood what they were until somebody-- thank goodness. I mean, if ever-- if ever we have comments or opinions or people advocating for anything, and there's anybody out there who has the counterpoint of view, 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. I pointed out. 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-- - Brand new courthouse out in Menifee. - Brand new courthouse, and this is huge. It's like five stories, and yeah, it's a big courthouse. - So one of our crises, right? 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 was 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. A lot of things I mean 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, - That shopping drops. - Like in 2019, I think Judge Obuno said in his state of the courts, we had 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 or? - Oh, you know they are not 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, it 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 say 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 math is not my thing. But let me say, so this was recent news is we got, there's now a court reporter bonus incentive program out of the state. San Bernardino County got a couple million out of this, just about, just less than I think it's like $1.9 million. - With the Lucky Land sluts, you can get lucky just about anywhere. - Daily Beloved, we're gathered here today. Has anyone seen the bride and groom? - Sorry, sorry, we're here. - We were getting lucky in the limo when we lost track of time. - No, Lucky Land Casino, with cash prizes that add up quicker than a guest registry. But in that case, I pronounce you lucky. - Make for free at Luckylandsluts.com. No purchase necessary. BGW grower prohibited by law, 18 plus, terms and conditions apply. - Might be 19 million, I was told there would be no math. So, but let me tell you what this is. - A lot of money. - What this is for. If you become a court reporter today, in two years, they're giving you a $10,000 bonus. And then, from two years to 10 years, you're getting $15,000 bonuses. - On top of what you've already earned. - Yeah, but if you stay for 10 years, that goes up to a $20,000 bonus. - I'm gonna lose my board up. I'm gonna lose my sister. - Get the running out now. - Money. But again, keep in mind this quote, this is why I wrote this down. Additional funding will not solve the problem as there is no one too higher. So, why, where are they going? They're leaving-- - You mean no one to hire the people or no one? - No one to be hired. - To be hired, okay. - 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, shorthand exam. So, some people are leaving the state to take the exam somewhere else and work somewhere else, right? They're also working in the private sector. You, well, I wanna 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. But at this point-- - Now I don't understand private sector of-- - I kinda think that's not true. - Court reporting? - Yeah, they can, they don't have to work the superior courts public, right? 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 out of pocket hire a private court reporter than to wait until you can get one of them assigned to the court. - 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 into 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, like 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 in 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. - They must be frustrated. - You need to be ready. Don't come in here and ask to, you know, until you're not ready. And also they're really, really pushing negotiating for settlements, you know, arbitration, mediation, all of that stuff. - Because there's 3,000 cases per judge. They don't have enough courtroom. They don't have enough court space. - They're stretched in. - And they don't have court reporters. And they're stretched in, they're stretched in, they're stretched in. We live in a state with 40 million people and 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 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. Well, 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 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 the dog, they said, we're gonna have to put your dog down. They coerce a confession out of him. There's a video of him hugging his dog by and that 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. So, the dog is finding out the dog back. But like the first sentence 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. And it's- - I don't even know what to say to that. - It's one of the most recent stories we have, the headline is about Fontana police. - 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, he's 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. - Yes. - 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- - The state attorney general, 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 trying. - 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 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 their speaking. So- - That's so very interesting. We're going to tie this right into the next treatment. - I'm trying to segue for you. - Thank you. Thank you. - You're welcome. - We have to segue with some spots and commercials, Tony Momburger from followourcourts.com. Thank you, Tony. - Thank you. - Stick around and we'll talk a little bit more. - I will sit in that chair right there. - And sit 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. (upbeat music) - NBC News on KCAA Loma Linda sponsored by Teamsters Local 1932. Protecting the future of working families, Teamsters 1932.org. And now the voices of KCAA was an exciting announcement. Wanna hear NBC News or KCAA anywhere you go? Well, now there's a nap for that. 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Welcome to the family. No purchase necessary, VDW Group, boy rep prohibited by law, 18 plus, terms and conditions apply. Here's the latest news and weather from the KCAA News Center, I'm Jake Yates. Fatal victims of two Riverside County traffic mishaps on Tuesday, June 18th have been identified in Moreno Valley and pedestrian Enrique Ruiz 43 perished on Freeway 60 near Frederick Street. Near Hemet, 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 motel still hasn't passed fire in 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 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 mornings, becoming sunny, day to day warming, highs through Friday in the 90s and near 101 on Saturday, nighttime lows in the 60s, mountains, clearing 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, two to four feet, water, 60 to 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. K, C, A, A. (upbeat music) ♪ And the way you're like the drains ♪ ♪ I want you to run over ♪ ♪ And stop making a fool out of me ♪ ♪ Why don't you come out over there ♪ ♪ All the way ♪ - Hey, CAA 1050AM, 106.5 FM Mark Westwood, with Valerie. (laughing) Welcome Valerie Tabor. - Thank you for having me. - Welcome, I'm sitting here looking at Ruth and Wilhelm's granddaughter. (laughing) - I know, amazing connections. - Daughter, and Ron's niece. 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 (laughing) 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, got that in my dining room with my extender. - I have my grandmother's table. So yeah, they were sure of that in common. But Valerie Tabor, you were born and raised in Redlands. - Yes, I 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 Vastors of Arts in Psychology from California State University, San Bernardino, my alma mater as well. - Yes, I did. - 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. (laughing) 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 gonna 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 childcare worker at the local YMCA. - Was, 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 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 Redland 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 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 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 he just got recalled. - Just got recalled in wrong city. But same kind of stuff going on there. People showing up that really aren't within the school district and 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'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 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 elections. - 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 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're 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 Tabor, 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, involved in child education, degrees as long as your arm, very qualified. She's not just somebody with a mouth, somebody's just coming in with an idea, an opinion. I would imagine that when 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 college. - You 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, I'm 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, your brother is a teacher. Adoncino Valley, this coincidentally. And then you also have a, no, Ron's your uncle, excuse me. - Yes, yes. - And your brother is a teacher as well. He's a music teacher. - He is. He's out in Lake Elsonore. He, 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 great work. - He got to 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, and 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 on 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 it to church, you don't take it to church. Whatever, 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 with Redlands, in Chino Valley, in Temecula, these people showing up for their own political advancement to make noises, to maybe 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, 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 this is not an issue. And then they're making issues of things, like, 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 minutes and minutes and hours of time at the school board meetings, 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 they're following this because they're causing lawsuits. - They sure are. - Title IX lawsuits. - So Title IX 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-- - They're human beings. - They're human beings. We are setting them up to-- - Parents, you can't breathe for them. You can't eat for them. - No. - Excuse me, you can't poop for them either, but it's true. - Yes, and so it's coming down to what is the focus of our schools, is the focus of our schools to encourage our students to learn about the world around them, and 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, all that kind of stuff. But I came across people that were different from me. I came across people that did different life's decisions than me, and there's no way you can avoid that, no matter how many rules you make, no how many, you know, the idea of the notion that somebody just recently in a school district passed the idea that no other flags can be done except for the United States flag. Well, what about, you know, it's 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 the really is said, we don't want rainbow flags in there 'cause 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 gonna walk into somebody or run into somebody, or somebody you know, and you don't 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 it for work. 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, then that's dangerous. And the bigger issue, I think, that I think crosses across lines is that these expensive are lawsuit. 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 ValerieTabor4RedlandsUSD.com. I'm also active on Instagram under the same title, ValerieTabor4RUSD.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 stuffing 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, funny story. - And my kiddo's 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. 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. And, you know, my mom didn't want to lay, but eventually, you know, you got to say goodbye to your kid. 'Cause, you know, even in kindergarten, you can't pad the walls. You know, you can't protect them. And we were doing just 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. Westbrook. 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. And they're like, well, who's your aunt? My aunt, Eleanor. And I remember this Thursday. She went, Eleanor Hunt, 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. You know, if you've taught your kids, well, and you are a good parent, you know, 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, Valerie? I certainly don't think so. And that is in line with what the Redland 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, 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, it was kind of, you know, some people said, well, she's kind of really liberal and radical, but the things I'm talking to you about, and you know, all your degrees and everything, you're pretty like middle of the road, maybe almost, I hate to say, or 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's 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 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. - Mr. favorite show? Download the podcast at kcaaradio.com. - NBC News Radio, I'm Brian Shook. The White House is celebrating a major prisoner swap with Russia. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called it a feat of diplomacy. - I spent a lot of time with the families of Evan and Paul and all Sue. And most of the time, as you can imagine, those are tough conversations, but not today. Today, excuse me. Today was a very good day. - Among those freed are three Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskovich and former Marine Paul Wayland. President Biden and Vice President Harris will greet the Americans tonight at joint base Andrews. In return, Russia will receive eight of its nationals, including three that were held in U.S. prisons. Vladimir Putin personally welcomed them back. Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign is reportedly considering six potential running mate contenders. NBC News reports Harris' vetting team met with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Wall Street is closing with stocks sharply lower to start the new month. Liz Warner reports. This comes as new data like high unemployment numbers caused some fear among investors about the possibility of a recession. It's also one day after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged once again, but hinted a rate cut is likely to happen in the future. 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