FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
State Rep. Jennifer Fidler - Jeff Poor Show - August 19 2024
[MUSIC PLAYING] We'll go back to the Jet Force show that they've talked one of those 6'5" they're sticking around. On this Monday morning, speaking of the floor of Bama, 60 years yesterday, they had their 60th birthday party. Ballway County/mobile corresponded 18-19 news. Eric Katamis was there. We got a story up on the home page for you to check that out. Meantime, 2-5-1, 3-4-3-0-1-0-6 is the tech slide still to come on the program. George Wallace Jr., that's about an hour from now. And then the Education Trust Fund Budget Committee chairman in the House of Representatives, Danny Garrett. And like I was talking about it last week in this formula for money from the state, they want to take her with it. They keep saying update. But I don't know what that means. I want to find that out. So we'll talk to Chairman Garrett here in about two hours. So please make sure you stay tuned for that. Join us now here in the Fair Hope Euros we do every other Monday. State Representative Jennifer Fiddler's with us. Representative, good morning, how are you? I'm doing great. Jeff, how are you doing? I am living the dream as well as much as you can here. So you just went off Alaska, huh? How was that? It was so-- the weather was so much better than you guys were experiencing here. You were having heat advisories and 100-degree weather. We were in mid-60s and no humidity. And I slept with the doors open on the cruise ship every night. And it was just unbelievable. We really enjoyed it. The weather was perfect. Yeah, and the three-year-old I went up to North Carolina, Virginia, and into DC. But we took the Blue Ridge Parkway and the very early part of the Blue Ridge Parkway was like in the '60s. I think driving up at one point, because of the tropical storm we drove through, we got into the '50s. They get back here. It's like, people did your heat advisories, you know? Can't breathe. Yeah, hard to breathe. It was definitely hard to breathe. It remains, like, just going out. I'm ready for the heat to break, because it's just the build-up to football season, I guess. Well, it's almost here, just right around the corner. We're almost there. And so how long were you going to Blue Ridge? I left, so we did a segment. You and I did that segment on-- It was a Monday. It was a Monday, and then I left that night. We left that afternoon. After my show was over and after we got our 18, 19, 2 p.m. page up, I got on the road. We went to a Braves game and that's game. The Richmond Car Race, I walked around and saw some things on the National Mall, but the big center central focus, we took the Burridge Parkway from its beginning in Cherokee, North Carolina, all the way to its end in Waynesboro, Virginia. And it took Skyline Drive from Waynesboro, all the way to Front Royal, and they cut over to the DC. Wow, I bet that was beautiful. It wasn't till the two got caught up in the storm. But the thing about it was with the tropical storm, there were a lot of the wildlife, I guess, have kind of been disrupted or something. 'Cause we saw a lot of deer, a lot of deer. And that's exciting for a three-year-old, so it worked out. The biggest disappointment was we had planned on going to Tweetsie Railroad, and they had closed down for the day because of the storm when we wanted to go, and not getting the ride to train was very disappointing. - Yeah, well, we got to ride a train to the Klondike up there to the mountains. You guys out there, if you haven't done that, Alaska Cruise, it is fun, I just heard so many things, wonderful things about how that trip is and absolutely do the balcony. Make sure you do that. And then if you can do the inside passage, the Glacier National Park, you get to see the sea otters and just the eagles eating fish, and we saw a bear coming and getting a salmon, the salmon were running, so that was really cool. I've never seen that many fish in one upstream coming up. So, yeah, that was really cool. - That's good, at least you come back to the stifling heat of Baldwin County. - Yeah, it was always good to come home. We were ready to come home, but it's, yeah, the weather was perfect. - Yeah, get it like you go right around with the windows down and the radios blasted or whatever, and then back here, you can't even breathe when you walk out. - That's right, but it's all good. It's all a part of paradise, right? - We'll get our, we'll get our reprieve when it's like mid January, right? And when you're hitting like 70 or something. - And people are going to the beach. Yeah, we're headed to the beach. - Yeah, we're going to the beach. - On that rare sunny day in January. - Sea shells or something. So, this is in the state here. I guess while you were away, not, I guess, were you here for a BCA? - I came in on Sunday morning, so I did get to see some of my colleagues Sunday morning. I was not able to be here Friday and Saturday of BCA. Or, and I didn't get to hear the speaker speak. I missed him at the Eastern Shore public and women. So, hated to, that happened. But, it's, this job you find out, you just can't be at every one of these functions. It's just nearly impossible. - You speak, I mean, us usually my stop too, we were gone from here when-- - Everybody was here. - Yeah. - Yeah, I hate that I missed him, but I know he did a good job. And I heard he did a good, great job on the radio the other day with Representative Simpson, who did the Shawn Sullivan show. - Oh, yeah. - Did you get to hear that? - I was also, Shawn and I were gone at the same time. - Okay. So, Representative Simpson, last Tuesday, while we were at the Gulf Quest Museum, listening to all the Go Mesa funding that we received in Baldwin County, the governor came into town, got to see her on Tuesday and mobile. But at that same time, he was doing, he was preparing for the Shawn Sullivan show, he did about a two-hour segment, and I got to hear a little bit of Michael Hoyt speaking, Wes Allen, our secretary of state spoke, and Representative Wilcox. And I've looked for it on the, your website, but, 'cause I really wanna share it. He did a great job, you would think he'd been in radio for his life, he did a good job. I don't know if you've been able to hear it. - I was talking about that, he'd come and get my job from me, and then be careful there. - He really did. It was kind of interesting how, you know, he picked up on it and just has the radio voice, actually. But he talked about a lot of good things that the state's been doing, and got to interview, like I said, those individuals, and just look forward to going back, and if I can, whenever you guys post it, I'd love to repost that, because there was a lot of good information, Wes Allen's been working on, he's found 3200, over 3200 illegal aliens that have registered to vote. - Right. - That's something that I-- - It'll be troubling, yeah. - Well, it is, that's just once he's found. So, you know, those will have to be looked into, and you just wonder how many more words out there, and this is in Alabama. - Yeah, and I don't think he's gone through the entire state, just the north part, right? - Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I know he, in that press release, he talked about getting it out to all 67 counties. - And you remember the debate, I don't know if you're paying attention to, I don't know if you watch much of what goes on in the Alabama Senate, but you know, I, I, or Smitherman, Roger Smitherman, and Bobby Singleton, oh, this is, this is just a solution, looking for a problem. This is, you guys are just messaging, you guys. You, whenever we have any kind of legislation to be considered by the Senate, it has to deal with election integrity, so as usual suspects will say things like that, and then, well, it would be, hold, look what Wes Allen finds, and I mean, like, there's no, let's just, I guess, yeah, you're, I've never, and I'm sure you've seen it in the House too, people that are very, you know, critical of all of these sort of measures that some Republicans want to try to implement. - Well, the ballot harvesting bill, okay, so this is what we're talking about, and yes, we tried to pass it last session. This session comes back up, and the, you know, I remember, like it was yesterday, I'm in my office, they're in Montgomery, and I look out, and there's five people, and it's becoming 10 people, and they're talking to me about ballot harvesting bill, and how wrong it is. Being that this was one of those bills I actually co-sponsored last year, wasn't able to co-sponsor it this year, just because they filed it before asking for, again, a bunch of people to co-sponsor it. I knew the bill, and we started going over the things that they told me the bill couldn't do or wouldn't do, and, you know, I pulled the bill up, absolutely not, you're able to have someone go with you to vote, what this bill does is you can't be paid to go out there and harvest a lot of ballots, and so this was, there was 15 people in my office and lying down the hall just telling me how wrong the bill was, so, you know, there's, Bobby, you know, Senator Singleton is standing up with his constituents, you know, but it's our job to make sure, yeah, we know the bill, and we can say, no, this is not what it says. - Well, they are able to help people. - These Democrats in the legislature, not all of them, but most of them, there's never been a election integrity bill that they have agreed with. I mean, it's always, there's always something wrong, but like Jamie Keel with that ballot harvesting bill, there was one of the Chambers County, or no Clay County, somebody running for County Commission and they found the ballot harvesting, and then they'll now, what used to happen, representative, and this is like, important, the, this used to go on, and it probably still goes on in a lot of counties, and the local prosecutor there, the district attorney, it's not going to prosecute this. He never wants a misdemeanor, so he's like, just not worth my time. Number two, he's probably in on the whole absentee balloting scheme, because you look at like, there was an election about 10 years ago, an election site in Perry County, Wilcox County, where like 33% of the participants at the Democratic primary voted by absentee ballot. But it's typically down like 1%, 2%, 3%, it was overwhelming in those two counties, and nothing was really done about it. So what the attorney general says, well, well, this is the attorney general step in, it's because the district attorney won't. Well, they just, they make it, they make it so hard to prosecute, and you'd rather have your AG handling much bigger things than misdemeanor ballot fraud, so now that they've raised that to a felony, hopefully it's more of a deterrent, and this practice kind of goes away, it should have gone away decades ago. - You know, you're right. And I, you know, as I went door to door, the people that I talked to are worried about that their vote doesn't count. And so me, along with them, that was one of my five or six things, eight things that were so important to me as I ran as to wanting to make sure that every legal vote counts and it isn't marked out and done away with by an illegal vote. And so I wanted, I'm going to do everything I can to be behind election integrity. I believe in our secretary of state and the work he's doing, I appreciate his getting after it and getting there every day and making sure that he's working for us. - Well, that's just it, right? Even if you accept their premise that this is not really a problem in Alabama, in fact, when you put these measures in place, blah, blah, blah, blah, that makes it harder to vote or whatever, your constituents are telling you, this is what we want and this is what we want you to do. We're concerned about election integrity and this is exactly the way the system works that members of the legislature are going to go adhere to their wishes and their constituents and try to do more to enhance election integrity in Alabama. We've got to safeguard that. That is the most important factor of this whole process is to make sure that our voters believe in the system and they know without a shadow of a doubt that their vote counts and it's going to make a difference. And we can get people to the polls if they feel like that. - No, I think it's our number one priority. - Yeah, 'cause I imagine when you talk to people, maybe they talk a little bit about immigration or whatever, but you always get that crossover, we talk to constituents where, you know, they look at all levels of government as a line and I got to think as far as the state's ability to actually address concerns, this one is right there. - It's a big one and I mean, I've heard from the other side as well, you know, like I said, I had a whole, you know, I've talked to them in my office and I've talked to them here, Fair Hope. - Alabama Rise or something? - Absolutely, but when you look at that bill, it addresses the concerns that, you know, these groups and the individuals that I talked to have and it does what it needs to for the folks that want to ensure that their votes are counting. So yeah, I couldn't be more for and, you know, wholeheartedly for the work that West Allen, Secretary of State's done and that if we can strengthen anything to do with election integrity, I'm gonna be there. - Let's get a quick break in here. We're joined by state representative. Jennifer Fiddler says the Jeff Moore show and F.F. Talk, 106-5. ♪ And when I reach the other side ♪ ♪ I'll find a place to risk my spirit ♪ ♪ Like I can ♪ ♪ Perhaps I may become a highway man again ♪ ♪ Or I may simply be a single drop of rain ♪ ♪ But I... ♪ ♪ Once was a thought inside my head ♪ ♪ Or I'd reach 30, I'd be dead ♪ ♪ But somehow on and on I go ♪ ♪ I just fall rolling with the flow ♪ - Welcome back to the Jeff Moore show. What F.F. Talk, 106-5. They just stick it around on this Monday. We do appreciate it. Texts like, keep up with guys. Two, five, one, three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six. I see you there, James. Ooh, Ricky, yeah, maybe pass. But we'll get to those in the next segment. Stay with us for just a few more minutes here for Fiddler Shaver Presented from Silver Hill. Go basic grants. Talk a little bit about what we need to know there. - Came down last week and announced a lot of our Go Mesa funding this year. And just as a reminder, this money comes from the revenue of the offshore oil and gas leases. We get a percentage of that. We share that with other states. And thank you to our congressional delegation that helped redo the distribution of all those funds. But right here in Fair Hope, we're going to be using our funding for the Flying Creek Nature Reserve. And if you remember, that is the triangle. That the famous triangle is the history of that triangle is so interesting. It goes back 50 years. But we're going to be doing a nature and educational center there at the former DICE home. We have hiking trails, a trailhead, birding blinds, a longleaf pine park, an underground tunnel that's going to be built there. And all that we think is going to be finished in 2025. So excited about that. We have the Summerdale Miracle League ball fields, $1.5 million there. And if you're not familiar with that, that is going to be a handicap accessible for all disabilities. We'll be able to go there and rotary, our rotary club there in Central Baldwin have their big fundraiser every year. The Blakely State Park Water Access Improvement Project, almost $2 million. Mayor State Park Camp Store Project is over a million dollars. The Locks and Municipal Park is going to have a Wetlands acquisition project. And we've got several others in Orange Beach and but those were some of the highlights and... - It's a lot of the triangle. Now, you know, you're intimately familiar with that. - Oh my gosh. - But they set the road shut down, which is... - Yeah. - So you've got a child, they've got to take the school right there and then proceed on the dafting to take the other child's school. But like, that is, what's that going to be? - The Educational Center and hiking trails and you're going to be able to walk through that. And, you know, historically, this is an area that this city has never wanted to develop. I guess the more the majority of. And historically, there's always been a battle. Like, to, for that triangle. It's got a pretty interesting story. So we're glad to see this conversation. - Well, sooner rather than later, if you hear me out there, let's get a break in here. Thanks again for coming by for this. - Yeah, thank you. - All right, we'll be right back. This is FIT Talk, one of our six-five. (upbeat music) ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ Lost the one thing ♪ ♪ But it couldn't be bad ♪ ♪ That it never was ♪