On The Mark
KCAA: On The Mark with Mark Westwood (Thu, 26 Sep, 2024)
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So when you buy American giant, you create jobs in towns and cities across the country, and jobs bring pride, purpose. They stitch people together. Support America's workers and get 20% off your first order at american-giant.com with promo code staple20. That's 20% off your first order at american-giant.com, code staple20. Download the podcast at kcAAradio.com. K-C-A-A. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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. And good afternoon to you. As the gentleman said, I'm Mark Westwood, host of Community Crossroads here on K-C-A-1050 AM 106.5 FM, the station that leaves no wister behind. Happy to be with you here on a Thursday afternoon. I've got a couple of guests from the city of Ucipa. Joe Praddetto and Phil White will be talking with him in just a few minutes. But first of all, I want to take this time out. As we get closer to this big election, we've heard nothing about, right, right? No, we hear nothing but about. It's happening November 5, and your ballots will be coming in the mailbox. They'll be there by October 7. We're just about 41 days away from this general presidential election. Lots of important things. We've had propositions on there. We've got local initiatives. We've got, of course, local candidates. And it's important that you vote. So if you are not registered to vote, you can do that now. You can do that right up until the election. You can do that on election day with what they call a provisional ballot. But simply, Iwillvote.com is a very easy one to remember. Iwillvote.com. Make that commitment. Go to that. You can register, and you can find your state to register, in case you're going out of state right now. And you don't live in this state. Or you can go to our Secretary of State's website, which is SOS. I kind of say, save our souls with, actually, Secretary of State. sos.ca.gov/elections. sosca.gov/elections. And today, we will also be on KQLH, by the way. I forgot to say that. I'm so used to being in this studio sometimes. And in the other studio, we are simulcasting on KQLH 92.5 FM, because that is a station that we have in Ucipa. And I think it's important for this information to get out. We're here to educate, and we're not advocating. We're just here to educate. So we're going to do that. Also, getting back to the elections.espeacounty.gov. Elections.espeacounty.gov. It is an all mail ballot. You can drop your mail. And you can drop it at mail drops. Or you can actually drive it up. Even on Election Day, or a few days before Election Day, they'll have places and people out in front of the register. Our voters in San Bernardino County. And it's simple to remember. It's 3/7, 777 West Rialto Boulevard. 777 West Rialto Boulevard in San Bernardino. You can drive it over there. There are other places, too, that you can find to drop it. And you can find that, again, at elections.espeacounty.gov. Elections.espeacounty.gov. And for all you Riverside counties, this is a San Bernardino County day. So we'll get to Riverside County next week. Don't be offended, please, please don't do that. So elections are a month-long process. Not just on Election Day anymore. So you can drop them in at any time. And your ballots must be postmarked by November 5th. And you can track your ballots from the time they are received, to the time you mail them, to the time they're counted. They'll even tell you where they're stored. It's kind of a great deal that the registrar of voters here in San Bernardino County has, and all along in California. So elections are a safe, secure process in our area, especially. And I'm kind of happy to say that. So with no further ado, I've got two guys here with a big task today. One is the public information officer from the city of Yucaipa, who's been with Yucaipa for a couple of years now, right? Approaching two years. Joe Pradetto, Joe Pradetto. And the public information officer is just like what it sounds. It's somebody who gives information out to the public about what the city of Yucaipa is doing, correct? That's right. You will find it a little further or more-- Yeah, so I'm the public information officer and also director of governmental affairs. So we handle not only getting the word out of what we're doing, but also working with regional governments and handling grants. And right now, the big focus is on getting education out on our upcoming sales tax measure, which we're talking about here, but the effort that the city's been endeavoring on in the last year and a half of improving how we communicate and accessing, getting the public to have access to information they want and need. But this is really a culmination project here, because, like you said, it's a big job. And we're not here to advocate, but we want everyone to know for certain that they're voting and what the stakes are and that they're making the right decision for themselves. OK. And since I'm talking right now to the public information officer before I talk to you, Phil, you can also find this podcast on our website at kcaradio.com, K-C-A-A Radio.com. Or you can listen to it right now live on KQLH Radio.com. And of course, we have our apps, which you can be downloaded into by the app store or on Google Play. And that is just type in the call letters. K-Q-L-H or K-C-A-A, download the app. And you can listen to us in Paris, France, or Paris, California. What's your choice? Whatever you want to do. And you can listen to this later on. And you can also download them for your own listening pleasure, as I say. And now it's my pleasure to introduce Phil White, who's a finance director for the city of Yekai Po. Yes, sir. And now he says it quiet. That's it. You just got it all right. No. Phil, tell us a little bit about what you do and what's your job encompasses. Yeah, so I'm director of finance for the city of Yekai Po. Currently, as Jo mentioned, we've got the November election coming up. Measure S is on the ballot for us. And really, what we've been doing the last two, three months is going out throughout the community and educating the community, offering up Q&A sessions, whatever we want. We've got an ongoing issue at the city, a financial condition issue. And we really need the community's input on how we move forward. And so the bottom line is currently our operating costs are exceeding our recurring revenues. And so we're working with the community to find a solution for sustainability going out. Do we want to cut services to existing revenues, or do we want to increase revenues to existing services? OK, and that is the distinct problem. And it's been faced by other city councils before. And I am a citizen of Yekai Po for the last 21 years. And revenues, ebb, and flow. Sometimes it's just like the tide on the beach. Sometimes there's a lot of revenue. And sometimes you're not blessed with so much revenue. And we're kind of that way now. We had a pandemic. It was in 2021, '22, basically we were coming out of it. But we're feeling the ramifications of that still, correct? No doubt, yeah. And so right now, in past times, people were comfortable in Yekai Po. There was the feeling, the general feeling that the city was being well-managed, and that it was being well-managed. And that allowed them to plan for certain things in the future. Or to do certain things, and then things change. And again, things will change again. Do you disagree with me? That revenues will come in, and revenues will flow. As we've had inflation, higher ticket values and things, that means more of a percentage of taxes come to the city, correct? I'm talking to the expert here. Yeah, it's on both sides. Yeah, there's revenues. We've been good on the revenue side, and that they do certainly ebb and flow, but steady rise over the course of time. Expenditures, same thing, just like the revenues increase. Expenditures increase as well. So it's absolutely right. And so some of the dialogue that we've been having is showing trends over the course of 20 plus years to show inflation-adjusted costs from back in the early 2000s till now. And service levels, and we're incorporating all of those things. Yeah, there's an ebb and flow, but there's certainly a trend over time. We're still coming out of the pandemic, no doubt. That's one hiccup, but that's not when this situation began. That was just a blip. So it's your job, right? Yeah. It's your job. You're the head of your department. I take it. Yeah. All right, the finance department. And I don't know how many people you have working under you, but you're the guy. So it's your job to project the future, kind of, to see the future, to see where revenues are going to be coming in, and what the costs are going to be, correct? Sure. Yeah. And so when you came into your job and you did some analysis, I imagine, right away, did a little inventory, right? Then you discovered, wait a minute, right? There's a problem here. You might off-track here or? Yeah, generally correct, yeah. Right. Now, at first, I read an article, excuse me, I read an article that there was a $2.5 million budget deficit. And I read that in the U-kind of a news mirror. And then I further found out there was a $5.5 million budget deficit. And now, as of recent, I've heard there's a $7.5 million budget deficit. Why is there such a big differential in what that could have been from just like a year or two ago? Yeah, great question. So let me start with municipal accounting and numbers are-- they get dense really quick. The 2.5 number that you mentioned is the beginning general fund deficit from last fiscal year. And so it started at 2.5 million. What happened early on in that fiscal year was a tropical storm Hillary. And we had significant storm damage within the city. And so as an emergency measure, City Council adopted an additional $5 million of costs to repair the storm damage. And so that 2.5 million-- Really? Storm damage. From storm damage. Absolutely, yeah. I didn't realize we had that much storm damage in U-kind. In U-kind of. Absolutely. No, it was the result. I mean, and it's-- Was it like telephone poles or something? No, it was-- most of the damage was caused because of the burn scar from the El Dorado fire. Oh, OK. And so then the tropical storm came through and there was mud flows and debris coming through. And so to clean that stuff up, there's a significant-- Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent and relax. That is until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price. Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites. It's going to kill the showings. Oh, it's going to screen tenants for information. [INAUDIBLE] Whew. Sound complicated? Renters Warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to-do list. Our job is complicated because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best-in-class property management professionals take care of your property as if it were our own. From rent collection to maintenance coordination. All for one flat monthly fee. 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There's no insurance company you-- No, no, no. Yeah, so we have to contemplate these things in advance and be ready for them. And we have. And those were in place. No FEMA funds or anything like that came through? So we have to act and repair the damage before the FEMA funds, whatever granting agency it takes time. And so while we were incurring the costs, we were working with the county to apply for FEMA reimbursement. It ended up not panning out. We weren't successful in that. But we were successful in other state funding that came through to at a lower-- So wait, you didn't get any FEMA funds for this? No. No, that's terrible. Yeah, agreed. But we did get state funding. And so the FEMA funds would have reimbursed us 95%, something like that. The funding that we did get in lieu of that was a 75% reimbursement. Oh, so you did get a reimbursed then? Yeah, so we were awarded. We don't have the cash reimbursement yet. We have to spend the money to repair everything, then submit our claim reimbursement, and then eventually the funding will come back. So there's my Evan Wayne, because the funding will come back. There'll be more money in the budget again then, right? No dollar for dollar. No dollar for dollar. So if every dollar we spend, 75% will come back. But we'll have a net loss anyways. And so the way we budget is we have costs, and we could get reimbursed later. But to that point, we're not cutting things out of the budget because of this. This was an additive $5 million to the budget one time. And so that's why the 2 and 1/2 turned into 7 and 1/2. Then we rolled to the next fiscal year, and the number that you heard was-- 5.5 or 7.5 now? Yeah. 7.3 is our current fiscal year budgetary deficit. And so that's why-- and they're budgetary, right? They're not actual. Budgetary is one measure of-- On paper. On paper, fiscal health. And the proactive, it's future. And so it's a projection of a $7.3 million deficit for fiscal 25, which ends on June 30 of 26. And so it's forward-looking, which is great. The city council adopts that as a spending plan to say, this is how we're going to operate throughout the next fiscal year. And so while we have a budgetary deficit-- So you went to the city council, or did you go to the city manager first and say, OK, this is-- Oh, I love that question. Yeah, so this is the way that works. I'm a detailed person. I love it. And this is important, too, because there's a misunderstanding of how this works. But we are governed by city council. So early in the process, March, April, city council will direct or provide objectives to the city manager to say, next fiscal year, this is what we want to do. This is what we want to accomplish. This is how we want to operate. At that point in time, the city manager will work with all the department heads to say, bring me all your proposed-- in order to operate that way, bring me your requests for next year's budget. As the first time-- and then he works with the finance department to help compile all of that information. When we did that, and we worked with the departments based on city council's objectives and said, bring us all of your information, the first go-around of compiling that information, we were at over a $15 million deficit. And the city manager said, I'm not going to go to council and then ask them to approve that spending plan. Go back and start cutting. You ever heard of King James in the 1500s? He didn't make that tax increase with parliament. OK, go ahead. So then at that point, departments went back. We were cutting things out of the budget. What that means for municipality is, the first request is, what do you need to effectively further the mission as directed by council? So they were saying, a net $15 million deficit is what's needed to fully operate the city. Well, we went back and cut and cut and cut. And what that means is, we're going to patch it together to achieve city council's objective, but-- Did you cut any programs, or did you cut staff? So the things that were cut were things like in the fire department. They've been requesting a paramedic squad, so staffing for paramedics. Not existing staff, but additional staff. Projected. Yeah, saying, hey, we could help our response times if we had a squad to respond. Equipment, vehicles, public safety vehicles, reserve and replacing fire engines so that we can put the existing ones that are outdated into a reserve capacity. Those things were cut out to whittle it down to the $7.3 million deficit. So fast forward here, yeah. Yeah, so then at that point, the city manager says, OK, council, it's a city manager's budget. He asked the council, do you adopt this spending plan for the next year? And the city council did adopt that $7.3 million. As staff, what we're doing is executing that spending plan throughout the fiscal year. But I think what you're hitting at is, were there real cuts to services and people? That's a common question that the public wants to know. What real cuts you cut projected money, but what real money you cut. In 2023, when the city council passed a budget, they told the city manager gave him directive to try and solve this problem while holding services status quo. So the plan has been to find a solution while maintaining services as they are to the greatest extent as possible. So my next question is, OK, you've got this budget deficit, $7.3 million, and you have to address it. I mean, you can't just ignore it. It's not like you can't print more money. You're not from a federal reserve. So now you have to address this. Whose idea was it, and who suggested who proposed to do measure S? Yeah, so during the process where we landed with a $7.3 million deficit, city council was posed a decision, or a question, to say, do you want us to balance this budget right now? If we were to do so, we would have to cut service levels, cut them down, but we can balance a budget. We just cut services drastically. Or because-- You get the machete, yeah? Yeah, no, exactly. It's brutal. It's brutal. Or because of the history of Yucaypa and always having reserves in place, we continue to have reserves in place, which is drawing down those reserves. We said alternatively, we could kick the can down the road one more year and operate in a deficit, which was a $7.3 million deficit. All those checks are going to cash because we're going to draw on our previous year savings accounts down and pay the bills. And so they said, yeah, OK, let's do that. Let's work with the community on what the community wants to do. Going forward, do we want to cut service levels? Or do we want to pick up the revenue to balance it all out? And the reason we came to propose the sales tax to city council is our staff went through and looked at many different revenue ideas. The sales tax became apparent to be the most feasible. And let me interrupt you just for a minute, because I may not have stated this clearly to our listeners yet. There is a measure on the ballot in November 5. It's called Measure S. And it's a 1% sales tax increase on general sales tax. This money will be collected and put into the general fund? Correct. OK, go for it. Absolutely. So we looked at many different options, utility taxes. We looked at property taxes and all the things that we see other cities doing. And we evaluated what would generate the most revenue and be the most feasible to help solve the problem. The sales tax became the one we looked at, because property taxes are highly unpopular, because if you don't pay them, you lose your house. So the sales tax, you can come back, plus it doesn't apply to critical things like food and medications and services. The other thing interesting about the sales tax is state law has a cap for how much you can go over the base. The base is 7.25. San Bernardino County has a half-cent sales tax to help fund transportation. So right now, on top of that, most cities pay 7.75. So there's about 1.5% left in the cap. And it's first come, first serve. And San Bernardino, SBCTA, has been looking at potentially going out to voters to increase theirs to one cent. So the other strategic thing from the city is, well, if we don't do the sales tax now, it is possible that some other entity beats us, and we lose that opportunity altogether. But if we do this now, that's a source of revenue that helps us fix our problem, but also keeps money that we may have to pay anyway, local. So what you're saying here, Joe, and before we go to the break here in a couple minutes, because we're already almost halfway to the show, is that by raising a sales tax, it qualifies you to get more money from somewhere? No, what it does is it keeps the money local. Keeps the money local. Versus if some other entity passed a sales tax that included the Eucaypa residence, they would be paying it regardless, but it would go to whatever-- This wouldn't add on to the top of it. Only up to 2%. 2%. So theoretically, if the sales tax is passed, then we could see 9.75% if some other entity adds another sales tax, potentially. Right. And inflation, that's why it's unpopular. That's why it's well and popular. Right now, folks, I'm speaking with Joe Pardetto and Phil White. There are city staff members with the city of Eucaypa, Joe Pardetto is the public information officer. And Phil White is the finance director, the one that predicts prognosticates and everything else. What's going to happen with our city budget? It's not good right now. We have about a $7.3 million budget deficit. And there's a measure on the ballot. Measure S, if you're just tuned in. We're going to talk about a measure, how that works. And I believe, after the break, we're going to talk about-- isn't it 50%? You have to get 50%. Plus one. Plus one. Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent and relax. That is until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price. Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites and schedule cowlish earnings. Sound complicated? Renner's Warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to-do list. Our job is complicated because it should be. 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We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com. To get that. Yes, sir. And there was a measure E prior to that. We're going to talk about that, too. Right now, we're also on KQLH 92.5 in Ucipa. If you're listening, we'll have a podcast at kcaradio.com. We're going to take a brief break. I'm Mark Westwood, and we'll be back right after this. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] NBC News on KCAA Loma Leda, sponsored by Teamsters Local 1932, protecting the future of working families, Teamsters 1932.org. [HONKING SOUND] When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can't always go downtown. Nestled in the heart of downtown San Bernardino is living history and the place you want to be. On the internet, it's 320-downtown.com. That's 320-downtown.com. The Enterprise Building, with its rich interiors, it's a place so special you just have to see it. 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This segment sponsored by our friends at the all-new Sammy's Restaurant, Sammy's, is now open in Calamisa at Exit 88, off the 10 freeway, next to the Jack in the Box, in the former Bob's Big Boy Restaurant. Not to name drop, but Sammy's, in the former Bob's, is a lot like norms. It has an extensive menu. With multiple restaurants in Rialto in places like Upland and Ranchucumanga, Sammy's is a great place to dine. Their menu is very similar, with their American trio of delicious steak, shrimp, and chicken, and an expansive menu. You won't go hungry, and you won't go broke at Sammy's. You can come meet Sammy and his family. Sammy was a cheap cook for norms for years, and it shows in his menu. Sammy's is a great place to meet the family, friends, or have a community meeting. You can. Ask about their private meeting room, available for parties of 15 or more on a first-come, first-served basis. Sammy's is now open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day at 540 Sandalwood Drive off of Exit 88 at the 10 Freeway in Kalamazza. Look for the big boy statue. It's still there. We thank Sammy for returning to this station as a loyal sponsor. You can find more info about Sammy's at Sammy's Cafe.net. That's Sammy's Cafe.net, where you can also find discount coupons to save money. And by the way, Sammy's has free Wi-Fi too. Sammy's in Kalamazza, Rialto. But one of their other locations are ready to serve you. Sammy's is now open in Kalamazza. K-C-A-A, Loma Linda. [MUSIC PLAYING] And KQLH 92.5 FM, Yup Kipa. Where I've lived for the last 21 years, and proud to have that radio station as well. We are broadcasting live on all these radio stations today, 1 to 6.5, 10.50 a.m. and 92.5. We are also podcasting. And we're live on the air. And you can see video of us at KCAradio.com, if you'd like to see my face. Joe looks better than I, and Phil's got a beard. And then we are also podcasting as well. So check all those things out. You can watch them later. You can watch them in your bunny slippers later on tonight, if you really want to see all this again. We appreciate Phil and Joe Pardetta for coming here. And talking this out, I'm going to open up the phone lines here in just a moment. So I'm going to give you these lines right now so you can write them down. It's really easy, 909, that's our area code, 792 KCAA, or 5222 or 232, 792, 5222. Or you can dial us at toll-free, 888. That's triple 8, 909, 10.50, 888, 909, 10.50, or 888, 909, KCAA. And of course, we are on KQLH2. But we have the phone lines here, and they're in the KCA studios. So we're talking about Measure S. And we're talking about our challenges of fairness. And there's a video that you can see. I'm not going to play it today. But you can see it at ukipa.org. You type ukipa.org. And if you go right there, I just saw it this morning at the top of the web page, I think it's still there. And you had a meeting last night. You had a meeting last night. And that video is of that meeting. And that video is also included, the video portion of it, because you've created a video with the city administrator, Chris Mann, pleading the subject, so to speak. And without finger pointing, without blaming people, or past administrations, or whatever happened, because situations change. They really, really change. I think I suggested to you, but it was too late, that we put a sunset clause on this measure. And maybe a future measure, if this doesn't pass, should include that, where that might be a little more amenable to people that, OK, we'll pay this for a little while longer. But we have to look at sales tax, and we have to look at competition. If you're a business person in the city of Yookaipa, and you want to go to the Fat Creek and get a hamburger, or the Sammies, isn't Kalamazoo, that doesn't worry. But are you by gas? Gas is a big ticket item. Redlands has 8.75%. San Bernardino has 8.75%, but Banning, Beaumont, Kalamazoo, Mentone, even, all 7.75%, Highland, 7.5%. So if you're going to buy gas on the way home from work, or you're going to go out of town, you might buy it somewhere else. That's going to hurt, you kind of businesses. How do you-- what do we do about that? Well, it's certainly one of the things that the city is working on is economic development. And with the projected deficit, we can't continue to deficit spend, and some of our economic development efforts through the city just won't be economically feasible. So a safe community is a prosperous community if the sales tax doesn't pass. It's going to affect the safety services. So and we're not advocating. And the reason I say these things is because the city council, when they put the measure on the ballot, measure S on the ballot, they also passed a resolution that included a directive to the city manager of cuts to execute, because we just can't sustain it. And because of the nature of the city spending and the vast majority of it going to safety, safety cannot come out unscathed from the cuts. So the other way to look at it from a business perspective is it reduces competition, but reducing city services might do the same. Now, you have different revenues, OK? And maybe you can add to this or tell me I'm off, but you have utility taxes. Like, for instance, I know if you have a cable box in the city where I came from, San Bernardino, it was $5 per month. The city got from that utility box. I don't know if you kypa has that. Does that you kypa have that? Yeah, it's not a significant source of revenue for the city, but there is a component of that, yes. And if you're doing gas consumption, I mean, at your home or water and you have electricity, that's all has utility taxes on it, correct? Utility taxes. Do you get that all? Or does that go to the state partially or what? Yeah, so also in that bucket, that category would be franchise fees and things like that. And so total total of that pot plus what I've called other is about $8.5 million, which that number is significant to the city, but the UUT is a smaller component of that. Depending on the makeup of the franchise fees as an example, yeah, the franchise fee component of those taxes does flow back to the city 100% that one component. Like the trash dollar franchise fee, the trash dollar gets theirs, but the franchise fee component of it goes to the city. Because the birth tech is our current trash dollar. Right, right. And were they included in the budget? Was there like, I heard there was like a couple million dollars that was kind of not included in that? Yeah, yeah, I might have opened up a can there, but so the franchise fees related to birth tech, the original amount based on the agreement at the time of budget adoption is included in the budget. Subsequent to the budget adoption, the city went through a process to increase the rate that was being applied, the franchise fee component of that. And that incremental amount was approved after budget adoption. So that's not included in the adopted budget number because it was not effective until subsequent to. So a tough question here, this kind of determines, measure as kind of determines who's going to pay these increases. We have to have fire protection, right? We have to have police, sheriff protection. We have those contract services, you know, I think the city pays like, maybe if I'm not mistaken back in the day, I knew that the city paid like $150 a month to Edison per street standard per light. You know, those things all add up. I knew that from San Bernardino days when I worked for the city of San Bernardino. So, you know, those things all add up but you have to cover those costs. But it's determining who's going to pay for them directly. Is it the individual citizens or is it going to be a big corporation or we can do some of those things? Because I'm going to predict something here, you may not like it, but I don't think the measure is going to pass. You have to have 50% plus one. And when I'm hearing on the streets and from people on being the radio station guy, I don't like it. They didn't like it as much as measure E even. And there's a lot more distrust with the city because of changes and people not liking what's happening in one country. And I'm going to go into this whole big mess of things. But what we have in front of us is this measure on November 5th. And then afterwards, you're going to be get creative here or Joe over here might be leaving. You know, what are we going to do? And one of the things is to get innovative and say, who's going to pay this tax? Is it going to be the city citizens of Uquipa directly or are they going to be paid through other taxes and other fees and probably development fees? And I don't know. Put a toll road in. I don't know. I mean, it's just the kind of ideas. I'm just brainstorming here. But do you have any ideas? So I'll jump in real quick just to say that one of the directives that community services is under right now is bringing their services to a cost neutral so that they're recovering all their expenses. And so that's something that the city is doing aggressively as trying to preserve our community services, but also recover the revenue, things like that. But when you say, who's going to pay this, one of the added benefits of a sales tax relative to a property tax or a utility tax increase is that some 30% or so of the sales taxes paid by visitors to the city. So it's one of the options that has some distributed-- I don't quite follow them. Visitors to the city. Because when visitors come to the city and eat and drink and whatever, they help pay the sales tax. Whereas a property tax would be fully on the residence or an enhanced utility would be fully on the residence. So that's-- My food bill is already high when I go to the restaurant. I don't eat that much. No, and you're absolutely right though. When you talk about-- one of the things we're making clear when we're going out is informing people, the city is legitimately giving a plan for how to preserve what we have. And now the residents get to make a choice. Do you want to pay a little more for it? Or do you want to cuts in a fiscally restrained government? It's not an opinion we are asking them to make that's based on our opinion. We're just saying these are the options. And you get to choose. And that's really where we are. You get to choose what the city you live in looks like in the next years to come. And to add to this, the voter turnout has gone distinctly down. In UKIPA, everywhere. Less and less people are voting because, I don't know, people don't like what's happening on the national scene or the state scene or whatever. And so there'll be less and less people voting. You still have to get 50% plus one of that, of course. And the direction I'm taking this here is if you don't like this people, you've got to get out and vote. And I noticed at the meeting I saw it online, and maybe I was joining a lot of other people that couldn't go there and watch the meeting last night online, there weren't that many people at the meeting. Nope. Considering a big ticket item, there's a few use card dealers in UKIPA that will affect. And that could be $3, $4, $5, $100. Food isn't charged for. But there are other things you buy at the grocery store that are charged, and you have sales tax on. Of course, the biggest thing is gas tax or just general buying things. And as a business owner, that's kind of a scary thing that you're not going to be able to compete as much with the people in Mentone or UKIPA or in Highland or whatever. So what we're doing here is trying to figure out and try to encourage you to be innovative at the same time. And it's a tough thing. But I don't have all the answers. You don't have all the answers. It takes input from the community. No. This is a relatively fast process, because we had to do it fast, right? Yeah. And so fast, yes, but still proactive. I mean, we're being proactive. We've got money in the bank. This budget is this budget. It's been adopted. We're in the middle of the year. But we're going to fix it by the next budget cycle. And we're working with the community. You mentioned a couple of things. Fuel stations are a significant source of retail sales tax for the city. And I talked to one owner of a couple of fuel stations in town. And he talks a lot with the customers. And this item came up. Measure S came up. And he was saying, yeah, this is 1 cent. And they're like, yeah, I don't want to pay that. And he said, let me put this in perspective. And he went out and he has the federal and the state taxes associated with fuel posted. And he went out and read them the amounts that are taxed per gallon. And said, put that in perspective, compared to 1 cent. And so-- Like Chris Mann says, we've got miles and miles of roads. And we do. You kipe as big geographically as San Bernardino is. Yeah. You know, somebody says, oh, I'm in the UK, but just drive over and see me. I go, yeah, I'll be over in about 15 or 20 minutes, maybe, with the drive and the stoplights. And I mean, there's a lot of roads to maintain. A lot of roads to maintain in California, too. And that's why we have our gas tax. It's a direct use consumer tax. But let's be clear about this. Taxes aren't easily passed. And then you're going to have to come up with something. I'm going to open the phone lines up right now. I don't know if many people are going to respond. But we'll see. 909-792-5222, 909-792-5222. We'll talk while we're waiting for phone calls. Maybe people are shy. They don't want to be on the radio. Let me get a lot of that, too. Or 888-909-1050, 888-909-1050. As we progress forward, there's all kinds of suggestions. And I think the city of Ucypa likes that fast track term a lot, because I've seen things passed a lot. We're going to fast track this. Well, that's kind of another word for rush. And this kind of seems like it all came down on us real fast. But the budget-- Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent, and relax. That is, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price. Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites. And schedule countless showings. Oh, don't be as re-tensurfing information. [INAUDIBLE] Whew. Sound complicated? Runner's warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to do West. Our job is complicated, because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best-in-class property management professionals take care of your property as if it were our own, from rent collection to maintenance coordination, all for one flat monthly fee. Go to runnerswarehouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444 to speak with a rent estate advisor today. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call runners warehouse. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. Is it a live document? It's living right now. You can't just put it off. You can't procrastinate. So I understand why that happened. But what do you think is the finance director you're going to do if this doesn't pass? Yeah, there's a narrative out there that it's happening fast. But as you point out, measure E, that was four years ago. And in the environment of Yookaipa to put a sales tax measure on the ballot, there's got to be a problem. Because it's not a tax-more type of town. And so in order for measure E to make it through council, to say, yes, we need that and put that on the ballot, that was an issue that was known back then. And so it's not a new thing. And yeah, it's been a long time coming. But council has finally said, all right, enough dragging this on. Let's work with the community and figure out how to community what we're going to do going forward. So I have microphones all day. We can talk all day in our daily stations. But the fact of the matter is I want to give some other people a chance to talk. When you're calling in, folks, at 888-909-1050 or 792-5222, please keep it sane, civil, and leave the cuss words out because we get fined for that. So I understand we have Amy on line 1. Amy, this is Mark Westertillo. And welcome to KQLH and KCAA. Hello, Amy. Hi. Do you have a question? Yes. So I'm getting-- I've got to turn your radio down. Yes, I'm in line. OK, so what I've got is in line of the city paying for extensive studies for the wine country for Merlot State. And I'm reading about acquisition of Merlot State. And also the lack of a sunset clause on this tax. I think it's become unless we're accountants, unless we can have the expertise to examine the finances of this city and look at everything they've done. We just still are left with the bad taste in our mouth. And we don't know how to get rid of it. Well, who wants to tackle that one? I'll just start with one of the things Phil can talk about the finances. But in terms of the trust, we're aware of the issues. And we've made-- this isn't based on numbers and not just believe what we say. So we've invited people to sit down and Phil has sat down with his team and brought out budgets for several years along with audited financials and walked people through them and let them point and ask questions. So we invite anyone in the public who wants to sit down and have that conversation come and do so. And what about the effect of the city acquiring real estate and the amount of money that it costs? And why is that even happening right now in light of the budget issues? Yeah, so I think what you're referring to is there's an option to purchase on a parcel. And so there's the city loaned money. And it has a three or four year option to purchase. And so that's not an operating cost. That's an option sitting there. The city has not exercised that option and acquired it. And the city has not put any money into the cost of improving or doing anything with that parcel. And so as far as that doesn't factor into 7.3 or the 15 or any of the other items, as to why those things are occurring now, the city does a lot of different things. But ultimately, the standing issue that we're trying to tackle now is core. What do we want to do as a city? What are our operating costs? And how do we want to move ahead going forward? Well, one thing that Joe alluded to is, yeah, I've sat down with people. I put together charts. But this is not everybody, including the meeting last night, people say, yeah, my eyes are glossing over. I don't want to see any more charts. I don't want to hear about this. I just want the problem fixed. I don't understand it. And I don't care to understand it. I just want it fixed. And so, yeah, we're aware of the distrust. I'm putting together the charts. But I'm also saying, hey, if you don't trust the chart, I can show you the source document. The audited financial statement's going back 22 years of these trends and where we are. The numbers are real. But in order to build that trust, we're saying, all right, this is the trend over two decades. And trying to help with the trust issue. But I think that saying, hey, you can trust me. It kind of falls on deaf ears, too. And so we're trying to show our work, how we got here. And ultimately, field questions and give our best answers. But move forward as a community. So who makes the decisions at City Hall? And thank you, Amy, for calling in. Once again, 792-5222, or 909-1050. And that's 1-888-909-1050, if you want to call in. We appreciate you calling in, Amy. Who makes the decisions for things budgetary? I mean, I understand you did some remodeling at City Hall. And they built you kind of a performing arts center. That was beforehand. But that's a nice building. And somebody suggested yesterday we sell it. I was like, whoa. And there's things that happen in expenditures in the city. How many employees? About 50 employees, full-time? Low 80s. Low 80s, yeah. Full-time and then hundreds, part-time. Yeah. And some of them are pretty well compensated. Let's be honest, OK? And the poverty level in UKIPA, most people make about $41,000 a year, OK? There are about 2,400 people living in UKIPA at the poverty level. And we've got over 40 employees making $100,000 a year. That's tough. That's a tough thing to pass. And I don't want to put it that way, but that's the way it is. People see that. They're like, OK, we're making that, and we're making this. So then you come out and you're like, OK, well, maybe we have to cut the senior center, or cut five deputies, or close fire station number two, which is the one right on UKIPA boulevard. I'm reading from something that I think the city generated, right? Close the 7th Street pool. That's tough for the kids. A lot of stuff is direct, direct investment, or return on investment, I should say, of the taxpayer. They're getting some benefit directly from their taxes. So they want to see that continue. And so they don't want to see those cuts done either. So I mean, you had a tough job, Phil. You had a tough job. It's not easy. And then this measure that may or may not pass, I think it's probably a 70, 30% chance. Now, you can come back to me after the election and say, Mark, you were all wrong. But the last one was 30%. We're not here to push your bet. Yeah, I might take a bet on that. Anyway, reduce the community center, the share community center, the seniors. You know, Mark, I'll just speak to that a little bit, because I think it's something that the residents have brought in up. And it's a very common response. And it's sensible to ask, well, why are we cutting programs if we're not cutting salaries? And the reason I'm hesitant to speak is I'm one of those folks. So whatever I say is suspect-- And it's tough to say that to you at the same time. But I'll admit, facts is a tough situation. I'm one of those folks. So when you look at why do we have a director of government until affairs, PIO, like-- I didn't even bring you. No, no, no, no, no, but it's the question we get, right? Right, so I'm going to answer the question we get was why. And it's the city council sets a direction, and they hire a city manager to implement it. And the city manager makes a decision on, OK, this is what the city council wants me to do. This is how I plan to execute it. And regardless of me as a person, if I wasn't doing this job-- Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent and relax. That is until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, do you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price? Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites and schedule calvisholings. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Sound complicated? Ranners Warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to do list. Our job is complicated because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best-in-class property management professionals take care of your property as if it were our own, from rent collection to maintenance coordination, all for one flat monthly fee. Go to Rannerswarehouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444 to speak with a rent estate advisor today. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call Runners Warehouse. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading, accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAdams.com. Somebody else would be because the city manager wants this specific job. It's between him and the city council of what the direction of the city is and how that gets implemented. So that's kind of how the choices are made of the type of staff positions that exist. Once you have that, it's really a market function. So the salaries that the city employees at the city make is kind of consistent with what cities across the Southern California, the state, the country pay. And Phil could talk about it a little more, but we are doing a class and comp study just to see where our salaries fall in line with other competing jurisdictions. But that's the answer. And you could say, I still don't like it, but that's the reason behind it. - I mean, there is one city employee. I won't say who it is. It's making $26,000 a month. That's a lot. And then you tell them the senior center or the people that gets the kids that can't have their pool. All those things are being brought up on the table by this, and I'm not blaming anybody. And I understand people want to make as much money as they want. They want to be compensated fairly with, commensurate with what somebody in Redlands is making or somebody in Highland is making. And all those things are tough, tough decisions. And that's part of being a city manager. You're the guy that gets blamed if you're doing the budget. You're the guy that gets blamed if you're in the budget. You get blamed because you're the guy that's speaking. And I'll probably be blamed today because why didn't you ask tougher questions or whatever? But at the same time, this is not just to nail you guys. This isn't just, this is for information. This is to get the information out there. - Yeah, if I could add to the perspective. Last night, it's in the meeting last night, but what we did and added to the conversation last night was a 22 year trend where we said, we have four types of services. We have community services, we have development services, we have public safety, and we've got support services. And we did a 22 year trend where we inflation adjusted the number from 22 years ago up to 2025 and said, if we spent, how we spent in 2003, what are we spending now? For community services, the spend inflation adjusted for services, we were spending about 300% more on community services items. - Since like 2008 or something like that. - 2003, from 2003 up to 2025. For public safety, we had spent $4.9 million in 2003. We're spending $23.5 million in fiscal 25. When we adjusted for inflation, that's over a 300% increase in that service line. Development services was about 240%. When we looked at support services, when people say cut salaries, that means support services, typically is what they're meaning by that. And when we did that inflation adjusted from 2003 up to 2025, we were a negative, a negative 26% less than we were spending in 2003. So we had 300% increases in public safety services, 300% in community services, 240% in development services and a negative 26% in support. Which means we based on 2003, we're spending 26% less. - In ratio in a perspective, yeah. - But not in ratio. That's not factoring in. We did also a capital. We spent about a quarter of a billion with the B, a quarter of a billion dollars in capital, increasing the infrastructure of Ucaypa. So all of that dollar for dollar, we're spending 26% less on the support side, which means we are so lean on the support. And Ucaypa has always said, "Hey, go back to services, have less people, do less with more." And the problem now, the $7.3 million problem is so big, that well's dry. We can't go back there again, we need to figure out as a community, what services do we want to drop down? And if we're cutting, we need to drop service levels. And so I just wanted to add that to the conversation. - Yeah, and all that is good information. And a lot of people learn this way, and that's why I'm thanking you for coming on. You know, this could be a continued conversation forever and ever, I'm sure you've had three or four hour meetings on this, and I get 55 minutes to encapsulate this. We've been looking and talking at Joe Preguero, and Phil White here and the budgets, we're looking at the budget, and we've been broadcasting on KQLH, you can see a podcast of this on kcaradio.com, and of course you can listen to 92.5. There is no easy answer to any of this, unfortunately, and placing blame on previous or whatever, or whatever. What we need to do is see it together and work together, and figure out how we're gonna do this. There's not any easy answers to any of this. I say as a comfort that I think the budget revenue will go back up. And the reason I say that is, hey, it may seem simple, but you're building a lot of new little businesses. They're fast food, it seems to be a lot of fast food. I see that Keynes will have no trouble filling out their staff as they're right across from Eukaipa High School. There's gonna be tons of high school kids applying there, but Keynes is building one there. There's a new jack in the box that was gonna reopen again. In the last year down at the, I think it's called Eukaipa Point. Eukaipa Point. Yeah, there's been tons of restaurants and things opened. There was, I don't know all those trucks that were down there. Did that, it was any revenue coming into the city, or was that just all private? That's all private, it's all private, that's what I thought. Yeah, and it's gonna have to get innovative, and fees may have to go up, and one way or another, people are gonna pay one way or the other. Somehow or other, if we raise Burtec's fees, Burtec might raise their fees, and that's a direct vendor pay, a direct or whatever. Or they may choose not to do that. Whatever utility taxes. There's money that comes in from the state, too. We didn't even get to a lot of that. Some of it's the return on sales tax and gas tax and all that, but there's money that comes into the state as far as grants, correct? You have a grant writer. The city I'm assuming has a grant writer. A contract grant writer, and a staff person who does compliance and state management. So we've been speaking with Joe Prudero. Thank you, Joe, for coming, I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. White. Phil White sounds like he should be a musician. He looks like a musician. And Mark Westwood, a community crossroads, said 50 AM, 106.5 FM, over and out, and also in KQLH. Thank you. (cheerful music) What would you do if you had a broken book? K-C-A-A. Mr. Favorite Show, download the podcast at K-C-A-A-Radio.com. K-C-A-A. 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's your host. Mark Westwood. I'm back to 50 AM, 106.5. Yeah, all right, in KQLH. And we're all over the place today. Our guest at the three o'clock hours, running just a little bit late. We're gonna be hearing from none of them, Rodney Allen Rippy in the next half hour or so, with the school board candidate, running by the name of Nicholas Dibbs, out in Norwalk, school board area A, and we're looking forward to talking to them. But since we have an extra half hour, I decided, well, okay, we talked it over, and Joe Pudetto and Phil White will stay again. They're from the city of Yuchepa. We've been talking about measure S, and budget cuts, and difficult things, on the challenges facing us. The city of Yuchepa is right now at a $7.3 million budget deficit. They have to learn how to address that, figure out how to address that, innovate it, innovate how they're going to address it, I should say, and it includes some deep cuts, there's some cuts that if this measure doesn't pass, it may have to happen, or it may not happen, or the measure may not pass. I mean, we have an election November 5th. As I said at the beginning of the other hour, I will vote.com. This is your chance, this is your voice. Owning a rental property sounds like a dream, collect a rent, and relax. That is, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price. Then, there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites. It's going to tell the showings. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Whew, sound complicated? Renner's warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to-do list. Our job is complicated because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best-in-class property management professionals take care of your property as if it were our own, from rent collection to maintenance coordination, all for one flat monthly fee. Go to Renner's Warehouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-944 to speak with a rent estate advisor today. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call Renner's warehouse. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. - You know, when you go to City Hall, you get three minutes of the microphone that cuts you off. The little beeper goes, you know, this is your chance to call in to at 1-888-909-1050 or 909-792-5222. I know we're talking about budget stuff, and I know I can hear some snoring in the background from people, you know, to some people, this is just wonderfully exciting. I'm sure that Phil White is wonderfully exciting. - Fire it up, let's go. - Fire it up and Joe Perdato, it's all about public information, and I'm trying to make the seem interesting, you know? And, you know, I saw some of the people dozing, even the people that attended last night at the community center at the meeting. I have to compliment you guys, you were at the UKIPA Mobile Home Residence Association, and you were kind of cut off abruptly and not given very much time to explain a pretty complex issue. And then, of course, City Council meetings or City Council meetings, and they have protocol on the way they do things, and you get three minutes of public comments. And, you know, you have to wait in line for quite a few. And then, you know, just in general, this is your opportunity to talk about it a little bit more. You've got a little bit more of a grace period. So, this is your time. You know, I asked the tough questions before, and I kind of had my little list of my little agenda, and I blazed through it. Then I said, "Okay, okay, now we're gonna go again." So, so two things, Mark, I think we can cover that a continuation, you talked about what is the city doing to be innovative, and making sure that we're not there in the future. So, I think we could talk about that, and one, the other thing, to let the public know, and anyone who's curious, is why not just jump to cuts right away? And the city manager considered that, and talked to city council. The reason is because the hypothesis is that residents and you kind of have come to enjoy such a quality of life. And, as Phil said, we have some runway to make a smart decision. - I'll be honest with you. - Yeah, yeah, they're not interested in this very much. They trust their government's gonna take care of it, and when they flip their light switch on, the power grid's gonna be maintained. They put their water faucet on, clean water's gonna come through. You kind of has about three or four different water companies to maintain and coordinate, for some reason or other. So, that's the way that works. When they flush the toilet, the sewer goes out somewhere, and when they call the police, they're gonna get police protection. And, for the most part, we've had some good fire protection. We'll talk about that again. Nothing the fire department did, but there was this little gender-specific party that happened that created quite a problem, that created quite an expense of five million dollars, did you say? - Originally from the El Dorado Fire, and then ultimately Tropical Storm Hillary. - So, now it's time to get creative. - Yeah, so, but we did ask the community first through a scientific poll, and the results came back that more than half of the community said, we would be willing to pay a little more in sales tax, one percent sales tax, to keep what we have. - So, this is just putting that out. That's why we did that, not straight cut. But in terms of being innovative-- - Do you hire a polling company to do that, or what was your control group, and all that kind of stuff? - We did, and we did. And a statistically valid sample in our city size is considered 300, and we did a 350 sample size to make sure that we got a more higher level of confidence on it. - So, you didn't do like one council member, just go to Facebook. - We did that too. (laughs) - Oh, okay. - No, no, no, no. - No, no, no, no, but like you've mentioned though, or, and Phil has mentioned, and we'll talk more about, is the sales tax is projected to, or measure as is projected to raise $6 million, and with a deficit of 7.3 and growing, that's not enough to fix it altogether. So, we have to look at other mechanisms. We discussed a little bit about the franchise fee with BERTEC, that's part of the mix. But also, how do we increase revenue through good business industrial practices, and just, you know, raising money through smart business-- - Because cities are corporations. They're a living entity. They have to have income, they have to have revenue, and you have to figure out how to do that, and then you have to figure out how to pay your bills. So, you know, it's gonna try to survive no matter what. You're incorporated under California law, by the California League of Cities, and then from that point on, you're on your own. You make it some sales tax, you might get some state tax, you might get federal grants, like the grow-downs, I call them the merry-go-rounds, but the traffic go-rounds, those are mostly federal-granted, you know? So, if you come and say, you know, we're gonna cut a traffic go-round or whatever you wanna call those things, it really doesn't have a big impact. The big impact is revenue being brought in. - And expenses. - And expenses, right? And, you know, I have to keep expenses down, that's the way a healthy business does, you know? Well, behold, everybody, they're just not money coming out of the sky, you know, they have to get that and they have to collect that, and they have to collect taxes, and then, you know, they have to distribute it wisely and evenly. And, you know, I don't know. So, what do you think the grade from the city of citizens of you, Kypo, overall, would be on your report card? - Yeah, and so, that's an interesting one. The difference between corporations and cities is the profit aspect of a corporation. If a corporation has a business line that they're not, their profit margin isn't where they want it to be, they shut it down, they spin it off, they get rid of it, they, what the city does, we're not trying to turn a profit, we're trying to deliver service, and we're trying to maximize the service delivery based on the revenues that we got. And so, what we would do in that situation, when we say, hey, we got to control costs, we're saying, we've only got so much revenue, we can only deliver so much service, and that's the list of cuts that you went down, that's trying to educate the community to say, hey, just so you know, if we can't bridge this gap, in order to bridge the gap, these are the things that we're going to have to decrease on our costs, these are the things that's not-- - So, Cal Fire, or the San Mu County Sheriff's Department, one of the largest employers of law enforcement in the United States, by the way, they're not going to catch any slack. - Absolutely not, I mean, we work with-- - You can't go to them and have them bid. You can't go to other people at bid for law enforcement? - No, no, we contract with the county for law enforcement, and their rates are their rates, and it's based on number of deputies, or whoever they're going to deliver for us, that's what the rate is, and so the way that we would control those costs is to decrease the number of deputies that we're asking for, and so that's what we've done, but when you do that, one of the things you mentioned was, "Hey, when you call 911, do you want somebody to show up?" - Somebody will show up, that's not scare people. - No, no, no, that's what I'm saying is, but it will be impact. The more people that they have, the more things that they can cover, the captain-- - 'Cause I understand crime has gone down, right? - Yeah, and there's a-- - The homelessness has gone down 40%. - The SOAP team, yes, absolutely, and we've been really effective with that. - Captain Walker was posed this question last night, and he said, "What does it look like "if we were to cut five deputies?" That's the number in your thing, five deputies, and he said, "Okay, we're still going to figure it out," so it would be a challenge, but we will figure it out. - That's about a half million dollars in benefits and salaries, right? - No, five deputies, roughly it's a quarter of a million dollars per deputy, so-- - Oh, wow. - Yeah, it's a significant number, and so-- - And for security purposes, you can't tell me how many deputies there are. - Oh, yeah, it's public information. We have 28 deputies at the city of Yucaypo, so-- - So that we just end up with like 23 or something like that? - Yeah, but you start carving them up and say, "Okay, what do those deputies do? "The S or the school resource officers are included "in that number," and you start divvying it up, and you say, "Okay, that ultimately comes out "to like a 20% reduction on number of deputies," and you think, "Okay, that means that all the work "with the SOP team, it's gonna get pinched. "There's not enough resources to go around "to do this response times." Yeah, somebody's gonna show up, but it's gonna be tougher because they're a little bit thinner, and so-- - And we don't wanna cut fire, because hey, we've recently experienced the hillside on fire, and it's happened, you know-- - Yeah, so fire, absolutely, I was-- - I'm sorry, we just not raking our forests better. - Yeah, so there's that, but also a lot of what the fire department does is on the paramedic side, and response to medical calls and things like that, and they're in the same thing, that's why they keep asking for the paramedic squad, is because they want to improve their response times, they're doing their best that they can, but they feel like we need to serve the community better, and we're asking for more so that we can get there quicker, and we're having the conversations about, okay, we hear you, but we're trying to control costs here, and so we're really trying to have the open community, dialogue with the community to say, help us fix, based on all the services, the other thing that I wanted to point out is, you've mentioned the report card. As we go to these meetings, and we've had a lot of them, the report card on the cost, what the city's trying to do is deliver services. I have not heard a poor job of delivering service, all the services people say, you can't cut this, these guys do great, I love seeing this thing, I love this service that is provided by the city, protect that one, I've never heard this service is terrible, get rid of that one, and so, except for Joe, but Joe's not a service provider, he's the support and service, so. - Just don't take this personally. You know, Joe, I feel bad for you, but now we're gonna have the, I think it's the fall festival or something. - Autofest. - Autofest coming up in like two days. - Yes. - That takes some money to stage, right? - It does, yeah. - And we have a spring fest, and a summer fest, and a winter fest, and a Christmas fest. You know, maybe, I don't know, we might have to do without those. - Yeah, so. - I was upset when we cut the skating rink the other day. - Well, the ice rink. - The ice rink last winter. - Yeah, that was, the ice rink was a significant cost, but my goodness, what an amenity, it was a very fun thing. So these festivals, there is a revenue recovery component of that, whether that's through vendor registration and sale, we get a component of sales. There's different things that go on where there's a revenue recovery. - I used to be a market manager in three different cities, so I know what you're talking about, and sales are okay, vendor sales, right? - And so, but the, where that is, and up to you, Kepa, it's just part of the feel of the community, and the reason that we had those things originally is to, for the community benefit and create a Kepa culture. And so, there's a benefit, there's not all dollars and cents, but there's a community benefit. The net cost on those things is not significant. In fact, Autumn Fest, our community services director, thinks that we are gonna break even or better at Autumn Fest specifically. And so, when we look at, hey, how do we solve this big massive $7 million deficit? We're talking pennies on some of those things, even though, I mean, you look at it, and some people may say, hey, why are we having a party when we're talking a deficit? Big picture, it's, it's good. This one, this particular one is, we're thinking we're gonna break even, maybe do a little bit better, but the net cost on a lot of these things is not significant. That's not where the problem is. - The UKIPA Performing Arts Center, I'm bringing up all these. - Oh, that's a problem, yeah. - I love the Performing Arts Center. - So do I. - I've gone to comedy nights there, I've gone to music there, it's a spectacular facility. When I drive people into my town, and I drive them around those go-arounds, and I drive down California Street, and all around, I'm proud of my city. All the things that have happened, and there's new businesses all over. I remember a few years back, it looked like Skid Row, so it's good stuff up there. But UKIPA Performing Center, we can't run that to break even, or why is that a cost? - Yeah, so the way it was built, there were decisions made at construction to limit the number of seats inside. And when you do that, it doesn't pencil, but it was built as a community benefit. Even though it wasn't gonna pencil, it was thought- - So it's like the swimming pool, and we're never gonna make any money on the swimming pool, or pickleball, or anything like that? - Yeah, but it's a nice thing, and so that's why it was built, and now, since we're in a budget deficit, it's like, well, it can we fix that, and that's a tough thing, 'cause we're doing our best, and our community services director's doing a great job of minimizing the net cost of those things. However, the original construction was not intended to break even, it was intended to say- - A direct benefit. - A community benefit where you drive around and you say, "Man, my town is cool." - Just like the seriously community center and stuff, it is a very cool town, I love UKIPA. - Yeah, so do I. - And I wanna, so there's this whole wine thing, we didn't even get into this wine country thing. There's a concept of having a wine country. - Yeah, 30 minutes are up, I gotta go. (laughing) - I bet, I bet. We got about five, six minutes, depending on when Rodney Allen Rippey shows up, you're gonna, you're taking a lot of heat for that, 'cause it's the density and housing and stuff like that, and now, there's a lot of infrastructure that has to go in there, and there's nobody that's gonna put that in. So essentially, this is gonna stall out any kind of building out of that, if you've got a $7.3 million budget deficit, there's no way to do the extra things like that. - Traditionally, developers pay those things when they come in as part of their approvals. - Can't we just add some more money to that? - Add more money to-- - Fees? - Well, they'll pay their development fees again, but those-- - Cepra, Cepra, whatever you call that. - Most of those are just one-time monies though, and so that doesn't help necessarily fix the ongoing, but what their business activities could do with the establishment of wineries, restaurants, hotels, potentially, is generate transitancy, occupancy taxes and sales taxes that will help the ongoing revenue of the city. - So that-- - Are they here? - They're here. - Okay, well, we'll wrap this up in five minutes. Anyway, sorry folks, I had a secret stuff. - So the city, you know, when I say the city, but certainly as staff, we're aware of strong opinions on the wine country-specific plan, but when you talk about what part of the intent is, it's part of the intent is to be innovative and open up business opportunities that generate revenue, and, you know, so-- - Because that's the nature of the beast of the city corporation, basically, and I understand that. I've been told that, you know, we have only about a few more minutes left, so, you know, I wanna be polite, and thank you for coming here, and I wanna give you a few minutes just, you know, to educate, not advocate, right? 'Cause you can't advocate. You're city employees, and I know. So, in just two minutes or less, we're gonna introduce Phil White, who is the city finance director, who is fielding all these questions about Measure S, and the budget, more or less, and, you know, how to be innovative and things like that. Talk to the citizens of UCIPA. - Yeah, so as a long-time citizen of UCIPA, and as the finance director, really, Joe hit the nail on the head, we're okay with whatever the community decides. What we're really trying to do is answer all the questions, get all the information out there, but the choice that we have now is, our costs exceed revenues, and so, do we wanna fix it on the revenue side? And vote yes for Measure S to fund all of those things that are on the list, or do we want to downsize the services that are provided for the existing revenues? - We have one more phone call. Let's display game here. I live life dangerously. (laughs) We're gonna take this phone call. You got about maybe a minute or so to talk, and 'cause we gotta wrap this part of the show up. Who do we have on the line here? Who do we have? - Hello, this is Lauren. - Hello, Lauren, Lauren, thank you for calling to KCA. You're on the air. Please keep it clean, Jesus is nice, and informative, thank you, go ahead. - I understand that Christmas as city manager has a red light country club membership that is being paid by the citizens of Yucaypa. Why is there a $10,000 fee? - Golf membership being paid when we're trying to reduce funds and tax the citizens for this. - Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent and relax. That is until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price. Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy with the property on rental sites. It's going to kill the showings. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Whew, sound complicated? Runners warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to-do list. Our job is complicated because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best-in-class property management professionals take care of your property as if it were our own, from rent collection to maintenance coordination, all for one flat monthly fee. Go to runnerswarehouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444 to speak with a rent-estate advisor today. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call runners warehouse. - What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. - That's not a city expenditure. - That's not, it's something the city's paying for. - So the city manager's contract is posted on our website. And if there was a golf club membership, that would be an itemized item in that contract. So that's, I don't think that's accurate. - Yeah, no. - Well, that's an interesting thing. I mean, people are going to ask that question. They want to know, you know, golf memberships are a monthly thing. And you know, if it's $10,000. - Although- - That's a lot of money. - The city is still paying it indirectly, right? - Well, the city is compensating the city manager and the city manager is paying for that. So indirectly, he's taking his compensation and buying one. But the city is not funding that. The city is compensating him in accordance with his agreement. - Okay, it's like medical or dental or something like that. But it just happens to be golf tees and golf members. - It would be just based on his compensation number in the agreement and then whatever he does, whether he pays his bills. - Well, if he had it to you, hype a golf course, maybe we could get some of that back. All right, well, thank you for calling. I appreciate it. I didn't catch your name, but thank you for calling. I have to wrap the show up. Thank you, KCAA 1050 AM 106.5 FM and KQLH. I've been here with Chris Pideto. Thank you. Thank you, Phil White. And maybe we'll have you back again sometime. Thank you. Community Crossroads. (upbeat music) - KCAA Loma Linda. (upbeat music) The legacy KCAA 1050 AM and Express 106.5 FM. - One of the best ways to build a healthier local economy is by shopping locally. Teamster Advantage is a shop local program started by Teamster Local 1932 that is brought together hundreds of locally owned businesses to provide discounts for residents who make shopping locally. Their priority, everything from restaurants like Corkys to fun times at SB Raceway and much, much more. If you're not currently a Teamster and you want access to these local business discounts, contact Jennifer at 909-889-8377, extension 224. Give her a call, that number again is 909-889-8377, extension 224. - Tejibo Tea Club's original Pierpow Diago Super Tea helps build red corpuscles in the blood which carry oxygen to our organs and cells. Our organs and cells need oxygen to regenerate themselves. The immune system needs oxygen to develop and cancer dies in oxygen. So the tea is great for healthy people because it helps build the immune system and it can truly be miraculous for some inviting a potentially life threatening disease due to an infection, diabetes, or cancer. The tea is also organic and naturally caffeine free. A one pound package of tea is $49.95 which includes shipping. To order, please visit tejiboteeclub.com. Tejibo is spelled T like Tom, A-H-E-E, B like boy O, they continue with the word T and then the word club. The complete website is tejiboteeclub.com or call us at 818-610-8088, Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., California time. That's 818-610-8088, Tejiboteeclub.com. - Hi, I'm Nicholas Dibbs, teacher running for school board here in Garden Grove Unified Trustee Area One. We need quality vocational education. The district cut 10 intermediate school wood shop classes and four auto shop classes. We need these classes back so students can have a better future. No matter where you live across this country, please support this effort so we can have quality vocational education. Go to nickdibbs.org, N-I-C-K-D-I-B-S.org, thank you. - I approve this announcement paid for by Dibbs for school board 2024. - Hi, I'm Kaylee Speer, a licensed agent with Litchfield Insurance Associates here in Beaumont. A large portion of Americans don't have life insurance or don't have enough. Whether you need a temporary policy, something to help with income during retirement or making sure your final expenses are taken care of, having life insurance is an act of love and security for your whole family. Having a local trusted agent makes navigating through the sometimes complex world of life insurance so much easier. And I would love to be the one to help you. I'm Kaylee Speer, for your free consultation, people are calling 951-769-0005. 951-769-0005. (upbeat music) - The Philly Smack Three homers beat the Cubs, take two of three in the series. Outfielder Brandon Marsh said they're focused on their final regular season series against the Nationals. - We got a couple more games in Washington to kind of tune out some stuff and just sharpen the knife a little bit. But yeah, we're all excited. We worked our butts off at this moment and we're gonna make the best of it. - The Phillies quenched a buy in the first round of the playoffs with the Brewers lost to the Pirates. Tigers beat the Rays while the Royals shut out the Nationals, Detroit and Kansas City remain tied for the final two wild card spots in the American League, WNBA playoffs. And if he's the call, you're tied. The WNBA playoff record for points in a game with 42 as the links swept the Mercury. Kaitlyn Clark dropped in a game high 25, but the fever swept by the sun, links and sun will face off. In the semi starting Sunday night in Minnesota, that sports, I'm Ron Samos. - Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent and relax. That is until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price. Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites and schedule countless showings. Oh, no free time for information. (mumbling) - Whew, sound complicated? Renner's warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to do West. Our job is complicated because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best in class property management professionals take care of your property as if it were our own. From rent collection to maintenance coordination, all for one flat monthly fee. Go to rennerswearhouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444 to speak with a rent estate advisor today. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call Renner's warehouse. - What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading, accounting, consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. (upbeat music) - Batman is receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today. This marks the first time a superhero character is being honored with the star. The star right next to that of Adam West who played Batman on TV in the 1960s and Bob Kane, a co-creator of the character. The Batman star in front of the Hollywood Guinness World Records Museum on Hollywood Boulevard. And after many decades at NBC, Hoda Cottie announced this morning on the air, she's decided to leave the Today show at the end of this year. - This is the right time for me to kind of move on. And then I thought about, obviously I had my kiddos late in life and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my time. - The popular copy spent 26 years at NBC and she's co-anchored the long running morning program since Matt Lauer was forced out in 2017. Cottie turned 60 last month on the Today show and she says now it's time for her to turn the page and she wants to spend more time with her daughters. She is expected to continue contributing to the show after 2024. ♪ Come on over, come on in ♪ - Country's biggest fan voted music award show taking over the grand old opera tonight. Shania Twain hosting the second annual People's Choice Country Music Awards in Nashville. Miranda Lambert, Parker McCollum, Kelsey Ballerini and Keith Urban among the performers. Nominees include Zach Bryan, Beyonce, Casey Musgraves and Shaboozy. The show airing on NBC and Peacock. That's Entertainment, I'm Liz Warner. - Casey, AA, Loma Linda. - For over 75 years, the Marine Toys for Tots program has provided toys and emotional support to economically disadvantaged children, primarily during the holidays. But needs are not just seasonal and now neither is Toys for Tots. They've expanded their outreach to support families in need all year long with their new programs, including the Foster Care Initiative, the Native American Program and the Youth Ambassador Program. To learn how you can help, visit toysfortots.org. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Okay, see, AA 1050 AM 106.5 FM, I'm Mark Westwood. Back with the second portion of the second hour of Community Crossroads. A little expanded time these days because, well, it's the political season. And elections are coming. And election is November 5th. And lots of people all over California, the state and the nation are going to make a decision by November 5th. Now, I say that by November 5th. I used to say elections are on, elections are on the 5th, they're on the 2nd. - Actually, when those ballots start hitting-- - That's right. - Beep homes. - That's 7th of October. - Yeah, 7th of October. - 7th of October, we're gonna be starting the election and people can vote right away or they can hold off on their ballots. Little hint of people, if you wanna get all those political mailers, don't vote right away. 'Cause as soon as you vote, they take your name off the list and you don't get the mailers. It's just a little something to tell you, especially if you're a political consultant or something like that. I learned that lesson one year. But today, we're here with a teacher, which is always good to have a teacher in the house. Welcome, Nicholas Dibbs, thank you. And his compandre here, Rodney. - Rodney Allen Rippey. - That's right, Rodney Allen Rippey. - Yes, sir. - And we thought about having some jumbo jacks here today. - Hey, you know, back in the '70s, you may remember him like I do if you're a little older, that you were the advocates for eating jumbo jacks and you were that kid, that cute kid on the commercial that everybody loved before you got leveled by a hole. Where's the beef? - Oh, no, no, no. But and now advocate for vocational education. - And that's why it's such a joy to have you here with Mr. Dibbs. He wants to bring about positive change. He cares about people, family, students, and their success. He is a, you know, the Garden Grove Unified School District, along with a lot of school districts, have eliminated trade and vocation training, which I think is a huge mistake, because not everybody wants to go get a bachelor's degree or a master's degree or a doctorate. They want to work with their hands. They want to be creative. That's their outlet. And they also provide for society. We need those types of people. They're no less or no more than anybody else that has a degree, don't you agree? - Yes, Mr. Westwood, thank you for allowing me to speak to your audience. My name's Nicholas Dibbs. I've been a teacher since 1992. I've worked in the Garden Grove Unified School District for over 16 years, left the district in 2017 after the first run of school board. That this is a very important race and it's not only significant for Garden Grove, but throughout the country, because we see many school districts that have cut their skilled trade classes and these classes need to come back, it's very important that students have options to be able to get a skilled trade job if they're not going to get into an academic field. And so, I do have my career in technical education credential as well as my academic financial. - No, 'cause you are a science teacher, I noticed. - I'm a science teacher, but last year, I earned my career in technical education credential. But, and this is so important, because it helps kids stay in school too. - Yes, it does. Many students have told me how important it is that without the shop class, what we call skilled trade shop classes. And it broke my heart when I found out that the last two, we have 10 intermediate schools in the district and the last two wood shops were being cut from those 10 schools back in June of '16. And the wood shop teacher told me I was there filling in for the art teacher and he said, "Well, the art teacher's retiring." And he said to me in about April or May of 2016, in a month or two, they're gonna make me the art teacher and close down the wood shop. And he said the principal and him and the students and the parents all want this wood shop to stay. Again, the district has 10 intermediate schools for seventh and eighth grade. They only had two left. And so, he told me they're gonna close it. I then went go to the school board and to the superintendent and asked them not to cut it. He said that him and the principal of the school went up to the fifth floor of the district office and begged the administrators not to cut it, but they're gonna cut it anyway. So that's how I got into why one of the main reasons I decided to run for school board that year, a few months later in the November 2016 race. So this is one issue, but there are other issues in the district and that is the cronyism of the unfairness, unethics, the fact that they used taxpayer money are taxpayer dollars to interfere in that first election. You see, the incumbent was appointed in January of '15 and I was against the-- - And we're talking about a grove election. - Yeah, but the incumbent, there was an open vacant seat for a couple of years. The man that was in there became Mayor of Garden Grove. So he had to resign from the school board. That opened it up. I, myself and six other people applied. So they have seven people. Now, who do they pick? They pick the one that had just retired as a high level district administrator and appointed her to now watch over administrators. So she's part of the cabal or the click of people at the district office and that she was appointed in January of '15. When I go to her in June of May or so of '16 and say, "Hey, these," and to her and the other board members in the superintendent, please don't cut the last two wood shop classes. Only two of the 10 have them. Now you're gonna cut them both. So she didn't stop it. So I ran for school board and when I ran, I ran a clean campaign on the issue and then it comes to find out that they use taxpayer money, staff time, school district resources and interfered in the election by sending out a disparaging message against me to all the parents at one particular elementary school to over a thousand and eight parent phone numbers. And so I-- - It was a verbal message, right? - It was an official-- - They paid for it. - They paid for as an official message from the district to these parents and it was sent out on October the 18th, 2016, just as ballots were coming in the mail. Now I didn't find out about it until August of 2017. But so defamation of character and also the misuse of public funds. Misuse of public funds. So the cronyism, the unfairness, the unethicalness of this and the allegations were put together in a 12 page amended complaint filed with the court back on February 5th, 2019. Unfortunately, my attorney didn't file the tour claim on time or there was a technical issue with the tour claim and so the case never made it to be adjudicated. But the point is this. We fast forward from then until now. From then until now and the school district is still using their resources to interfere in the election process by way of their actions of-- - No, you can't do that. You can't do that. It's not a separate pack. It's the actual government entity with taxpayer money. - With taxpayer money doing this and it's wrong. And so I just came from a meeting last night at the school district and how convenient? I've been pounding the pavement, going to over 130 school board meetings, asking that these trade classes come back at many of those meetings, bringing this up along with other issues. And how convenient that last night they said, okay, we're finally gonna bring our trade classes back to one high school and they did the announcement last night with a fancy presentation in a video. How convenient on September 25th, just before ballots are going out that they're trying to hijack what I did. - Still keep advocating, still keep. You set the platform, you set the stage. Nicholas, you go by Nick or Nick or Nick or Nick. It doesn't matter, but Nicholas is fine. - You set the stage, you made them talk about it. That's the win, that's the win. - That's the win. The bad part is that there is a lot of cronyism and unfairness going on and things that are wrong in the district. - And that's the second thing you need to find. And so, have you gone to the fair practices? - Well, I took this issue back in the 2016 issue and they said it didn't fall within the scope of their jurisdiction. So, everyone passes the buck more or less. - Well, they use public funds to campaign with, how does that not? - Well, and I tried to get, it's hard to, you know, I file a private lawsuit and I couldn't get anywhere. And then, because of my attorney messed up the case, unfortunately. - Nick, you have videos too. - And I have videos, but the point is, is that we need to have people elected to local office who are gonna hold administrators accountable. Now, she had already retired the incumbent. - Owning a rental property sounds like a dream, collect a rent, and relax. That is, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, do you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price? Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy, list the property on rental sites, and schedule countless showings. Oh, don't forget to re-tune our information for the release of a collection of 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 24 minutes, 24 minutes. - Whew! Sound complicated? Renner's Warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to-do list. Our job is complicated because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best-in-class property management professionals take care of your property as if it were our own, from rent collection to maintenance coordination, all for one flat monthly fee. Go to rennerswearhouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444 to speak with a rent estate advisor today. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call Renner's Warehouse. - What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading, accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at Moss Adams.com. - As a high-level district administrator, basically rubber-stamping things and going along with the status quo. That isn't gonna bring us accountability. That's not gonna bring us checks and balances. I've been out there advocating on number of issues, including this one. But yet there are other people in the district that also complain, and I see the litany. For instance, the superintendent two years later, after they interfere in my election, the superintendent is out campaigning for the incumbent board president with the incumbent that I'm running against, the two of them. In the 2018, November 2018 race, where she's backing the incumbent board president. So should a superintendent of a school district be campaigning for an incumbent board president who sets her salary along with the other board members. And it's being done with the lady I'm running against who's the incumbent campaigning with the superintendent. So basically the incumbent is sanctioning what the superintendent's doing. - Well, Rages, you know, we got a video to show. - Okay, let's show it. - Because we're not gonna have enough time. How long is it? How long is it? - Yeah, about three minute video. - Three minute video? Okay, can you give that one up? What's it labeled as? - And which one would you wanna show, the one of the-- - Well, I guess-- - Well, it was-- - Well, we have a parent who complained about the superintendent, and I think you wanna show that one. - What's the label? - Yeah. - Got it, got it, all right. Well, this is a video being presented by Nicholas Dibs from the Garden Grove area. - From the school district, this is public comment, in public comment. - Okay. And can we show the video as well on our story? - First up in public comments, is Devon up here? It's just an example of the unfairness that's going on. - I give us a full screen. - Good evening board members. My name's Devon Loop here, and it has come to my attention that your superintendent has acted in an extremely inappropriate and unprofessional manner. In the envelopes that I passed out, you'll find a copy of an email that Dr. Moffee has sent to my employer defaming my professionalism and character in an effort to harm my professional career. The only truthful or factual information that's in that email is my name. You will also find my official complaint against Dr. Moffee and her unprofessional actions. My question to you is this. Do you allow your superintendent to contact the employer of every parent who speaks out against the actions of this board and GGUSD? Is it common practice for the superintendent to retaliate against parents who question the actions of this district? Is this behavior condoned by you as board members? I'm officially stating that my personal actions towards you, this district, have nothing to do with my professional career. I am acting as a parent, protecting my children who I believe were denied a fair and equal education by this district on multiple occasions. Dr. Moffee, your actions are considered defamation of character. And if they continue, it will be harassment. I will not be intimidated. I will not be bullied. I will not be defamed. And I will not be retaliated against for standing up for my children and their right to a fair and equal education. Consider this public comment. Your notice of a cease and desist with all communication, with my employer regarding me personally, my children, my actions towards you and this board. I expect an official written apology, denouncing the statements that you made in that email to my employer. As a board, I expect you to take action against Dr. Moffee for lack of professionalism, lack of judgment and retaliation tactics. If you as school board members continue to allow this to happen, and Dr. Moffee to make these actions by your silence, you are in action. - And we're hearing from a parent right now from the, it's at Norwalk Unified School District Board. - Garden Grove, excuse me, Garden Grove. Garden Grove Unified School District complaining about being attacked by the school board. - By the superintendent, the superintendent. - So we're listening to a number of videos and we just have a little bit of time to play these videos. So I'd like to go into the next video if you wouldn't mind. Could you give a brief introduction? - Okay, so this is a, I started a petition because I went to all these school board meetings. I couldn't get this board and this superintendent to bring back our skilled trade classes beginning with those two wood shops that they cut at the seventh and eighth grade. - And by the way, we're talking with Nicholas Dibbs who is a candidate for school board for Garden Grove Unified School District area one. - Yeah, I trust the area one. But this selection is very important for the whole country because we need to stop the cronyism, stop the unfairness and unethics, and we need to bring back our skilled trade classes. - And before we go on, NickDibbs.com. Nick, just the way it sounds. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Or.org.org, it's come on reading it. NickDibbs.org. - Yeah, so NICK, D is in David, I, B is in boy, as is in the set. - Okay, let's roll that next video. - So this is the car show where I get the petition, so I'm getting petitions of people. And this is one of the ladies. - I'm a superintendent, marketing and members of the school board. - This is you at the school board. - Oh, this is your school board. - Okay, that's my school board. - Keep it in the Garden Grove. - I only have three minutes. I'll try to squeeze it in as best I can. I think one thing out of all these board meetings that I've attended, whether it's Mr. Chan or Ms. Joe, all the employees of the month, all the employees of the year, the staff, it's clear that they love what they do, and they're trying to help improve our district. And that's why I'm here at almost every board meeting, is I don't do this for my ego, I do this because I care about the students, I care about the district, I care about the community. And when we have better schools, we have better communities. So I'm here to remind you not only to bring back the wood shops and auto shops that I have harped on you about over the years, the last five or six years, all 10 intermediate schools need their wood shop and auto shop, wood shop and metal shops back, and four of the high schools need the auto shops back that were cut. In addition, I have in the past brought up something important, which is history. Even though I'm a science teacher, I think history's the most important subject. - And we've been hearing public comments by a school board candidate at the Norwalk School District Meeting, board meeting. - I'm sorry, Garden Grove Unified, but-- - I keep doing that, I'm sorry, Garden Grove. - But the issue there was that, been to many, many board meetings, asking for over eight years, going to the community, doing the petitions, getting people to sign up because they wouldn't bring them back. And now, at the 11th hour, just before the election, they have a change of hearts, so-called, and to only bring back a limited number, not bringing back any of the wood shops or metal shops to our 10 intermediate schools, not bringing back any of the auto shops. - So it's dark, but it's not enough. - It's not enough, clearly not, they're not-- - Do you want the students to win, right? - Well, this is the thing, the seventh and eighth graders, how many of us, how many of the listeners here, when they were in the seventh or eighth grade, or in junior high, had a wood shop? - Absolutely. - Okay, now, it's important at the seventh and eighth grader, grade level, because that then gets them interested when they go on high school. - I know there were students at my junior high and high school, that they went to their auto shop, or their wood shop, or whatever, their metal shop, they did those shops, that was why they went to school. They did all the other stuff around them, that kept 'em in school, that kept 'em interesting, people have to have a creative site. And then, otherwise, they would've maybe dropped out of school. - Academics can't just be pure academics. - And Mr. Westwood, one thing that we do wanna say, we know that there is a huge push for steam, science, technology, engineering, the arts and math. We believe that there could be a hybrid, that there should be vocational trades, skilled trades offered to kids, because some children will never go into tech, that's just a fact, but other kids like to use their hands. - That's right. - And we need more skill play. - It doesn't have to be a prerequisite, it just needs to be an elective. - So after they cut these wood shop and metal shop, the district brings in the steam classes, which is fine, science, technology, engineering, art and math, but I'm saying, it's not mutually exclusive. Let's keep the steam classes, but also bring back one or two of the, or bring back our wood shop, metal shop classes to our intermediate schools, because the district has a budget of approximately over a billion dollars back in June of 2016. Why is it that they forced, when the art teacher retires at Alameda's Intermediate School, then they bring in and force the wood shop teacher to become an art teacher instead of just hiring an art teacher. - So we have one more video. - Yeah, and yes, that would be the-- - The jukar show. - The jukar show. - So here's a young woman who has children in their schools. - Yeah, I think it was a public support. It was a public, we have a, it's a video of a lady. - There's three, just by the one that you haven't read it. - Yeah, there's the last one. - There you go. - Am I putting you on the spot here? I can't make a girl room, I don't mean to do that. - So we have petitions that I over 800 people sign these petitions. - Then I'm resident of the Garden Grove advocate for better schools and communities. I'm here with Erica and Erica. Thank you for stopping by. It's a Friday at the Garden Grove Main Street car show and you were kind enough to stop by and sign the petition to the school district and the Board of Education to bring back our shop classes. And you have a couple of kids now in the public schools. - I do. - And do you think they should have wood shop and the shop and the vocational classes? - Absolutely. - And you were saying tell us about what you had when you were growing up, what kind of classes you had? - I had wood shop class, I had music class, I played an instrument, I also had typing class and they were instrumental in my life and they stayed with me and it's very good to learn hands-on at a young age. So I definitely support that and now that I have kids, I definitely would like them to have that as well. - Well, I don't know if you know that but they know that the 10 intermediate schools cut the wood shops and the metal shops. So now they don't exist anymore. And so that's one reason I'm asking people like you to sign this petition here, bring these classes back. And did you have home economics? - I did not have home economics, because there are boards that might have music. - But you think they should come back? - Oh yeah, the sum of the schools that cut those. So what is your message to the school board members and the superintendent and the administrators at Garden Grove Unified about bringing these shop classes back, are 10 intermediate schools having the wood shop and metal shop and our four high school lost their R shop? When should the school board bring those back? - The next four year, right away. - Yes. - And if they refuse to do it, if they-- - Owning a rental property sounds like a drink, collect a rent, and relax. That is, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, do you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price? Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites. It's gonna kill the showings. Oh, no, it's gonna kill the showings, or at least I'll collect it. (mumbles) - Whew, sound complicated? Runners warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to do West. Our job is complicated because it should be. We handle everything from marketing and showing your property to screening tenants and preparing the lease. Our best-in-class property management professionals take care of your property is if it were our own, from rent collection to maintenance coordination, all for one flat monthly fee. Go to runnerswarehouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444 to speak with a rent estate advisor today. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call runners warehouse. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. Refuse to do it. Should they be voted out of office? Possibly. Possibly, yes, they refuse to be able to express our concern on what we think our kids need and our kids definitely need hands-on experience. It's not all technology. You know, you still have cars that need to be fixed, you have-- And that is a very, very articulate parent. That's very nice of you. You look good there. Nicholas, you look good there as a man on the street interview. And we're sitting here with Nicholas Stibbs, who's running for Garden Grove Area One School District, Unified School District Board, and also with Rodney Allen Ripley, who's an advocate and a friend. So let me just thank you, Mark, again. We're not wrapping up. We're not wrapping up. I'm just reminding our listeners who we're talking to. And what is your vision going forward? That we need an independent voice on that school board, somebody who's not part of the crony network of being a high-level administrator being appointed there. And then in the first election, the district interfering in the election, we need somebody-- because the taxpayer funds are precious, and they shouldn't be squandered and misused in places they shouldn't be. And so we need somebody who's going to bring ethical fairness, fairness, and ethics to the district. I've seen so much unfairness, having attended these school board meetings, that it's not right. And so we need to not only bring our trade classes back, but we need to have ethical and better leadership of the district. Because right now, there's a litany of problems dealing with ethics and alleged problems that the district is having with staff. So you kind of view yourself as a reform candidate. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Absolutely, and you're also good at listening and addressing and the concerns of the parents. And we've got you up on the video screen, nikdibs.org, nikdibs.org, the skills rates classes. I can't advocate enough for those. And I love the fact you're doing it. And yeah, but it really bothers me that I do this for over eight years. And why did they wait until just before the election to bring a limited number of trade classes back, and then they announce it last night just a week or two before the ballots come out? And I know how you feel about that, but I think you've had some influence on that. Oh, yeah. I think that you've already advocated for that. You're already being effective, even before you're in office yet. Congratulations. It's a win for you, and it's also, more importantly, one who's at a win for? Well, the students. Absolutely. But we need to bring these classes back to the seventh and eighth grade. And they're not doing that. And so this race is important. Maybe this will help. This election is very important, not just for garden growth citizens, but for the whole country, because this can set an example. Absolutely. And so I'm asking people no matter where they live across this country, go to my website, nikdibs.org. Make a contribution, endorse me if you want. Make a contribution. And if you know anybody who lives in the district, you go on my website, nikdibs.org. There's a map. Encourage people to vote. And maybe they can air, if you could air just that 30 second spot that I've recorded. Sure, we can air that at the top of the hour. Yeah. So it's very important, and Ronnie, you want to add something? I just want to say that, you know, thank you, you know, KCAA, the listeners out there, the viewers, we are excited because we've reached out to major corporations like Grinnell Lumber. We want people like Harbor Freight Tools. We want people, they have programs to get behind programs like this to get the kids hands busy. Just like in my last hour and a half, I said, get creative, get innovative. That's what you need to do. Exactly. The answer is not to shut things down. No. That shows that your lame. And that's right. The other issue is protecting the children from the internet. And I have a nonprofit website, dibsdigitalwellness.org. And the other thing that happened during COVID is a lot of money was spent on buildings and stuff instead of spending on remediating and helping the students. Well, we're going to have to have you back. So I understand-- I can tell, you've got a whole book here of stuff to talk about. Yes, so I'd appreciate your compassion. And I appreciate your passion and your fire. I can tell you that, yeah, you're a science teacher and you're a woodcraft person and all that. And you want to be creative and you're passionate about helping kids. But I can't do this so much. And that's why you cast your vote for somebody probably. And I can't do it on my own. I need the help. OK, this is my third run. And I'm almost out of funds from my personal funds. And I need help. OK, so please donate at nickdibs.org. And thank you for your willingness. And we'll have you back. And thank you for willing this to have me come back. And I know we got short in time here because of traffic and things like that. Well, we'll have you back. Or maybe we'll have you calling next time around. Why don't my coming back? It's better in person. OK. Better in person. And I hope you enjoyed your experience here. We're right at the top of the hour. And then we're going to have this video on my website, too. Absolutely. Absolutely. Nickdibs.org. We've been talking with Nick Dibs, who is a candidate who has been a candidate before, running for the Garden Grove Unified School District. He cares. He's a credentialed science, career, technical, technical education teacher. That's a mouthful. Just say it. No less have achieved it. Congratulations on that. Thank you, Rodney Allen, for being here. My pleasure. And we didn't have quite a long time to talk about that. But I want to have you both back. And one last thing. I have the Dibs on quality vocational education. Love it, right. He's got the Dibs on quality, vocational. And what was it? Quality vocational and education first. There you go. Nickdibs.org. Nickdibs.org. Get on there. Donate, contribute, help this guy out. He's a rare species around it. It really does really care about your kids, not just his own kids or his kids that went through school or his science program or his vocational program. He cares about all kids, and you can tell that. Thank you for being here. And good luck. And the election is November 5th. Yeah, but the balance will be out on September 7th. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mark. So we have one more minute left. This is your campaign stuff. Give us 30 seconds. If we want a better future for our country, for our local communities, a better future for future generations, as well as current families, we need to have better schools. The key is having better schools. It gives a better future for everyone. That's why you need to help elect somebody to office who's not part of the click, but is going to do what's best for the students. That's right. It's got to be a win for the students always. It's got to be a win for the students. Don't be lame. Innovate. Create. And let's go. Students are the Garden Grove Unified School District. Thank you. Nickdibs.org. Nickdibs.org. Please donate. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] Owning a rental property sounds like a dream until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. Determine a competitive rent price, market the property, schedule the showing screen tenants, drop the lease at a rent collection, handle maintenance request, maintain communication. Whew. Sound complicated? Renters' warehouse is here to take the hard work off your rental to-do list. Qualify tenants, check. Rent collection, check. Maintenance coordination, you got it. Go to runnerswherehouse.com for a free rental analysis to find out how much your home can rent for. Or call 303-974-9444. Because from now on, the only thing you need on your to-do list is to call runners' warehouse. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com.