FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon - Jeff Poor Show - Wednesday 6-26-24
Potten on the roadside cotton in the ditch, we all picked the cotton, but we never got rich. Daddy was a veteran, a southern Democrat, they ought to get a rich mandible like that singing. Song, song of the south, sweep the data flying, I should mind my mouth, gone dumber the wind. Welcome back to the Jump Force Show at the top of the 6'5", thanks for staying with us on this Wednesday morning. Text line, we'll get a few more in before the conclusion of today's show. If you want to try, 2-5-1-3-4-3-0-1-0-6, joining us now, one of my favorite guests, I think not alone there, but he's a mayor of Orange Beach, Tony Kitty joins us on the line. Mayor, good morning, how are you? I'm well, good morning, Jeff, and thank you for having me. Thanks for making time, we do appreciate it. We'll kind of kick it off here. We're in the throes of another launch summer here, tour season, then your way. How's that going? It's going really well. I'm blessed, but I've got a great bunch of staff that know what they're doing and do a great job as long as I stay out of the way. So we're on autopilot, and I feel real good about the summer. Well, the reason I want to get you on now, I mean, some changes, subtle changes, but well, changes for those of us who make the trip to Orange Beach on a regular basis, but no toll there at the at the wharf at the bridge. How does that change things for you guys? Well, the toll going away makes it easier for employees to get here. Obviously, saving them money. It's easier for people are not easier, but it makes it more something they want to do to come over for a day trip or for lunch from on the north side. It's good for our residents. It's good for everybody. So, you know, it's been a blessing. I just wish it had happened a long time ago. Well, have you seen like a change in traffic flow? I guess is what I'm kind of getting at where maybe that part of canal roads a little busier than it had been or I mean, is that creating any new logistical situations? Not really, but you are correct, but a significant part of our traffic is construction traffic. You know, we just have so much building going on Monday through Friday. You know, we now have a 330 traffic traffic issue. We now have a five o'clock traffic issue, seven o'clock. So, you know, it's just things are changing development, which is hard to difficult to manage and be fair every way around. But this is just a lot of cars, but, you know, funny, I went to Dustin last Saturday for some reason, and I don't ever hear anybody complain about us again, because anything east of us is so much, so much worse. It took me an hour to move 10 miles in Dustin. So, you know, we're at the end of an artery. So we pretty much only have traffic that's intrinsic to Orange Beach. We don't have the flowing through East West artery that they have to contend with and Panama City and everybody over that way. Yeah, my wife and I lived in Dustin for a year and a half, not too long ago. And any really like certain days of the week and certain times when people are moving about, like, just planning on staying home. Are we were close enough. Luckily, we could walk a lot of places. Yeah, it was miserable. It was. But again, it's just not traffic there in Dustin vacationing is traffic moving from the West all the way to Panama City down to Appalachia Cola. So you just add in everything that you have there in Dustin plus all that's moving through. You know, it's just we have nothing like that. Nothing like that. Yeah, it's not like a thoroughfare. I mean, I guess you could make it a thoroughfare if you so choose, but how we 98 there going from Pensacola like you see that much call it even beyond is a thoroughfare where people drive along and reach traffic. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It was a mess. Well, tell me this. And I heard this from a contractor. I mean, like, now that the state's kind of taking over that bridge and taking over. I mean, is this kind of like kind of hamstring. Or the construction traffic getting on at off the island using that bridge? Have you heard anything of that sort? I have not. You know, there's the typical delays on Friday afternoon coming to town. There's the typical delays when you have condo check out and check in on Saturdays and Sundays, but Monday through Fridays until after lunch is fairly predictable. Just like most towns. You've got a you got a morning traffic period, heavy traffic period around eight, then you got a 330 traffic period and a five. So you just, you got to know that you got to work around it. But it is slightly heavier just because of so much construction traffic. And I think people are back to taking longer vacations than they were a few years ago where they've cut them down to three, four, five days now. People seem to be a lot of folks who are going back to a week long Saturday Saturday stay or something of that nature. Yeah, so you're back. It is consistent, but it's it's a lot of all at once. Well, let me ask you this because. I'd sit here, Elliott. I talk about this all the time. The new bridges are putting in. I mean, in some ways, maybe that's going to help things, but I don't know. Like if we had known then when they started building that thing, what we know now. May we have different. Well, you know where I stand on it and I'm disappointed. We didn't go that route. It costs only enough cost the taxpayers $200 million force over with. But, you know, what's done is done. And again, there is a silver lining. The toll is gone away. Cannot complain about that. I do. It does bother me that all those years they kept accusing us of not wanting to build another bridge doing this because of the money we made off the toll. It was not our bridge, but we got 30 cents a car. And that was just absolutely not true. We always said we were perfectly willing to give up, especially $50 million. If there was a saying and efficient effective traffic design, we just never saw one that made any sense. So, and what has just happened. We end up giving up the 50, but we could have given that up in 2018 when I made the suggestion for a whole lot less. But, you know, definitely they're here to there. The silver lining is it's free now. And it's pulling well. It's just really not any worse than it has ever been any slower. Well, tell me this, though, and how much are you involved in these plans and these discussions? Like does the state come say, Hey, we want to do this or do they just show up and do it? No, you know, I'm a little disappointed in that you've got folks sitting in offices telling us what our traffic patterns is and how we should manage it. And, you know, they live in their textbook world with their big book of rules and, you know, say, no, guys, there's a better way to do this. And, but for the most part, you know, 50, 50, 50 percent of the time they'll take into consideration. The other 50, they're going to do it their way no matter what. So it's hard to say, but I know this after 16 year, well, almost 20 years, I do know our traffic patterns, and I do know what it takes to move traffic and keep it flowing efficiently as best we can. And sometimes I think they listen to the local folks a little bit more. They might get a better product. So they also want to talk to you about it, and we'll get more into it in a moment, but as it pertains to this whole bridge, getting people on and off the island situation, any event of a tropical weather system, a hurricane or whatever, and evacuating orange beach and girl shores. I mean, is this situation with this new bridge coming online in the next several years? I mean, do you feel better about it at least from that standpoint? Oh, well, it can't hurt. It can't hurt at all, you know, but either way, you're still taking traffic off the island to a choke point somewhere. And I think everything would counterflow northward, but it still comes to a choke point where, to me, the much more efficient way would have been added flames to the current span and keeping everything flowing for lanes northward without without that intersection without having to, you know, merge people in. But again, unless the storm pops up within 24 hours of the 4th of July, we can get folks off the island, if they want to leave. The problem is, a lot of folks just won't leave, they'll want to leave. So I feel confident that even today, we're going to get 48 hours notice that we need to evacuate in 48 hours, we can easily evacuate this island. Well, it's kind of a fascinating thing to think about. We haven't thought about it in several years. I guess what since it says Michael or anything like that, but we're kind of do, aren't we? Yeah, you know, it's like during the old school, I learned that for any prayer on grandma's walls, not just the plaque. You really do have to deal with the things you can control and you've got to let go of the things you can't. And we're prepared after going through an old bill, hurricane's a piece of cake. I'll be honest with you. So we're prepared for it. And there's nothing we can do to change the pattern of any hurricane that comes in the Gulf. So I just pretty much ignore them until they're a threat. Then I do about it. I did say we're going to talk about this, but I do want to bring it up and ask you. The gambling discussions come and gone. And I know for a hot moment there. There was some talk. Well, if they do something here, it might open to possibility someday of them either putting a full fledged casino near orange beach or even at the beach. And some things are done to kind of maybe put some guardrails to play. Do you feel good about where that is that you won't see that someday from the state? No, hell no, forgive me. I don't want to see a casino within 100 miles a ball in town. And once this, once the constitution has changed, then location, how many is completely at the whim of the legislature. And anybody that supports casinos down here, I will do my best. I never get involved in other races. I will do my best to get them out of office because there is nothing about a casino that's socially redeemed. Now, I'm not even taking I'm not looking at it from a moral perspective because I love to play poker. I know casinos bring nothing but prostitution, crime, sex, drugs. During the old film, I talked with pretty much all the matriarchs and patriarchs of velocity and Gulfport and almost everyone over the person said the same thing. The biggest mistake they ever made was bringing the casinos to their toes. It just ruined their communities. And it's sick and any government that thinks they got to have gambling dollars to balance their budget, they all need to resign and get somebody in to know how to run business. So, when I hear that crap, when I hear about how revenue, well, the first off, the revenue never goes where it's supposed to is going to end up in New Jersey, Atlantic City or Nevada or some other big gambling cabal. So, it's all nonsense. It's a fraud. It's a fake. And all this stuff about how good it does. It's just absolutely me. It's a lot. And I think if you research it, the research backs that over and over and over again is just so much money from the gambling lobby and so much pressure these people came into it and it sickens me, truly sickens me. But, no, that's something I get hot about real quick because it would absolutely ruin our community. Well, and there we are. Mayor, I mean, I'm a resident of Baldwin County and I have this sort of fear, though, that like, look, you say that there's no way it'll ever happen to Baldwin County, but I don't know that I believe you. And I said to one lawmaker about this, like, look, you have a bunch of money grubbing lawmakers and Montgomery wants they face a physical crisis and they need a quick quick jolt of cash. And the way they handled the BP oil settlement, we have a track record here behavior. Absolutely. What is to stop them from? Because the way I was on the air in Huntsville for almost two years, Mayor, and the way people around this state look at mobile and Baldwin counties, they think everything's the beach. It might as well be Venezuela. They don't really care. It's the same reason you don't have the toll. I mean, the IT bridge done. It's like so separate from the rest of the state in their mind. Why's the stock these guys are saying, well, we need this money and we had this company XYZ that will give us a shot of cash. Let's put one. Let's put a casino there near Gulf of State Park or something. You are absolutely correct. Because I said, once it's eliminated from the constitution constitutional issues, it is at the whim of the legislators, legislators, and Alabama's proven itself in a lot of ways to be no different from from the federal government. And the legislators that kept saying, oh, we're going to protect Baldwin County. They were so full of it. It sickened me because if they didn't know that we were at risk once it was removed from the constitution, then they should not be representing us because they're either ignorant or incompetent. Other liars, but none of the three are very complimentary. So no, once that door is open, buddy, they're coming and they're going to do everything they can get down here to the beach just like they did in Mississippi, you know, just like in New Orleans. And we'll turn into the dump that all the rest of them are. I mean, it sickens me again. Yeah, because you just have so many people coming through there. How can they not be thinking casino gambling would make a killing? And fully orange beach, brochures, or wherever. I mean, they're just kind of waiting for that mentality to die out. I tell you what, Mayor, though. And I'm a little surprised. I mean, Baldwin County traditional Republican politics here. And you got a delegation this dot. I mean, you got a few members here that are hard nose, but they're not, they're not anti gambling like you were talking right there. Yeah. And again, I never knew that because they, they certain ones presented themselves as social, social conservatives. And we're starting to see now, well, they're more social liberals rhinos are maybe they're just Democrats was cheap clothing. I don't know, but the thought that they would even consider this thing that was involved in county or allow the situation to present it so that it could happen again. They're there. They're not on my list for reelection. I can promise you that. So, I'm sure I'm not making any friends there. But again, I go back. I'm not making any kind of moral judgments on gambling. I mean, that that's for adults to decide lottery. That's sort of a different animal all together. You know, that's something you do at home. That's something that doesn't affect others. For the most part, I mean, you can make the addiction argument, but, but when you start talking about casinos, you do the research. There is nothing, nothing socially retrieval about a casino in any community whatsoever. But I'm realizing this is like ball and county supposed to be extremely red. Okay. Well, we got a very liberal Google, a driven school board. That's sick of me. So, you know, where the social conservatives in ball and county fighting to turn that school board around to a very socially conservative school board or conservative. There's a lot of things wrong. Sometimes I don't know if it read, but I think we may be just more peak than we are read. Well, let me ask you this. So we're running a little time, but like, you've got a lot of new people moved to ball and county and we always kind of like talk about it. Is there a shift underway in ball and county? I know. Actually, I don't think so. I meet a lot of people that have moved here. And I'm, you know, I'm very vocal about, you know, our quality life is because of our red city values and our red county values and our traditional conservative values. It makes us special. And if you don't like that and don't, don't come here and try to change us. Go back to where you came from, which is a dump for the most part. So it's really funny. Most folks come in, I say, Hey, we're doing this. We moved from California and York. Really, I look at my smile. So glad to have you. Did you, did you bring your guns with you? So they immediately know what I'm asking and they start laughing and they say, no, we're here because we believe in what y'all believe in. I believe, you know, label ourselves a sanctuary city for conservatives and for traditional values and family values. And I think I think that's catching hold because people are looking for sanctuary aware away from the absolute craziness in blue cities. And we have blue cities right here in this state that's sick of me. But, you know, that's outside of my pay grade. But I think we are doing everything we can do to make this a sanctuary city for conservatives. Mayor, we got to leave it there, but you're always a great addition to the program. We do appreciate you making time for us this morning. Absolutely. Thank y'all for having me. I appreciate it. Call me anything. Thank you. Orange, reach your Mayor, Tony, Ken in there. We got to get a timeout in here. We'll be right back. This is at the talk, one of six five. ♪ Ain't it all down my line ♪