Episode 76: Tom Borthwick on Scranton Schools, Political Fights, and Keeping It Real

[00:00:23 - 00:00:37] Speaker: Unknown
with the microplastics. With everything. That's pretty crazy, isn't it? There's microplastics in our brains and our penises. I mean, I see them in my dong all the time. You can take that. It looks like fun dip or whatever.

[00:00:37 - 00:00:54] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, look. Do I look too long? I should stop chewing my pens. Yeah, but they're delicious. They are? You know, we were in school. They were delicious. I used to chew the shit out of my pens. I wonder if kids. Well, kids don't even have pens now that I said it would look. And then, you know what you do.

[00:00:54 - 00:01:13] Speaker: Unknown
You leave it in your bag, and then you would chew it some more, and then you'd have that same pen for weeks, and then you chew something and none of us got Covid, and then we'd accidentally chew somebody else's and they'd be like, what? Or pencils. Remember the kids? I would have pencils. I would to pen so much that they would pop in my mouth because I would just, like, chew on them.

[00:01:13 - 00:01:29] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, wait. Like the ink? Yeah, yeah. Often you just come home with, like, I mean, I would clean it off, but like, you have, like, a little bit of, like a balloon off your face. Yeah. You could see that out of your mouth. Out of your tongue. Okay. So welcome, Tom. Oh. We're rolling. Yeah, we're always rolling.

[00:01:29 - 00:01:47] Speaker: Unknown
Make sure you keep that about a fist from your face. And you'll get. You have to test that. Yeah. You can. Well, you know, your your whole family's, like, recording. Now. Push it up for him. Push it up for him. Yeah. Keep it at, like, your chin. You are, school director for the Scranton School District.

[00:01:47 - 00:02:06] Speaker: Unknown
And that is one of the things. So, give us the quick rundown. I do 70 other things, and you start there. Yeah, I'm cool with that. But you're also an entrepreneur. You have restaurants now. You have a cidery. You have. He's perfectly set himself up, too. Over there, if you noticed. Like the bottle and the drink right there.

[00:02:06 - 00:02:22] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, yeah. It's all. Yeah. Branding. Yeah. Yeah. Let's move that over a little bit. Oh, there we go. There you go. This is, This is not cider. I, didn't bring any because I'm stupid, and, we ran over to Cooper's. All right, so tell me what. Tell me all the things that you're involved in in the city.

[00:02:22 - 00:02:45] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, well, cheese. So, I'll start with, like, the PTA, my kids, you know, like, the sports that they're involved in. You know, West wrestling and big supporter. So those are like the more micro or neighborhood things, but the biggest thing citywide, I would say is, well, actually it's school board because, you know, it's a quarter billion dollar budget.

[00:02:45 - 00:03:01] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, good thing I brought it up first. Yeah. Good thing. Okay. But I got into real estate development. I think that's probably only going to continue to grow as a business. And I enjoy it because, some of the buildings that we ended up buying as a family, my brothers and I, Mike and Alex, we bought three buildings on the square, one of which was condemned forever.

[00:03:01 - 00:03:16] Speaker: Unknown
Is that next to a chef and a mom? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it was boarded up. It looks like shit. It still does, but we're doing construction. If you walk by, you'll see that there's all the windows. You know, put putting new apartments in Brandt, you know, brand new top of the line type stuff. You know, there's a massive demand.

[00:03:16 - 00:03:33] Speaker: Unknown
I people haven't been seeing them yet, and they're like, I want in. And that's that's kind of cool because it's also the views of Courthouse Square are gorgeous. So, you know, at night you see drunk people. Yeah. Yeah. Especially on parade day. I made the mistake of not drinking on parade day. Is that a mistake?

[00:03:33 - 00:03:51] Speaker: Unknown
Are we sure that's a mistake until, like, five in the afternoon? It was the first drink I had because I was. I was working most of the day, and, I went downtown to go get a pizza from Davinci's, which is one of the things I owned and involved in. There were just people who definitely just didn't know who they were anymore.

[00:03:51 - 00:04:11] Speaker: Unknown
And I'm like, oh my God, yeah, this me in my 20s, yes, it was us, it was us. I somebody said to me on the last parade day, they were like, they're like, the crowd isn't that big, but the bars are full. So that actually was the case. It was really funny because we what we did was we licensed the space to be able to sell cider down there at Davinci's.

[00:04:11 - 00:04:30] Speaker: Unknown
And we got nobody, nobody was interested until the like, and then we shut down because we're thinking, oh, damn, this sucks. And then the drunks came in to sober up at like five. And had we stayed that late, we probably would have crushed it. But that's fine. Next year we'll have an actual cidery on the square for the parade, so that'll.

[00:04:30 - 00:04:45] Speaker: Unknown
Can you do that outside or do you do that inside or what do you do. You do it inside 12in. So we did it inside of inches and we just licensed it for a day. Next when we open the actual cidery because we're putting one in that, in that condemned building I was just referencing. We'll actually, we'll have some space out under the street.

[00:04:45 - 00:04:59] Speaker: Unknown
We're going to get the big like it's going to be like a, like a, like big city type thing, get those sliding doors so that we open it. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, yeah. And you can have outside seating maybe. Yep. Oh, remember when they did that during Covid and everybody was able to walk around town with drinks and stuff like that.

[00:04:59 - 00:05:17] Speaker: Unknown
The good old days. Yeah. Nobody. It wasn't really a problem like the outside, like the drinks to go and stuff like that. So I don't think, well we could, we can do drinks to go. Not you're not supposed to drink them, but because we can sell things like growlers and crawlers, four packs to go from our, from our establishment once we're open downtown.

[00:05:17 - 00:05:36] Speaker: Unknown
I just remember that. And they were like, oh, it's it's kind of like, New Orleans. Maybe when they allowed that to happen and then they rescinded it. Is that what happened? Yeah. I don't I'm not for drinking, but I don't I'm not against the open container thing. Well, like, they still can't take, like, a bag of liquor out of a bar anymore, right?

[00:05:36 - 00:05:50] Speaker: Unknown
Like that was the thing that you could go and get, like, your whatever kind of crazy mixed liquor drinks for a while during Covid. Yeah. That was that was the drinks to go thing. But I'm talking about like they were allowing you to basically open carry. Yeah. Like you can walk down the street drinking a nice tall Budweiser if you wanted to.

[00:05:50 - 00:06:04] Speaker: Unknown
Maybe they didn't. Maybe you can still just go do it I don't know, I think they pulled it back. I think they were doing it because of the outside seating thing. And then there was, you know, whatever. It's all right. So, you know, I'm involved in all those have a cafe and catering business up in factory ville. Yeah.

[00:06:04 - 00:06:17] Speaker: Unknown
What's the name of that you're doing that with Patty, right? Patty Haggerty and I, it's called Creekside Cafe. It's awesome. I've been talking to, like, three days a week. I've been talking to Victoria about going ever since you guys did it. We just haven't had a chance because my wife likes to sleep when she's not working till noon.

[00:06:17 - 00:06:30] Speaker: Unknown
Well, I mean, who wouldn't? Yeah, I want to go there and get, like, a breakfast. Or is it it? Right on, College Avenue in Factory Village Oaks, right along the creek. So as it's been getting warmer, we have a beautiful deck overlooking the creek. It's a patty, said Patty's like, Peggy's, like, once it gets warm, you guys definitely.

[00:06:30 - 00:07:12] Speaker: Unknown
Oh come on. Yeah, it's been great. Okay, so school board. So let me. Well, let me let me. Yeah. Fuck it. Let's just do that. Okay. Ba ba ba ba. What has I just I'm just going to ask the script right now what it seems like. And I guess when you have, like, nine elected officials that the public voted for, you'd think that, like, their best intentions would be the things that they were elected to do, i.e. like safety, education, being good stewards of the, of the taxpayer money, blah, blah, blah.

[00:07:12 - 00:07:32] Speaker: Unknown
But like one of the reasons why I decided to run, you know, back in the day and what I've noticed is like, I don't like the idea of as long as you have five. So I agree with that. That is however unrealistic. And I'm saying that because it seems like there's factions there. Oh there are. Yeah. Oh, God.

[00:07:32 - 00:07:50] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And you're the only one that's willing to come talk. I'll talk about anything. I know, I'll call it anybody, I don't. Yeah. And then the thing is, you know, and I've never cared. I think that's one of the reasons why I finally ended up getting elected. Because I would and I don't do this now, and and I'll tell people who are listening why I used to go on Facebook and, like, live Facebook every meeting.

[00:07:50 - 00:08:05] Speaker: Unknown
And I remember you doing this. I would fact check them. I would talk about how like some of them would be personally profiting from these decisions. Like I would break it all down. And that really ruffled feathers. They hated it. And they and so I don't I'm but now I can't do that because I'm literally they're like yeah, yeah I can't.

[00:08:05 - 00:08:32] Speaker: Unknown
It would probably not be cool to like live tweet. Yeah. While I'm on the stage. Like trying to listen to a constituent. Right. So I don't do that anymore. But the other thing is I don't really post about it too much because when there's a problem, I go fix it or find out about it. So if something comes up, I'm going to make my phone call, send my emails, I'm going to get the problems like either I'm going to find out what they are or I'm going to address them, and then I'm going to go back to the person who called me and said, hey, this is going on, can you look into it?

[00:08:32 - 00:08:57] Speaker: Unknown
So that's that's way easier, rather than going on Facebook and screaming back then when I wasn't on the board. Facebook and screaming is a very effective tool to get people's attention. There's nothing a politician worries about more than an angry constituent. Especially groups of them or bad optics. Well, yeah. And constituents can easily create bad optics. So, so I'm not as antagonistic, although some of my board members, you know, think I'm abrasive as hell and I don't care.

[00:08:57 - 00:09:10] Speaker: Unknown
It's just that I always like to you because you tell me that you're stabbing the heart before you stab me in the back. Oh, God. Yeah, and people don't. It seems like it seems like there's a very delicate people that don't like that approach. Oh, my lord, even though it's the most honest and the most true. It's funny.

[00:09:10 - 00:09:27] Speaker: Unknown
So, you know, I think I've talked about this on the podcast before. So like, my dad is a white guy, so he's passive aggressive. My mom is Lebanese. You're white. My dad my dad's a white dude fully white. And my, my like the stereotypical he's like German, English and Scottish. So yeah, yeah. Whitey MC white, and does he know you call him that?

[00:09:27 - 00:09:55] Speaker: Unknown
Right? I say it often. My mother told me that was offensive. And my mother's the Lebanese Italian one. Yeah, it's Kaiser Whitey von White. Yeah. So. So my mother, is Italian and Lebanese, and so she's, like, aggressive aggressive versus passive aggressive. So I'm used to both. And it's really funny having that personal dynamic and interacting with other board members because some of them are so passive aggressive, but they're like mean about it.

[00:09:55 - 00:10:12] Speaker: Unknown
So it's not like I'm going to make, you know, a suggestion that's like, oh, you would look better if you did this, but you look great, but you look better if you did this. Yeah. No, it's more like just straight, like everything you're doing, would be better if you just didn't do it, I think. Yeah. You know, and it's like, oh my God.

[00:10:12 - 00:10:31] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. See all that you're doing? Stop. Yeah. Don't do any of that. Yeah. And it's terrible and and there's no constructive side of it, you know. You know, my mother will be like, I love you, but what the hell? Yeah. You know, like, I, I would rather the directness than the passive aggression. And we've got some members who are tough, but doesn't that work is like a meet like you immediately know the position and you know where someone's.

[00:10:31 - 00:10:45] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So I I'll actually tell you my greatest frustration and it's something. So one of the things that I've tried to do over the years is I've like grown up, I guess, because I'm, I guess we all do it until we die. It's all every day, brother. Yep. So one of the things I've done is I,

[00:10:45 - 00:11:03] Speaker: Unknown
I'm not afraid of a fight, as you know, but lots of people don't like that, so I try to figure out how to talk to people without being abrasive. Because sometimes people take disagreement with as anger. And so, like, if I'm debating you, it doesn't mean I hate you or I'm angry with you. It means that you or have an intellectual position that I'm interested in.

[00:11:03 - 00:11:25] Speaker: Unknown
Right? Like I was talking to a principal about an issue that came up and this principal said, let's just put our all of our cards on the table. You don't care about anything except music. I said, no, no, no, no, I'm arguing with you because I want your position so that I can understand it so that I can then go hear the other side's position and then make a logical decision.

[00:11:25 - 00:11:43] Speaker: Unknown
Sure, I'm playing devil's advocate. It was funny because as a teacher, I'd have students who thought I was wildly liberal or wildly conservative. I would just argue the opposite of whatever they had said, just to make them think about their positions. So I just that's how I gather information through debate and argument. Not but most people don't operate.

[00:11:43 - 00:12:00] Speaker: Unknown
We forgot how to do that. Well, I some people maybe never knew culturally I but I grew up in especially in my Mediterranean family. Like that's how that's how you interact. You interact with a debate and it's intellectual exercise. But it also what it also does is it challenges the idea that's been then been provided in front of you.

[00:12:00 - 00:12:23] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And it also helps you rethink your idea at the same time. Yep. You know, and I don't know I don't understand why that's so like taboo to not do because you know, I mean I understand because they're weak minded weak people. But I'm going to give you two examples to make America terrible again. There you go. Right like that says I, well, I can't be MAGA, so I have to be Make America Terrible again matter.

[00:12:24 - 00:12:46] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. I'll give you two examples, like related to my eight year old niece. These things happened recently. Like, why don't my eight year old teacher said that my son Tom has no like, he's got a really strong sense of fairness and he has no problem arguing with an authority figure if he believes that figure is wrong and he's a good quality and he would want and he wants and he wants to know, like he needs them to reason out why this is fair or why he might be so good.

[00:12:46 - 00:13:05] Speaker: Unknown
And, you know, obviously he gets that for me. But that's not necessarily a good trait because sometimes he's going to run to an authority figure that doesn't want to hear that. So like, he'll know I learned, you know, so so it's a good thing. And he but he also, you know, gets if I, I don't really yell.

[00:13:05 - 00:13:26] Speaker: Unknown
But if I'm a Tom, what are you doing? It's like, stop yelling at me. Like I didn't yell. He's like, you're yelling with your face. And. And I hear this little guy growing up, and obviously you pass on traits and thinking shit, you know, people might see my body language or whatever, like read my face and see, like, see a fight.

[00:13:26 - 00:13:55] Speaker: Unknown
But it's not. But not everybody's going to know that, because it's just kind of how I grew up and it's just my style. So I have found that people just don't like disagreement. They don't even like it in writing. Like, if, you know, one of the things I like to do, if I'm aggravated a board member or find them to be doing something that is inappropriate, I usually will keep quiet because it fighting doesn't add anything to the conversation, but sometimes the narrative gets changed by the people who are loud even though they are incorrect.

[00:13:55 - 00:14:11] Speaker: Unknown
So that means the people who are normally quiet or try to be quiet need to open their mouths and set the record straight. You saw that at the meeting, which I'm sure we'll discuss more. The meeting that you were at on, Thursday last night. Well, I don't know when this is going to air. Yeah. So. Thursday.

[00:14:11 - 00:14:39] Speaker: Unknown
Good job. Tom, I like that. I try to think, I try to think, so the when you're, when you're dealing with these people, sometimes they just need to hear something and like, I'll give you a really fun example. One director. So we got a list of, of, we got a bill list for we hired a special counsel to, to review something we were doing, like, we were going to get a new solicitor, potentially.

[00:14:40 - 00:15:04] Speaker: Unknown
And we did that on Thursday. And so we got we got the bills. And 83% of all billed phone calls were from one director, and it was in the thousands of dollars. And she, she, lied on stage and gave the wrong number. She said 83%, 83%. We're all just her phone calls. One, one director. And that was Tara.

[00:15:04 - 00:15:23] Speaker: Unknown
I actually, I don't give a shit on her name. And she got mad. She got mad that her name wasn't redacted because I found out. I'm like, what is going on here? And she was mad about the redaction, and, not being redacted. The the what? Lawyer doesn't tell you who they spoke to and then sends you a bill?

[00:15:23 - 00:15:42] Speaker: Unknown
It's like, oh, I can't tell you who I spoke to or what I did, but it was seven hours at $175 an hour. Yeah. You itemize. That's public record if you're going to be if the district is going to use public dollars to answer your legal questions, I hope the lawyers keeping track of what you're asking and who's asking.

[00:15:42 - 00:16:03] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And and also the public deserves to know. So she's been at these meetings going on and on about transparency, transparency, transparency. We've been transparent as hell. But when she brings up, oh, in the interest of transparency, let's do this, this and this, you know, and the paper picks up on her quote, it's like, oh, man, I was silent because I knew she was lying, but no one said anything.

[00:16:03 - 00:16:24] Speaker: Unknown
So she got away with it. And now she's framing the public narrative. And that sucks for me as a director, because it's like you don't want to give attention to, you know, spoiled children. But you have to respond. And that's why what you saw at that meeting was a lot of us speaking up and speaking out and correcting the record, you know?

[00:16:24 - 00:16:53] Speaker: Unknown
So do you do you think that do you think that that that that she doesn't think she was lying? Do you think that she thinks she was telling the truth? So you're talking about psychology. I would like in other words, in other words, like it's easy, it's easy. It's easily provable to be like so 80%. So if she's got mental illness then this is off the, like, there's no way to answer that question.

[00:16:53 - 00:17:21] Speaker: Unknown
And I am not qualified like that, but like, how does like like, I don't understand how like a lot of the frustration I have a politics is and and a lot of the stuff that like, you know, top down whether it's national, the news, all that stuff, it's like a lot of these things are easily with a couple of searches and, and reading a couple documents or whatever, you can easily go like, oh, that person's like, so, like and if and if and if anybody is, will it capable and willing to do that.

[00:17:21 - 00:17:43] Speaker: Unknown
They can easily be found out that they're being deceitful or mismas. Yeah. So it's trusting. So, to get into so like I'm trying to understand why people like, I feel like I've realized over the last five years that, like, there's a lot of there's a lot of claims of gaslighting, but a lot of the people making the claims of gaslighting are they themselves the gaslighting?

[00:17:43 - 00:18:10] Speaker: Unknown
Yes. And I'm trying to understand why, like, it's easily found out that what they're saying is not true, yet they believe it. So I don't know whether or not they believe it or I think it actually might just be artful deception. So I'll give you an example. And I didn't run nanny's numbers, which were not true. But she might have, like, looked at certain things and said, oh, well, I'm only going to count these as the things that I, the things.

[00:18:11 - 00:18:36] Speaker: Unknown
So like maybe because, because I think it was phone calls that, that were that 83% emails she sent, there were nearly 200 emails to this man who's worked for us for a month. 200. Yeah. He said he he said that, well, he said it was unusual. He was very diplomatic. 200. Yeah, yeah. And actually, it's probably more than that.

[00:18:36 - 00:18:56] Speaker: Unknown
It actually is. That was as of, Wednesday. So let me just write more. Bye now. So let me ask a question. And there's and I and I, and I totally understand that there's things that you, you can't disclose. Right. So in a, in a, in a, in a decision like this that a board makes right now. Also I remember hearing last night that you didn't have to put it out for RFP.

[00:18:56 - 00:19:19] Speaker: Unknown
Nope. You could you could literally just by vote. Yep. Get who you want. You can fire who you want. Yep. And then hire who you want. And we're talking specifically about solicitor ship. We can't you know if there's. Yeah. Yeah. There's a teacher. Yeah. Yeah. So the process of that and I'm assuming that you hired third party legal counsel.

[00:19:19 - 00:19:44] Speaker: Unknown
Yep. To not muddy up the process. Exactly. No one had it. No one had that. This legal counsel did not, in the past or in the future, have any vested interest in any of these decisions. So he could be as pragmatic as possible. Absolutely. We're it's I don't know if this is true, but what what could you possibly send 200 emails about?

[00:19:44 - 00:20:11] Speaker: Unknown
Like, I feel like so, so so let me let me ask it this way. I could tell you. So let me ask it this way. So if you're interested, if, if you have some sort of suspicion, it has to come from somewhere and that somewhere has to be provable for you to have a suspicion and it seems like searching for something wrong, as opposed to I know of something wrong.

[00:20:11 - 00:20:25] Speaker: Unknown
Am I kind of parsing that right? Oh, God. Yeah. So so what their what they were doing was trying to also I didn't know you're going to go this far with all this so I'm not gonna go. You're good. So so you're good. What they were trying to do, what they were trying to do was engineer the outcome that they preferred.

[00:20:26 - 00:20:47] Speaker: Unknown
And they did it in a way. It's really funny because, like, we dealt with the bus contract and a judge who was like, this could be bid rigging, which is a crime. They were doing the inverse of that. So instead of, potentially like rigging a bid to enrich somebody, it was, you know, rigging or influencing potentially because allegedly, whatever the hell.

[00:20:47 - 00:21:08] Speaker: Unknown
But they did what they did, to deny somebody the chance to be there. And they, one of them, falsely acute privately did this privately to influence a vote, falsely accused a law firm of about like, I mean, they were about to be under under indictment for criminal charges. So I just made that shit up. Yeah. To try to influence another board member.

[00:21:08 - 00:21:27] Speaker: Unknown
And that's that's defamation. Like, you know what I mean? You can't do that shit. So that if that influenced it negatively and say the vote failed, there's a massive lawsuit because this is a they can just say, oh, well, it was a three year contract. We didn't get any of the money we would have billed for three years.

[00:21:27 - 00:21:47] Speaker: Unknown
This cost us millions. Boom. Grant School district sued again. Again. These people on the board, the two of them, Fox and Yanni. I don't care. Now he's telling everybody I don't give a shit. And if they watch whatever, they can go complain on Facebook to their friends. But, you know, I have the receipts. So they were on the board during the bid rigging thing with the bus contract.

[00:21:47 - 00:22:03] Speaker: Unknown
You think that they would wise up by now and not behave this way before it? Before we before. I don't want to get on. I don't want to get off topic. Oh no no no no no. But but but the bid rigging thing I mean that's a that's a pretty heavy claim. So it so I was saying what they were doing is the inverse of the statute.

[00:22:03 - 00:22:19] Speaker: Unknown
So instead it was there but was their bid rigging. So I would say allegedly. So basically for us I don't because I like if there's no like you see what I'm saying where it's like, so the bus got to watch. I should say I should allegedly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Allegedly. Dan is a lady. As long as you say that Star Jones.

[00:22:19 - 00:22:35] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Okay. Well, well, Star Jones said that it's okay. We had a speaker bring it up at the at the board meeting the other day. I mean, that it is a thing that we worried about as a district in the past, not not me. I was not on the board. And I don't do that stuff. But it, I mean I could was there bid rigging?

[00:22:35 - 00:22:54] Speaker: Unknown
I'm going to tell you a fact that happened because I saw it. There were times when. So first of all, the reason, that the bus situation, the district lost the suit because there were multiple times when, one of the vendors, Pizza Garage, contacted the district and said, you have everything. This is all public information, okay? You have everything you need.

[00:22:54 - 00:23:17] Speaker: Unknown
And like, yeah, you're good. And then they got disqualified for not submitting enough materials, even though they specifically said, are we good? And we're told yes. Then I saw documents. And they're still and I'm sure they're probably right, you know, accessible, where they give you one really egregious example. The contract said that if there were increases in gas prices, the bus company would absorb those costs.

[00:23:17 - 00:23:38] Speaker: Unknown
And I saw the strike thrus and the copy and paste in the email from the the bus company that lost the contract saying, oh, no, just change this. And the change was the district is going to absorb those costs. Who negotiates against himself. Right. So and these things happened. So I mean, is the evidence out there. So in other words, they were not awarded the contract.

[00:23:39 - 00:24:05] Speaker: Unknown
So so Pizza Garage which was willing to be competitive, you know, and you can negotiate after an RFP, which is a request for proposals. So they, they they were not awarded it. They were disqualified. And a company called price got it. And then the judge in an 11 page judge given great judge, he gave a scathing opinion, just demolishing the district and saying this is wildly inappropriate rebid this this just gone.

[00:24:05 - 00:24:25] Speaker: Unknown
And, and there's a lot of, there's how much of that cost? I mean, we probably spent we had to rebid it. I don't you know what, I don't know the total cost. I mean, it would be tens of thousands in legal fees because we had to because the district decided to fight. So the law firm build like crazy, were in court, fight back and forth.

[00:24:25 - 00:24:53] Speaker: Unknown
So I'm sure like if you told me it cost us into the six figures, I would say that's that makes sense. And the other thing, this one. So people are playing behind the scenes and it costs probably upwards of six figures. Yeah. And actually it's even worse, because no one ever talks about this, but we bid the bus contract out because, you know, the auditor general was mad at the Naples bus company that had the contract.

[00:24:53 - 00:25:11] Speaker: Unknown
And when we rebid it, both of them came in way higher than to Naples, but to Naples didn't bid. She's like I would have given you an extension at your old rate. But you dragged my name. Well, I can't speak for him, but I would imagine his name was dragged through the mud. Yeah, and he just walked away from everything.

[00:25:11 - 00:25:32] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And his. Let's say it's $145 a bus. Well, the next it was like he didn't. He would have extended it. But then we now it's 185. I'm just drawing numbers. I don't know the exact numbers, but that's so that's the thing. Nobody even talks about that. So they're like, we're going to go bid this out. We could do an extension and negotiate with the person who's already here.

[00:25:32 - 00:25:54] Speaker: Unknown
But sorry, you fell for the smear campaign. That's why I like I struggle with the whole speaking up thing that I, that I brought up earlier. Like, sometimes it's easier to just. Okay. Oh, we can we can win the vote. And that's what's important. So I won't say anything because I know where the votes going. But then you let the people who are negative IT bomb throwers, you know, win the argument.

[00:25:54 - 00:26:09] Speaker: Unknown
Because in my mind I'm thinking it's not worth the argument. They're not worth arguing with because they're so obviously wrong. But not everybody has the information I have. So I have to learn to be, better about sharing, you know, what's going on with people, which is one of the reasons why I was excited when you texted me to come on the show.

[00:26:09 - 00:26:31] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, because it's been a dramatic week. What a week and what a week. And the Scranton School board, you know, and this. And here's the thing. This is why people should pay attention to stuff like this. Quarter billion, just about a quarter billion. Your budget. Scranton, the Scranton School District, just so people know, is the largest budget of any governmental body in northeastern Pennsylvania.

[00:26:31 - 00:26:54] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. The only one that is comparably larger might be Hazleton Area School District. I'm not so sure that your quarter billion dollars, they they are probably a little bit more, but I think it only might be 255 million. I mean, it's massive. Yeah. We're, we're we're massive. Yep. And and that entire budget. We're where it is. Where does that money come from.

[00:26:54 - 00:27:12] Speaker: Unknown
So, we the state under funds. Us. Yeah. Which, you know, we've talked about that many times on the show, wildly underfunded, the most underfunded urban school district in the state by a long shot. Still, even though Senator Flynn has been doing a good job helping us restore that. Yeah, Marty's good on that. Yeah. He's great. Yeah. The big help to the district.

[00:27:12 - 00:27:50] Speaker: Unknown
So, it's property taxes. It's. That's the. If we don't have the money from the state. Scranton are paying higher property taxes. Simple as that. But it's okay, Devil's advocate. It's not that simple because people can't afford them anymore. Agreed. So in the time I've been on the board, I've done two budgets, no tax increases. So is is there a way, is there any looking at ways to like so if you if you go beat, if you go deep back into like the founding of everything, whether it's school districts, cities, municipalities, counties, all that stuff.

[00:27:50 - 00:28:18] Speaker: Unknown
Right? They were originally all self-sufficient. Yeah. They subsisted on their own people. What why is it now that we have to be reliant or dependent on state or federal money? So, yeah, I mean, like, don't you think, do you think it gets bloated and it gets too big and to an extent. So, you're asking a really complex series of micro macroeconomic questions.

[00:28:18 - 00:28:38] Speaker: Unknown
I think that's a fractal problem. But yeah, I mean, it's it's all over the place. So this one's going to be real hard for me to, like, attack simply. But I'm going to try. Okay. So the first half of your question, explicitly stated is, you know, why why not handle ourselves versus, do it on a state or federal level.

[00:28:38 - 00:28:56] Speaker: Unknown
So federal funding is is a small fraction of our budget, I think only 10 million out of our 200, nearly 250 is federal. We're where we should be more state funded. So like basically the state levies a different series of taxes. We the state exists as a and no government as efficient. So I'll just lay that right out there.

[00:28:56 - 00:29:21] Speaker: Unknown
But it, it it's a it's a more global entity than the city of Scranton. So resource bases change, populations change, income levels change. So you would think the state would be the stabilizing force that insulates cities, townships and boroughs from the ebb and flow of of time. I mean, Scranton used to have 150,000 people would be the coal capital of the world, not so much anymore.

[00:29:21 - 00:29:37] Speaker: Unknown
So like, think of all the industry we lost. Think of the population that we lost. Think of the income that we lost because a lot of those industries would help fund. Yeah, exactly. So that so money's here because we're on an upswing, you know, in the coal era. So that's why I would say it's the state's job is to be the mitigating factor, to make sure that everybody has what they need.

[00:29:37 - 00:30:06] Speaker: Unknown
If they if if they can't support themselves. And, and I don't know what that perfect blend is because I'm not an economist, but the, the, the I guess the implied part of it is why can't Scranton do more with what it can provide itself? And that's a great question. And I have a plan for that. So, I so the city, does not work, work well with others.

[00:30:06 - 00:30:34] Speaker: Unknown
Why? It's that's another like why why is why is the three largest governing bodies in either county, the city in the school district. Why don't like, why isn't there like a monthly or quarterly meeting that we do every so often? But it's about like safety and what what you're seeing in the community and what what what what we're looking at on how to correct things or be prepared for or like, because it seems like there is zero communication.

[00:30:34 - 00:30:55] Speaker: Unknown
So it's really funny this the city got a grant to study gang violence and, you know, being the most lone thing. I don't know what that is. Move hoon, that was the thing that, that they were doing the study on on based organizations. Well, that was the thing that. So, so. Okay, so, so so I'm going to Noam Chomsky this because there's a lot of connections here.

[00:30:55 - 00:31:12] Speaker: Unknown
So you're going to bear with me, I'll share with you a little bit. So that this study just interviewed me and they asked me why I thought there was gang violence and that what we can do to address it. And one of the things we brought up is what you what I brought up to this, this woman who interviewed me said it was what you said about why aren't we working together?

[00:31:12 - 00:31:31] Speaker: Unknown
And I think it's a leadership issue. And I'm not saying that the people in each entity is not a leader, but you cannot have too many cooks in the kitchen. You it's like a it's like a classroom. So are my students in a classroom civilly equal to me? Absolutely. But if I don't lead the discussion, it's going to be a nightmare.

[00:31:31 - 00:31:55] Speaker: Unknown
And so it's funny you talk about safety. So Brian Gallagher, he gets everybody in a room and he runs. He's great and he runs the show. So guess what. We have really good concrete interactions with the city. On safety with the city, the county, state police attorney general's office and and Brian, because but that's a new dynamic and it but it's because that's because he's he's the leader that can do that.

[00:31:55 - 00:32:30] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So that's not quite the case with the current governmental structures. You look at the, the city, it just it's it's own fiefdom. And I don't know, the reason I brought it up is because part of my plan to address, the issue of how can we help sustain ourselves better, the mayor two years ago without really engaging the district, which is a bigger taxing body than this county and city combined, hired a law firm to check nonprofit status of various entities that are off the tax rolls.

[00:32:30 - 00:32:49] Speaker: Unknown
Nothing has happened, and I can tell she should have consulted the district. And what I would like to do is get the district involved, because I'm going to tell you something. That's it. There's low hanging fruit here. We do not need to survey everything all at once and do a big court filing and and sue everybody. You can do it incrementally over time.

[00:32:49 - 00:33:09] Speaker: Unknown
I'll give you the perfect place to start. There's a chick fil A at the University of Scranton that has no connection to what the nonprofit mission of that place, that square footage for just the chick fil A, which they make rent from and Chick-Fil-A makes profit from, needs to be on the tax rolls. So that's a good idea.

[00:33:09 - 00:33:29] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And it's low hanging fruit. It's like boom. That we're certifying your nonprofit status for this amount of square feet, because this has nothing to do with your mission. That's an interesting idea. You're welcome. I we all might be welcome. If anybody had the balls to go through with it. Yeah. Oh, and actually I'm going to give you the test case because the test case is from like 15 years ago.

[00:33:29 - 00:33:45] Speaker: Unknown
Saint Mary Center, where the Byzantine Catholic Church, not too far from here. They're off the tax rolls because they have nothing to do with the church church's mission. It's it's a it's a hall that they rent out for profit. The Lebanese church owns a property and rents it out for extra income. They pay taxes on that property.

[00:33:46 - 00:34:03] Speaker: Unknown
So because here's the thing. The logic is the University of Scranton. And do they make an economic contribution? Absolutely. But you know what? Collectively, the city of Scranton and every resident also does. So you can't just say I make an economic contribution. I get all these benefits. Everybody makes an economic contribution. You know, I just bought some beer at a at Cooper's.

[00:34:03 - 00:34:29] Speaker: Unknown
We should we should be rolling in the dough for general Dynamics. Yeah. They have exemptions. Isn't it weird? Yeah. They're different. Isn't it weird? They're federal exemptions. Yes. It's weird. So what I want to do is I want to take a look at all of these entities and say, okay, and and get low hanging fruit. Honestly, let's get a tip jar like a tip form and be like, hey, is there some sort of nonprofit that is not doing nonprofit stuff?

[00:34:29 - 00:34:50] Speaker: Unknown
And you think they should be paying taxes? You know, the residence halls, you know, renting college, they make money on the kids who are renting space there. That has nothing to do with the educational mission. The parking lots where they charge for parking, nothing to do with the educational mission. There's a Starbucks there. Nothing to do with the educational mission.

[00:34:50 - 00:35:10] Speaker: Unknown
Boom. So hey, do I have any problem with them not paying taxes? You know, where they're teaching classes or or engaging in enrichment? That's fine. Yeah, but or having basketball games or. Yeah. Related to, you know, sporting goods. Yeah, that's fine. But think about the inverse of of the university's argument for tax exemption. Well, it's it supports the larger mission.

[00:35:10 - 00:35:32] Speaker: Unknown
Well then by the whole freakin city, by my house. Yeah, but and I'll pay you rent because owning that helps you with your educational mission. But now I don't have to pay taxes. You know, we looked into some of that stuff, what was shocking to me was that 40% of the nonprofits in Lackawanna County are in Scranton.

[00:35:32 - 00:35:53] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think the percentage of of, and that, that includes that includes the University of Scranton as one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And there there is an immense amount of untaxed, of nontaxable property in the city government. You know, I think there's 17 schools in this grant school district. None of them are paying taxes.

[00:35:53 - 00:36:17] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, but they're not 17 different non-profits. No, no, no, I got that. You know what I mean? It's. Yeah, 40% of all the registered nonprofits in Lackawanna County are in Scranton. Yeah. And so. So between nonprofits and government institutions, you're not you're you lose that much in tax revenue. And guess who pays for it? Us. That's why I said earlier that the state should be the mitigating factor, because we can't help the federal courthouse.

[00:36:17 - 00:36:39] Speaker: Unknown
But doesn't it? But it doesn't it doesn't. What happens is a lot of people are like, well, I'm just going to start a nonprofit and I'm just not going to pay taxes. Yes. So I like doesn't like so I'm going to I'm going to kind of relate this to the homeless situation that I'm not as intimately involved in as a couple other people, but I have more knowledge than most.

[00:36:39 - 00:37:00] Speaker: Unknown
If you notice where they all and this is this is not like a denigration of human beings. I've met a lot of these homeless people. They're some of them are very, very smart. Some of them are very, kind. Most of them have some sort of traumatic experience in their life that has led them down a road.

[00:37:00 - 00:37:15] Speaker: Unknown
Nobody wants to be there. Yeah, probably like 10% of them are like me. And I just don't want I just don't want the government. Tell me what to do. And I just kind of like living off the land. And most of them and those type those though, that cohort is very respectful. And, you know, they they kind of hide out.

[00:37:15 - 00:37:39] Speaker: Unknown
But a lot of them seem to congregate in a certain area which is located for my comfort, very close to the Scranton High School. This has been an ongoing problem for us, and the city will not. But what's around, what's around there that makes them congregate there like, like, has anyone ever paid attention to this? Because. Because I just assume so.

[00:37:39 - 00:38:01] Speaker: Unknown
Okay. So there's there's the Keystone mission. Okay. Right there. CIC. And did you know that in the back of Geisinger is the outpatient methadone clinic? I did not yeah. Is that allowed that close to a school to a school and that only. So if you drive you know I'm talking about three West. I'll if you go behind. I didn't know that Geisinger.

[00:38:01 - 00:38:22] Speaker: Unknown
And you just look to your left you will say outpatient drug treatment. So they're all going there to get their hit. And I don't know if anybody informed the school district or anybody was because because I looked it up and it's like, legally, you can't be that close to a school district or a school at all. So you have the baseball fields there and then across the street you have.

[00:38:23 - 00:38:36] Speaker: Unknown
I didn't know that. That's good to know because, yeah, you see everybody doing the Kensington Shuffle on the trail, I know it's and the thing is, like, we have runners and sometimes we can't have those runners be on the trail because they get harassed by the homeless population. Yeah. We paid a lot of money for that trail.

[00:38:37 - 00:38:56] Speaker: Unknown
You know what? And I, Greg Popa, who, you know. Yeah. He is the chair of the board of the, Lackawanna River. Is it is it LGA or is it, Heritage Valley Authority? Yeah. And he he's he's tried to do something about it, but he can't because it requires the cooperation of the city, which they are not currently.

[00:38:56 - 00:39:16] Speaker: Unknown
And why would the city, why would the city not cooperate? I mean, so with trying to reduce human suffering, I think so it's the city you just said, you know why the city went out and did this whole we're going to go after the nonprofits and did nothing for two years, didn't include us. It's it's a fiefdom. It's it's they have their little kingdoms and they want to protect them.

[00:39:17 - 00:39:46] Speaker: Unknown
So when you say kingdoms, I hear monarchy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, she you know, Paige is not a monarch, but she is image conscious. I don't know if that's obvious to literally everybody, but, I mean, you're they're behaving in a way that is not. I don't even know if the word democratic, but like the will of the people, like you have a responsibility to make sure that like these especially like just the homeless population, like, okay.

[00:39:46 - 00:40:11] Speaker: Unknown
So like if, if, if my, my value statement was we should have this there right next to children, something's wrong. Yeah. So and they're not going to see it that way. That goes back to your earlier point about do they know or not know that they're deceiving people. You I think people tend to convince themselves of the position that is advantageous to their wants and needs, and then that way they're not lying to themselves or other people in their minds.

[00:40:11 - 00:40:29] Speaker: Unknown
So I'll give you a good example of this. There's like what I would call and you're probably one of the more fun people to talk to about this, because I mega no, no, not that matter. No matter. No. But actually actually. So there's like a Democratic orthodoxy. So, like, I'm a proud Democrat, but I don't fit a particular.

[00:40:29 - 00:40:43] Speaker: Unknown
Do you have a flag? I don't no one got, like, an American flag. No. Well, the pride people have flags. I just wonder if you have a flag. You're proud I don't have a pride flag. It was a terrible joke. Keep going. You're proud Democrat. I'm going to let you go. So I'm a proud Democrat for a lot of reasons.

[00:40:43 - 00:41:06] Speaker: Unknown
That has to deal with, like, you know, my my social values, like my pro working class values. Yeah. The history of the party in relation to that now is the party what it was? Nope. But neither is a Republican party. No party can fit what anyone needs. Sure. But there's a Democratic orthodoxy. And, you know, if you if there's elements of the party where if you don't agree 100% with the orthodoxy, you're an asshole.

[00:41:06 - 00:41:33] Speaker: Unknown
And I would say that there are a couple people in local politics who subscribe to the, the what I would call that orthodoxy. I think it's a minority orthodoxy. Yeah. Agreed. Because average people are not like this. But I would say that part of that, their thought process is it's cruel to remove homeless camps. They would say that, but then they're going to say, well, but we don't have enough money to give them the appropriate care.

[00:41:33 - 00:41:51] Speaker: Unknown
So we're just not going to do anything because doing something without what we need is cruel. But the problem is, you know, how many times a year it's getting warm, I'm going to start getting complaints about homeless people harassing or potentially assaulting or abusing grant school district kids. So my priority is going to be to raise hell about that.

[00:41:51 - 00:42:10] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, at one point, I think I was maybe about two years ago, Sean McAndrew, who was running for City Council and is on the school board now, great to work with he and great person. He went to the to city council to complain about this very thing, but it's still happening now. How many complaints do you receive like through the warmer months?

[00:42:10 - 00:42:27] Speaker: Unknown
Okay, so you the word you do you mean district or me? Because the district receives more than I get because everything's a filter. I don't always hear things. Well, more people know about the Scranton School District and Tom Borthwick, so obviously they're going to get more complaints. No, no, I meant like so like the admin in the district.

[00:42:27 - 00:42:50] Speaker: Unknown
They're going to know more. The track coach, you know, who has the kids running on the trail. He's going to know more. She's going to know more. So I can't give you a definitive number. But I wouldn't doubt there are dozens of incidents. Like honestly like per week. Like a week. Know. And I'm not saying they're they're like violent, but it's like someone's like, you know, a child walking past somebody that's out there.

[00:42:50 - 00:43:11] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Like like like. Oh, well, I mean, but you're responsible. Like you're the people taking a leak in the middle of the road. I think I filmed it, yeah, like but but that but that's happened. That's you. You just happened to be there to catch it. So think about how many times you weren't there. So when you say when you say that, that.

[00:43:11 - 00:43:33] Speaker: Unknown
I look at it as cruelty wrapped in empathy. Oh, man. So. And when I say that, it's, you know, oh, this is the right thing. We can't. Or is it these or is it empathy wrapped in cruelty. It's that's or it's the same thing. It's race car is it's empathy. What's the name of that wacko cat? No. Yes, yes.

[00:43:33 - 00:43:56] Speaker: Unknown
What's that called? And it's a word spelled forward and backwards. The same. Come on. Like palindrome. Palindrome. I think it's an emotional palindrome. I mean, I really like that. That's a really good descriptor of that whole orthodoxy that I was. Well, because. Because I've noticed that, like, that subset of the Democratic Party claims to be incredibly empathetic, incredibly understanding.

[00:43:57 - 00:44:27] Speaker: Unknown
And, and, and I've found that, like, the results of their actions have led to worse outcomes. Yeah, I could see that. And and it also is really, I would say, off putting for the brand and that the brand makes it sound like I'm cheapening what we're talking about. But, you know, if you well, if you say you're for this thing, like if, if, if I, I think we should fill the pool with water and then you come in, it's filled with dirt.

[00:44:27 - 00:44:47] Speaker: Unknown
Like that's how basic I look at it, where it's like, you have made this worse. Dirt can absorb water, Mark. Yeah, but you can't swim in it. Pigs. Do they feel like. You see, we found a counter. Let's see. We help something. So. But that's like my biggest. Like. I'm not. I don't even think I'm a I'm. I didn't leave the Democratic Party.

[00:44:47 - 00:44:59] Speaker: Unknown
The Democratic Party left me I we got to be clear. Both parties left everyone except, you know, like the all the crazy thing is, is like.

[00:44:59 - 00:45:25] Speaker: Unknown
To not I'll give you an example on the homeless because the homeless is is is an interesting it's an interesting study on results. At what point in the process like I don't I don't think anybody should suffer. Right. And if and if we can do anything, we waste a lot of money on stupid shit. And if maybe one, if a couple of dollars get pointed towards let's not let people suffer.

[00:45:25 - 00:45:48] Speaker: Unknown
Maybe I'm okay with that. Sounds lovely. At what point in the process of of you're you're someone who's going through the process of trying to get a home, let's say, who's homeless. What point in that process do you think? They spend like, what step in. Do you think they focus on mental health? I mean, and you're not gonna know that.

[00:45:48 - 00:46:06] Speaker: Unknown
You probably not gonna know the answer to this, but I'm asking you, like, pragmatically, at what stage should you focus on mental health? Okay. So I'm going to and I'll tell you why I'm going to say stage two. Because stage one should be addressing poverty. Because that I think is the number. Yeah, but you're mentally ill. So like when I said to you earlier, like if you're mentally ill then it should be step one.

[00:46:06 - 00:46:28] Speaker: Unknown
So okay, so like most of these people that are homeless that I've talked to every one of their stories is some sort of trauma. Like there's something back there that, that like instead of choosing to to. And it's horrible when horrible things happen to people. It's horrible. But unfortunately in life, like you have to make the choice of like, what did I learn for this from this?

[00:46:28 - 00:46:48] Speaker: Unknown
Or how does this define me? And they became the thing that happened to them which gave, which is now the definition of them. Right? So like there were people that we talked to that were in like terrible house fires and they lost like a loved one in the house fire and that was the trauma that they experienced that they never got over a lot, a lot of assaults, a lot of abuse.

[00:46:48 - 00:47:08] Speaker: Unknown
And, you know, you and I know as well as as I'm probably some other people listening that we know people who have been through things that, like you and I would be like if that, that I would have taken a bullet in the mouth just how terrible that was. And they got through that. And it's like you look at those people and you're like, God, like, God bless them for going through that and being like good people.

[00:47:08 - 00:47:29] Speaker: Unknown
After experiencing something terrible, which isn't in the outside of the realm of thinking. Because like, we just did the podcast with us, you, I don't know if you saw that one is my buddy from the Congo. So, I've been watching your your TikTok clips. That's a great. So Oshu watched his entire family get murdered in and is in his village.

[00:47:29 - 00:47:54] Speaker: Unknown
Which which, if you don't understand, villages in Africa could have 45,000 people or 60,000 people in it, which is the size of the city of Scranton. Watch this whole family get murdered. Then he spends 12 years in a refugee camp, which is the size of Lackawanna County, with over a million people. Right. That guy goes through all that, and then he comes here and all he are, and he's grateful.

[00:47:54 - 00:48:17] Speaker: Unknown
But he has his criticisms, but he's a happy go lucky guy. He smiles. He sees he saw terrible shit. And I ask him, like, how do you go through that? And he goes, what choice do I have? Yeah, it's not going to define me. I get to make a choice. A lot of these people in America, not everybody has that ability, you know, you know, if somebody if somebody if you know, if somebody doesn't open the door for a certain person, all of a sudden they're racist, do you know what I mean?

[00:48:17 - 00:48:35] Speaker: Unknown
And that's the thing that they carry. You know what? It's you know what it's like when you hear people have these complaints and they focus on it for like the rest of the week where it's like, you know, somebody somebody didn't open the door for me, fuck them forever. And it's like, just maybe just somebody did open the door for you, you know, move the fuck on.

[00:48:35 - 00:48:59] Speaker: Unknown
So when it comes to, like, the homeless thing, sorry about the tangent. No, the mental health issue is like step six. They try to get you housing before they leave for work. That doesn't make any sense. That's what I said. I'm like, wait, wait, why are why are we not checking? Because obviously they're homeless. Because they can't handle a living situation that requires an immense amount of responsibility.

[00:48:59 - 00:49:23] Speaker: Unknown
You've got to be put together. So let's let's put them together and then get them the responsibility, not the other way around. But actually that has to be another form of trauma. Correct. Like walking in there like, oh great, I've got rent, I've got I've got utility bills, I've got to maintain this fridge, I've got neighbors, I've got grass that that's almost you're just dumping an entire existence on them that they completely avoided for years.

[00:49:23 - 00:49:47] Speaker: Unknown
And they. And who does this. Well, who came up with this? It's a problem. It's been it's it's been the California last. Now, I knew about this, like a year and a half ago, but California last year spent $25 billion to curb homelessness. I believe it didn't work. Not only that, homelessness went up and they can't account for the money.

[00:49:47 - 00:50:09] Speaker: Unknown
So I look at I look at things my my buddy has this saying. He goes, he goes, everything's a fractal problem, right? So you look at the big national stuff and you and the lower down you go, it's still a fractal problem. So I look at the world as the players, the positions you can, you can find basically a madlib for them for that locally.

[00:50:09 - 00:50:35] Speaker: Unknown
Right. So when you look at things like non-profits and whatever, and if you look at states giving money to these problems, they're never going to cure the homelessness in California because too many jobs and nonprofits depend on it to be there. That went above my above my take. But think about it. It's like, yeah, it's like it's a cancer, right?

[00:50:35 - 00:50:51] Speaker: Unknown
They're never going to cure cancer because every oncologist tomorrow is going to go out of a job. Every fucking primary care physician, they're going to diminish, diminish, diminish because they've cured cancer, you know, in general incentive. Well, like there's a there's a vaccine for Lyme disease. It doesn't you can't get it. Well, Lyme's was started by the government.

[00:50:51 - 00:51:14] Speaker: Unknown
I don't know about that. But I'm telling you look into it whether it is or not, there was a vaccine. It's not produced because it's not economically feasible. So that's dumb. That's that's what it is like. If you if it's about money, everything's money. I think. So that's that's the ultimate thing. So if you okay. So if you make everybody sick you're always going to need medicine.

[00:51:14 - 00:51:43] Speaker: Unknown
Like that's I look at microplastics. We're just talking I look I look at a lot of these situations as avoidable. But sometimes I think I think they're orchestrated. I mean I think I think they're, I think they're, they're made or maneuvered in a way to be more beneficial. So we're talking, more globally now here. California's been 24 billion to tackle homelessness over the past five years, but didn't consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money actually improve the situation, according to state audit released Tuesday.

[00:51:43 - 00:52:11] Speaker: Unknown
Yes. So that's the kind of stuff that, I worry about in terms of government all the time. So micro, cosmically speaking, I don't worry about that as much with the school district because we've dealt with, you talked about trauma responses. Some of the poor administrators are still traumatized over, you know, being thrown into recovery, being some of the people, like years ago, being people being arrested, you know, so everybody's got the AG's office coming in and taking out the documentation, you know, that end up being like nonsense.

[00:52:11 - 00:52:33] Speaker: Unknown
Anyways. Yeah. Yeah, that was a nice headline before an election. But see I think so. And some something was behind that usually when things like that happen headline before an election. Yeah. Yeah. Weird. Very strange. No. Well just like, you know, all the, all the great broad paving projects that are being announced and the pool projects, you know, like come on or the or the pool projects being dug up.

[00:52:33 - 00:52:57] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. She's so, so that's just kind of par for the course. And you were talking about, you know, we began this talking about, like, homelessness and addressing a problem between the city. And I think I my ultimate thing is, is I think there I think there's an incentive ization to make it continue. Yeah. And so, so I as a school director don't want that to be a thing.

[00:52:57 - 00:53:24] Speaker: Unknown
And, you know, I could probably confidently say that Sean McNamara, who will hopefully win his council race, is in the same position. So now he he'll be able to advocate on the city side because the city isn't always a great partner. I mean, we we can't grants and we do things. And then the mayor shows up to the press conferences and and then like films herself with a kid and then leaves like saying like it's photo ops stuff.

[00:53:24 - 00:53:40] Speaker: Unknown
It's, it's but that's like going to, like a birthday party, not bringing a present and making sure that you're in the pictures, holding someone else's present. Yeah. We could be better partners in my do I am I am I being hyperbolic on that? Not at all. And no one sees that as like, hey, that's pretty fucked up.

[00:53:40 - 00:53:57] Speaker: Unknown
I, I've refrained, you know, from being publicly critical because, you know, I'm a developer. I haven't been publicly critical. Yeah. So, so like, it's a genuine worry, you know, because City Hall can make my life a living hell if they want. And but that's retaliation. It would be. It's illegal. Which is why it's saying it is probably better protection.

[00:53:57 - 00:54:23] Speaker: Unknown
But I would say like, as a developer, I like the way he thinks that. Oh, yeah. And then public forum. Yeah. It's sad that you have to think that way, actually. But, you know, as a developer, I've never even the mayor hasn't said anything to me about buying three buildings, one of which was condemned in dilapidated and and revitalizing it like three buildings that are a block from where she works every day.

[00:54:23 - 00:54:38] Speaker: Unknown
And, I mean, just you didn't do that to get that a client that I'm not mission. Oh, no no no no no no no. Yeah. No. So I'll tell you why I bring it up. I'm going to talk about, Marilyn Bato of Pittston. He calls developers from Scranton, says, listen, he's doing a great job down there. He's awesome.

[00:54:38 - 00:55:02] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So so he's called developers and said, hey, listen, there's this building. It's it. His office is covered in pictures of dilapidated buildings. You buy this building and waving all your permits, you buy this building and you put high end apartments in it and commercial space on the first floor. I'm paying 50% of your engineering and architectural fees, and I have a grant, brand new windows, whole building on us.

[00:55:02 - 00:55:22] Speaker: Unknown
Great. Great idea. So now Pittston is bopping because he's been doing exactly that for years. STAT is the kind of innovative thing that a mayor should do. I mean, is it is it innovative or is it pragmatic? Scuse me. Pragmatic. Yeah. But seems innovative because we don't do this. We don't do.

[00:55:22 - 00:55:42] Speaker: Unknown
Hey, what do you mean you put round wheels on your bike? That's crazy. I have square, square. Better. So like so. So I don't need her to give me accolades. I'm not sure about that, but, like, maybe she, like, hey, what are some things that we could do to help? Look at the the city going after Basilica because the, the lights, they approved, they approved them were too bright.

[00:55:42 - 00:56:04] Speaker: Unknown
But wait, Mr. city like you, Miss City? Well, I was just embodying Scranton in a male way. I guess that was Madam City. Whatever the hell. What are we, his or her city? They. Them. City. Mr.. Mrs.. City. Miss, I don't forget, you know, whatever you say. Someday, Scranton, we're working our way to they them city. Yeah.

[00:56:04 - 00:56:27] Speaker: Unknown
So? So, Scranton, you know why not? Why not like, say that. Oh. Lights are, bright lights in a downtown at night are great because it deters crime. Yeah. It's it. And we approve. The city approved it, and then they're going to slap fines and tell them, take it down. The amount of money. What does that happen? The amount of money that the Bass League at Jefferson Russo and I'm a bunch of other ones.

[00:56:27 - 00:56:46] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, my Monroe, the Donahue brothers, there's there's so many of them. They should we should be talking. The mayor should be talking to us. And I say us because I'm a minor one, but I'm on the square, and and I'm a small fry compared to these guys. But there needs to be dialog. Not not like fighting. And it's not even fighting.

[00:56:46 - 00:57:09] Speaker: Unknown
It's sniping, you know, because that, oh, I'm going to send the zoning guy to, to hit you with the fine because you like to, to break in a city. So that that's bad and that's the kind of thing where there doesn't just. And so I was talking about the developers in the school district side. The city's not a good partner, or we would have tackled the homelessness issue.

[00:57:09 - 00:57:27] Speaker: Unknown
That's for the gang issue. So that's but this is why Brian Gallagher is a phenomenal D.A., because he's working hard on the gang issue. I agree with you. I think Brian Gallagher might be one of the best things that's happened to to to the to the county in a very long time. He's a he's a great man. But why wasn't it done before.

[00:57:27 - 00:57:48] Speaker: Unknown
It seems like the right thing to do. It seems like the way to make sure that kids. One of the reasons that I ran is because I actually saw the footage of Tyler McKenna getting murdered, and I was like, and my first reaction was, everyone should see this and nobody should see this. And that's a it's a tragedy.

[00:57:48 - 00:58:12] Speaker: Unknown
Did you see it? The I saw the far away footage. I saw the security footage. Yeah. So when I saw was far away. I like dad in that, in that and like, I'm sure law enforcement saw that. Oh, God. Yeah, I'm sure that it was appalling to them. I'll give you an apocryphal story somewhere along the lines.

[00:58:12 - 00:58:35] Speaker: Unknown
Somebody forgot about that, that image. So no, like, that kid should have never died. I'll give you an apocryphal story. It's one of those ones that, like, it's around. I know it's true. So there was an opportunity. Before we do this, I'm going to drink some. I'm going to drink a, like, an eighth of a shot of Alex Jones conspiracy bourbon.

[00:58:35 - 00:58:55] Speaker: Unknown
And you're going to cheers me on it. So this isn't me falling off the wagon. This is just me getting through this story. It's sad. This is what drinking is for. You see, I'm Irish. That's why we always drank. It's because we were always sad. Like my sister was telling you before. You're also German. So there's other stuff going on.

[00:58:55 - 00:59:17] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, I want to rule the world, but I'm too drunk to do it. Another Kaiser Van Den album. Okay. Apocryphal. So? So there was a grant opportunity, fully paid for that would have, it was a it was a gang violence prevention grant a couple years back that would have this grant was going to be awarded to who?

[00:59:17 - 00:59:35] Speaker: Unknown
It could have been awarded to Scranton, the school district of the city. City. Okay. And it would have, interface with the police department to provide, like, triangulation of gunshots so that they could more quickly respond. Is that that sound system? Yeah, Chicago had it. And then the mayor took it down. Yes. I heard it was very, effective.

[00:59:35 - 00:59:52] Speaker: Unknown
So. So, like, think about this. If there's a if there's a driver. Well, there was a, there was, there was two shootings last week. Well, well, I love detective. Good. Martin. So they were chasing somebody who was driving around the city shooting live, streaming it on Instagram. Yeah. And they used that the Instagram stuff to find this guy.

[00:59:52 - 01:00:13] Speaker: Unknown
But imagine if we were able to triangulate location by gunshots, instantaneously beam to the cops. We could have had faster response time. This was before a lot of the gang violence stuff in Scranton became, in the forefront, and which started right after Covid, all the gang stuff. So this this would have been maybe right before then, so.

[01:00:13 - 01:00:32] Speaker: Unknown
Well, shoot, I'm. No, I mean, it was right after. I know I don't remember the timeline it would have been after because, of a couple people in a couple positions. This is how I know the story. She declined the grant even though it was free money. She declined it because she did not want to have to because it was a gang violence prevention.

[01:00:32 - 01:00:52] Speaker: Unknown
She did not want to have to publicly admit that there was gangs in Scranton. And the only reason that anyone would ever say that is because she would look bad. So rather than take. So let me see. Let me get this straight. Rather than take that money and help the city in return for admitting we have a problem, it's like, nope, let's look good.

[01:00:52 - 01:01:26] Speaker: Unknown
So what you're saying is, is that optics were chosen over public safety, right? Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, if there's a running theme of this particular episode, it's that people, delude themselves, into doing things that are detrimental to, to the greater population. And maybe, maybe these people who make these decisions do believe that it is the right decision, because you can make a calculation and say, you know what, I'm not going to take this because I don't want to take the public relations head because I can do more good in this position.

[01:01:27 - 01:01:49] Speaker: Unknown
And people do make those logical leaps all the time. I'm in politics, I see it. And then you start to convince yourself that this is the way to behave, and and then we're all lost, and, that's one of the reasons why. Like I said, we've got a running theme here. That's why I said, you know, maybe I need to speak more than I do.

[01:01:49 - 01:02:10] Speaker: Unknown
Because I was strategically not speaking because I can go get done what I want to get done because I don't actually need your recognition. I don't need I don't need my neighbors recognition. I'll go do the right thing, and I don't need the pat on the back. But then the people who fuck around and cause problems, who want the recognition, they go get it.

[01:02:10 - 01:02:32] Speaker: Unknown
And then the truth gets muddled. Yeah, it gets moved. Actually. I'll give you a really I'll give you my favorite example from yesterday's meeting about the biggest bunch of shit that was stated, oh my God. So that whole growler is gone, by the way. Yeah. It's not. No, no, I've got a I've got a good. No I just, I, I it will be where again I would, I would have said this growler or not I just I'm having fun.

[01:02:32 - 01:02:50] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So, so he's the only guy I know that has fun pissing people off. Well, it's because they need to be called out. And I know you know what you're before you. Before you get out of this, I want you to know that, like you and I and maybe like I want everybody to know is like, you and I probably have a lot of stuff that we disagree on, right.

[01:02:51 - 01:03:12] Speaker: Unknown
But I, I truly and genuinely love you. And part of the reason why I love you is because of I know where you stand, you've thought it through and you're not trying to bullshit me. Like, I like your honesty. And I love the fact that also at the same time, when it comes to what you believe is the right thing, you're fearless about pursuing it.

[01:03:12 - 01:03:30] Speaker: Unknown
I appreciate that. Just a quick, quick story. So there was an issue that I had to do. Also doesn't like compliments and I don't I actually, I hate them. Yeah. I'm also awful at taking them. Yeah, I'm suspicious, but thank you for the compliment. You're just. But what what are the girls do these days? This. I don't know, they should all stop doing.

[01:03:30 - 01:03:43] Speaker: Unknown
I don't like it. Yeah, I don't, but I see them do it. Maybe when they get a compliment, I don't know, I don't know. It's go for their photos. I think it's a Taylor Swift thing. She's not a good person. Yeah, well, that's a whole other thing. Yeah. I'm I'm, you know. All right. I like I like all the music.

[01:03:43 - 01:04:03] Speaker: Unknown
Until last night. Yeah. So. Well, so as a preface, to your compliment, or post whatever. Post-it note. Yeah. Goddamn it, there's a word I'm looking for I can find. My wife and I were dealing with something earlier, and she was having a conversation with someone. I was like, I heard your husband said this, and she just goes, you know him?

[01:04:03 - 01:04:24] Speaker: Unknown
If he thought that, you would know, he thought. And she's like, oh, yeah, you're right. Like so. So that problem got solved pretty quickly because I everybody knows where I stand at all times. That's why. That's why I not only do I love you, but I, I people I respect, I love, if that makes sense. Yeah. So like I, you know, no homo I love you tremendous I love it you.

[01:04:24 - 01:04:44] Speaker: Unknown
It's very platonic. So what what was the thing last night? So, All right, so there was a bunch of disinformation from Director Jani. Wait. Liberals can make disinformation. I don't know if she's liberal or. I don't know what she is. She's she's, a squiggly line. So she looks like one of the stones from Fifth Element Base.

[01:04:44 - 01:05:13] Speaker: Unknown
Earth? Yeah, I don't think so. So. So, at the previous meeting, she makes this at the work session. She makes the statement that, you know, the one firm was charging X and the other firm is charging Y, and. No, no, there's actual direct evidence that you're wrong and lying. And I said I just and I said, I just want to not make make sure the public is aware that what she's saying is untrue.

[01:05:13 - 01:05:30] Speaker: Unknown
So she lied. Deceived, though, because she's going to say I'm not lying because they had an initial proposal and then they had a supplement. But the thing is, the supplement is the final proposal. So she wasn't like, this is what I mean by people deceiving themselves. I didn't lie to the public. That is what they submitted. Yes.

[01:05:30 - 01:05:56] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. But they find like a word salad. That's wait, if I can say it. And then it's like I wasn't being destroyed and then you don't know what's true. So she does that. And then at the meeting yesterday or on Thursday, she goes, well, I just want to say that because of my constant advocacy for, yeah, for, for grant actors or some variation of that statement, we were able to save tons of money by getting them to lower their their initial rates.

[01:05:56 - 01:06:20] Speaker: Unknown
If you watch the video, you'll see me start laughing that that's the biggest bunch of shit. She didn't do anything. She didn't do anything to to negotiate, to change negotiations, to affect negotiations, except to maybe affect them negatively. I'm going to tell you. And this hasn't come out yet. They're breaking news. They're breaking it. Well, it's going to sound esoteric, so I apologize, but, change back.

[01:06:20 - 01:06:51] Speaker: Unknown
They they they demanded they demanded a retainer. Which we. So now we so trace Carmody. Moran who? The solicitor we awarded the contract to didn't want it to go full hourly. No retainer. We're going to lose money because Yanni and Fox demanded that we match the retainer of the current people and in like they were like Jewish grammarians saying like, you'll you'll lose money if you pay us a baseline and an hourly rate and they didn't get that.

[01:06:51 - 01:07:08] Speaker: Unknown
And so, like, they don't understand that. No, no they didn't. So because of that we're actually going to spend more money. That and I've been saving this I was going to use it as a weapon at a board meeting. But you still can. Oh I will yeah. Oh yeah. No I'm going to it's just you get a preview.

[01:07:08 - 01:07:34] Speaker: Unknown
But I mean they look good like practice, right. They negotiated against it. So their influence on the process was to get a worse deal. I like the and increase increase the third party. Oh my lawyer had. So I'll give you a this one's fun. So this morning, or the morning after, this happened, they immediately began sending emails and complaining about the process and blah, blah whatsoever.

[01:07:34 - 01:07:50] Speaker: Unknown
Grow up. But they're not going to grow up because this is all this is. This is all publicly available if you need it, if you yes, you can ask it. I'm not, I'm not. Thank you for trying to protect me. Yes, I welcome you don't have to. I don't give a shit. All right. Do I know, I know, I know, but I want to protect you, I thank you, so.

[01:07:50 - 01:08:13] Speaker: Unknown
Because I love you. See? So, there, like, we. So Danielle Chizik, who's a great researcher on the board, she's phenomenal. She's running for office. I love supporting her. It's great to work with, points out that. Yeah. So Yani was complaining that because we had a special meeting, it's $1,500 to have a special meeting and therefore we're wasting taxpayer money.

[01:08:13 - 01:08:42] Speaker: Unknown
Aside from the fact that 83% of all phone calls were from her from last month, and that she cost us thousands of dollars with her repetitive questions, she just remixed every question a million times until she. I mean, she never got the answer she wanted, but she tried to get it and failed, but, So. So Danielle says if we keep our special counsel, that's $500 a day, because Yani wanted to vote on April 28th when the next scheduled meeting and and like, well.

[01:08:42 - 01:09:04] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, okay. Yeah, this meeting cost $5,000. So actually we're saving thousands because basically the implication is you're sending so many damn emails and making so many phone calls that we are being charged $500 a day for your bullshit. And Danielle called her out, and then she said it was going to be $9,500. It would have been $9,500 if we waited because of the.

[01:09:04 - 01:09:25] Speaker: Unknown
And you're already at 20, aren't you? I don't know what the total amount is because we didn't get April yet. Yeah, but for March it is, isn't it. No more March is is like 9 or 10. Oh. So without having April's it would have doubled. April is actually probably worse. I even though we're only halfway through April, I guess they really turn up the volume.

[01:09:25 - 01:09:44] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, it's it's his contract is supposed to be done and they're still sent it. And questions like, really? Yeah. So. So how about they're questioning where Danielle got her information? She got it from the solicitor we hired. Like the special counsel we hired, I should say so like go, Danielle. She researched. Where'd you get your information? I asked him, yeah.

[01:09:44 - 01:10:11] Speaker: Unknown
I asked the authority who is actually saying, like, yes, I'm. I'm currently charging you $500 an hour because everybody's asking me questions. And he. Yeah, he's like apologizing, like, I'm sorry. This is very atypical. Like, he's, you know, he's an attorney who's got to protect his reputation, like, because, you know, I would send out email saying, like I did send an email to the group of them saying, like, who is the director that's using him like this as the district, as their own personal piggy bank?

[01:10:11 - 01:10:31] Speaker: Unknown
And it was Yani. That's why she got mad that it wasn't redacted, because I found out that it was her, because it could have been Fox or potentially go Martin. Although what Gilmartin did, she made she made Katz watch hours of YouTube videos from 2018. That's in the billions. She made the lawyer watch YouTube video. Oh, yeah. Sean McAndrew mentioned it.

[01:10:31 - 01:10:51] Speaker: Unknown
I'm just telling you who did it, because I don't care. Oh, she's not on the board now. No, but she was for some of the period of this process. Is there any thing been publicly disclosed about her leaving? No, that was it. Just like, I'm out the. We just got a letter that just said I'm resigning. Good luck.

[01:10:52 - 01:11:14] Speaker: Unknown
And there's nothing that anybody knows about. Or is it? I would imagine, like the ethos. No, I would imagine that people know because there's got to be knowledge. I don't know what that knowledge is. Is there any public information about it? I mean. I mean, I've heard speculation and conjecture. You can I mean, I can speak to I don't know what I can speak to.

[01:11:14 - 01:11:40] Speaker: Unknown
Talk to me about your conjecture and I'll see what. I'll see what I can say. The speculation. Conjecture is that she was on a she worked. She did work for a nonprofit called PSB. That is public knowledge. Psb their mission is they have. She was an ambassador. I believe that's the name of the program. Yeah.

[01:11:40 - 01:12:04] Speaker: Unknown
So. And now, correct me if I'm wrong. These ambassadors are basically distributed throughout the state. I don't know too much about the program, but I there are, to my knowledge, a bunch of them. There's multiple ambassadors. There's also a caveat for the ambassadors to not be ambassadors. If you were on a school board at your I. So I don't know that, but I would imagine that you shouldn't.

[01:12:04 - 01:12:30] Speaker: Unknown
Okay. Now, I watched I watched, a school board meeting back in August, and I don't know if I don't know if Casey meant to do this. I don't know if he accidentally did it. But anyways, it happened. They were breaking his his chops about, as usual, as as receiving money from something or whatever. And he brings up PSP and he goes, you know, do you get paid for PSB?

[01:12:30 - 01:12:51] Speaker: Unknown
She goes, no. And I was listening. I was like, oh, okay. And then she goes, I get a stipend. Yeah. And then I went. I remember in my head I went, well, how much is that? And then Bob went, well, how much is that? And she said, I believe it was $2,500 a month. Is is what I remember from watching the school board meeting.

[01:12:51 - 01:13:16] Speaker: Unknown
That is what she said. And I immediately thought, that's not a stipend. That's a salary for and for those who don't understand what PSB does is they they try to implement policy in school districts. This is what you should follow. This is what we recommend. These are the things you know which which I think that an outside organization should not be manipulating a school district.

[01:13:16 - 01:13:35] Speaker: Unknown
I think the school district should know what the right things are. If you want to hear from other people, you can hear those opinions or not. But whether or not PSB approves or disapproves of what you're doing should have no bearing on on the body elect. Yeah, and it's funny you say that, because I can speak to my feelings about PSB outside of whatever happened with director Gil Martin.

[01:13:35 - 01:13:54] Speaker: Unknown
We are. I believe our district is what I would call over policy. So we have a like, if you look left or right, there's a policy that governs it. It's beyond ridiculous. And and and I've talked to Director Casey about ways we can do this because he's an old school and he knows the old rules. He is old school.

[01:13:54 - 01:14:16] Speaker: Unknown
He knows he knows all the rules. Yeah, because he probably wrote them. He's old enough. But he was the first man on the school board. He really actually feels like it sometimes. So. So I think this over policy, like, whenever they. So what they do and they do it to this day and I wish they would stop, or we could just quit.

[01:14:16 - 01:14:40] Speaker: Unknown
They said, hey, you need to implement this policy. And then we just vote on it and we do it. Or hey, you need to edit this policy and here are edits. And then we just do it. And I think that was put in I know it's yeah you're right to look like what the hell. Yeah. I think it was put in or that style of doing things was put in under her era of leadership.

[01:14:40 - 01:15:04] Speaker: Unknown
And I, I'm not fond of of just letting somebody write somebody else's, you know, she's, you know, she's my best argument against Mail-In voting. Oh, yeah. That's funny because, yeah, you were there for all that happening. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm so for those who don't know, I'm against Mail-In voting and whatever whatever conspiracies in your brain. My reason for it.

[01:15:04 - 01:15:25] Speaker: Unknown
One of my reasons against Mail-In voting is because if there was no mail in voting, what transpired between the moment people voted for her and actual election day would have been grounds for people to not vote. Yeah, and and so that had to do it. Mayor Connors. Yep. She she abused Mayor Connors. We had the strike. We had.

[01:15:25 - 01:15:43] Speaker: Unknown
But that all happened after people started voting on this. Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I get that, and I love voting in person. I do too. Yeah, I, I feel like I'm doing something. Yeah, I, I tend to lean toward the, like the understanding of things like absentee voting because, you know, if you can't, if you're given that existed before Mail-In voting, okay, voting was there.

[01:15:43 - 01:16:04] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And so yeah the difference is no. It like the no excuse current thing. I I love saying like being at a poll on election day. So. Yeah. Seeing the neighbors. Yeah. It's great. I'll bring in donuts and coffee. The workers. But yeah, it was funny because I looked at the totals of my election. When I made it, I made it on the Republican side ones, and it was me versus her.

[01:16:04 - 01:16:20] Speaker: Unknown
Because I think she only made it. If there was no mail in. You would have been on school board that that year. I yeah, I beat her at her home poll on election day. And it was because of man, what she did. The mayor Connors is like. That's a travesty. I was, you know, I was thinking that's probably why she's not running.

[01:16:21 - 01:16:34] Speaker: Unknown
But then, you know, what did she do, the mayor Connors, for people that don't know, like, oh, I apologize, you know what I gotta think? I gotta think she egg this house. She hate this house. It was terrible. She. So he was a public. It was a public comment, period. Yeah. He was advocating, for for his passions.

[01:16:34 - 01:16:53] Speaker: Unknown
And, it my guess is it was like preschool elimination or or helping the unions or. Because that's what he would come and speak about, or saving Bancroft's like it was one of those three, because that's what he always came to do to advocate for for the community. And I. And I miss him. And she he just says, I only have one more.

[01:16:53 - 01:17:13] Speaker: Unknown
She she says, time's up. Thank you, Mr. Connors. And he says, I only have one more sentence. Can I speak again? She starts gabbling I mean, screaming at him to get out. And he's like, hey, man, taking the whole crowd turned against her in that immediately. He's he's like the dean of Scranton, God rest his soul.

[01:17:13 - 01:17:34] Speaker: Unknown
And he but he loved the district. He was the title administrator who ran the preschool program like he this was near and dear to his heart. He got his start in, community organizing. Like, he was like, I'm going to organize Monica so that we can get these ball fields here. You know, actually, excuse me. It was to save a the the school that was where the ball fields are now.

[01:17:34 - 01:18:08] Speaker: Unknown
That's what it was. And he started that. And then that started his political career. And just a kind, generous, outgoing, thoughtful man. Funny as hell. But always used all of his traits to help the causes in the district. And when she did that, people were just disgusted. Rightfully. Yeah, it was terrible. But you're right, she it happened in between the beginning of mailings and most of the initial mailings come like the people just send them out the day they get them.

[01:18:08 - 01:18:26] Speaker: Unknown
Yep. And so you're right. If the closer to Election Day you get, the more informed decision you can make. And that is a good argument. So I appreciate your argument. I was trying to use all the other arguments. And then one day I was sitting there and I was like, that's the argument. Because you could you could vote for somebody that you that you shouldn't vote for.

[01:18:26 - 01:18:47] Speaker: Unknown
They can screw something. And if I, if I voted mail in that year, and then I learned that I saw that of like, oh shit, I can't unbaked that cake. Yeah. You are your votes cast? You're done. Yep. Okay. Let me talk to you about, I have a couple of things here. Teachers. Let's talk about teachers.

[01:18:47 - 01:19:16] Speaker: Unknown
I like them. I like teachers, too. My mother was a teacher, I think. What? So I'm. I'm for getting rid of the Department of Education. But, I'm more for reform. What do you want? You're just send the money back to the states. So there. So here's a no no. And I wouldn't have this opinion if I didn't hear Randi Weingarten in September of 2024 say we existed before the Department of Education.

[01:19:16 - 01:19:39] Speaker: Unknown
Will this it will exist afterwards. We don't even care. Yeah, that is silly. Of her, if she said that, I'm sure she did. But so you know how earlier I was saying, like, the state is a mitigating factor? I think the federal government is also that. And so do I agree with everything that the any government does?

[01:19:39 - 01:20:00] Speaker: Unknown
No. Or politician for that matter. But through the Department of Ed, you know, Scranton gets what are called title funds. Like this is how our kids are because because according to Department of Ed metrics were so poor, every single one of our kids gets a free breakfast, breakfast and a free lunch. And I don't want that to go away.

[01:20:00 - 01:20:27] Speaker: Unknown
I don't want that to go away either. So. So that. Abolishment right now. But but it's the Department of Education, not the Department of cafeteria food. Yeah, but but but it's honestly if you ever asked a teacher especially experience ones before these kinds of programs, what's the number one impediment to a good education? It's hunger. Yeah. If you're hungry, you're not learning.

[01:20:27 - 01:20:46] Speaker: Unknown
And so you can see the data if you start feeding. I agree that these are a problem. Yeah. Yeah. No no, no. So so I was I was basically trying to say like how did we why aren't we feeding our kids. So it well but I went back to it's poverty. I mean you've got families who can't afford to do it.

[01:20:46 - 01:21:06] Speaker: Unknown
So schools often step in and play familial roles. And if we lived in a utopian society, every family would be wonderful. But I don't want a utopia. Well, I mean, because who defines it? But what I, what I meant was, you know, if we live in a society where a family takes care of their kid without fail, then the kid's never going to come to school hungry.

[01:21:06 - 01:21:25] Speaker: Unknown
Are we going to have lunch? I was going to have dinner. That's just not society anywhere. Probably in the world. So mitigating factor. We have a government who can say, all right, these parents are going to take care of their kids. They're going to feed their kids. Let's help out, because there's nobody that's going to say, we want starving kids, except derelict parents, I guess.

[01:21:25 - 01:21:45] Speaker: Unknown
Or, or and actually, you know what? It's not just like parents. Some parents just can't afford it. Or everyone's hungry. And that's that's insane that we live in America and people can't afford food. Eggs are the highest they've ever been, right anymore. No, not that they're way down, bro. Not. No, I so I so because I'm on the wholesale side they're going like this right again.

[01:21:45 - 01:22:01] Speaker: Unknown
So you go like next week and then get back to me I go to if I go to farm. So all my eggs are oh, oh excuse me I'm sorry if you're buying like from bigger distributors, if you go to a farm you're good. Yeah. Well we actually called a farm to save some money. We should. We should bring that back.

[01:22:01 - 01:22:18] Speaker: Unknown
We're in a unique place in Scranton, Pennsylvania, because there are so many. We're surrounded by farmland. Surrounded. And it's not this factory farm bullshit. It's like, good for old school, good farms. Yeah. I started doing raw milk. Have you ever done that? No. It's awesome. I've been drinking it for four years. The only way for that to work would be if it's from a local farm.

[01:22:18 - 01:22:39] Speaker: Unknown
Local farms. Okay, if it's factory farm milk, I wouldn't touch it. No, I would never touch factory farms. I have shit in it. So, like, literal. So there's there's a there's something to be said about the old ways. I think they were valuable, you know, now you have it like before. Like when you're, when you're, when your grandparents because your grandparents and my grandparents grew up around the same time.

[01:22:40 - 01:22:59] Speaker: Unknown
Right. They all had gardens. They all had, chickens in their backyard, right on Bryn Ma Street. There was gardens and chickens. I didn't even I was like, that's insane. I didn't even realize that. According to the Home Rule charter of Scranton, you can have two, two chickens. Yeah. No roosters. But if you get too loud, they don't.

[01:22:59 - 01:23:13] Speaker: Unknown
They don't like them. But you have your proteins for the day, and you could and you could get your produce in your garden if you wanted. You could can you got fertilizer for there were other there were other people around who had different stuff in their garden. You could barter, you could trade, you could do all this stuff.

[01:23:13 - 01:23:27] Speaker: Unknown
No one had to go to the grocery. Yeah, right. My my Italian grandmother growing up in salsa, that's just how it was. Everybody had fruit trees. Like people to be like, don't tell my apples. One of the things, one of the things that I wanted to do if I ever got elected to school board was like, let's no one knows how to grow a seed.

[01:23:27 - 01:23:45] Speaker: Unknown
Let's teach kids the simplest thing in the world. They're doing that. And, in my son's class over at Awesome School, but they should have, like, little gardens over there. Hey, kids. Cabbage for lunch today. We're eating all of the beets that you guys grew. I just got an email, that there's a tree planting festival at Scranton High.

[01:23:45 - 01:24:03] Speaker: Unknown
I wonder if they're going to. They should. They should do fruit trees. You have you have you have. You have a lot of land over there. We could do that. You could even you could even grow a website. Believe it or not, it's unbelievable. You could you could put like, a greenhouse or something there. Oh yeah. But I look at the world where it's like, okay, somebody turns all the power off.

[01:24:03 - 01:24:09] Speaker: Unknown
What do we do? Yeah, a lot of us just die.

[01:24:09 - 01:24:29] Speaker: Unknown
Not the Lebanese, though. They'll argue the way back into some food. Absolutely. Yeah, I think I think that, like, I think there's a lot of things that are lacking, like, just simple life skills that, like the the public school system is just neglecting, like how to balance a checkbook, how to how to fry an egg that, that is that is a lot of, of some of the world's major problem.

[01:24:29 - 01:24:43] Speaker: Unknown
I, I taught for 17 years and I last it was two and a half years ago. And I always would ask the kids, like, what is it that you wish you knew? Was like, I don't even know what taxes are like. Why is that coming out of my paycheck? And civics? Do they teach that in civics? So here's the thing.

[01:24:43 - 01:25:08] Speaker: Unknown
Most schools have civics in like ninth grade, and I don't think that that's necessarily a practical no, no. I think you need to do it when they're a little older and can understand the complexities of of these things, especially as they're going out to work and now they're paying taxes. It's it's you can understand government when you interact with it, when they see that pay stub with like, oh, and everything comes out of it, it's a lot easier for that teenage brain to grasp.

[01:25:08 - 01:25:27] Speaker: Unknown
Yes. And but I want to compliment, the school district, in general, because they actually they flipped the script at Scranton High because they had they had me come in and they make their kids, they start in their government class now with the founding or. Excuse me, it's I shouldn't say funny. They're they're doing modes of government.

[01:25:27 - 01:25:52] Speaker: Unknown
They start with school board and work their way up to President instead of start a president and work their way down because. So it's after school board like mayor, then like a school board, council, mayor, commissioners, state reps, state senators, congressmen, senators, president. And that they do that and the the teachers grade teachers, they they brought us down and taught and they were telling us it's effective.

[01:25:52 - 01:26:16] Speaker: Unknown
And there and all these kids had great questions because they taught the kids that I am the guy who affects their education. And and people don't learn that that's practical, you know, like get in your your representatives faces find their because we're your neighbor and and nine times out of ten, unless you're voting for a solicitor you care about helping somebody.

[01:26:16 - 01:26:35] Speaker: Unknown
So I, I thought that was a unless you're voting for a solicitor, you took a second, but I'm glad it came through. Yeah. I was like, wait, how did solicitor. Oh oh but but yeah. So like, oh I love I had a kid right when I got on there was like complaining about the food is a can we just get better food?

[01:26:35 - 01:26:51] Speaker: Unknown
I said, you know what, we're going to bid out the food service contract next year. So we. And that's happening like as we speak. We're bidding it out and we might get a nice do you guys look at the ingredients in the food. So that's actually part of your bid. This is part of the process. Absolutely. It's cost is part of it.

[01:26:51 - 01:27:14] Speaker: Unknown
But quality I said I want quality food but this is more than five ingredients like shit like that food. You should you should kind of this is a suggestion you should kind of give yourself like guardrails for healthy food. Single ingredient ones are always the best ones to do. But like if you're going to get like processed foods, like try to have no more than I want as little process of that as possible.

[01:27:14 - 01:27:29] Speaker: Unknown
And I, I basically I've seen those videos of lunch comparisons between like America versus like Italy, Finland, whatever. Yeah, they're really not a gardens. It looks like they're going to Spago. Well and that and honestly that is what's happening over there. Yeah. You know when that's not a lie. I physically never feel better when than when I'm eating.

[01:27:29 - 01:27:45] Speaker: Unknown
In Italy you go over there, you eat like a pig, right? And you lose weight somehow. Yeah. You've lost weight. You feel better? Yeah. You don't feel like skin. Doesn't look like shit. Yeah. You don't feel like you have, a Happy Meal hangover. Yeah. You know what's in our food, dude? Yeah, I was it was funny, like, two weeks ago, I was just feeling like shit.

[01:27:45 - 01:28:03] Speaker: Unknown
I couldn't figure out why. And I realized, oh, my God, I've been eating, like, out for three days. And then I'm like, I'm just going to start making some stuff from scratch. And then I felt better. So were like, the concern is, is like one of the biggest problems that's holding kids back is poverty. And to fix that, we poisoned them.

[01:28:03 - 01:28:29] Speaker: Unknown
You see what I mean? We're it's like you're eating these chemicals wrong. So it's it's that cruelty wrapped in empathy thing. Yes. You know. Oh well, well, we want to feed them, so, like, we'll just give them garbage. Yeah. So that at least they're not hungry. But that's one of the reasons for being fortified. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why we're beaten this out, you know, and I, some of them I think you should look, if you're willing to, if you're willing to waste all that money on those lawyers, I think it's okay to waste a little bit money.

[01:28:29 - 01:28:44] Speaker: Unknown
Just make sure you get healthier food for the kids. Yeah. Yeah, especially the ones who. It's not a waste. Especially the ones in, like, grade school and elementary. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. And, and so that's we're in the middle of that process. Awesome. And we'll, you know, we'll be reviewing the bids and making a decision and going from there.

[01:28:44 - 01:29:02] Speaker: Unknown
And I, I, you know, whatever it looks like that Italian lunch that the kids have, that's what I want. Did they come with the Nespresso with some Sambuca in it? I don't think the kids can have Sambuca only, only, only in the teachers lounge. My five year old drinks coffee. He's been doing it since he's three. What do you think?

[01:29:02 - 01:29:24] Speaker: Unknown
So it seems like. It seems like. Look, there's there's there's there's three sides about what's going on in America right now. There's the one side who it's like total. They see everything going on is total, total chaos. There's the side that sees it as like, this is everything I voted for. And there's a side that sees us, sees it as like, I really don't care.

[01:29:24 - 01:29:44] Speaker: Unknown
Like it doesn't matter to me. Like nothing's in it. Like it's always this ebb and flow of of crazy. What do you think? Do you think I think that the. I think that the country and especially locally, like I now see, I now see and it's not the right, it's the left. The left are going after the left.

[01:29:44 - 01:30:08] Speaker: Unknown
Politicians who maybe associate with conservatives or might share an idea with a conservative. I don't know that. That's what I see. Well, check my Facebook feed. I know, I know, so it's. I guess it depends. You're talking about a lot of paradigms here. So what's the word? Is it internecine warfare? Is that when you fight inside, I think that's the word.

[01:30:08 - 01:30:32] Speaker: Unknown
The. So there's a lot of that going on. And I think it's a byproduct of, of, I'm going to say like maybe the idea of, of moral superiority. First of all, I think almost everybody believes they have moral superiority to some extent, because you believe that you're right. Everybody believes that. Sure, sure. It's just how much do you believe that you can be wrong, you know, so.

[01:30:32 - 01:30:51] Speaker: Unknown
Ooh, that's a really good barometer. Yeah. And so, that's kind of how I like. Are you open to being incorrect? Yeah. And it's funny because one of the things I try to teach my kids, because my son Tom would always get upset if he was wrong, I made a mistake. I'm like, but that's how you're right. Next time you figured it out, you won by being wrong.

[01:30:51 - 01:31:07] Speaker: Unknown
It's going to define me. Or, you know, what did I learn from this? You don't win anything by being right. You now have new knowledge because you're wrong. And that's something that I. I've always tried to to live by. So that's why I can talk to people I disagree with and not hate them. Yeah. You know, but there are people who are like, good.

[01:31:08 - 01:31:28] Speaker: Unknown
What I would call like not good Democrats. It's the wrong way. But but like, staunch Democrats who would be like, why are you even associating with that dude? Because he voted for Trump in 2016. I'm like, I, what do you who gives a fuck? He's a person, I like him. And so this, this, that orthodoxy is unconsciousness is kind of, from Orwell is a major problem.

[01:31:28 - 01:31:51] Speaker: Unknown
But that exists in, in both parties because you have people who are like, oh, you're not MAGA enough. Therefore I am going to run against you or you're not pro-Trump enough, or you're too pro-Trump, or you're not a traditional conservative or you're a neocon where people are just going to fight each other no matter what, because there's a battle of ideologies that are both inside both parties and between both parties.

[01:31:51 - 01:32:26] Speaker: Unknown
And what I've come to realize is that the average person, which I would consider all of us in this room, we're we're a combination of of the three things you just said. So this is what I voted for. But also, you know, not everything affects me. And also things are kind of crazy. Yeah. So, like, I'm all three of what you just described now, I didn't vote for this, and I but I, but I, but I understand like the country didn't like the way things were going and they're like, let's try something different and or let's try something we tried before.

[01:32:26 - 01:32:43] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Or that. And we often do that often and, and, but really know how he did. Yeah. And and this is a whole different ballgame because of that. But but like I said the average people most of us if you just have a conversation, we're all pretty much in the same page that like we want everybody to have a good life.

[01:32:43 - 01:33:05] Speaker: Unknown
I want everybody buddy to feel safe and secure. We want people to not be hungry, especially kids, sure. And we want opportunity to live a good life and have our basic needs met. I think that's a low. That's a low bar that somehow America has failed at. And I think that's why you see people looking to the chaos and liking it.

[01:33:05 - 01:33:24] Speaker: Unknown
I think that's why you see people disengage. And I think that's why you see people fighting each other, because it because nobody knows what the fuck to do. Because deep down we have no power. That's kind of where I'm at. We really. Well, look like it's easy. But the thing is, is like the people should have, I mean, locally in the power.

[01:33:24 - 01:33:48] Speaker: Unknown
Locally you have power. But nationally we don't unless you're rich because money speaks in our country. Yeah. And meanwhile you have all these people like. And I'm finding like they're cruel. Yeah. They're very cruel to me and I'm not to them. Like, there are people who are like, I'll give you an instance without actually saying the name. It's like there's somebody running for office where people are like your friends with Mark.

[01:33:48 - 01:34:11] Speaker: Unknown
I'm glad you brought this up because I'm sure, that Johnny and Fox, their number one argument against me if they watch this and they stalk my Facebook. So they probably would watch it out of the Victorian freak show. Well no. But then what they'll do is they'll be like, well, I'm like, well, he talked to Mark Tenenbaum, therefore, for everything he said is incorrect.

[01:34:11 - 01:34:29] Speaker: Unknown
And it's a bullshit ad homonym. Like, you know what? Like what's the a guilt by association bullshit. But but they're making a judgment that's based on a false premise. But that's all they got. They don't have something. I'm evil. Yeah, and that's stupid. But I know that. And I've seen people treat you this way and it's dumb. You'll talk to anybody?

[01:34:29 - 01:34:47] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And and you'll do it without judgment. Even if you disagree, who cares? We disagree on a lot of stuff. We're still bros. Yeah. Who cares? I just I we grew. You and I grew up that way, though. Like, there was this thing where it was like, yeah, I don't agree with him, but, like, he's my friend. Yeah, this is my buddy's cool, dude.

[01:34:47 - 01:35:15] Speaker: Unknown
Let's go. Yeah. And hang out. And then somewhere, I believe around 2012, it went weird. I, you know, I was reading an article about this. We're just not. We're, like, self-isolating in bubbles. And I think the internet has a lot to do with it where we don't get exposed to alternative perspectives. And I said to you earlier, you know, I one of the reasons I was it was one of the reasons I was successful as a teacher, they didn't know if I was conservative or liberal because all I did was argue and it was just the intellectual exercise.

[01:35:15 - 01:35:29] Speaker: Unknown
Do you think that they were concerned about? They're just like, Mr. Borthwick is an asshole. Oh, you know what? I really think they were going like, I wonder if he's a deer and I really don't know. And like, it was probably like, no, he's just an asshole. Like that's the way he is. There probably were a couple of those.

[01:35:29 - 01:35:53] Speaker: Unknown
But it was always with a point and that was never. But that's debate time. Yeah. No, I know, and like dinner tables used to be like, yeah, Robert, I heard Robert Kennedy say this. His dinner table was with with with his dad. Robert Kennedy was take the side of this country or this person, you take the side of this country or this person and see if you can if you can make the argument for your point of view.

[01:35:54 - 01:36:07] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And we don't do that anymore. And we don't walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. And that's education. And I used to do exercises where I would be like, what do you think? What do you think? Okay, good. Argue each other's positions against each other. Whoever wins gets a higher grade. You know, imagine that is an intellectual exercise.

[01:36:07 - 01:36:24] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Are you trying to see somebody else, somebody pro-abortion to now be a pro like argue as pro-life? Yep. You have to argue the thing that you disagree with vehemently and you'll get a better grade if you do a better job. And that's what you think it. Oh, like things like that. Yeah. It makes you it makes you it literally makes you a critical thinker.

[01:36:24 - 01:36:40] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, it's a lost art. And I think, why do we lose that art? Shouldn't that be the place in public education where it's at? Yeah, I do think that part of the problem is everybody's fear. There's a combination of cultural fear of argument. But also I do think that there's this idea that we like and I think it's changing.

[01:36:40 - 01:37:05] Speaker: Unknown
And changing is the word. And I don't know what it change into, but the idea of, of like in public spaces being afraid to offend people. And you see it a lot with comedians like Bill Burr. I love listening to him. He says shit that would probably, isolated in isolation, be considered misogynistic, offensive. You know, anti-woman, whatever. But he but he he's but he's funny, but he's also usually making a good social point.

[01:37:05 - 01:37:23] Speaker: Unknown
Yes. So so so are we going to say we're never going to listen to this guy because he uses some language that we disagree with? Or are we going to listen to the underlying point? And and sometimes people can't get past the threshold. They can't. They knock on the door and they're like, I'm not going in there because I see something offensive.

[01:37:23 - 01:37:56] Speaker: Unknown
And that's that orthodoxy. Like, I believe that only these things are permissible. Therefore I won't even talk to people outside that box or outside what what would what would that what would that form of, either ideology or, political product in the past be called? You would hope it would be moderately normal. I mean, no, no no no no no, what I'm saying is, is like people who are like, I'm not going to listen to that.

[01:37:56 - 01:38:13] Speaker: Unknown
I'm not going to like the people who are boxing themselves out of the people, like the people who are boxing themselves out thinking that they're correct because they won't listen to that thing. Oh, okay. Like in the in history, I'm not even giving you the time of day. I don't know, because that's more like a personality. But the problem is, is they get to it.

[01:38:13 - 01:38:33] Speaker: Unknown
They gather in a group. Yeah. And that's so so what would that be called. And then almost like puritanical. Yeah. That authoritarian it's that's all part of it I go back you're having me think oppression I don't I don't know that that's let me let me frame it from a different perspective. What you are talking about had me immediately thinking about how the Founding fathers made the country.

[01:38:33 - 01:39:02] Speaker: Unknown
They got into a room, got shitfaced and fought, and then we got a document. Yeah, now. And now that's pooped on. Yeah. And and and words are violence. Yeah. And apparently Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and poetically opposed against each other. Yeah. And a lot of them fought, but they were still they were still buddies because they much like we talked about, like looking at different perspectives, you could look at different perspectives and arrive at, at a conclusion that might be better than if you didn't listen to each other.

[01:39:02 - 01:39:25] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, actually in conversation. And that's important. And Jefferson and Adams were good at that. Like they were diametrically opposed. And then they, like you could read the letters between them where they debate these very deep seated political and governmental and bureaucratic and idealistic, concepts. And they, they began as enemies and died as friends on the same day.

[01:39:25 - 01:39:44] Speaker: Unknown
On the same day. And which I think was the 4th of July. Right arrow. Okay. Sorry, I maybe I made that up because I was getting to Patrick Air. Aaron. Back in here for that. We had Aaron's, of course, again last week. He knows everything about history. He was the one who told us about, like, George Washington did not want political parties.

[01:39:44 - 01:40:11] Speaker: Unknown
He didn't. I know, I didn't know that. Yeah. And Jefferson, they want to really pushed it. And he and and and Washington was very, resentful of Jefferson for doing that. Yeah. So and that there's two arguments and they're both good arguments. The Washington argument is people would, would sort and become factional. And Jefferson basically said, yes, but that's not a bad thing, because you want to be able to associate with people who can help you further your goals.

[01:40:11 - 01:40:31] Speaker: Unknown
Both of those arguments sound really good, don't they? Yeah. But in theory, if they can get corrupted very fast, I mean, ideas or people or whatever, but then he sort of didn't take them to the next step. So Jefferson's idea could lead to what you just described. But Washington's idea could could lead to cult of personality and, and, and and uninformed populism.

[01:40:32 - 01:40:58] Speaker: Unknown
Because if nobody has any, any group, you can just go to the nearest demagogue when you're feeling bad. Yeah. So we're talking about like 17. What was he, 1780 was the first Jefferson. So so if you think of historically about the country, I don't think the things that exist today existed then. Right. And whether or not you have, you know, there was multiple parties back then, which I think is not a bad thing.

[01:40:58 - 01:41:26] Speaker: Unknown
But at the same time, like the demagoguery, the, the, the, you know, the, the Jim Jones types or people like that would, would you can't escape those. They just happen. They do, you know, and it doesn't matter what roadblocks you put on. But the thing about America is it's like it's supposed to be, in my opinion, that, like, you could stave off the Jim Jones types by by the idea of free speech and public discourse, because those are the things they're going to be like.

[01:41:26 - 01:41:43] Speaker: Unknown
He want you to drink Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid sounds great. There's poison. Yeah. But there's one caveat there. It's poison. Yeah. You know, and what they did was and what they did was, is they, they go, okay, we're going to go to a place where we're no one's gonna question us about this because we bought fucking land. That's. Yeah, yeah.

[01:41:43 - 01:42:06] Speaker: Unknown
And that's what I would get, I would call cultural and intellectual isolationism and that is probably a massive contributing factor. And I and I think the internet has exacerbated that because you could just go whatever weird shit you think of what's what's that? What it rule 34. Like, if you can think of it, it's porn. Like what? It's basically it's if you can think of anything, it exists on the internet.

[01:42:06 - 01:42:29] Speaker: Unknown
I think it's called. Sure, whatever it if it doesn't matter. The bottom line is, if you can think of a crazy thing, there's going to be people out there that you can find and become a group, part of a group with it that will meet your needs with that thing. That's part of the self isolation. And then moving into different culture groups and intellectual groups that that cut you off.

[01:42:29 - 01:42:47] Speaker: Unknown
And that happens all over the place. And I and I was seeing it in real time as a teacher. I see it in real time, like socially. I see it on social media. People want to self sort, because nobody likes want to. Why does everybody want to fit in these boxes? They don't see it that way. They see it as being with their community.

[01:42:47 - 01:43:02] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Because everybody wants to feel like they belong. So we're all on our phones. Nobody talks to their neighbors yet. I want to feel like I'm part of a community. It doesn't make any sense because that's not a community. So it it in their minds it might meet that need because I mean human beings are communal by nature.

[01:43:02 - 01:43:20] Speaker: Unknown
We need that. Yeah, but not via not via our cell phones. You know what I mean? It. Well, it's happening anyway, I know I that's the thing that's like very destructive to me is because I, like I always talk about like these new technologies and these things as like hammers. Right. You can use it to build something or you can use it to destroy.

[01:43:20 - 01:43:47] Speaker: Unknown
And when it first came out, everybody should have been vigilant about like, look, just like a gun. Here's how this works. Here's what it could lead to. Here's what we need to all be responsible for. And it's not to say like we should censor or we should do any of that stuff, but when everybody's educated on like this new problem, potential problem, which I believe is like the goddamn cell phones I don't like now, it's a hammer.

[01:43:47 - 01:44:11] Speaker: Unknown
Now it just is used for destruction, and it's used it for division and vitriol. And look, my side's misinformation is your side's misinformation is another side's misinformation. And you're like, it's like. It's like my dad would say. He's like, you know, I he owned a steel company. We would have to sue people or people would sue us. We would get our experts, they get their experts.

[01:44:11 - 01:44:34] Speaker: Unknown
They're both graduates at the same fucking school. Yet they came to two different conclusions. So who's right? And then the one who paid more. The jury. The jury's there to decide. No, I know, and but ultimately, what you're what you're describing as a problem can't be solved. Well, I think we're way past the solving. Yeah. Our, our our system is not going to allow for it because unless there's an MP.

[01:44:34 - 01:44:50] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. I'm not just I'm not just blaming cell phones, but it is a major part of it. But culturally we had a we had a responsibility. Right. And you don't see these things. You only see these. You only see the forks. You only see the in hindsight, do you see like, oh, we should have we should have really paid attention to that.

[01:44:50 - 01:45:12] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, there's a lot of things that we could say, but no one can deny that, like in the history that they tell us as opposed to like a history that might not be what they tell us in the history that they tell us there is no there is no time on planet Earth where you have peak pleasure and peak communication.

[01:45:12 - 01:45:40] Speaker: Unknown
Pleasure is literally this away, whether it's, you know, Tetris or social media or a friend or whatever, you can get pleasure just like that. So it's it's a dopamine, but instant gratification, I get it. And communication is you can now for a millisecond send something to Antarctica and they will get it in Antarctica, which is something that has never happened as far as we know, in the history of this country, which is this world, which is peak pleasure and peak communication, you know?

[01:45:40 - 01:46:07] Speaker: Unknown
Okay, so so I get a dangerous combo, I get your so your your argument is a really good one. So it kind of jives with what I was saying in the sense that you're basically saying, total interconnectedness has actually caused disconnection, which makes perfect sense to the human spirit. Yeah, yeah. Well, if people wanted to socialize, you know, when we were young, you, you go knock on the neighbor's door and you go social where you go hang in the Burger King parking lot.

[01:46:07 - 01:46:32] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go back to woods. Yeah. Yeah. And and I, I you, I don't know, as my kids get older, I guess I'll get a better sense of how that's played out with them. But I'll bring them back to parties in the woods, man. Don't let them knock. Make sure they knock on their neighbor's door as if they're doing it like I see it now with, like, the Fortnite and the Roblox and all that shit, and you're like, yo, yo, there are there are scumbags.

[01:46:32 - 01:47:00] Speaker: Unknown
There are. So it's all fine. Let them play Roblox in Minecraft. There's no harm. It just monitor it. So I have it. I don't monitor it. I have it on the Xbox so that the crazy people don't. Yeah, yeah, that's all that set up. Like I mean, think about that. You were like parents now, right? Either most of them ignorantly, not willfully, ignorantly have now allowed with no guardrails.

[01:47:00 - 01:47:20] Speaker: Unknown
The guy who used to be the pervert that called on the phone. Yeah. And now he's connected in a room full of children. Yeah. And there are, there are people that that like online personalities that my student. Right. Yes. Students my kids either encounter or their classmates like tell them about and it's it's like, oh my God it's not.

[01:47:21 - 01:47:46] Speaker: Unknown
So it's a you have access to what I would call a globalized value system. And it you're now divorced from your community. Yeah. Because you're getting stuff from way far afield. It's a fiction. Yeah. And I'm cognizant of it, but but problematically, lots of people would not be. And it's a combination. It's not I'm not going to say it's malicious, you know, because it's hard to be a parent.

[01:47:46 - 01:48:11] Speaker: Unknown
It's hard. It's hard to be in a society, but that there's no real to me. It feels like it's an impossible, you know, wall to, to to climb over to fix this. Other than if we see a social shift where people just get disgusted with the constant bickering, disconnection, like how many people after the election just stopped reading the news that what's the most recent one?

[01:48:11 - 01:48:25] Speaker: Unknown
That yeah, lots of people are like, you know what, I'm done listening to this shit. And and there were polls and surveys like people just like, you know what? I'm just not going to read the news for like six months. And a lot of people are just disengaged. And they do it because of the vitriol, because they were lied to.

[01:48:25 - 01:48:40] Speaker: Unknown
Probably a combo. I got burned out like three weeks ago. I just stopped watching everything I used to watch. I just can't fucking take it anymore with everything. I'm just like, I don't want to hear anything else about this. Yeah, and I'm done. And I am 100% with you, and I often will do that myself. And then you feel better and then guess what?

[01:48:40 - 01:48:56] Speaker: Unknown
You're going to go to the bar and talk to somebody and, and and there's just going to be a game on and you're going to be like, the Phillies are crushing it again. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And then and it's like, wow, that was a nice, meaningful social interaction. Right. And you need to hear about the complete collapse of fucking everything.

[01:48:56 - 01:49:19] Speaker: Unknown
But but I don't know how you precipitate that. In a macro way. Really. It's kind of like I've said this to you and many people, and I think a lot of people should, should hear it. You can only can control what you can control. And we need to admit to ourselves that that shit that you just tuned out from, we can't do shit about it other than make ourselves miserable.

[01:49:19 - 01:49:33] Speaker: Unknown
So maybe let's look at the things we can't control. That's one of the reasons why I'm happy to be on the school board to bring a first full circle. You know, I'm directly impacting education, so I might we might have been talking about a lot of things that I would consider negative, because negativity and problems are our interesting.

[01:49:33 - 01:49:49] Speaker: Unknown
They're interesting. They they're salacious, salacious. People gravitate toward it. And the main export of northeast gossip, we love it. Yeah. And but what I said was not gossip. For the most part. We think everything was just like, just the facts. I know. But but I do want to say. But others will talk about this as gossip.

[01:49:49 - 01:50:06] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, yeah. Yeah. But so but I want to say this and maybe this is a good and. No, no, no, I don't know where you want to go but to to bring it all together. In the time I've been on the board, no tax increases for two years when we have been brutalized as a city by board tax increases, no tax increases.

[01:50:06 - 01:50:33] Speaker: Unknown
We're the best financial position we've been in in our lifetimes. We have more. We have more money set aside for emergencies than Riverside's budget night like yearly budget, like we're we're finally being smart and we're now using that money to invest in programs. So let me list them. We brought preschool back in January. The stuff that Jill Martin's board and Fox's board, eliminated.

[01:50:33 - 01:50:52] Speaker: Unknown
They got rid of those. We brought it back. And guess what. In in, the 25, 26 school year, we're going to have more preschool classrooms. Okay. Because that was that was that was one of the questions I was gonna ask you. Yeah. So, so so you answered you talk about that being a good thing, then, you know, they they gutted the arts, gutted them and you could see it.

[01:50:52 - 01:51:07] Speaker: Unknown
There was 100 kids in the marching band at West Side. The population's actually a little bigger. And now that you know how it looks like the Napoleon Dynamite, but it's coming back. They were always amazing and they always were always amazing. They looked up to the blue band. They would go on field trips to go see the blue band.

[01:51:07 - 01:51:26] Speaker: Unknown
And that doesn't mean any of those kids that are that are playing right now. It's just like volume. It's. And it was 100 kids. It was. And they were all playing in the stands. It was amazing. And there was an energy. They cut all the programs. That's a shame. So we so this year we started restoring them and then next year we're continuing to restore them.

[01:51:26 - 01:51:39] Speaker: Unknown
It's we call it when we talk about it publicly fixing the middle school schedule. But that's us bringing the arts back. And guess what? I want to go back to the days when in fourth grade, you put a violin in a kid's hand and that kid takes it home and practice practices it for homework is that's what happened to me.

[01:51:40 - 01:52:01] Speaker: Unknown
And so that's how you became Guy. As in happy? Yes. Joyous? Yes. Joyous. You can hear the joy. Yeah. So so so those are the things that we're doing and I'm working on. I'm working on some financial stuff to help us, to the tune of millions, I saved us. We're we're deep into the $10 million range in capital improvement projects.

[01:52:01 - 01:52:23] Speaker: Unknown
Like, they wanted to put a new roof on the 20 year old Scranton High School, which it's a metal roof for the last 50 years. You know, like I said, I could patches for five grand. You know, we were going to spend 10 million and like, it's a big difference. Yeah, it's slightly. Yeah. So, so, like, I can say that I have done good things and and that's me telling everybody who is listening.

[01:52:23 - 01:52:46] Speaker: Unknown
You can control what you can control, like, get involved locally. And if you can't, I get it. It's it's very hard. It's time consuming in my life. It's hard for everybody on the board. Gotta love everybody who devotes their time to it. But as long as they're doing good things. And so I'm thinking, like, if you want to get involved, you can reach out to your local politicians.

[01:52:46 - 01:53:11] Speaker: Unknown
We're your neighbors. You can find us. You can't find Donald Trump. You can't find your senator. You rarely can you find your your congressman, but you can't find your school board members, and you can find your councilman. And maybe in Scranton, you can't find your mayor, but somewhere else you could. So that's what you need to do. I go to Waverly, and that's that's what you need to do to to to be involved, you know?

[01:53:11 - 01:53:28] Speaker: Unknown
So if you're sick of the national stuff, which how could you not be? What's cool that's going on? We're planting 75 trees at Scranton High pretty soon. Just as a cool thing. You let me know about that. I would love to see that. Yeah, I, I saw the. Are you planting the seeds or are you. Are they already growing?

[01:53:28 - 01:53:45] Speaker: Unknown
If you're going to put them in, I think they're like seedlings. Like or saplings, I guess is where I'm sorry. Like little guys, although I wish they were there. They should planted an orchard. That's what I want them to be beautiful or like blueberries. Blueberries. Or they should honestly plant stuff that grows food and let these kids grab an apple from the tree on the way home.

[01:53:45 - 01:54:06] Speaker: Unknown
Yes. And then. And then in a few weeks, the homeless will be living under it would be big, massive tents. I saw I saw a homeless thing the other day that had a chimney. That's we're getting to starting a society from scratch. It looks like Hoover ville. I'm like, what is this? I'm. What time is it? Oh, okay.

[01:54:06 - 01:54:27] Speaker: Unknown
You're good. Right? Are you. Can I do this for another four hours? Oh, I mean, I could probably talk till tomorrow. I appreciate, let me ask you this. This would be the last question. Do you have, do you. So there's there's there's a bunch of school board positions up, and there's, there's a lot, a lot of people running to bad.

[01:54:27 - 01:55:03] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. But it seems like those running will probably get in, minus one maybe. Yeah. Unless the vacancy gets filled by one of them. No, they can still run. Because Katie Martin, who wasn't running anyway. So they can serve out her term and then take her spot. Okay. So do you feel that with the current, crew that's running DNR or, which I, I, I do think that number one, I think that school board should not be a political job to run for.

[01:55:03 - 01:55:28] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. That's why they cross fire. There's no Republicans on the board, which is bizarre to me. You mean registered? Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Do you the the the candidates coming in that that are probably going to be there next January? Do you think that they will be helpful in moving the mission forward that has been going on for like the last 2 or 3 years?

[01:55:28 - 01:55:49] Speaker: Unknown
So if we're talking my definition of the mission, I think most of them can. And, you know, this is I hate to say stuff like this, but I need people I can work with and I make my judgments based on how and and that's with like me thinking that I have a better idea than somebody, which is probably arrogant to an extent, but I am also cut to me.

[01:55:49 - 01:56:14] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. But also but also I am willing to be wrong and to evolve. Like I got into, a debate with the superintendent about is it better to have tracks or to have academies? And she's, she's like, you know what? You got running tracks? No, I'm sorry. Educational tracks like okay, okay. Vocational technical maybe maybe stem being a track instead of an academy and maybe a performing arts track, because we don't have anything like that right now.

[01:56:14 - 01:56:33] Speaker: Unknown
And maybe expanding those things reached kids who could use them. And she had a different perspective than me, and she made a great argument and, and she said, go see this school and check it out. And I learned. So even though what I'm about to say is going to sound like I'm uncompromising, I will. I'm I'm always happy to learn and be wrong because it could be better next time.

[01:56:33 - 01:56:49] Speaker: Unknown
So I'm going to say that I want two people on the board who I can work with, and I believe that my vision is the correct one. And I laid that out. I'm, I don't I'm not raising taxes at all in my entire four year term, just not doing it. I'm going to bring I'm going to continue to grow preschool.

[01:56:50 - 01:57:24] Speaker: Unknown
So I am I am not compromising on that. I'm going to continue to restore the arts. I am not compromising on that. I am going to utilize our fund reserves to invest it in stable, interest bearing accounts that grow our fund balances without causing any harm to the district. Which means you can help put infrastructure. Yeah. And, and, and I am going to use the money I have saved on capital improvement bullshit to do actual things that are needed, like West Scranton needs a lot of love because for years though, like we're going to close it, so let's not do anything for it.

[01:57:24 - 01:57:42] Speaker: Unknown
So, you know, now imagine all the kids there, they're like, oh, this is like the school that everyone keeps saying they're going to close. Yeah, yeah. And that's not happening. And I'm not closing schools. So I just kind of listed like just seven random things that are not random, but seven things that I have that are values that that you can try to convince me I'm wrong and maybe you will one day, but right now you're not going to.

[01:57:43 - 01:57:59] Speaker: Unknown
So I am going to support the people who can help me enact that agenda or keep enacting that agenda. So do you think there's some in the in the next crop? Yeah. So, Danielle Cheswick is running. She's already you don't have to name if you don't want to. I don't want to. I can endorsement I mean, they're all basically going anyways after the primary.

[01:57:59 - 01:58:15] Speaker: Unknown
No. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was like, he is excellent. She's now she's. No I've never heard of her West side. West side or she's the city business manager of Pittston. Oh. And she knows an MBA. Yeah, I mean she. Yeah. Wait, why does she want this? Why would she want to do this? I don't know, why would I want to do this?

[01:58:15 - 01:58:30] Speaker: Unknown
Why would anyone want to? Because you like a good fight in your end. You really love kids and education. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. So maybe she feels the same way. And Joe Brazil, who is just great. He. I love Joe. Yeah, he was he was the head of it for the district. He knows the district very, very well.

[01:58:30 - 01:58:48] Speaker: Unknown
He's retired. He can devote the time to it. The other knows. He knows probably more about the district. He's probably forgotten more about the district than most people know about the district. Yep. Joe Brazil. Yeah. And John Joe is going to definitely advance. Have you met him yet? Yeah. Okay. Good talk heads. The wrestling program. He's a really good dude.

[01:58:48 - 01:59:01] Speaker: Unknown
He was on the podcast before. Yeah, I like Johnny. He's a really good guy. I could definitely work with him. We have a lot of similar values about what needs to happen with the district. He highly. He was the one. He was very young in his youth. Did he he made the choice that this will not define me.

[01:59:01 - 01:59:21] Speaker: Unknown
And he's he's he's come a long way as a just as a human being. And I found out I taught his brother at Riverside, actually. Well, I'm really I'm really grateful that John's running. I really like John. Help me too. He's overcome so much. Yeah, I think I would like to see him have, like, a, like a more organized effort as a campaign.

[01:59:21 - 01:59:42] Speaker: Unknown
He's on his own, man. Yeah. Help him. I, I text him about events, I try, I think I think he can offer more if he isn't on his own. Please. But whoever you know, or whatever, that can help him. Please help him. Yeah, because he does. Because, number one, he deserves it. He's not one to ask for help.

[01:59:42 - 01:59:56] Speaker: Unknown
He's a good guy. Yeah, well, you can't you can't be in politics, and I. You know what I mean? He's not, you know. No, no, no. If there's a problem, he's there like, yeah, we got to fix this. Yeah, I get that. Well, and actually just I've gotten to know Jana recently and she's like that. She's like, well I don't want to bother people like you.

[01:59:56 - 02:00:10] Speaker: Unknown
You running for office? You gotta bother everybody. You think, I'd be. I'd be curious to talk to her at meet her. Yeah, I it's great love to talk about what you doing in Pittston? Yeah, I know it's such an amazing town. And she's at the Senate. She's her business manager. She said 17 years ago, you're like, oh, Pittston.

[02:00:10 - 02:00:38] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And now you're like, Holy shit. It's like they're crushing it down there. Like they got. I'm not a drinker, but they have. I'm not a drinker, but they have good bars. And I mean, I was just right before I came here, I was at Blind Cap Brewery dropping off some cider. Okay. That it it it it it it it it it, I'm just reading this real quick just to see what's the one thing listeners should take away about Scranton education or just doing the right thing?

[02:00:38 - 02:00:57] Speaker: Unknown
Those are two wildly different things. I think there's three. Okay, so Scranton education or just doing the right thing, what's the what's what's so that Scranton education, they're two different okay. What's yeah what's the one thing listeners should take away about Scranton? Okay. What's the one thing straight okay, I understand or just doing we're talking about an Oxford comma.

[02:00:57 - 02:01:13] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, I got it. So a what? It doesn't matter. It whatever. It's a nerd joke. Yeah. English teacher nerd jokes, and no one's going to get it. Ever. Nobody got it. It's fine. When I was in Britain just arguing, people at Oxford were used. They should never get their own comma. American English uses two. Have you ever heard of the Howard comma?

[02:01:14 - 02:01:30] Speaker: Unknown
I know this is something new that I just found out about. You know, Terrence Howard, the actor? Yeah. He has now a patent on something called the Howard comma. It's insane. We'll talk about it another day. Okay, so. So what do I want people to take away? I kind of get to do the big takeaway thing when I was just talking about it, you know.

[02:01:30 - 02:01:49] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, your all the things that you're doing and no not that just, just that you can affect things positively in your sphere and you know, it's okay to get miserable or upset or disaffected by what's going on nationally, internationally, you know, and it does trickle down here. You can't control those things, but you can control where you're at.

[02:01:49 - 02:02:12] Speaker: Unknown
And that's what I think people should, should maybe start engaging with, and there's so many people out in the community who are involved in the community, like just simple things, like being a baseball coach. That's that's awesome. You know, being on the school board and having a positive impact. That's awesome. You don't have to do the big political thing, but you just you just get involved in your community and control what you can control, affect what you can affect.

[02:02:13 - 02:02:33] Speaker: Unknown
You're never powerless. I think it's pay attention and communicate. One of the biggest that one of the biggest things that oh fuck me then. No, I have no, I mean, but you're doing that. You're doing this thing, but you're talking about the same thing. Yeah. No, I and I just had a good moment to brag. I just, I just think about it more broadly where it's like, you know, if you pay attention to what's going on and you communicate with people.

[02:02:33 - 02:02:57] Speaker: Unknown
And I think that's the biggest problem right now is that this is my concern that this, that, that the sides are so dug into the dirt that no one's willing to talk to people they disagree with. And I like to talk to people I disagree with, not maliciously or to like, win something I want to. How do you view like, for instance, supposedly next week, next next week?

[02:02:57 - 02:03:17] Speaker: Unknown
That was it. That was Friday. I didn't mean to say that, Frankie McCarthy, who's running for City council, him and I basically are the polar opposites of what we believe in to interview him. Yeah, he's coming on next week. That's awesome. Yeah. Next week? Yep. But I've seen I've met him at things and it was great to have conversations like I like him on.

[02:03:17 - 02:03:34] Speaker: Unknown
I don't think he's you know, I think I think that like I think we can have a good dialog. And, you know, I don't think that I'm going to sway his opinion. I don't think he's going to sway mind or who the hell knows? Or maybe one day we'll learn something, or maybe we'll be like, hey, we could combine these two things and they would be awesome together.

[02:03:34 - 02:03:51] Speaker: Unknown
Captain Planet. Yeah. And I think combine. I'm just getting tired of calling a Nazi fascist bigot transphobic flopping. I mean, I'm like, I'm talking to happen on the daily these every day. Every day. My wife has since Trump was elected and I you can check my my social media. I have never once in my life written MAGA ever.

[02:03:51 - 02:04:09] Speaker: Unknown
I've never once written. I'm voting for Donald Trump. I've never once written, you know, he's the anything like if it's like a I'm, I was more a Kennedy guy. So I'm a Big Mac person. Like I'm really big on like, make sure the food that we're eating is clean. Make sure that the air is clean, make sure the water we're drinking is clean.

[02:04:09 - 02:04:32] Speaker: Unknown
That's pretty reasonable. Yeah. Just don't poisonous. Like walk into a grocery store, take a selfie. Look behind you. How many at what percentage of that food is processed? That's a big deal. I think that's a huge deal. I think, and I think and I think it plays into a lot of the reasons why we see children with depression or mental health issues or, you know, like, I'll say it, when I was growing up, people were in shape the way they are.

[02:04:32 - 02:04:51] Speaker: Unknown
And I think it has something to do with the food. You know what I'm talking about. There's some weirdly shaped people out there who, you know, that they're eating terrible, terrible. Yeah. Food, you know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I want I want our children to be healthy. I want them to be happy. I want them to learn. I want them to go outside, kick dirt.

[02:04:51 - 02:05:08] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, good. Don't learn. Yeah. I'm. I'm not a monster. And I know that you know that. But, you know, it's it's kind of hard sometimes when you're like, you know, every day you're you're not only Lady Gaga fan. You're not really. Jesus, wait, wait, wait. Can I make one caveat on her fans called monsters? Yeah, well, she's mama monster.

[02:05:08 - 02:05:27] Speaker: Unknown
Yes, they're a little monsters. I know they're little monsters. Okay, so. But you're not a monster in either. In any. No, but I will say, as much as I think Sam Smith is evil, that one song is a banger. I forget what song I'm talking about in the church. That one take me to, No, no, take Me to Church is a different one.

[02:05:27 - 02:05:42] Speaker: Unknown
It's like where he's dressed like Satan or something like that, and it's really risque. But the beat so good. I think that is that one. Is it? Yeah. I to church was like, how's it go Satan in church community church. No that's Hozier. Oh yeah that's right. Oh yeah, I know it. I have no idea. Hold on. I have no idea what happened.

[02:05:42 - 02:06:04] Speaker: Unknown
I'm going to find it right now because Spotify will let us play this. Oh, I can play this some here too. You can't. You're slower. You're slower than old people having sex unless they're on coke. No. Sam Smith, Sam Smith I said Sam Harris, I'm an idiot. I have no who other these people are. You know Sam Smith, you know this song?

[02:06:04 - 02:06:28] Speaker: Unknown
I'm. Oh, here it is. I don't I don't like new music anymore. It's called unholy. Oh. That appeared on TikTok for, like, a couple months. Oh, yeah, at the Body Shop. You okay? It's so good. You. But there's a lot of weird connotations behind it. I mean, 500 years ago, you'd be like, this is weird. Yeah.

[02:06:28 - 02:06:49] Speaker: Unknown
All right, so, anything else? No. This is. I have to go look at a dog right now. You aren't already know. Shut the fuck up. Keep doing what you're doing, man. I you know how much like I love you, and I love, I'm all love and and I and I love talking to you. I think you have really unique perspectives.

[02:06:49 - 02:07:11] Speaker: Unknown
Perspectives. And I think they're incredibly thought out. I appreciate that, yeah. They're not just, like, try to survive by the night, you know, by the seat of your pants shit. And you really, genuinely do care about children's education, and you do care about the wellness of of anybody Democrat, Republican, independent. I talk to anybody. That's why. That's why I think, like, we need we need more people like you.

[02:07:11 - 02:07:31] Speaker: Unknown
I love the fact that, like, you will stab people in the heart. You know, I think, what do you think's going to happen with, with after tonight? You think the am I going to start getting more hate because I had Tom Borthwick on I don't know shit about. So I'm since I'm not they've really been targeting like McAndrew and Danielle more so than me because I'm targeting.

[02:07:31 - 02:07:53] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah I'm not on the ballot. They're attacking those too. So maybe this is a this is a political bullshit thing. Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah. It's all because they've had an election. They want to make them look bad. So they're they're more worried about. Board members running in elections than they are worried about the safety or education of the children, 100% that they're going to say no because it's going to get them all.

[02:07:53 - 02:08:11] Speaker: Unknown
But it's obvious that's what they're they're going to get the vapors. But yes, that's exactly what's happening. And that's how they operate. And and it's politics. So I don't blame them. They want to accomplish their political goals. They'll do it. The shittiest means possible. And, and unlike them, like I said, I'll stab you in the heart before stab you in the back.

[02:08:11 - 02:08:29] Speaker: Unknown
The biggest hope I can have from this is that if they did watch it, they might have a little perspective and maybe you are more hopeful than I. I, you know, you know that I've. You've always accused me of that. And seeing like two nights of a person, I hope that they'd be like, oh, this is, this is the perception that people and I should talk to them.

[02:08:29 - 02:08:51] Speaker: Unknown
And I'm going to tell you the first thing I did when I won the election, I invited every board member who was going to be on there to coffee, every single one. And I said, I'd love to sit down over a coffee or a drink, and I want to know how I can help you accomplish your priorities. There are only three who didn't respond Gil Martin, Fox and Yanni.

[02:08:51 - 02:09:07] Speaker: Unknown
I didn't respond at all, didn't even respond, and I went out with the rest of them. Actually. Jani responded by saying, don't ever text me again. That was her response. Yeah, yeah, this is who this is who we deal with. I went out for tea with Katherine. I think she's really sweet. She's not a bad person. She just.

[02:09:07 - 02:09:29] Speaker: Unknown
I don't know how she got caught up in that. That's what I'm saying. I really don't actually think she's a bad person. I. I think her compatriot is just rotten. I think I think people I think people try to manipulate user. I think that's I think that's what happens. And I think and I think that like, like I said, man, I really like her, you know, and I guess it's it's not not what I saw.

[02:09:29 - 02:09:46] Speaker: Unknown
What I've seen it the last 2 or 3 meetings has been like very weird behavior. Yes. And I and I can't put my finger on why it's all, they're all they're mad that a flier went out and, and, one of the lawyers at the new law firm had a client that was responsible for it. This gentleman won't respond.

[02:09:47 - 02:10:02] Speaker: Unknown
You're not going to say who your client is, but they hate that. The idea was that they were made to look bad. And it was funny because there's not one untrue thing on the flier. So it was so this is this is this is so it's so, so basically what you're saying is, is this is kind of like revenge.

[02:10:02 - 02:10:22] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Oh yeah. It's a political and person. So it's a political vendetta that they made personal. That's exactly what it is. Using taxpayer money, using taxpayer money to engage in it. It's a good way to end don't you think. They I that all right. Well, thanks for having me. Thanks for always coming here to the podcast studio. Thanks.

[02:10:22 - 02:10:37] Speaker: Unknown
Thanks for the clarity. And turn the black light on. All right. Tom Borthwick, Scranton school director. Wonderful entrepreneur, restaurateur. All around good guy. Cares about kids, cares about people, is a humanist at at heart. And Dan, you want to say it. What do week

[02:10:48 - 02:10:53] Speaker: Unknown
I shoot I chewed my pen the whole time. Oh that's I hadn't done that in like years.

[02:10:53 - 02:11:07] Speaker: Unknown
I really, really enjoyed it. Do you feel good? Yeah. I like ate that little thing off the back. That's beautiful. All right. I'm gonna put I'm going to put that at the tail after the end credits that chewed my pen, I did. Drew my pen. Thanks, Tom. Yeah. My pleasure.