Life22

Kevin: 00:27

Hey, gang. It's Kevin here at life twenty two. It's another beautiful day. Well, I mean, it's the same beautiful day as the previous podcast if you haven't listened to it yet. It's about our show expansion.

Kevin: 00:41

So, anyways, if you're just tuning into the show, we are, live here from only in New York. Well, won't be I'm live currently as I'm recording, if that counts. As you can hear, there's beautiful birds outside. It is February still. It is the February, and there's a bird outside.

Kevin: 01:02

It's great. It's beautiful. It's beautiful morning. And so with that, I'd like to listen to the bird for a second. Oh, okay.

Kevin: 01:12

No. Rabbit hole. So if you're just listening to the show, we just announced that we are now expanding to doing audio as audio only as well. So you'll still get your favorite vlog, your favorite video podcast with Kevin on YouTube, but you can also check out the audio version on transistor.fm. And from there, it'll distribute out to all your favorite places, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Google Cast.

Kevin: 01:39

It's it'll be on, you know, Spreaker and all the indexes and Spotify. I think I said that one already. Apple Podcasts. You just you you name it. It's most likely there, and you get to hear this beautiful this beautiful not quite that beautiful songbird voice, but you'll hear my beautiful songbird voice.

Kevin: 01:58

If, you know, if Brad Garrett became that songbird, probably would have a voice like me because I'm pretty sure, like, the low end of it would this would be, like, the lowest. Anyways, more rabbit holes from your favorite ADHD host, Kevin Doherty here. And so what I wanna do is I wanna kick off most of you out there probably love football. Right? Most of my local, Olianders, got got pissed off when the Bills didn't make it to the Super Bowl, and it was so close.

Kevin: 02:26

And you're like, curses you Bills. And, you know, that was exciting and all, but I don't get into football. Like, I do politics. Local politics specifically. Like, I I I enjoyed watching the national stuff.

Kevin: 02:41

You know, I had a team I rooted for. I ate popcorn. I I sat around on election night watching coverage, and, like, I went out and voted. I got to participate. You know what I mean?

Kevin: 02:53

That's like tailgating. There is tailgating that goes on with elections. It's just really cool stuff. And my favorite is the local politics Because local politics gets really into the weeds, and it affects you directly. And you can get involved.

Kevin: 03:08

You can be a player on the field. Like, you can be a coach. You can be a, you know, a season ticket holder. You know, you could you could, you know, donate to the team. You can buy merch.

Kevin: 03:21

Like, there's just a lot of stuff that just makes it so much, like like, national sports. And and that's one of my favorite parts. So this episode is specifically talking about our local politics. We have, this year is a mayoral race, and then we've got, we have aldermen that are up, Wards, two, four, six, and seven are all up this year. I believe they did the divvy, on the aldermen races based on population of the wards, not square footage.

Kevin: 04:00

And, you know, it kinda stuck with even numbers, and then they're like, wow, there's still, like, it was, like, I think it was must have been awfully, you know, off base. And so they decided to switch it and lump seven in there too, which I believe 7 has the largest square, the largest next to seven or next to six. Six and seven, I believe, are the largest, you know, land size, but population size, I don't I don't believe seven has a large population. I think it's mostly, like, land. Where 6 has a large square footage, and it's, like, not as densely populated as, like, four, but, because I believe four is the four is the smallest, if I remember correctly.

Kevin: 04:44

I'd have to look at a map. But, anyways, going down another rabbit hole there, guys. So this is the mayoral race, and this stuff is awesome. Right? So, as most of you know, I'm a registered Republican.

Kevin: 04:58

I've been a Republican since I was a little kid. My dad was a Republican. It's kind of like, it's like it's like being Catholic. You know, I I was baptized Republican, you know. You know?

Kevin: 05:14

But, yeah. No. I remember being a little kid and my dad would, like, we had we had Bob Dole, Bob Dole signs in our yard and, you know, just art piler for mayor. Like, this is, this is, you know, New Milford, Connecticut. And I remember being we had village fair days, which was our, like, local, fair that we would have downtown, and you'd get, like, you know, traveling vendors, but you'd still have your local vendors and local shops.

Kevin: 05:44

And then you had people from outlying areas that had shops and people from three or four towns over that had shops, and they would come. And then the Republicans and the Dems, they all had their own they had their own infighting, they had their own, fight of feuds against each other, and they also had their own booths at the village fair days. And being a little kid, you know, we as kids, we used to walk around and get free stuff. Right? They would hand out free tote bags and free pens.

Kevin: 06:07

You could go to the charter communication booth and get free pencils. Oh, man. It was a blast. And I remember being a little kid, and my dad was I don't believe at one point, he may have been the head of the Republican committee in town. He was, the chairman of the board of finance, which was an elected position, and he got it, like, eighteen years running or something.

Kevin: 06:27

It was a it was a large span of time. My mom sat on the board of education, which back then it was political as it should have been because there is an election involved and politics are downstream of culture. And we'll get more into that into this show, because these shows are my rant, so we'll go down rabbit holes. And if there's anything that you ever want me to stop and specify on I know these are recorded, so you're not gonna give me a stop mid show. But what I can do is I can always, like I can reply to comments and, and or do a show that talks about the topic that you're like, can you give us a little bit more information on this or that?

Kevin: 07:00

What are your thoughts on, you know, why school boards, are political even though people are like, oh, you you gotta keep the politics out of school. It's no. That's well, because that's because if we keep one side will keep the politics out of school, and the other side won't. And then all of a sudden, it's like, well, you just be putting politics in the school. It's like, no.

Kevin: 07:18

No. No. You've changed the culture of the school, and now we're seeing the politics of it because politics are downstream from culture as Andrew Breitbart once said, or not just once, but many times. So that all said ready for it, folks? Okay.

Kevin: 07:39

So this, we have the incumbent, for the mayoral races, William j Elio, and he's been jeez. What is this? This this would be his fifth term, I believe. They're four year stints, and, and he's he's looking for reelection. And then I wanna advise everybody that, like, if you're watching social media, you're listening to social media, like, the pulse that you get from, like, a Facebook group or Facebook in general is not, is not the pulse of of a race.

Kevin: 08:16

Like, if you look, like, every race that I've ever won, you would have thought that I was gonna just get my butt handed to me, and I would win handily if you based it on social media. And so, and if you if you base the race that the the last race that I was in that I actually anticipate, I was I I knew I probably wouldn't win, and and you would you'd think it, and you're like, you know, I was hopeful, but it was one of those if you looked at social media, you'd be like, oh, man. Kevin's got these guys in the bag. And it's like, social media is a zero sum predictor of how political elections are gonna go. So I just wanna throw that out there right now.

Kevin: 08:57

They're a good way to see information on a candidate if you're interested. It's a way to get the word out there, but the people that you see and the infighting in the comment section, that is that is one person's opinion, and it usually is, as Richard Nixon said, not the silent majority. Right? So the silent majority is a group of people who don't typically voice their opinions. They have opinions.

Kevin: 09:19

They keep them to themselves. That is most people. That is like public speaking. There's the same reason that most people are afraid of public speaking. There's a lot of people that have opinions, and they'll have them they'll express their opinion one on one with you, but they will not express their opinion to the paper, out in public.

Kevin: 09:35

You know, that's like, there's a lot of people that just will not they just won't do it. They don't want they don't want other people to think think differently of them because of their opinion, which I don't agree with. I don't I don't think that's I don't think that's a an appropriate approach to life, but some people just like to keep their head down and live their life. And that's very much what you'll see, and then you just see these you'll either see anywhere from a range of very opinionated people to complete wackadoos just posting online, and then you're like, oh, man. This is gonna this is gonna be this is gonna be the downfall of this person or that person.

Kevin: 10:09

So, there's there's different ways to to judge the the the pulse of a candidate or candidacy or a current administration and things like that. I do know that, I was speaking with somebody the other day, and they they said, you know, like, the longer you're in politics, you don't really gain more friends. The longer you're in it, you only have a tendency to develop enemies. So with that said, I do think that, the the incumbent, Bill Ileo, is going to have a tough race ahead of him every time he's gonna run from, you know, from after his first run. It eventually it gets more progressively and progressively worse because that that enemy pile builds up.

Kevin: 10:56

And that and that's something to, you know, consider. In the last couple races, like, he he, like I'm pretty sure he ran unopposed. Well, I say unopposed. He ran unopposed last time, and it was only because, like, the people that were running were, like, newbies. They had no idea how to do the political circuit.

Kevin: 11:11

They didn't have any support structure to teach them how to do it. They don't understand the way things get done. You go door to door like you do. You do these things. They didn't do it.

Kevin: 11:21

They just figured social media was gonna carry them through, and I was sorely mistaken they were. So but I do wanna point out, like, you've got that. You, you have that, and then you also have, so I I think, so Bill's running on the Republican ticket. And then on Monday, there was a release by Amy Sherburne. And I wanna say so I was gonna say Amy Black Sherburne.

Kevin: 11:48

So her name her her maiden name is Black. They owned Reed's, Eads wallpaper. And, they were her parents were constituents of mine. I never never had an issue with well, I mean, there's always issues, you know. Right?

Kevin: 12:03

Like, you like, you get a complaint and somebody doesn't think you're doing their complaint, fair enough, or you you pull a neighborhood and, you know, somebody's opinion, you know, doesn't match the majority, and then you just go with the majority opinion of, you know, your guidance on what you should do, as their elected official and, you know, then people are, you know, speak their voice about it, but it is what it is. Anyways, no. So, you know, I knew I knew her parents. They were they were good people, you know, things like that. I I think I spoke to her once maybe.

Kevin: 12:31

She owned Union Tea for a while, which was like an incubator project on North Union Street. And she's running on the Republican line, and it gets spicier because she's running as she's been cross endorsed by the Democrats. And, so she's, so she's gonna be forcing Bill and depending on the petitions. If everybody gets a petition out there, anybody who's running, if they get a petition and they get enough signatures and a healthy amount above the bare minimum, and so that you can't contest any signatures that are on it, any duplicates, things like that, they won't throw out your petition. If your petition passes, you would force a primary.

Kevin: 13:34

So, and essentially, you could force a primary with any, any registered member of that party could force a primary. And so that's, and and even if you are endorsed by an opposing party, you still have to get their petition signatures done. So that's a little caveat there. So, just, you know, very exciting stuff. And then I think it was Tuesday evening, I caught word that, Jared Iseman is now running on the Republican ticket.

Kevin: 14:10

Well, at least he announced his candidacy. And Jared is a Jared is a firefighter with the city of Olean, so he's, most likely, he's probably going to try to get the the backing of the the fire the, you know, the firefighters and the the their families and the possible union, which is, you know, union union endorsements are always tough to get, but, you know, it's one of those things. Sometimes they wanna stay out of it, like, if you lose, we're just gonna get, like, vilified for by the next administration because people think there's, like, there's a lot more grudges than there are. And, you know, but so Jared's running. He's running on a Republican ticket, which means it's gonna be a three way primary if all three contenders bring their, bring their petitions to the table.

Kevin: 14:59

So that's that's going to add that's going to add, some levity, and it, it definitely, like, when you have more competition, it definitely makes this exciting. So no matter who I want to win, and I'll give you guys my political takes, not in this episode, but, because we've also been into contact with a a lot of different candidates. And, before we formally have anybody on the show, I wanna make sure every candidate in every race, has the opportunity to speak. And, we'll be doing one on one, you're doing one on one interviews. Maybe we'll host a debate, as given that we are the, like, the only, besides the news, you know, the the newspaper, or the online papers.

Kevin: 15:42

We are the only, like, actual, you know, news channel in Olean. So, these are all the exciting things that are coming up, and it's very exciting for me because, while I might have my opinion on an episode of this channel, I will also be doing, fair, good questioning. I'll try to keep the bad the bias out of it. I my goal is to not be like, you know, like, how, you know, the legacy media decides to, you know, give you their spin. If I'm gonna give you a, you know, if if I give you my my opinion in one in one episode, I, you know, I can give you my opinion on it.

Kevin: 16:19

But when it comes to interviewing the candidate and asking the questions, I wanna try to keep that as unbiased as possible. So, you know, this year also we in Cataraugus County, we have a district attorney's race. Up until yesterday, the district attorney's race was, one-sided or was two sided. It there was so there was, there was, Ashley Smith who seems to be the party, who seemed to be the party favorite, amongst the the elected officials in in in office at the county level. And then there was Preston Marshall who, if if any of you read the, the Olean Star article yesterday, and then you became aware of it, he had a fall, at his home and he he had a he had, like, a a spine injury or a neck injury.

Kevin: 17:11

And, and so he's got surgery, he's got recovery, and he's just like, you know what? Getting 2,000 signatures, trying to do, you know, walk door to door, get my name out there. I would be doing my people I would be doing the people a disservice by allowing, you know, by by doing something, you know, by by trying to run. And, while there were a lot of people that have actually approached me about having him on the show, and I told him the invitation still stands to come on the show, because there seems to be a bit of a a bit of a conundrum here with just, the politics of it. You know, and there's there's a lot of people on either side.

Kevin: 17:52

Right? So even if you have a candidate who's unopposed, you're still gonna have people that don't like that candidate. They just don't they you're not gonna change their mind. Right? You're you're always gonna have that person who loves Trump, the person who hates Trump, the person who thinks, you know, doesn't like Joe Biden, the person who loves Joe Biden.

Kevin: 18:11

It's one of those you're just always gonna have it. So anyways, back into the Olean mayoral races, and actually well, before we jump back into that, let me go right into what we have for, the alderman races. So we have two. Right now, the current, the current alderman is, Jason Panas, and, I believe he's just, I believe he is stepping down. This is his middle year.

Kevin: 18:32

So, in December 31, he will no longer be, the alderman, and whoever wins the November election will take, office. He, I was gonna say so. As of right now, I don't believe there's any formal candidate for the Republicans. The Democrats have been pretty close to the vest on their alderman candidates. So unless they're an incumbent, I haven't been privy to the names that have been released, but I will be doing more research into that.

Kevin: 19:02

And all of these alderman will also be getting, you know, spot on the show to to, you know, tell me, you know, what if you are the incumbent, tell me what you've done. If you are, you know, is there things you're gonna do? Where you're gonna add? Are you gonna how are you gonna change this and that of the local politics? You know, we also have extended invitations to, currently sitting aldermen who maybe don't have a race up, and, you know, the temperature of the room is that a lot of interest interested in transparency, and let's let's have a conversation.

Kevin: 19:32

Let's talk about it. So, so everybody will be getting, interviewed on the show, and and talked to and, you know, what what are your takes? What what's what upcoming projects? Let's, you know, this is local politics. We wanna know about it.

Kevin: 19:43

Right? And then that also just like knowing your sports team, knowing who's got an injury, knowing who's, any of this stuff, you know, that's, you're gonna have those those times where you're just gonna, you're you're it it gives you a better feel. Right? So whether whether you have money on the race or not, you know what I mean? Like, it lets you know how your team is gonna do, and, you know, and it and it's all about it's all about the training.

Kevin: 20:09

It's all about the legwork, getting out there, and, and going door to door. So but that's Ward 2. Ward 4, that was that's my stomping grounds. That's my alma mater. That's where I I currently reside is Ward 4, and, right now is Sonia McCall who, she's she's on the Democratic Party, and she, she proceeded?

Kevin: 20:35

Yes. She proceeded me. So versus preceded. Yes. She she proceeded me.

Kevin: 20:40

So she came after I I had stepped down. There was a there was a there was like a fill in. I believe Steve Barnard stood in while I had stepped down, and then, she, she won the next, race. And, I'm trying to think what else there was. They, she's got I don't believe the Republicans have a candidate yet.

Kevin: 21:06

Obviously, she's the incumbent, so she'd be the Democratic, candidate. And then let's see. Ward 6 used to be Nate Smith. That's that's the, like, you know, the the legacy the legacy of Ward 6 was the the Nate Smith, legacy, at least in my era. And then, he stepped down, was replaced by, like, two or three different replacements throughout the time.

Kevin: 21:28

They just, you know, they step down for whatever reason or another. And then, and then Vernon Robinson got selected, and he's he's been holding on to it ever since. I believe this is this will be his he was appointed. He won. He won again, I believe believe this.

Kevin: 21:44

So this will be his third election that he's actually his his, it'll be over his fourth you know, it'll be going into his fourth term because you still have that placeholder. There won't be a full term, but he's got that partial term beforehand. So I believe this will be his third time actually running and being elected. And he is an independent. So people this is the this is a misnomer.

Kevin: 22:08

People say, independent. Right? Like, I am independent. Well, but then there there was, for the longest time in New York, an independence party. So people would select independence thinking that they were independent.

Kevin: 22:18

I can't remember if he is a NOP, a no official party, or if he is a if he is a party affiliate or if he has an Independence Party affiliation, which the the Independence Party on the last, the last major election was, kinda disbanded. So you only had, like, the the working families, you had, Republicans, Democrats, of course, and then you had conservatives, and the libertarians fell off a lot, they got knocked off in the last gubernatorial race. The the second to last gubernatorial race, they got knocked off, to the libertarians. And now the libertarians fell off during the last gubernatorial race, and so I believe there is another party. There's, like, there's always, like, four or five.

Kevin: 23:03

But, so but I know he typically gets the support, and I believe he is the, the Democratic incumbent or the Democratic endorsement as the incumbent. I don't believe he has a party affiliation. And then I know he was seeking the Republicans, and I don't believe the Republicans have a candidate named yet. And then, we'll be diving into that one as well. And then we also have the, we have, Ward 7, which is, Dave Anastasia, and he's the Democratic incumbent.

Kevin: 23:38

So then you have, the Democrats incumbent, and then you have, the Republicans, I don't believe, have chosen a candidate to run or cross endorse in Ward 7. So those are the alderman races, and then to get back to the mayoral race. So yesterday, I wanna say morning, late Tuesday evening, if you count that, is a Democratic candidate came forward. It was, Robert Buchanan or, as we'd like to call him, Bobby the Canon Buchanan. Most of you probably know Bobby.

Kevin: 24:13

He was, he was a fighter. He he got into jiu jitsu fighting and, you know, UFC fighting. And, Bobby made it to a UFC match, and he knocked the guy out in one punch. That's why they call him Bobby the Cannon Buchanan. Obviously, just like Dana White and everybody else, you know, you start having, like, you know, health deterioration issues, and you can't just beat yourself or let other people beat you up forever.

Kevin: 24:38

So Bobby, Bobby no longer is a UFC fighter, and he is our the water distribution, meter guy for the city. He heads up that division for the city, and, I know he put his hat in the rain yesterday as a Democratic candidate, which is also very exciting because, so Amy Sherburne is authorized on that line if she gets her petition signatures, but she's not a dem. So which means that, like, she's because she was already authorized, she's entitled to hold that, even being a non candidate. They can't, like, rescind it now because of the process. So Bobby is now if he gets his signatures in, would force a primary between a Republican and a Democrat on the Democratic primary, which is kind of it's spicy.

Kevin: 25:25

This is this is the stuff that, man, I just I just get into. This is just super spicy. It's, you know, it is it is fun. So that said, that's that's what's coming up, guys. So those are the news new news releases.

Kevin: 25:38

We'll get, I'm sure we'll have more updates tomorrow. We'll have, we'll get some more invitations out there, more candidates to to come with us, and, we'll see you guys next time on life 22. This is Kevin signing out, and, would this be in the political race? First and down, maybe? Alright, guys.

Kevin: 26:00

See you next time.