Life22

Day 13,492 - Transparency in Full Force.mp3
Transcript
00:00:10 Kevin
Well, good morning.
00:00:11 Kevin
It's Kevin here, life 22 and it is Thursday morning.
00:00:19 Kevin
So as all of you can tell, if you watch the podcast last night, the interview with Vernon Robinson Junior, I did not take his advice and take a break.
00:00:30 Kevin
At least not for this week. I wanted to keep it consistent. If I decide to drop down to two or three days a week for doing The Daily podcast, then then so be it.
00:00:38 Kevin
But I figured I'd at least keep consistent this week.
00:00:42 Kevin
So guys, we are.
00:00:44 Kevin
I just wanted to kind of do a quick update.
00:00:47 Kevin
Is.
00:00:47 Kevin
This isn't going.
00:00:48 Kevin
Hopefully this isn't going to be a long podcast this morning.
00:00:51 Kevin
There wasn't anything like major on the front.
00:00:56 Kevin
I know the I know the 14760 group has been busy for the last six hours.
00:01:03 Kevin
But yeah, if you haven't seen it already, I encourage you to go online and watch to either our YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcasts and catch the the Vernon Robinson Junior podcast where we interview the Ward 6 incumbent.
00:01:18 Kevin
And we kind of talk about he's a he's an incumbent, so it's easier to have a conversation than it is like a newcomer.
00:01:25 Kevin
Where I have to like formulate like a whole bunch of just basic questions and get to know the person because most of the time if you're not an incumbent, I don't probably know who you are.
00:01:35 Kevin
So.
00:01:37 Kevin
So it was.
00:01:38 Kevin
It was a lot nicer knowing having known Vernon and you know, knowing a lot of his background and how he kind of rules on stuff to be able to ask some of the more in depth questions, but while still stepping back and allowing like him to kind of.
00:01:52 Kevin
How he would handle certain.
00:01:54 Kevin
Just so if you don't know him, you can get to know him.
00:01:57 Kevin
And that is.
00:01:59 Kevin
I think that's the great expose that we're starting to show on the channel where like you get to meet the politician, right?
00:02:05 Kevin
Get to meet the person you're voting for you, even if you're not voting for this.
00:02:08 Kevin
At least you can see how the Council's made-up or could be made-up, depending on who wins the election. Obviously I don't.
00:02:16 Kevin
I don't believe Vernon is.
00:02:19 Kevin
Has a has competition, even though he like me, like when I was in when I was in that position, I invited it so.
00:02:28 Kevin
But yeah, we we had Vernon on the show last night.
00:02:31 Kevin
That's that podcast is already.
00:02:33 Kevin
It's been up since last night about 9:00, so if you would like to go catch that, that's great.
00:02:41 Kevin
We recommend it.
00:02:43 Kevin
And then if you have, I'm trying to think we we've got.
00:02:49 Kevin
We've been in contact with two of the mayoral candidates to schedule to firm up the schedule for their interviews, and then.
00:03:00 Kevin
One another incumbent.
00:03:03 Kevin
For the Alderman races, so it's.
00:03:08 Kevin
We'll we'll keep you posted as that progresses.
00:03:11 Kevin
Like I said, not a long.
00:03:12 Kevin
I didn't see too many major news articles in the only in Star.
00:03:16 Kevin
I did catch one on the 14760 which I know me and Vernon touched on it last night which was.
00:03:23 Kevin
Transparency in the school boards.
00:03:27 Kevin
They, you know, they don't have the same transparency that your.
00:03:30 Kevin
You know your local common Council has, with the the meetings being broadcast, especially because they don't zoom.
00:03:37 Kevin
And.
00:03:37 Kevin
Anymore because you know covid's.
00:03:41 Kevin
But, and they're all in person. But I I do feel like man, like I don't have time to go to a school board meeting. If you talk to any of the school board, the people that work at the school, the people that.
00:03:52 Kevin
Continue to you know that are on the school board. They'll tell you like and. And that's what I keep telling other people is that if you're on the school board like.
00:04:05 Kevin
For all the people out there who plan on running for school board like you think that you're going to change ideology. That all comes from the state, so you're not going to do that.
00:04:14 Kevin
Are a lot of things you can do.
00:04:17 Kevin
Slowly, incrementally at the base level, but you're not going to change the states like mentality when it comes to this is what a student is like.
00:04:26 Kevin
If their goal is to do something you don't want them to do, your best bet is to pull your kids out because you're not going to stop them.
00:04:34 Kevin
If you're, you know if you're trying to, you know.
00:04:37 Kevin
I I can use a talking point on all sides. Like if you think that the district is trying to, you know.
00:04:45 Kevin
What do they call that like?
00:04:50 Kevin
Well, if they're trying to indoctrinate your kid in one ideology over another, like the state's already picked its ideology, like you don't, you're not going to change it.
00:04:58 Kevin
If it's, if it's secular and like they want to teach your kids not to believe in in whatever religion that you're in like.
00:05:07 Kevin
They're they're like they they don't like, not like. I remember when I was a kid, right?
00:05:11 Kevin
Schools would like not talk about it, right?
00:05:15 Kevin
And prior to that, they would talk about it.
00:05:17 Kevin
Were like, well, we're a Christian society.
00:05:19 Kevin
You know, we were founded on Christian values and you know.
00:05:24 Kevin
And it was like oh.
00:05:25 Kevin
So you know, if you weren't Christian, you just shrugged and went along with it and justice understood it.
00:05:31 Kevin
Dennis Prager actually has a long.
00:05:33 Kevin
Excerpt on this like.
00:05:37 Kevin
So I always recommend checking out Prager University for any of that. Kind of.
00:05:41 Kevin
You know it's, which is good stuff, but it's one of those. Like when I was in school, they didn't teach any of that.
00:05:47 Kevin
You know, like they didn't teach religion.
00:05:48 Kevin
They just didn't talk about.
00:05:50 Kevin
You weren't allowed to say it like people still had beliefs like you come in and like.
00:05:56 Kevin
It now it almost seems like they have a different like the state itself has a secular religion and they are like enforcing it like if you come to school with your values, they almost don't like you could like pray if it's part of your religion at a certain.
00:06:09 Kevin
Of day, or if it's before a meal like.
00:06:13 Kevin
You know the state itself, like it doesn't happen in every local school.
00:06:16 Kevin
But the state itself like does not want to see that like that. There is a mentality that the state has that they might not like put in writing, but they they kind of push.
00:06:26 Kevin
And it might not be local. You know, at our local school level, but you hear.
00:06:30 Kevin
And you see documents coming out of Albany that are like pushing like an agenda.
00:06:34 Kevin
You're not going to change that on the local school board.
00:06:37 Kevin
If you know if you think that they're going to start putting litter boxes in in classrooms for kids that are identifying as cats, right.
00:06:45 Kevin
That's the rumor that's going around. It's unfounded.
00:06:48 Kevin
I'm not saying.
00:06:50 Kevin
That it's not happening because as of like I know as of recently with the most recent presidential election, a lot of the states are backing off on this issue.
00:06:59 Kevin
But as of like two years ago, there were government officials out of Albany saying that they encouraged it.
00:07:05 Kevin
So it's like.
00:07:06 Kevin
You know, and it's like, well, they're the guys who fund.
00:07:08 Kevin
So if we want to get funding, we better take all of their encouragement.
00:07:13 Kevin
Like you're a young kid. You want to try to. Even if you don't believe what exactly the way your parents see the world.
00:07:21 Kevin
If they're funding your college a lot of times you just nod your head and go along that, and that's kind of that same. That scenario applies to the a lot of the school districts, and it might not be as as much in the school board members as it.
00:07:33 Kevin
Like you know, people that are making executive decisions to present things.
00:07:38 Kevin
For funding to the school board, right?
00:07:41 Kevin
So there's a lot of that.
00:07:44 Kevin
There's always an ideology, right?
00:07:47 Kevin
I want to say it was 10 years ago when I was getting like it was 15 years ago when I was like immersing.
00:07:55 Kevin
No, it was about 10 years.
00:07:56 Kevin
I was beginning to kind of make my way into the political scene locally, and I would hear about different people.
00:08:03 Kevin
Like that worked for.
00:08:04 Kevin
You know, electrical unions and and and plumbing unions and all these different unions that were.
00:08:09 Kevin
The state.
00:08:10 Kevin
And if the governor was, if you had just joined the Union, you switched your party before you officially.
00:08:17 Kevin
If you had, if you got the acceptance over the phone, you had to come in and accept your position at the Union. If the governor of the of of the state, if you're registered Republican, the governor of the state is a Democrat. You ready? Register.
00:08:29 Kevin
Because.
00:08:31 Kevin
There was a large push among amongst it, like you will be vilified and.
00:08:36 Kevin
That that was like I've know it never happened to me, but it was like when I when I like knew.
00:08:42 Kevin
Like 9 out of 10 people that I know that were part of the Union had brought that to like, yeah, I just joined the Union. I had changed my party and I'm like, really why?
00:08:50 Kevin
Because the people at the Union told me I had to or, you know, they don't get funding from the state or other union members are gonna think that you're a defector or.
00:08:58 Kevin
You know the governor.
00:09:00 Kevin
You know, do certain things like the same thing I heard happens at the school. Like if you were, if you were upper management or something like that, you had to change.
00:09:08 Kevin
Party. And then when like I think that kind of fell by the wayside, I think that kind of got blown open.
00:09:14 Kevin
Probably made a stink about it and kind of shed a little sunshine on that kind of situation.
00:09:20 Kevin
And I think that that kind of fell by the wayside because there was a lot of people that I knew that were Republican that you start seeing change parties.
00:09:28 Kevin
And so I'm wondering if that was, you know, either a stand that they were taking or but.
00:09:35 Kevin
Just just to kind of throw that out there.
00:09:37 Kevin
Convey.
00:09:39 Kevin
The kind of mentality that, like larger governments do right like.
00:09:45 Kevin
If you.
00:09:46 Kevin
Throw a stone from the shore into a, you know, into a lake, right? Like.
00:09:51 Kevin
It's going to make a ripple, you know, it might not have a huge effect.
00:09:56 Kevin
But if as you get higher as you get higher in elevation, you throw that stone, the ripples are going to be bigger and grander, and that's how government works, right?
00:10:04 Kevin
Like all the power is supposed to be at the base.
00:10:08 Kevin
Right, like the local people making local decisions. And then it's like, OK.
00:10:11 Kevin
We we do want to make.
00:10:13 Kevin
Murder, like the, you know, the capital crime of the land, like, you know, 'cause, we hold human life over all.
00:10:21 Kevin
So it's like we want to make murder a federal, you know, or a state thing, something that's above the local municipality. So you don't have to worry about.
00:10:29 Kevin
Like yeah, why would?
00:10:30 Kevin
Why would every state have every municipality have to rule?
00:10:34 Kevin
If murder or theft are actually crimes, right, you would just have, like, that's a blanket like.
00:10:40 Kevin
Thing.
00:10:42 Kevin
So then.
00:10:42 Kevin
So yeah, you.
00:10:44 Kevin
But the problem is, by the time you get up to the highest point of government and you toss the smallest of stones you could obliterate, you could pretty much displace all the water in that lake with you know.
00:10:55 Kevin
With a slight with the same size stone, you have to use a smaller stone because you're from a higher elevation to make small change.
00:11:03 Kevin
It is exponential when you're at that, you make one little pen stroke at, you know, at the federal level.
00:11:10 Kevin
Where at the local level you might be unheard with. You know thousands of Penn strokes at the federal level. You make one pen stroke on some arbitrary document.
00:11:20 Kevin
It could repairably affect millions of people.
00:11:25 Kevin
So but if you want to, if you're on the school board and you want to, or if you're going to be on the school board, you have to understand that you are not going to make the ideological changes that you want.
00:11:34 Kevin
Not going to be able to.
00:11:37 Kevin
It's it's even the same thing, but not to the same degree as the the Common Council. You're going to vote on rules, right?
00:11:46 Kevin
The state has a minimum standard like you can't let your grass get.
00:11:48 Kevin
Just throwing it out.
00:11:49 Kevin
It might be 4 inches, but 6 inches is the standard, or 8 inches right. If your grass gets over 8 inches or 6 inches.
00:11:56 Kevin
That's the state code property maintenance code.
00:12:01 Kevin
For grass where you can have a code change that is more restrictive.
00:12:07 Kevin
You can't be less.
00:12:08 Kevin
You can't say, well, we're we're the Pro B state or town and we're promoting grass in residential neighborhoods to be.
00:12:18 Kevin
2 feet 2 feet because you know we're.
00:12:22 Kevin
City, USA or whatever the the reason is or we're trying to promote bees or whatever.
00:12:27 Kevin
You can't make a rule that undermines the state unless the your rule existed first.
00:12:33 Kevin
So it's like.
00:12:35 Kevin
That it's one of those things is these overarching strokes of the larger governments that come down and and so like, yes, even at the Common Council, you're limited on what you can do. But at the state because the state pretty much runs the Department of Ed and I.
00:12:50 Kevin
Like the school board is literally just a way for the state to make you feel like you have some control.
00:12:57 Kevin
They're teaching your kids, but you don't like. I really think that that's that's it's. It's not just will, it exists.
00:13:05 Kevin
It exists for a reason, but it doesn't exist for the reason that you think it does.
00:13:09 Kevin
We're a fair and economic, you know, a fair and equitable society.
00:13:12 Kevin
Know it's.
00:13:14 Kevin
It's it's because the state has all the power, but they want to leave you with the illusion that you have freedom and you have choice and and in in regards of the Department of Education, you have none like.
00:13:25 Kevin
You could go to prison if you don't let your kids go to the institution they forced.
00:13:32 Kevin
Maybe you're done into vaccines, but if they, you know you have to send your kid, you have to vaccinate your kids.
00:13:39 Kevin
That's.
00:13:39 Kevin
Like if they put down a rule like, you could go to jail for not having your kids because and the other thing is it's like, well, yeah, we mandated this vaccine and.
00:13:48 Kevin
You want your kid to go to school, you have to do it and if?
00:13:51 Kevin
Don't send it if you just say, well, it's, you know, against my religion. Whatever have what have you and you.
00:13:55 Kevin
Send your kid to school.
00:13:57 Kevin
You go to jail for not sending your kid to school, not educating your child, so it's like.
00:14:02 Kevin
It's it's a, you know, that's how they muscle you.
00:14:06 Kevin
It's the same way back in the what was it the the 80's. The the federal government was pushing a drinking age of 21 to just be across the board.
00:14:16 Kevin
Wanted every some states didn't have them.
00:14:18 Kevin
Some states were all over the.
00:14:20 Kevin
You know, it's like, well, you could drink, it's, you know.
00:14:23 Kevin
Drink at 18.
00:14:25 Kevin
You.
00:14:26 Kevin
You could smoke at 18 like there's all these pushes well and lobby groups at federal levels, which the lobbyists are, you know, are, you know, grew in strength, but.
00:14:38 Kevin
It they like, the federal government would withhold, like I remember being a kid and my dad explaining me how big government worked. And he was like, listen, he's like when in in like.
00:14:50 Kevin
Like the 1980s, he goes. They changed the IT became.
00:14:54 Kevin
It wasn't a federal drinking age of 21, but every state had to get on board or they lost like.
00:15:00 Kevin
Like Federal Highway money.
00:15:02 Kevin
Like so money that went to their highway would get exerted, you know, exempted if they didn't meet certain criterion.
00:15:09 Kevin
Of it was like.
00:15:11 Kevin
Uniform drinking, drinking ages and this and that. And and.
00:15:18 Kevin
I.
00:15:18 Kevin
I remember that from like being a kid, my dad explaining that to me and it made a lot of sense.
00:15:23 Kevin
Like, well, why would all these other states come on board?
00:15:25 Kevin
And sometimes you do have states that like are right next to each other, right?
00:15:28 Kevin
When I was on the Common Council, you would have.
00:15:31 Kevin
We would always look to similar size towns that were within proximity of us, right, so like Hornell.
00:15:38 Kevin
Was another was an example like if they were doing something and it was working or we would look at it and be like, well, that doesn't seem to be working, so maybe we won't try that.
00:15:47 Kevin
Umm.
00:15:48 Kevin
And so sometimes you had to be a trailblazer, and sometimes you you would just mimic.
00:15:53 Kevin
Similar States and like we have some laws that are, yeah, and Ohio and Connecticut and all these adjoining states that touch us.
00:16:00 Kevin
And then there's some laws that are completely different, but you'll find that there's going to be more similar things based on proximity than there, you know, then they're not.
00:16:09 Kevin
Then, with the age of the Internet, everybody's kind of stealing from everybody else.
00:16:13 Kevin
So just in terms of ideas, right, it's a melting pot.
00:16:18 Kevin
I said this wasn't gonna be a long podcast, and then I just went on a rant about school boards and, like, political affiliations and corruption and.
00:16:26 Kevin
State governments and.
00:16:30 Kevin
But yeah, no, I definitely.
00:16:34 Kevin
I definitely think that you guys.
00:16:37 Kevin
Because I happen to see an article from from the rag on here and it says the teachers and parents turned out for Tuesday evenings.
00:16:45 Kevin
Board of Education meeting to express discipline issues and staff levels.
00:16:49 Kevin
So it just made me think like I'm not going to know what's there unless I read the rag or if the only star sends somebody and I have to read an article about it because.
00:16:59 Kevin
That's that's the reason there's.
00:17:01 Kevin
Because if you could be everywhere at any one time, then there wouldn't be reason for a newspaper because you would know.
00:17:06 Kevin
Because apparently you're on omnipot.
00:17:09 Kevin
None of us.
00:17:10 Kevin
And like I finish after my interview with Vernon last night, I finished listening to Tuesday night's Council meeting.
00:17:16 Kevin
I do that. It's on my agenda.
00:17:18 Kevin
To listen to that because it's local government where I live.
00:17:23 Kevin
The county needs to do the same.
00:17:25 Kevin
This is a shout out to the county, like if you were listening because I know a lot of you do because you know that Kevin Doherty is just down here flinging stones, the county ledges.
00:17:33 Kevin
They they love me.
00:17:35 Kevin
They adore me because of the the scrutiny I put them under makes them better, right?
00:17:40 Kevin
Helps them become the wheat then and it separates the chaff, right?
00:17:46 Kevin
They they don't.
00:17:48 Kevin
They don't like me.
00:17:48 Kevin
But one of the one of the reasons why they were trying to make sure that they pushed me out from running for county legislature was because I one of my biggest platforms and I went door to door telling people this I was at right thinkers meeting meetings talking.
00:18:02 Kevin
It was.
00:18:03 Kevin
I got stopped by county.
00:18:04 Kevin
Well, that's not how it works.
00:18:05 Kevin
Well, here is what it was. I wanted transparency.
00:18:09 Kevin
I wanted to create a public record.
00:18:11 Kevin
Like I did with the only incumbent Council when I was there, I would set a 360 camera, shout out 360 rice.
00:18:17 Kevin
Don't know if Mike Kittner's.
00:18:19 Kevin
Company is still in business. If he's still selling the cameras or if he's moved on to other.
00:18:23 Kevin
That you know, that's what happens. You put out a product and it's like it might be innovative and whatever. But then.
00:18:32 Kevin
Foreign company will like reverse engineer.
00:18:35 Kevin
Next thing you know, they're just mass produce your product at half the price.
00:18:38 Kevin
So, but I would use Mike's one of Mike's cameras that I had purchased from him and it would get the 360 view and then you can find him on the channel.
00:18:47 Kevin
Not that you're inclined to.
00:18:49 Kevin
You might want to go sample one, but you're not inclined to probably go watch old council meetings from five years ago, but.
00:18:55 Kevin
They're on the channel and we didn't have one. We had like the local Channel 4 or whatever the PBS channel thing was, and channel 6 or 12 or and and we would broadcast to that and that was it. And it was like, well, if you missed the TV.
00:19:10 Kevin
If you missed.
00:19:11 Kevin
It then you missed it.
00:19:14 Kevin
There's no like unless you DVR it, but you have to have cable for that. Most people don't cable anymore.
00:19:21 Kevin
So I do think that that was, you know, so like that's I was a public official.
00:19:26 Kevin
I had to make anyone of those publicly available for foil.
00:19:30 Kevin
And whatnot. And as a county legislature, I legislator, I would have done that.
00:19:35 Kevin
Would have showed up and they were like you can't do.
00:19:37 Kevin
There's a lot of executive sessions and blah blah blah blah. It's like OK.
00:19:41 Kevin
So.
00:19:43 Kevin
I won't do it at the executive sessions. I never did on the common.
00:19:46 Kevin
I understand the rules, but this public meeting is a public forum and every part that's public about it should be expressly visible to the public because they can't be there.
00:19:57 Kevin
A newspaper is not going to write every aspect of a meeting that you might not.
00:20:03 Kevin
You know they're.
00:20:04 Kevin
They're going to put the bullet points.
00:20:05 Kevin
Even Vernon Robinson said that last night when he was talking about, he makes notes and he tries to make detailed notes, but he doesn't want to add too much.
00:20:12 Kevin
It's like unless you're going to listen to the.
00:20:14 Kevin
Meeting, you know, which I do. And I'll read his notes and I'll be like, ah, I would have changed that.
00:20:20 Kevin
Not how I perceive.
00:20:21 Kevin
You know there's you're going to have some give and take on stuff like that, but if you have the raw footage and you can just show it to people.
00:20:29 Kevin
That's. That was my biggest thing about the county legislature and you had people that were on the county ledge that were going.
00:20:35 Kevin
Nope. That's why you're not going to get.
00:20:38 Kevin
Because we won't allow it. And it's like, excuse me, like how much corruption is going on up here that you won't allow it if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about. And that was always my big thing.
00:20:49 Kevin
I think that the school board needs it.
00:20:50 Kevin
Think the county needs it?
00:20:51 Kevin
I appreciate the only incoming Council for dedicating money out of our tax dollars every month.
00:20:57 Kevin
Every year, every fiscal year, taking it out of my property taxes.
00:21:02 Kevin
To show me transparency, to let me listen to those meetings that I don't time to.
00:21:06 Kevin
Can go and listen to them at my convenience.
00:21:08 Kevin
I can wait every six months and just listen. Just cram them out like a Netflix day. If I wanted to.
00:21:14 Kevin
It it just that's. That's where I stand on that.
00:21:18 Kevin
But so yes, definitely need more transparency at these different offices and and then we are doing a shout out to anybody who continues to give us information because we are like I've been saying one of your local.
00:21:31 Kevin
One of your local great news.
00:21:33 Kevin
So we people give us information, people drop stuff.
00:21:38 Kevin
You know, maybe not so much in the hidey hole in the park in that not that tree, not in the park where, you know, we grab a brown paper bag full of video, evidence of things that are going on.
00:21:48 Kevin
There are drop boxes out there that we we receive, you know, footage of things we receive.
00:21:55 Kevin
Recordings we receive.
00:21:58 Kevin
Photos documents all sorts of great stuff.
00:22:01 Kevin
And that's and then or people, you know, drop us a line and or they drop a dime, right?
00:22:07 Kevin
That the that's the the old pay phone reference.
00:22:12 Kevin
To give us information.
00:22:16 Kevin
That, you know, desperately needs to be out there, right?
00:22:17 Kevin
We cover our.
00:22:18 Kevin
So with complete anonymity, you can kind of describe your point of view where it comes from, and you know, just just letting reminding people that they can continue to have confidence in dropping, dropping sources with us so that we can get the news out there.
00:22:35 Kevin
That really need to.
00:22:36 Kevin
That really needs to be shed some light on and I know there are a bunch of things with the school district that are going on.
00:22:42 Kevin
That that we've.
00:22:44 Kevin
Become Privy to.
00:22:46 Kevin
We're just, you know, looking.
00:22:48 Kevin
We're gathering a little bit more, you know, a little bit more stuff before we, you know, provide a take on it because we are not just a news network. We are a little bit more editorial based at the moment.
00:23:01 Kevin
Where you're going to get more of the Kevin's opines from the show on different topics, but breaking it here first.
00:23:08 Kevin
All right, guys, we'll catch you next time. Life 22.
00:23:12 Kevin
You tomorrow morning for the last show of the day.
00:23:15
Deuces.