Opponents to transit tax increase make their case (09-08-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. I'd like to welcome to the program, Eric Rowell and Robert Dawkins. We're going to be discussing the Mecklenberg County referendum on the transit tax increase. Voters are being asked to approve a one cent increase on the sales tax to pay for a transit system plan expansion along with road related projects. The vote is on November fourth, and it's estimated to generate somewhere between I don't know twenty twenty five billion dollars over thirty years, with funds allocated supposedly for forty percent for road related projects, forty percent for rail, and the remaining twenty percent for buses and microtransit stuff. It would also create a new twenty seven member Transit Authority to oversee the whole system. So. Eric Rawell is a native North Carolinian. He's lived in Meckelberg County since twenty ten. Licensed the attorney, and he lives in Huntersville and runs the Huntersville Politics group on the Facebook. Eric welcome, Thanks Pete. And Robert Dawkins is the political director for Action n C. Robert welcome, Hey, how are you. I'm good? So tell us first, what is Action and C. Sure? So, Action and C. We've been here representing load of moderate income neighborhoods in Charlotte for the past fifteen years, so you know, we work on issues like affordable housing, upward mobility, economic impact of policy, owned load of moderate income people, and normally we support tax increases, but on this one we. Finally found a tax increase that you don't want. Okay, So Eric, you are more on the right side of the political spectrum. I'm assuming I think that's fair. Me and Robert were coming together as a bootleg or Baptist coalition, if you will, and you know Robert was really active on Twitter, and so I've been following this issue from the right and as a Hunter's a resident for a long time now, and this, you know, this all started bubbling back up in late twenty three, and then last year they started back with the quote unquote informational meetings that cats were held. And of course, you know, we now got the referendum from the state. And I saw Action and See tweeting feverishly about this a few weeks ago, and clearly it was coming from a place, a different side, so to speak. But I reached out to Action and See and was able to connect with Robert, and you know, me and him hit it all right away because we both see how bad this is. And we've really been able to put together kind of a disparate coalition of current and former electeds, grassroots folks, just you know, folks like myself who or let's say, interested residents or citizens, but we see how bad this is. The Libertarians are involved, right, the Republicans, Democrats were all opposed to this for different reasons, but we all want to see a better plan put in place, and this is not the right plan. So the folks on the other side that are in support of the plan, the Carolina Association for Passenger Trains, they've got a print out here. Well, I have their print outs called support the Tax Amend the Plan, which I thought was an interesting way to address the criticisms raised by Action and see also the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance Sustain Charlotte is also on board with this. So you've got a lot of the local institutions, local government officials, a lot of business leaders, boosters and stuff. So they're all in support of all of this, and they're dumping I think what two or three million dollars three million, three million towards a pr campaign. We're going to probably see a bunch of advertising and stuff. So you guys are probably a master war chest of similar value, at least unless Roberts holding. Back from I've got a copier and I got a brand new pair of Adidas to go knock on doors and nasty extent of it. Well, I will say, were either of you here in two thousand when the arena referendum went down? Yeah, so that I mean that, But that was that that referendum was held in June. It was a standalone question, but it was a similar dynamic. You had a lot of the boosters that were in favor of it pushing for it, and then you had ground swell of voters who were like no for all these different reasons. I can't remember the name of the city councilwoman now, Lyn Wheeler, Lynn Wheeler, and she got voted out over it, well after we voted down the reference, they did it anyway, And then she got voted out because a guy. Named Paul or yeah all ike, who was like a retired mit professor or something, and he just on the very last day of signing up to run for office, he saw she wasn't being challenged in the GOP primary, so he just threw his name in there and he ended up beating her and she finished fourth. Right, Yeah, so there are political repercussions to this. I mean that was a different time, though, you know, twenty five years in the city leadership looks a lot different. So do you have any kind of are there any kind of I don't know, optimistic signs that you're seeing from local elected officials that would indicate that they're wary of this plan. So what I've seen now is in hindsight. So first city council had to approve a proposal to go to the General Assembly, right, so everybody on city council except for Taric Bakar. He voted for it. Now since we have been able to raise some problems and people are sitting back and looking at some of it. Last week was when City Council was going to pass their MoU the understanding piece for. The Authority Memorandum of Understanding Yes, And out of that vote we had council Woman Brown, console Woman Johnson, and counsel. Woman Mayfield all vote against it for different reasons. And we also saw Councilman Graham list a whole bunch of issues that he saw as concerning him even though he was going to vote for it. So it's starting to grow. The bad thing is was the lack of transparency from the beginning, if so so. Back when we first saw this brewing back in like December, a lot of groups and now just I said Action in Sea started putting together questions that we had. The response that we were getting was, look, you know, we've got to take what the Journal Assembly will give us. We don't want to raise any saying because then it won't get read into being able to be read in. After this read then we can work on it. So we kept raising issues. Well, Robert, we're going to have Senator. I forgot what is her name, Vicky Sawyer. Senator Sawyers, he's in charge of the transportation. Senator Sawyer is going to come up with the bill and a lot of the things are going to be addressed in it. And it addressed buses, but it didn't address the authority of problems that we had there, didn't address the regressiveness of the tax. We started complaining there, and then it was like, well, don't worry, we'll fix it in committee. We we know Representative Coatlain was going to come out with her own. Bill on the House side. It came out it lacked the twenty percent commitment for buses, and everything else was pretty much the same except for adding and studying the Silver line. Once we saw the study in the silver line, we said, old, on a minute. Some one that's going to run out to the airport in about a mile. The airport and then go east Charlotte. So once they were studying it, we were like, well, wait a minute. Studying it, you were telling us we were going to get the east, We're going to get this east west line. And they're like, oh, don't worry, it's all formalody. So finally we get to the bills being converged and put together, compiled. What's the word concurred in committee? Ye committeefence commit. When it was getting ready to come out, the twenties percent buses had disappeared. So we ourself action and seeing all of us started calling Trish, cop Hotham and Representative do fighting to get the buses back in the city was doing no lobbying. The city's whole point was we will take whatever the General Assembly gives you. Which I can understand from a political perspective, because the General Assembly, Republican led, they're not very interested all the time in hearing what the Democrat led city council. Right, I give you that, but don't come back and tell me at the end that you're representing me as strong as you can. And all I'm going to do is take what I can get. If that's the case, get out of our way and just let us deal with the General Assembly. Just give us a blank piece of paper and we'll go up there and negotiate it and come back. That's been our issue here the whole time. The politicians in Charlotte now negotiate out a fear of the General Assembly more than they do on our path, to the point that it almost becomes an excuse not to even move forward on stuff. Hey, can we get five dollars for the parts? Oh no, the General Assembly won't let us do it. Can we get mayonnaise served in the cafeteria? Oh no, no, no, that Dylan rule won't let us have it. I don't think it's that I know, Dylan. I don't know if a mayo in the cafeteria. But your point is taken. I understand you got it's a mother may I state kind of a deal, all right? You hear me talk a lot about incentives, right, Well, let's talk about incentive trips, the kind that companies offer employees to fire them up and reward their teams. If you own a business or you work somewhere that offers these incentive trips, first off, good for you, but also there is a custom app that's a game changer for these trips. It's called Incentive trip Kit. Private group messaging, shared photos, you're itinerary, travel details, all built into a single, easy to use app. There's even a traveler locator, so Carl from Accounting doesn't get left behind. The best part about incentive tripkit. It's totally private, no email captures, no sign ups, no cringe ads. It's simple, clean and secure, and when the trip is over, incentive Tripkit turns those highlights into a professional storytelling video. So think about it. When you launch next year's incentive trip campaign, that video becomes your greatest motivator. Talk about a return on investment. Right, you got to check out incentive trip Kit for your business. Visit incentive tripkit dot com because great trips deserve even better returns. All Right in studio with me is Eric Rowell and Robert Dawkins. We're talking about the Mecklenburg County transit tax vote that's coming up in November. In the last segment we were talking about the creation of this authority. It's got twenty seven seats according to the legislation that was passed. So who wants to take first stab at why this is not, in your opinion, a good idea as constructed? Well, so, Pete. One of the many problems that you know, me as a resident of Huntersville, has had with this bill is the way it's outlined is one member appointed by the governing body that has the larger second largest population, Right, and they go through this list and then the third largest population in the county. But each of those towns outside of Charlotte, we all get one. So one of their six cities, six towns outside of Charlotte in Mecklenburg County each get one, right, each. Get the same. So so Huntersville, where I reside, gets the same apportionment as Davidson or Pineville, with much less in the way of town owned roads and obviously much smaller population. And clearly they're going to contribute smaller amounts to the sales tax as well. So that's one of the ways I look at this is we're going to be stuck now in another authority with Charlotte that's going to have veto proof majority almost right from the get go, with twelve of the twenty seven members, and then you add the city. Let's break that down. The city of Charlotte gets twelve votes. Each of the towns or cities get get one, so that's a total of six. Then you also have six votes for the county Commission, that's correct, and then the rest go to the legislature and the governor. On one member appointed by the governor, that's right. So that's the corporation, right, and then and that's right, two members appointed by the General Assembly, one upon the recommendation of the President pro tem of the Senate, and one upon the recommendation of the Speaker of the House. Okay, so what each of the bodies gets a vote, the House gets a vote, or the governor gets a member of the governor. Right, So there's three from them, right, and then is there any other I've lost track? I ran out of fense. So you've got so you have those those three from the legislature, one for the governor, one for the speaker at a house, one for the mayor pro tem. You've got out of Charlotte's twelve. Three of those come off that Charlotte doesn't decide on. Two of those are decided on by the Charlott Regional Business Association. So two of the twelve for Charlotte c RBA picks, one of the ones from Charlotte Foundation for the Carolinas picks. Also, both the city and the county have to appoint one small business person. The city, excuse me, the county has to appoint one person. How we used to live in the etoj etj Yah. Yeah, et So all of. Those spots come off. Who doesn't have a direct tie is the seventy percent of the people that ride the bus on a regular There's nobody that's an active rider. And when we say active rider, we don't mean just hey, I'm a doctor that lives up in Hunter's Wool and I ride the bus. We mean what we call a captive rider. I ride the bus out of necessity. I make thirty percent AMI or under and this is my only form of. So you want a seat designated for a user of the transit system out of necessity? Out of necessity And so we were talking during the break, so is there is how would you get that person on the board. So I think that there's different ways that the city in the county because both of them have to appoint one, which they're calling a rider. Because here's the whole point. So they do have to appoint a writer. Yeah, here's yes. So the legislature did not define a spot, so all they could do is on a local level with another memorandum of understanding, say we think this is important enough that we will all agree that we will put a rider. But they can't redefine what's required by the general Assembly. So they can't forcibly go and say we want them to be a captive rider, and for us that's problematic. Let me, did you want to add anything, Eric on Well, the other thing too is this is going to be, you know, as if in case anyone had any doubt, purely a political appointee, because the legislation makes very clear these members can be appointed at will. So if the authority is not happy with the remember, the authority can then remove that member. So if you decide to vote against the best interests of Charlotte, for example, the authority is going to be able to remove you for calls or without calls. Right, So let's talk a little bit about your skepticism. Eric. As a North mech resident, you came here in twenty ten. So the plan the two thousand, that the Blue Line was already under construction, right, All of that original fight from the early two thousands was over and done. But I'm old enough to remember when that plan was for a much longer blue line, and there was supposed to be some other trains involved, and none of that ever got built, right, So you're worried about what broken promises. Yet again, this is this to me is a North Mech resident is just another bait and switch. And you know what I've kind of been saying is, look, you know they I've tried to break it down real simply. They lied to us in ninety eight. They're lying to us again now and this is going to be another bait and switch where they're dangling the care of the red line to get the vote of the North Mech residence when there's no guarantee that red line's ever going to get built. And that's despite the promises of the lobbyist and politicians that are pushing for this tax. So yeah, I moved here, and I'm a North Carolina resident, but moved to Mecklenburg in twenty ten, so I was in Charlotte for the first three years, moved up to Huntersville in twenty thirteen, and I've been hearing about the red line ever since. But of course you've really not seen any progress until Norfolk Southern had a catastrophe where that's a lot of people speculate that that's kind of what led to them saying we got to raise some revenue, We've got to pay off what happened on the massive disaster they had up in outside of Cleveland. Is that the East Palestine. So you had that and all of a sudden Norfolk Southern comes to the table. But they keep their easement right, they can continue to run freight on this line. So I'm looking this as to me, I'm not a proponent of the Red Line because I don't think there are any there's no ridership estimate at all. Okay, you've got no call. Well, there was one from years ago. That's correct, original plan. That's right, and I think the last one that came out with somewhere in twenty eleven or twenty twelve. So obviously well, pre COVID ridership numbers have plummeted on transit across the country. Charlotte's not recovered. I think we're somewhere at sixty five or seventy percent pre COVID pre levels and we're probably unlikely to ever recover. So you're looking at you want to talk about writers of necessity versus luxury writers. People in North Mech and David's and Cornelius and Huntersville, where our average median income is far greater than Charlotte, and those people will ride the Red Line to to you know, go seek a concert, right, this is a it'll be a fun outing for the family. Meanwhile, we're gonna have a red line that's gonna run. It's only going to run every thirty minutes during the day, right, Weekends will be every sixty minutes. So most people in Huntersville. I live on the west side, you know, and I thankfully work in Huntersville, But why would I ever use the red line? Drive two or three miles over to it, wait for it, hopefully I can't, you know, catch it on time, take you know, thirty to forty five minutes to even get to Charlotte, and then I have to figure out, well, now that I'm there, how am I getting around? Right? So yeah, a lot of issues with the red Line. But the biggest thing is it's just, you know, we don't trust that it's ever going to happen. So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. But things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot to me. I participate in the annual walk to end Alzheimer's and I'm leading a Charlotte team again this year, and it's called once again Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join the team and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth, that truest field. Sign up at alz dot org slash Walk and then you could search for my team name Pete's Pack. There's also a link at the petepod dot com. There's also a link in the description of this podcast. Also, I'll be am seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh then, so you can make a team and join that one too, or make a donation and help me hit my goal of five thousand dollars. If you do, I really appreciate it. There are a bunch of other walks all over the Carolinas. You can go to alz dot org slash walk for all the dates and locations. We're closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's. Can you help us get there. Will you walk with me for a different future, for families, for more time for treatments. This is why we walk. Eric Rowel and Robert Dawkins are in studio with me. They are opposed to the Mecklenburg County trans attacks increase. Eric, I want to touch base with you now on the contract language that's in the legislation regarding what's called force masure. So you're an attorney, tell us what is the force masure? Right, Pete. So when I saw the draft legislation that came out, I think maybe in November December started circulating, that was one of the things that I keyed in on right away because again, to me, this is just another bait and switch. But what we've been hearing from the PROTAC side is no, no, the red line has to be done this time, right, Fifty percent of the red line has to be done before we can divert these funds to any other project, any other rail project, because as you know, it's a forty forty twenty split, right, So forty percent are going to roads, forty percent to transit, and then twenty percent to buses. And I would also just point out that the forty percent for quote, roads is also sidewalks, bus or bike lanes. Okay, it is not just dedicated to roads. But so there is a section in the legislation right that that to me as an attorney, I read this and it gave me immediate pause because what it says is it is that the authority shall complete at least fifty percent of the red line as evidenced by a scope of work schedule created and submitted by the GC, the general contractor. Right. So this is not fifty percent of construction. We're not talking about stations being built, shovels in the dirt. This is fifty percent of a quote unquote scope of. Work, which is just basically an outline of what they intend to do, timeline that sort of thing. Right, So, to me, there's no guarantee that any actual work ever gets done. This could be a lot of planning, a lot of consulting work, a lot of design work that gets done. But then, if you have to you read further, and it does have what I would consider standard force masure language. But what it says is when it talks about fifty percent has to be completed absent the existence or occurrence of force measure events that delay completion of the red line or make completion of the red line inpracticable. Right, So to me, that's the key word impracticable. What does that mean? Right? It could mean. Anything because it is not defined anywhere in this legislation. So as an attorney, right, you read words, you look at for the meaning that's in the bill. So that to me immediately jumped out as the authority could find almost anything as an excuse to say, hey, the red line is no longer impracticable. Does that mean well, we didn't get any federal funds? Right? You've heard the Alliance folks run around touting six million. My own town of Huntersville has put out a Facebook post they refuse to correct where they have said we're going to generate twenty five billion in funds from this, which is not the correct number. That is the nineteen plus six that a lot of the Alliance folks have been putting out there. We're going to get six million in federal funds. There's no basis for that. So what happens when we don't get those funds? Does that now say well, the revenue is not there, maybe we need to divert this to the other line. It's no longer practicable. So we're going to divert away from the red line project and funded in silverlaw. And that's the problem is it's always who decides, right, So you've got the language, but then you have to ask, well, who decides, and that's the authority, And we know the authority is obviously weighted in favor of Charlotte in the county. So okay, So that's that's a problem. The scope of work is not to find you're not satisfied with the language. What of the argument that and I have it here U Carolina Association for Passenger Trains They say, support the tax amend the plan. So we've heard this. I think it was Nancy Pelosi. It sounds like it sounds like some Nancy Pelos. You got to pass the bill before you know what's in it. Right. The idea is we're not going to get this shot again with the legislature because it's a Republican controlled legislature. They're not going to go along with light rail plans and projects or commuter rail plans and projects. So just do this now and we'll fix it after. Yeah, Charlotte's history is so bad that there's no way that I would be voting and hoping that the legislature that you're saying is so bad it's dealing with Charlotte that they wouldn't give you power. They're going to just automatically let you appeal it and amend it before you've even shown them that there's a problem, and you to show them a problem over time. Well, if they could move money like the street car. I've railed against the street car ever since it was a leap frogged over it project project. It has never been a good project. And so like, maybe there's an opportunity to move money around they and take it away from the street car and send it to the red liners. Yeah, so the easiest thing to do is to wait in one, hopefully this time getting more public input in community input during the lobbying process before you take it to the legislature. Didn't they hold a bunch of meetings and the hearings and all this stuff. I think out of all of it, they had eighteen hundred people out of one point two million people take part in it. And you get the same people always that can show up to be. Yeah, p'd I attended mine in Huntersville, or I think technically it may have been on the Cornelias side last year. Half the room is filled with politicians, the other halse filled with Cats employees who are there to just basically give you the talking points. And it's when I went up afterwards and confronted the CATS representative, asked a lot of questions about ridership. This was all, oh, early twenty five, right, They kept saying, last year, in early twenty five, we're gonna come out with the cost estimates and the ridership estimates. So again we're still here. This is past early twenty twenty five, and we still don't have any of that for the Red line, which is one of the reasons why I just feel like this is a just trust us, right, Well, we don't neither one of us trust that Charlotte's going to deliver on these promises. Well, and if you look at the history, like you were saying, Robert, like in the initial construction of the Blue line, they pegged the cost at one number and it came in way over. They had to reduce the length of the line, yet there was a lot of problems. And then I remember how they were asking specifically the low income in African American community to help them fight the repeal, and they went to the churches specific Oh sure, and they were like, look, if y'all help us keep this from getting repealed, we're going to part of it was going to be on independence. It was going to be this ho V lane. They were going to come out with all these anti displacement measures. None of that got done. In fact, they came back in twenty nineteen and said, oh yeah, we didn't do much on displacement. We're sorry when we're saying who gets hurt from this the least amongas are the ones that get hurt the most if we go and charge them this tax and it fails. So let's not pass it in amend it. Let's fix Let's come up with something that everybody can agree upon a better plan and a better point. Game on Week one starts now, and every touchdown brings you closer to a payout. 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One of the things I mentioned did earlier was this idea that like, if we don't do this, it's better to just do it now and fix it later because we won't get another chance this now or never, which is a negotiation strategy, right, put a deadline on people. That's right. It's an ultimatum, right, And this is a scare tactic. And I've been trying to encourage people to reject that. Right, you got to reject the premise. But also before I forget Pete, thanks so much for having us on today, because you know we're up against the behemoth three million dollars in propaganda that they're buying out there. And so this is important that people understand. We've got a month and a half really to go. Early voting starts pretty soon. So but look, I like what Commissioner Susan McDowell said on this. She voted against us at the county level, putting this on the on the referendum on the ballot, and she said, look, we have to say no now before we end up paying at tax and perpetuity that does not solve our transportation issues and merely buy some very expensive band aids. You deserve better, We all deserve better. And that's the thing. This is not an hour or ever there's I mean, we can always go back to the legislature and amendous bill, make it better, make it work, and make it solve the actual problems that we have with transportation and congestion and traffic in this in this county. One of the things I saw was that the amount of increase to the average resident in Mecklenberg County would be more per year than the county and city property tax increases. Yes combine, Yes, when you go from seven point twenty five percent to eight point twenty five percent. Putting that all together as a whole, that's a fourteen percent increase what we're looking at. And I think that was it was one of the main stations here that put out the cost per person per month in year two hundred and forty bucks a month. To excuse me, two hundred and forty bucks a year for for average citizen, eleven bucks a month for load and moderate income people. That is huge. You can tell me, oh, it's not going to be on prepared food, but I've got other expenses other than food. I've got a clothes. Well, it is on prepared food. It's not on grocery. It's it's not on groceries exactly. What is so not only not only that I still have to I have to clothe my family, I have to clean my house. I have to take care of loved ones. So eleven bucks is still eleven bucks and four people. That's the least among us. The folks that now are are forced to live in hotels, they're already paying two percent texts for on a user refee because they're living in a motel. They don't have a kitchen. So everybody wants to take this and go Oh, but it's not it's only on prepared food, like it's just candy. It's more than just candy. If you if you're living in a hotel, it's the rotesserie chicken that you just paid for your kids to eat. So folks need to look at that and just to say, well, it's only eleven bucks, but it's not on necessities. You don't get to determine to me what my necessity is. Is that eleven bucks a month. Eleven off, So you don't get to tell me what my necessity. So it's over. It's one hundred and fifty bucks a year. One hundred fifty bucks a year. But here's another point too, when you're telling me one of the main things is going to help poor people is micro transit, and a majority of these poor people are having to go to crisis assistance just to pay their their food, their regular bill, and your phone bill if your phone's cut off. How you're going to use micro transit. It's an app based system, so when the phone's off, they can't even use the service you're trying to sell. Them, which is part of the plan. Also, this concept of the micro transit, which is essentially uber but government run which government run uber. But instead of me being able to say, hey Pete, take me, is hey Pete take me, and the four people that called you before me in order of how you called me to my destination. So it's a bus, but only a four seater. It's a four seed bus. So I need more four seed buses because it's not scalable. Yeah, all right, So Eric, it's just you two in studio. You guys are fighting the behemoth. As you said, are you gaining traction? I think we are. You've got a growing coalition Democrats, Republicans, libertarians coming together, current and former elected officials that are publicly stating their opposition to this. The Huntersville candidate's running right now, we've got you know, Frank Gammon and Jamie Widman. Scott Cornett's even a Democrat, he's come out against this. Dennis Biladuo running for mayor in Cornelia's very vocal advocate or opponent of this as well. And you're starting to see more of that. So I think that's a that's a huge positive sign that we're seeing. And listen, I think to sum it up right, this isn't going to be a transit tax This is a train wreck, is what this is. And so we need people to get out to spread the word with their friends and neighbors. This is a low turnout election, so we can beat this thing, but you need to make sure your friends and neighbors understand the implications of this. This is a permanent tax. It's going to impact the lowest income residents the most, and it's not going to make Cats any safer. And I think that's something that obviously has taken a lot of president Over the past few days, You're seeing more and more people voice concerns about safety. So why are we going to trust Cats with three to four hundred million dollars a year extra when they haven't demonstrated that they deserve our trust. Yeah, I mean they've had trains derail on the Blue Line. They were not replacing the truck system for the wheels. It's like the ball bearings. It's like, what this is basic stuff. And so I mean I've been impressed with the guy in the interim CEO, Brent Cagel, seems to be doing a better job than the previous one, John Lewis. But I mean that's lowballs, right, So there is that all right? Well, thank you very much for coming in. I do appreciate it and keep us posted as to how it's how it's going. Did you got y'all have a website or anything like that. No, just just just Facebook Roberts Roberts tweets. Really, when we say this is really here's the whole point we were. We would have even had to have come up with enough people to form an anti referendum a committee and file reports. Yeah, come up with money for yard signs. This is the first time you've seen Democrats and Republicans all together on one thing, and it's not in the best interest of the people and lust Without money, we're just trying to fight it word of mouth. All right, Well, thank you guys, I appreciate it. News is Next. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything. While I'm gone,