435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Explore the heartbeat of Southern Utah with the 435 Podcast, your go-to source for all things local in Washington County. Stay ahead of the curve with our in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and captivating interviews. Whether you're a resident or visitor, our podcast is your key to unlocking the latest happenings and trends in St. George and the surrounding areas. Tune in now to stay informed and connected with our thriving community!
435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Newly crowned "Queen RINO" And City Budgets: What Actually Matters in Local Government
Michelle Tanner's political identity underwent a dramatic transformation overnight – from being labeled an "extreme right-wing conspiracy theorist" to a "satan worshiping establishment RINO." This fascinating shift occurred during Utah's recent GOP Chair race, where Tanner supported Rob Axson despite having previously backed Phil Lyman for governor, revealing the complex dynamics of local Republican politics.
The conversation peels back layers of Utah's political landscape, examining how the caucus convention system works and why Tanner believes Axson has done more to preserve it than any chair since SB54's implementation. She offers an insider's perspective on the strategic branding attempts during the convention and why collaboration is essential despite ideological differences.
Shifting to her role on the St. George City Council, Tanner recounts her fight to transform the budget process from administrative "sales pitches" to genuine collaboration focusing on public safety priorities. Her stand against automatic tax increases led to significant changes in city governance, demonstrating how principled opposition can create positive systemic change. The budget discussion extends to broader concerns about energy infrastructure, economic diversification as construction slows, and balancing property rights with responsible planning.
Throughout the episode, Tanner reveals her governing philosophy of "principle over popularity," acknowledging she's offended both the right and left by refusing to be boxed into partisan categories. Her willingness to work across divides while maintaining core values offers valuable insights for anyone navigating today's polarized political environment. As she announces her re-election campaign, Tanner emphasizes that while progress has been made, "the work isn't done yet."
What makes local politics so fascinating is how it forces officials to move beyond ideological labels to solve real problems affecting communities. Whether discussing drag shows, Dixie name changes, or budget priorities, Tanner demonstrates how effective governance requires finding common ground without abandoning core principles.
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[00:00:00] Intro.
[00:08:29] Caucus Politics: SB54 and Convention System.
[00:15:42] Utah GOP Chair Race: Rob vs. Phil.
[00:32:40] City Budget Process: Fighting for Transparency.
[00:42:17] Balancing Property Rights and City Planning.
[01:07:16] Campaign Announcement: Michelle Tanner Runs Again.
I was vocal in protecting the right of the delegates, you know, to boo, to cheer, to do what they feel is necessary, because there were a lot of grievances with Governor Cox. Yeah there still is. But strategy wise, that is not the right strategy as delegates that we should be taking. Booing our governor off the stage From the Blue Form Media Studios. This is the 435.
Speaker 2:Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah. If you're looking for a nice cup of coffee and you're in downtown St George FS Coffee Co, that's where you're going to want to stop. It's right there on the corner of Tabernacle and Main Street in downtown St George. So if you've got a bicycle, ride it on down there and grab a drip coffee and tell them the 435 guys sent you. How does it feel to be the queen rhino? You've been crowned the queen of the rhinos.
Speaker 1:I'm really having this identity crisis because it's like overnight I went from the extreme right wing conspiracy theorist to a Satan worshipping establishment rhino.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, you are Satan worshipping.
Speaker 2:It's the craziest thing, it's so crazy, how fast, hilarious narrative and like sentiment just swings in, just like a brief moment over a singular election yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1:Are we going right now? By the way?
Speaker 3:let's go oh, okay, I was like so yeah, we were talking about that the other day like it's interesting that, um, I guess politicians, but just any, whether you're a city council person, the president, whatever, like one singular deal can make people think that you're like totally crazy.
Speaker 2:But it's not. This is the most frustrating thing is that one single deal can change the conversation around that individual, so it's not like people all of a sudden start believing this, like nobody actually believes that. But it's this, it's in the game in the election race. There's these things that you say in order to try to sway opinion of a really small group of individuals. For the delegate race right, because the state delegates I think there's only like 800, 800 state oh no, there's 4 000 4 000 state delegates.
Speaker 1:State delegates right, yeah, and then 2600 showed up, but there's 4 000 state delegates only 2600 showed up, huh yes, so a low percentage showed up, which actually would have likely favored Lyman over Axson having a smaller number show up, but obviously we know Axson still won.
Speaker 1:But you're right, it's the branding that people try to do heavily during an election cycle, and I think people lose sight of the Ronald Reagan approach of hey, if someone agrees with me 80% of the time they're my friend, not my 20% enemy, right? And so that was really eye-opening for me just to see firsthand now how, wow, like without even having a conversation with me, most of these people have my phone number, like they can easily contact me if they want to know all of my reasons for supporting rob axon over phil lyman, right, like, like, it's not a secret. I'm an open book. I'm happy to talk to anyone, right, and I put a lot of it out there on social media too. But instead it's so much easier, and especially if people aren't truly seeking the truth or truly seeking to build and have positive progress, if their motivation is actually more just to have an audience yeah and their own personal agenda versus truth.
Speaker 2:It's a lot easier just to throw out these derogatory terms of labeling people because then they catch, or establishment, but then they catch, it catches momentum right and then all of a sudden there's a pile-on effect where everybody piles in a mob mentality exactly, and that's what gets the, that's what triggers the, the, the thread online and everybody piles into that, and so then.
Speaker 2:So when we think about these individual you know races watching, because it makes me feel nervous about the caucus system, right, I had willie billings on just a couple weeks ago and we talked about how do we improve the, the delegate process and the caucus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we talked about sb54 a little bit yeah and so and this is where, um, it seemed like the the far right was attacking axon for not doing enough against sb54. What's your perspective on that? What, how, how did that just not hold water for you? And maybe it did hold water for you, but it wasn't the determining factor on supporting Rob over Phil.
Speaker 1:So my motivation is truly always to seek the truth, and I will stand with whoever is doing the right thing, regardless of what side they're on Right, and so I try not to, and we can all be guilty of this at times, and so I try not to.
Speaker 1:And we can all be guilty of this at times, but I try not to fall into that. That tribalism of oh, this fits my bias. So I'm just going to go here and believe everything this side says, because what so often people don't realize on both sides is they're doing the exact same thing. They want to criticize this side for putting out all of this false information and fake news. It happens every bit as much on the right as it does on the left now I always say the one like the extreme.
Speaker 3:One percent on the right and the left are the same people they are.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, two sides, yep, two sides of the same coin, for sure I just want to blow everything up yeah pretty much.
Speaker 2:I just want to see the world burn well, yeah, I mean, but that's not also it. Right? I think there's individual topics, there's individual issues, because the vast majority of americans this is even outside the republican party are, um, like single item voters. Right, because of this one thing. That's why I'm going to vote this direction when it's way more nuanced than that. And then, as a politician, you have to figure figure out, okay, what are those one issue items that the biggest portion of people are voting on, and then appeal to that base. Right?
Speaker 2:I can't help but think, like how Trump operates in this way. Right Is that he's picked the things that are the biggest single issue items for individuals and then he plays to those pieces where, as you get closer to local government, those individual issues become so much more difficult to manage because you have a smaller pool of individuals that actually end up voting Right. But we're trying to play the same politics that Trump's playing at the national stage, at the local and the state level, and it doesn't always play out the same way as the way he's playing, because these single issues get blown up. Do you think the sp54 was the single issue that phil was running on and that was highlighted?
Speaker 1:the single issue that it appeared that that camp was running on is their attempt to mimic and mirror the election the convention between lyman versus cox yeah because we all know cox is not popular amongst the delegates and lyman won by nearly 68 percent against spencer cox, and so campaign strategy wise. If I'm in their shoes, I'm assuming they're probably thinking hey we're going to run the same strategy.
Speaker 1:Rob as Cox, which is absolutely false. Right, Rob is not Cox. But if they can do that, then they can attempt to mirror those results. Thankfully it didn't happen that way. A lot of us saw through.
Speaker 1:It was close, but a lot of us saw through that Rob is not Cox and many of us who supported Lyman for governor. I was a loud supporter for Lyman up through the primary election because I'm very disenfranchised at a lot of the decisions and policies that Spencer Cox has done and felt that we needed a change there. Now, just because I saw that we needed that change doesn't mean that I'm now going to support every single thing that Phil Lyman does, and he's made a lot of decisions and game calls that I don't agree with like extreme lapses in judgment, in my opinion. And so it's okay for us to be able to look at the facts and realize that, hey, I'm going to support a different candidate and you know, strategy wise, in terms of SB 54, I actually do really care about repealing that process because I do think the caucus convention system, while it does have flaws I think it's funny when people call it this pure system there's absolutely room for corruption in the caucus convention system.
Speaker 2:We're talking politics.
Speaker 1:So I understand honestly why SB 54 came about.
Speaker 1:I get it, but in terms of which is superior?
Speaker 1:I like the fact that the caucus convention system gives a greater ability for someone off the street, a grassroots candidate like you and I, to be able to go in and have a greater chance without having the millions of dollars funding us. It gives us a greater potential to get people like that into public office and I like that about the caucus convention system. So, with that, my opinion was if Phil Lyman would have been in, because of the multiple lapses in judgment that I've seen from the past and the bridges that have been burned there I mean really in terms of any working relationship with the legislator or the executive branch, which you need to have those things when you are the chair of the Republican Party it's simply not there with Lyman. Therefore, rob, who has actually taken some very meaningful steps to preserve the caucus convention system he is the first chair since SB 54 was implemented 10 years ago to actually change bylaws. To fund our convention nominees. Nearly $250,000 went to our convention winners. 30 out of 34 of those convention winners went on to win their primary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was actually what I was just thinking in my head. I was like I can't remember the number somebody had posted about how many of the convention winners actually went on to win their races and win their primaries.
Speaker 1:The vast majority 80, almost 89%.
Speaker 2:Is that typical though?
Speaker 1:So I don't know I haven't looked back at past percentages. I've been involved in caucus since 2020 was really when I first realized the need to get involved. But I do know that Rob has done more for the caucus convention system than any other chair since the implementation of SB 54. Other chair since the implementation of SB 54. And I also know that we do have some strategies going on to help repeal that process that had Lyman got in, I think those would have been off the table.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think it's interesting to me because when I had Governor Cox on and I talked about his convention speech, right, I didn't see this episode, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Didn't see this episode. Oh my gosh. I waited to the end.
Speaker 2:I waited to the end to talk about that one because I didn't want him to. I wanted him to feel comfortable and I did want to ask him a few tougher questions just to get his take on it. But he even says he's like. I regretted saying it in the way that I did. I was like, well, because I actually found it hilarious. I found it hilarious because he comes in knowing that he wasn't going to. He wasn't going to compete, he had chosen not to compete in that avenue and so when he got up there he said his piece. He said this is where I see there's problems with the convention system and I couldn't disagree with him.
Speaker 2:And then, seeing what played out, right, I'm like well, the radical right, this is where, if this had gone the other way and Phil wins, it's just giving more fodder to that feeling that the convention system doesn't represent the broad base of the Republican Party throughout the state. And because of that narrative, that campaign strategy that they took against Rob, it was let's run the same playbook we did against cox, rather than actually put what's phil's record versus rob's record and then really put it out there, and that's how the narratives can get spun and that's where the trust erodes. Right, if, if I'm a, if I'm a casual which truthfully I would say I'm like a casual observer of it. I do my best to keep up all the time, but I also have a bazillion other things going on, right? So if, if I was retired and this is all that I was doing was following politics then, or if I got paid to do this, right, if that was the case, I'd probably pay attention a little bit tighter.
Speaker 2:But from the casual observer I'm looking at the infighting that's happening. I'm like I don't trust this system. I wouldn't trust this system and some of the delegates that are out there and saying the things that they're saying. It erodes the trust in it. And when I was talking to Willie, you know his strategy at the Washington County level is we have to bring the trust back into that caucus system. Right, we have to be able to educate the local population to where they vote for delegates that they actually believe represent them and then allow those delegates to go put forth what they believe. And when we see these arguments being played out, it erodes that convention system. So I think it's good that Rob went one, because I think he does represent a broader base of the Republican Party.
Speaker 2:But one thing I talked about is with Cox, going back to what he was saying. He's like I spent so much time time over the last, you know, a couple of election cycles trying to bridge the gap between the left and the right. He said I haven't put enough attention on the right and the right and it's something that he has said that he wants to to change. Whether he does that or not, at the end of the day that's what's going to get him elected. Is that left to right is playing that middle moderate level because Salt Lake has such a big voting base and he's right there in the thick of the blue dot, and so I can see how it's going to be a struggle for him to bridge the right and the right. But I think Rob has a better opportunity to bridge that right in the right then.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because he is. Rob is a true conservative. Anyone who looks at his actual track record and experience, he is a true conservative. So this false narrative that was made to his convention speech, you know that brush, broad brush of labeling all of us delegates who were there all day long until midnight, you know as these extremists, and so I'm glad to hear that he regretted using that, that terminology, because you know now, actually, he said he had two speeches.
Speaker 2:He said he had two speeches throughout one. And then he's like nope, because of that, the the energy in the room when he got up you could tell he was like and he, he's always been a fighter. Like he's never been one to just back down from an argument, like he's always been a fighter, which is why he is in the position that he is. He's got a lot of energy, he has a lot of energy and so you know, I could see how he was like OK, I'm going to go this way or this way, feel the room and you could, you could feel that energy go. And he's like I'm just going to fight this, this one out. And he says he, he regrets doing that. So it's, it's interesting in politics you get sucked into those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and to be fair, I did not boo because I don't think that that's you know the right venue to do that.
Speaker 1:However I did, I was vocal in protecting the right of the delegates, you know, to boo, to cheer, to do what they feel is necessary. Because there were a lot of grievances with Governor Cox yeah, there still is but strategy wise, that is not the right strategy as delegates that we should be taking Right, booing our governor off the stage Like it's just not. It's not going to get us anywhere and that's. I've learned a lot over these last four years of being involved in politics and that's one thing that I've really come to appreciate and understand. And, looking back, I'm kind of mortified at even looking at some of my own past behavior of falling into that trap of labeling people and boxing them into certain categories that, just simply weren't fair.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's effective, but overall it's really not, because I think more people, especially here in Utah, are drawn to positivity, are drawn to light. Yes, we can still be truthful, even if it's, you know, sometimes hard truths. But it's learning to do it in a way that brings people in and doesn't shut people out, and so it's been a learning experience for me to recognize and reflect inward of. I never want to be like that again or treat people in that way again, and if we truly care about moving the ball forward in a positive direction, we have to be able to work with people that we disagree with. We have to be able to have that trust to do that. It's just, if we're constantly yelling from the sidelines, what does that actually accomplish? Nothing.
Speaker 2:There's a couple different ways we can go through this. I want to know what specifically maybe you've said or done strategy wise, but less important, I would say, moving forward. I've always called, you know, 4d chess. Right now I've heard this conversation about Trump all the time, but really, when it comes to the political landscape and managing government, even at the local and the state level, is that coalition building? And this was actually the center point of the conversation I want to have with Governor Cox.
Speaker 2:So we went through a book that he recommended by Yuval Levine and it talks about the founding fathers and like how do you get back to the Constitution? His, his, basically the premise of the book is the Constitution can save us. We have to go back to the Constitution and he points out the Wilsonian generation of the bureaucratic state and the erosion of legislative powers and giving more to the executive branch, and he talks about how we have to balance that out. He takes issue with the 435 members of Congress, how we've limited this smaller group of individuals based off population size. He thinks we should add seats to it, which has lots of different unintended consequences that he doesn't quite address in the book, but he dives deep into it. It's one Cox wrote a foreword to, so he was along the way with writing this book. And so I'm thinking of Cox as this liberal you know, liberal rhino that everybody calls him and then he's like adamant about how, like no, the constitution can save us.
Speaker 2:And at the state level there's more nuance. There there's the federal government and then the state level. There's far more nuance. He has to represent, as the executive, a hundred percent of Utah. He can't just represent the Republicans, he's got to represent the Republicans and the Democrats and help try to lead that all together as one. And it's difficult for an executive to do that. It's much easier as a legislator to do that, because they just have to represent their small group of individuals that elected them in, which are typically just one side of the aisle.
Speaker 2:But as a governor I think he's done and honestly I got to tip my hat to him is that he's made, uh, some, some decisions that I think are poor decisions, pandering to the left, but overall I think he's appealed to the right, at least the middle right, in a way that's kept him really popular across the state right. And so, thinking of you individually, that uh, complexity at the city council level, like, have you learned that that collaboration it's far more gray than it is black and black and white, or do you feel like you have to represent this, this right side of the aisle, then danielle's over here on the left side, right, and then because I, I actually love, I love that right and I got a lot of heat for, uh, honestly, like being in both of your camps. Like how could you be in both their camps?
Speaker 2:It's like because the city council we need, we need to have the whole we got to have a diverse group of council members that I want Danielle to argue with Michelle Tanner, because without Danielle there's no one to balance out Michelle, and then it's vice versa, right, is that? Nobody's going to balance out Danielle without a Michelle Tanner? I really like that dynamic at the city council level. And then I get a bunch of heat being like oh well, you're, you know, you're a rhino or you're not, you're an extremist. It's like I guess, I guess, but I I think there's, there's good, there's a lot of building that can happen in those, those moments. Do you do?
Speaker 1:you agree with that, and yes, and a couple of things on that. Quick thought on spencer cox. What I really want to see from him still is I would just love to see an apology, because we all make mistakes, and by apology I'm reverting back to COVID, because that's my hot button issue still, because that's what made me enter politics and feel like I had to to protect my children's freedom and liberty was going back to the mask mandates, going back to Well, you basically got fired.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, so him both, Spencer Cox and Deidre vocally said that they supported businesses mandating the covid shot onto their employees. Right, covid shot onto their employees. So here's myself as the breadwinner, working mom of my family, breastfeeding a baby at the time Shots have not even been tested in that group.
Speaker 1:I've already had COVID in the medical field. I'm a nurse practitioner in the emergency department and you are going to go out and encourage my employer to say that I can't provide for my family without getting this experimental shot that at the time, already had data showing that it was potentially dangerous and not effective and not effective.
Speaker 1:Did not stop the spread, did not stop contraction and you are going to go out on record telling employers to do that to Utahns. I want an apology for that Like, and you know, call it petty, call it what it is. I will say he does not live rent free in my brain, though, like some of these people, I mean it just blows my mind how many people just cannot stop talking about him. I'm like, does he really keep you up at night? Because I'm really not that worried about Spencer Cox, like I've moved on. But because I'm really not that worried about Spencer Cox, like I've moved on, but anyway it just as you were talking about, you know, kind of giving him praise and I'm not saying he hasn't done some good things, but I think this is a good point.
Speaker 2:The good point for if he's serious about bridging the gap between, or bridging the right from the right there is a good way to do it, to where it doesn't really abandon his left base right. It doesn't do that because I think at this stage the left base knows now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, I mean there's a small percentage of them, but they're all going to hide from it, right, because that that erodes their coalition that they built to that point, though it's, you know, in the back of their heads they're going to know and it's not going to, you know, it's not going to alleviate their support of him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not. It's not going to abandon that base for him. It could be a small step in that direction. But even in trying to get him down here, uh from and this isn't from him or anybody representing him, but people that know him individually is that he he'd like to come down to saint george and come to a place to where there's like actual, like, uh constructive conversation. So he, every time he comes down, though he's like he gets, he gets hammered. Every time he comes down, though, he's like he gets, he gets hammered every time he comes down.
Speaker 1:So he did that, though during I'm calling it his apology tour, even though I wasn't invited to this.
Speaker 1:But he did this during the election and I happen to be friends with one of the people who helped organize the location and the event when he came down here during the election and she specifically told his team hey, I think you should have Michelle Tanner there and I can be respectful.
Speaker 1:It's like I can some ways sympathize with him now that I've seen that firsthand some of the vitriol and you know, and I feel bad that he's experienced some of that truly. But also it's like I feel like I'm a reasonable person and I'm willing to work with anyone, regardless of how much we disagree on issues. And I really wanted that opportunity to be able to sit down and talk to him about some of these things and things we can do moving forward, but his team would not allow me to be there. I've even reached out to his chief of staff, his scheduler, since then, and said I'd love an opportunity to meet and it's just never happened. So, hey, I welcome that opportunity because, although him and I, you know, obviously don't align on everything and I've probably have been one of the top five vocal people in the state of Utah, on pointing out some of my frustrations. You know I've kind of moved on in some ways. I'm not going to dwell on things, but anyway, I just think that there's new battles.
Speaker 1:There's always going to be battles and things we need to focus on, and here at the city level I mean, that's my role here on the city council. Back to your question is absolutely we have to work together. We have a five member council and me as a single member. I can be super passionate about an issue. I can't get jacked on as a single member if I don't have the trust of the other voting members, If we can't have the dialogue that needs to be had to move the ball forward. I can have the greatest ideas all day long. It's going to be totally ineffective if I can't effectively work with people, and so that is something that I've learned a ton over these last four years now almost being in office is how to have those relationships work together, build that mutual trust, and we've made some serious strides, for sure, in that department, and I do feel, feel like overall we are working really well together and actually, you know, daniel larkin and I actually are aligned on a lot of things.
Speaker 3:They're probably the case on most stuff. Yeah, you know, I mean the, the city council, truthfully, like the issues are like pretty boring right, yeah, land use.
Speaker 1:It's like 70 land use.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot of land use but we got stuck in the last couple of elections. We got stuck in some stuff that just doesn't matter, right, like the, the, oh man, the drag queens, that was so masterfully done. The drag queen thing, oh my gosh, like as Satan, as Satan's powers go, like that one's where it's like dude, he's been practicing that one for a while. He rolled that one out and he was like excellent, right, like the, mr Burns, like it.
Speaker 2:Just, it was so perfect for us to get so sidetracked on stuff that has so little to do with. It's such a marginal issue with society and this is something I brought up in St George word of mouth people getting upset about a business not doing something that you know it's, you know ideological followers felt like that business should be doing, and it's like we get so caught up in stuff that actually doesn't matter, right and so, and so it's been kind of calm. I feel like over the last probably three years, where there hasn't been stuff that's been brought up that's outside of the scope of city council, which allowed you guys to actually put work forward.
Speaker 1:Well, and here's the thing is there was a lot of tumultuous we'll just say I guess I'll just use that word tumultuous activities that first year or so that I was in, and some of that I probably would have strategically done differently.
Speaker 1:But I will say, in some ways it was actually really good that some of those things did happen, because it's really helped the city moving forward, even though it was like a difficult, bumpy, tumultuous transition in some ways. You know, when it comes to the budget process, when it comes to the truth and taxation issue and even the drag show you know scenario as well, which again, I think was blown up way more than it needed to be as far as, like, our culture here of being a family friendly environment. That is important, I think, at all levels of government. But the way that the media, which we all know, you know, if the media can get a headline and the more divisive it is, the bigger it's going to be and the bigger story it is, and so it was unfortunate the way that it got so heavily spun and the false narratives that were out there. None of us on the city level myself included, you know have anything against the LGBT community.
Speaker 1:Like even though that's how it was painted, right, as you know, here's these bigots here and they're trying to box this community out, and that's simply just not what it was. It was just hey. Let's all follow the same.
Speaker 2:How do we use public spaces in the most rational, reasonable way for the vast majority of the people in town? Right, and we set rules around that and that we got to follow the rules. And that's where, when, when, excuse me administrators make mistakes, whether it's through permitting or whether it's the city manager, and some processes aren't, you know, executed the way they're written into that legislation, right, there's going to be mistakes made, right, and we're going to always make mistakes, and there's going to be a new one that comes up anytime now, right, because elections around the corner, so there'll be a new one that gets spun up. But we've been dwelling on stuff like Dixie Forever. Right, it's like the changing of the college. We get so wrapped around that the politicians have to find these specific little ideological tags that they have to adhere to or they're dead to everybody else. Everything else they have to say is just purity test. These purity tests, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I know and I think I may have offended some people.
Speaker 2:I like that Purity test, the purity test.
Speaker 1:I may have offended some people the other day because you know someone had brought up the flag, you know the Utah flag issue and hey, I was not a proponent of the new flag. But my reasoning for not being a proponent of the new flag was simply just a fiscal issue of why are we throwing money into, like designing a new flag, Like what's wrong with our old flag? It wasn't this purity of like they're coming in and it's they're doing this, like I. Like I can sympathize some who felt that way, but for me, like it wasn't my issue, I mean I still was in favor of those who wanted to, you know, do the signatures to try to let it go to a vote. Like great, let that happen and it failed, you know.
Speaker 1:But someone the other day was kind of on me about not being vocal about enough, enough about the flag and I'm just like of all of the issues there are in the world and in the state of utah and in the city, that's just not even close to the top of my priority list of even what I want my thought process to be.
Speaker 2:On, like sorry, it's just not and part of part of me is like, as a local representative, be like. You have state legislators right here, go yell at them Right. I can. I can say all day long to them and I can yell it out in the public and try to rile up people to. You know, push against it, but at the end of the day, the state legislators are the ones we should be looking to is like what are you guys doing Well in our legislature?
Speaker 1:our legislators voted against. Our local delegation voted against it. Now, on the city level, if it were solely up to me on what flag we heat for voting in favor of the name change, because this is in his words, I think he voted against it.
Speaker 2:He voted against it. But and then made a change yes, to allow the Dixie campus to remain. He was trading, he was, he was doing political trading, which is a requirement to operate Right. Remain, he was trading, he was doing political trading, which is a requirement to operate right. I think at this stage you've realized, oh, there has to be some kind of trading going on or stuff just doesn't get done. And the ability to change the name. Later he was able to keep that in the bill for the ability to change the name, like if this doesn't work out and Utah Tech becomes a disaster, that they have the option to change it back. Right, wasn't this? The door closes. And then no, there's no other way to go back to where it was.
Speaker 2:He traded his vote when he ultimately ended up voting for it was to keep dixie campus on there on the sign as part of its heritage, to hold on to that and then also to be able to, in the future, be able to change it if, if at all, that was possible, if there was some kind of sentiment change, right. So he traded those things and then, as a politician, you can get beat up for saying, oh now this purity test is like, well, you should have just said no and then just stood on that and planted your flag and but then there's no. You have to work together. That's that's the whole point of the legislative body, but I, I still, I still get wrapped up, and I talked jordan hess about this on the episodes a couple episodes ago about naming Utahns. What was it the law? That the definition of a citizen of Utah was like a Utahn and then it had to be spelled a specific way.
Speaker 3:Wasn't that one of the bills it was like should the word include H or something? Yeah, something so dumb, something so stupid.
Speaker 1:That's one of the bills that they're having to go vote on, and it just gets so frustrating that we get caught up in that but, so many so many legislators, we get wrapped around the axle about these non-important issues yeah, well, and I think like I can totally understand the issue as far as the concern of cancel culture, right like that's why I was a and still am a huge supporter of the name Dixie, like great.
Speaker 1:If it were solely up to me, yeah, I'd change it all back to Dixie, because I think it was deceptive the way they went about it. They should have just been upfront and honest. So there were a lot of issues there. So I definitely understand that frustration and, you know, concern that it was being painted falsely. You know it's not a racist term in this area. We all know that, those of us who have been here a long time. So, like I, truly sympathize with that. But also I understand that we also have to get the work done and we also have to move forward and keep going. And yeah, sure, if the opportunity comes to repeal it and go back to the name Dixie, great. But yeah, I mean, I don't think it's got to be the single purity issue test.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we. It's. One of the things that I'd love to see us get get away from is this branding in this idea where politics and the economy go together, which is part of Yuval Levin's book, where we've shifted to where, all of a sudden, politics has a field in economics where before 1900, because of the income tax, when we started levying into income taxes and changing revenue into the government from business all of a sudden this whole shift comes right and Trump's talked a little bit about it, but it's such this difficult thing intertwined now where economics and government are blending together, which the flag is a byproduct of that. Right, it's a branding issue, right? So I had Brad Plotho on the episode. He's one of the he's marketing and growth at Intergalactic Chief growth officer or something.
Speaker 3:Chief growth officer, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they're scaling right, that business is growing quickly. Chief growth officer or something? Chief growth officer? Yeah, because they're scaling right, that business is growing quickly. And he's the one who helped. He led the team that helped rebrand UVU, which for decades UVU was like a community college, that was like not important, and now it's grown to be one of the biggest.
Speaker 3:It was UVSC Utah Valley State College.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and now because of that branding right, we've seen that that branding changes and then in my mind it was a clear what can we do at utah tech what they've done at uvu? Can we rebrand it and and reach this, you know a group to kind of solidify the university as this anchor within southern utah, which, if I just looked at it from that perspective, I'm like, yeah, let's do it yeah I think that's great. It's great for the community, it's great for educating the uh, the younger um population. Here.
Speaker 3:We want to raise the bar so they get better jobs right, better quality student yeah, within in the local business more students, better athletics, right, I mean they've moved up quite a bit in football and basketball which I hate all that stuff, conferences and stuff but ultimately it's a branding.
Speaker 2:It's a branding strategy, but they didn't. They didn't talk about really they. They skewed it in this way that dixie was negatively hurting it, rather than saying OK as far as recruiting goes. Yeah, as far as recruiting goes.
Speaker 1:Well, they still haven't produced the Cicero report that they claim was like their whole basis for making these decisions, even though the courts have ordered them to release this information. Yeah, and so it's interesting.
Speaker 2:So, but? But the reality is like they're trying to rebrand it so it could be a d1 college, that they can grow it and make it, make it similar to what uvu's done. That's my just what they're trying to do, all the reasons behind it and and whether we feel like that's right or wrong, it doesn't really matter at this point. Anyway, right, and so, um, going back to, you are running for relection at the city council, right?
Speaker 1:Is that. This is the very you don't have to say, publicly saying I am running for reelection.
Speaker 2:This is it.
Speaker 1:This is it you did it on the 435 podcast.
Speaker 2:I didn't even plan that out, sweet I didn't either.
Speaker 2:Well, so so, knowing knowing that you have the election coming up, I'm thinking about how do we move forward when you look forward in the future. We've talked a little bit about the budget because they're getting ready to release the 26 budget at the local level. Let's take a step up to the state level. When you look at what are the priority issues within the state, have you followed that state politics and the GOP politics portion of it? But what do you see as some things that are drawing your attention? I get lost in federal stuff all the time, so like it's hard for me to follow state too much because it's easy to get just caught up in what's going on federally. But from your perspective, if you take a macro approach to the state of Utah, what do you think are going to be big issues and conversation pieces over the next four years?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean statewide.
Speaker 1:Actually I am very optimistic and I know that the crowd there's a crowd online right now who are very pessimistic and but you know, especially seeing, ok, rob Axson just got reelected as the GOP chair, which I think is a great thing, a great step in continued trajectory up, because already since he's been in we've had a positive trajectory.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting because the narrative out there that people keep saying is oh, utah's moved left, Utah's moved left, utah's moved left. But if you actually look at the data, that initial information that was being put out that showed that Utah not as many Utahns voted for Donald Trump this time as last time, that was actually put out early before all the mail-in ballots and all of that were actually tallied. So actually looking at percentages, now, that did not go down, it actually went up slightly the number of people who voted for Donald Trump. And then, if you look at the statewide races from last year to almost every single race the person who was put in was either about the same in terms of ideology or went more to the right. So I just don't really fall into that narrative of we're slipping.
Speaker 1:Utah so doomed. Now, you know, are there concerns as far as, for instance, this Utah Supreme Court ruling just this last year that now allows ballot initiatives to be a constitutional republic, which means we representatives can't make any changes to that? That's a little scary and that's where you've seen in other states, george Soros funded initiatives come in purposely because they love this. It's easy to brand something and market something to the public to where. You know, like you were saying earlier, a lot of us are busy raising our families, running businesses, working. You know, nine to five, like we're busy. We don't all have time to do the deep dive on some of these things, and so when we get our ballots in the mail which is another issue, but when we get our ballots, it's like it's easy sometimes if something oh, oh yeah, you mean a high-speed rail, a high-speed rail to Vegas.
Speaker 1:Hell, yeah, yeah, right you know, and then the legislator can't make any changes to that. So there are some concerns too if we don't really watch that as well. And you know, hopefully we're able to get something passed. They tried to do it already in a special session, which didn't happen, so it was blocked by the court. So hopefully we are able to make some changes so that that doesn't occur, because I think that could be a big issue.
Speaker 2:And I think, looking at how it's affected California ballot initiatives. I've from living there for 10 years voting in California. You know the geo bond locally. I just as soon as I saw it, I'm like I see where this goes. I've seen in California where there's six different bond initiatives on the ballot and they all get passed.
Speaker 2:It's like you don't manage the budget. How do I know that we can actually afford this? Just because it's sitting here on this piece of paper, saying that we can do it, doesn't mean we can actually do it right. And it puts us into positions where is this the most financially and fiscally responsible use of government funds? And? And so that's why I was opposed to the. The go bond, um, one of two ways.
Speaker 2:One I didn't feel like, uh, the messaging, I don't have to get into this. I I don't think. I don't think it's up to the. I think it's a mistake for the mob to be spending tax dollars. That's why we have representatives, that's why most of them are attorneys, that's why we have the courts to be able to fight these things out. When the legislators pass a bill, we have the courts the ability to challenge those things, but if you put this initiative out. So even the courts can't. There's no way in this ballot initiative. Is that what you're saying? Is the court voted on? Is that if it's a ballot initiative and it becomes law, that's it, can't change it?
Speaker 1:Yep, our legislator, does not have the power, like, for instance, when can the governor do something about it?
Speaker 1:No. So when the voters decided, for instance, a Medicaid expansion, and that passed, you know a few years back, a Medicaid expansion, and that passed, you know a few years back. Well, budget wise, the legislator had to look and make some changes so that it would make sense in the budget, right yeah, if that same ballot initiative were to pass now, we would be screwed on the state budget because the legislator now, like their hands, are tied by the judicial branch to make those decisions.
Speaker 2:So that's a big problem, yeah, and but yeah, I mean, speaking of budgets.
Speaker 1:that's one thing at the city level where we have made some tremendous improvements. So you know, when I first got in and I tell the story all the time because you know I'm new to politics at this point I had never sat in a budget meeting before. And you know, I'm just coming from the medical field and I'm sitting in this meeting and I'm feeling like why am I sitting in a sales pitch, like city staff is up there and they've got this from the city from the city staff and they've got this cup of coffee on the screen, like we are going to increase taxes because we want to fund our law enforcement and there's just no way we can do it.
Speaker 1:But it's just the cost of a cup of coffee a month to everyone. We, everyone, can afford that. It's no big deal. And I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, like my flags are going up all over the place like um, actually show me the scenario of not increasing taxes. And how do we fund properly fund our public safety without raising taxes? And I was literally told when I sat down by someone who's no longer there that they couldn't present that for me, that this is just the way it is and there's not going to be any presenting alternative options. And for me that's an issue because I am elected by the people to represent them. Yeah, not for the unelected bureaucrats to tell me what to do.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so it was a little tumultuous. You know, you probably remember during that time there was a lot of people saying, oh, michelle Tanner just doesn't want to fund our law enforcement and you know, our budget's just going to completely implode and we're going to have to lay people off and it's going to be a big deal.
Speaker 1:We're not going to be able to hire police officers, and it's going to be effective public safety we won't be able to give them their raises, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I called BS on it. I said, no, I don't think that's right. In fact, I think what we need to do is reprioritize the budget. You know, line item number one should be funding our public safety, because if anything's the proper role of government, it's to protect life, liberty and property, which is exactly what they're doing. So, hey, let's shift some things around in the budget and then, if we get down to some lower priority items that truly we can't fund, well, then maybe we need to go out to the public and ask them if it's worth them raising their taxes to fund the golf course clubhouse remodel, or whatever. It is right that probably shouldn't be funded over our public safety right.
Speaker 1:Sorry, but Craig our public safety right? The answer is no, sorry, but Craig, and so it's actually really good, though, that we went through that vigorous process. We had healthy debate, and you know it went from that first budget hearing I was the only one who voted against it to the second budget hearing. The public showed up, they made their opinion and it got voted down four to one, and I will tell you, since that time, our entire budget process has shifted to where I'm no longer sitting in a sales pitch. When I'm sitting there, in fact, we are all coming together collaboratively, as a city council, as mayor, as city manager. We have a phenomenal city manager and we have great staff too, so I don't mean that derogatory, by any way, when I say unelected bureaucrats. We need them. We need them to execute the will of the people.
Speaker 2:Well, we teach people how to do their jobs right. So if we've taught them right for two decades that this is how it goes right. Or let's say, let's say 10 years, right, you have bureauc, have bureaucrat, you know bureaucratic individuals at the city is like we've done it this way for 10 years. Why are we? Why should we change it? This is like 10 times more difficult, right, and they're going to push back on those things, but we're going to teach them how, how the process should go. And when there's significant pushback and you got to change it, well, it's painful, but we got to do it, yeah, and to their credit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like appropriate changes. And you know, now the process has been great. We are able to sit down, we all talk about what the priorities should be and then you know, of course, as a single member, nothing can happen. So as long as at least three of us agrees on an item, that gets moved in the agenda and it's been appropriately prioritized now.
Speaker 1:And so I've actually been really impressed that, for instance, in this year's budget, which we're just starting to get into, we haven't had the public hearings for that yet, but actually for the first time other than COVID, because they did, you know, free some funds during COVID there was some concerns that first year there which actually ended up, we were booming and not diminishing by any stretch. But yeah, in the last at least 15, 20 years that I went back in budgets a couple of months ago, this is the first time that we have actually decreased the budget from the prior year. Nice, so, and yes, a lot of that, our new city hall, some of those projects will be wrapping up, which helps. But there's also some things that make it bigger, because we now have a self-funded health insurance plan and that gets counted twice in the budget, which I think is somewhere around 14 million. So you think that gets counted twice, whereas that wasn't getting counted twice before. So there are some other things that make it look bigger.
Speaker 2:Why do you mean it gets counted twice?
Speaker 1:Well, because you have the fund itself that has to be counted in the budget but, then also where it's distributed, has to be counted as part of the budget too, and so you end up double counting it in terms of the overall total, whereas before, when it was, you know, outsourced, it wasn't.
Speaker 3:Generally speaking, though, on the on the insurance, longourced it wasn't. But generally speaking, though, on the on the insurance, long term it's supposed to save more money than.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and I mean our rates were increasing astronomically every year before, and there is still some of that, you know, because now, depending on what the claims are like, there might be one year where there's not a lot of claims and we actually save a lot of money. There might be another year where there's heavier claims and we're paying out more. So it is definitely, you know, an up and down, but overall that trajectory, I believe, will be saving money overall in the long haul.
Speaker 2:I was listening to the work and working meeting and they were talking about how, like, ok, in the range, when we project out how many claims there's going to be expensive years and there's gonna be less expensive years. And it seems like we're on the high end of this. This could just be, right out of the gate, an expensive year based off of what claims came in from the city People tripping and falling on public sidewalks and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Cancers like stuff, stuff like that's like expensive stuff. Yeah, right, so it has a cancer claim or something like that. The city is on the hook for that because we're self-insured, right? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which, going back to the proper role of government, is like. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that. It's like the city managing it the best, where we're not at the at the mercy of an insurance organization that can raise rates whenever they want. But self-funding it, managing it ourself, is a lot more work.
Speaker 1:I listen to the whole thing. I was like, oh my gosh I can't believe it and to be clear, though there is still a third party that oversees it.
Speaker 2:It's not city staff overseeing it right, like that helps um, like facilitate shop, like understand, like the ins and outs the insurance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like we didn't have to hire 17 people to no, look over the numbers and still select health, and it's still select health insurance, gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, thanks Intermountain.
Speaker 3:So if you want to check out, I got so much to say, I know we could both get started with that freaking monopoly. Yes, we could. I know.
Speaker 2:Okay, if you want to check out there is a proposed budget online 2025-2026 budget proposal online sgcityorg.
Speaker 2:And then if you go to departments and city budget, it's right there, city budget, you can see the chart. I, I got it here. We're not going to dive into it because you haven't adopted, you guys haven't voted on it yet, but the public comment uh period will happen in june, correct? So if if the budget I know there's a bunch of you budget nerds out there listening to this podcast that are like, oh, let me get at it well I can.
Speaker 3:It's like 180 pages long too.
Speaker 1:Well it's 400, over 400 pages long, and but so here's the.
Speaker 2:Danielle texts me. She's like I got to go to call. She went up to collab just so. She's like I just need to get my mind. I got to get away so I could get into this and have no distractions.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've been carrying the 400 and whatever pages around with me everywhere I go the last couple of weeks. So, yeah, there's, and I I will say I have been through every page. Now there is a lot of information and I would just say to the public I mean, if there are concerns, like, show us what areas you would like to see improved, because every single one of us are willing to listen to the public. Like I don't know any one of us who doesn't want to hear feedback from the public. Now these blanket oh, you guys are just robbing us and constantly raising taxes and you know the budget is way too high.
Speaker 3:Like, okay, show us yeah, where, which is interesting because I always go back to like um, you know the police department, I've got a brother-in-law in the police department. I think of. You know the fire department. Stuff like that, like a fire truck, is like a million dollars, right, and as we grow we're gonna need more fire trucks, right? So I look at, we'll just stop growing, jeff if we just stop growing, we wouldn't have to we should just stop issuing building permits?
Speaker 2:yeah, we should. We don't have any water. Jeff, we're out of water. I don't care what willie billing said. He said we have a lot of water.
Speaker 3:I don't believe him yeah, are we going down that?
Speaker 2:hole do we want to go down? We're not going down that hole. If you look at so, looking at the tax, I think it's percent of the revenue we're taking in versus what we're spending. Are we spending it in the right things? Some city council members last time during the last election were saying we've had an audit as to how well we're spending it. Like we have this much money and are we accounting for every dollar in and dollar out and we've gotten awards for that. The city does a great job. Making sure there's the accounting of the money in and money out is really good, but how we spend it is what the issue was and the argument was, and there's no way to audit that Well.
Speaker 3:So here's the thing From the people.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing is since that process I told you about with the truth and taxation when we went through all of that, we have fully funded and exceeded that five-year public safety plan that they were saying that we could not fund without raising taxes.
Speaker 1:That has been fully funded to date, and then some it's exceeded that amount that we had in that initial thing, and so, priority-wise, I think that we are in alignment pretty much with where we should be in terms of priorities. Does that mean there's not always room for improvement? I think there's always room for improvement and everything, and so you know. That's why it's. It's there for the public to see. Now, in terms of auditing, it is a state law that our budget is audited every year because we have to have a balanced budget, and so, yeah, we always pass that with flying colors. Now, one new thing that we are implementing that's part of this new budget is I'm just calling it like the doge of St George City because it's a government efficiency. Actually, our budget team, which I love Robert, he's over our budget.
Speaker 3:He does a phenomenal job. Army of Robs. Yes, I know, the only thing better than one Rob is two Right, we got.
Speaker 1:Rob Axson, rob McFarlane, rob Myers yeah, it's great, robs are great. So, anyway, they are going to do some trainings, go to some of these trainings on government efficiency so that we make sure that we are spending it in the most efficient way that we can, because there's always room for improvement for sure.
Speaker 2:So, thinking about, I have the tendency to say are we looking forward enough? Are we as city officials, are we projecting out far enough ahead knowing that, okay, we're going to have growth? We can't stop building permits. We can't cut out 20% of our economic driver in construction, 40%. Well, it depends on how you look at it. The labor and statistics I did that on, I pulled up the latest labor and statistics trades and construction. If you add those two up, it's 29% of our local economy. So trades would say is a part of construction, construction being this, this bucket, construction's 11%. Trades and other things fit in there as 18%. But so maybe, yeah, we'll split the difference, let's say 30%.
Speaker 2:There's a range 30% of our economy is driven based off of that growth, that construction. Which we have available land. People can do what they want with their private land. Right, if I have, you know, 10 acres of alfalfa field and I want to turn that into houses, they can do that. That's part of what they're allowed to do. Is freedom of property? Right, they get it. They have their own property rights. Does that affect the city in a lot of different ways? Yes, it does. However, are we looking? Do we look at this budget from a how can we start looking forward to rainy days, or do we need to put things utilities? I was listening to a podcast about Fayetteville, louisiana, and how-, lafayette, lafayette, lafayette, fayetteville is Arkansas. That's Arkansas. Yeah, yeah, razorbacks, yeah, yeah, lafayette, lafayette, lafayette.
Speaker 3:That's Arkansas. Yeah, yeah, razorbacks. Yeah yeah, lafayette, lafayette, lafayette. If you're from Louisiana, it's.
Speaker 2:Lafayette. So they didn't prepare for flood stuff right, and so they built all these new roads and all this affordable housing and that was like the big banner over, you know, basically from 2012 until 2015. Like that was their big banner and then this flood came and flooded out all of these affordable housing, you know, units and developments, and they didn't have proper flood control. Do you do? You think I believe that we have a lot of really good people when it comes to managing utilities and things like that, but do we really take a second to look forward and say what does it look like in 510 years? Because I know the general plan. We're just finalizing the 20 year general plan. How's that process been and where, maybe where do you find where we're not doing enough at and where are we doing really good at?
Speaker 1:and some of the other things going on. Is you know how is this going to affect the economy moving forward? Hopefully it's a positive and not a negative, but he takes the conservative approach.
Speaker 1:And overall as a council and as citizens, I think most of us would also agree with that, and so it's reflecting the will of the people of taking that conservative approach is, you know, let's not overextend ourselves for next year and then the economy tanks like, let's plan for it, you know, not increasing like we anticipate it probably will, but we're not going to plan the budget as if it's going to Right, and so I think, overall, we are really good at doing that. And then, yeah, looking forward to, there is state law that prohibits the amount to have an, say, a rainy day fund and things like that, which we are in compliance with that and meeting those thresholds. So I think we're in a strong position overall as a city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you think we should be planning forward on?
Speaker 1:So there will come to a point where I mean, you see right now, where I mean every single stretch of land that possibly can be built on is being built on In.
Speaker 2:St George for sure.
Speaker 1:In St George, right, and now it's getting into some of the more difficult areas to build on near hillsides and on top of hills and things like that and so there will become a time where we are closer to build out and, like we talked about, like so much of our economy being driven by construction. It's like what does that look like when this is slowing down, which inevitably will happen at some point? And so I think it's good that we have a diversified economy coming in with, say, tech Ridge you know I'll give Tech Ridge a shout out.
Speaker 1:I think it's awesome that we have those types of companies and job opportunities here, because there will need to be a transition at some point, you know. Will there always be some construction? Sure, but not to the extent that we have right now.
Speaker 2:So I'm concerned a little bit with energy infrastructure. I feel like I know I've had Laura Mangum on Laurie Mangum Laurie and she ran St George Power as a liaison to the city and really helped that utility become one of the better utility systems in Southern Utah and really Utah in general. And she planned out before she retired, she planned out this 10 year plan to where she could really stabilize those power bills with natural gas and some of these other things. And my concern is the cities around St George haven't really planned for that and I can't help but think is electricity and the usage of electricity on the radar. Is anybody talking about? Hey, you know, five, 10 years from now, the energy output nationwide is going to 5x, right, Five times that, and we don't necessarily have the systems in place on that.
Speaker 2:Do you hear anybody talking about that, whether it's from the county level or state level, of how, as St George goes, we're on an island and we're, you know, rolling blackouts and things like that can really impact us. Right, Because we have, we run all of the emergency for basically five counties around us. Right, we have the airport and the tower there, the air traffic control tower there. We're such this like important hub right here in the desert. Has there been any conversations about that? Have you? Have you looked at that at?
Speaker 1:all yeah, and I think it's something we always have to be looking at. Diversifying and that's something I know that Lori was really big on and she did a great job training Brian, who is now over our energy department, and you know, I think even looking at things like small cell nuclear, I know, is a really you know buzzword. Right now it's kind of newer and you know I know that we haven't fully bought into that yet, but I think that's definitely something that we're going to see more of in the future and we are fortunate to have Representative Colin Jack down here I'm going to have to man.
Speaker 1:you guys are having all these podcasts. I need to go back and catch up on here.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm going to have to. Man, you guys are having all these podcasts I need to go back and catch up on.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I love Colin. I think he does a phenomenal job and we're fortunate to have his expertise with being the engineer and the industry.
Speaker 3:I think we talked for two hours.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's so smart, yeah, but he's been a good job protecting us legislatively to make sure that these coal mines and things are not shutting down like we need this. So yeah, but I think you're right. I mean, it's certainly something that we always need to be looking into the future and diversifying and assuring that we have proper supply.
Speaker 2:Do you think, do you think this Trump plan on releasing, you know, the economic resources of BLM land is that going to come into play here in Washington County?
Speaker 1:I need to do a deeper dive on that. Honestly, I know I've been seeing bits and pieces about that and so I guess I won't really comment too deeply on that my opinion, because, yeah, I need to look further into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, like think about annexation of land. Right, it's like we get closer to build out's like, well then.
Speaker 1:Well, we got a lot of blm land next to sun river, right, that that all of a sudden could be part of saint george, and what I will say on that is I some of the criticism I've heard about it which I'm like, scratching my head a little bit, is I would much rather have local control versus federal control, and so I've seen some criticism of oh no, we don't want to, you know, take over these federal lands, and I'm like, but you trust the federal government to have control over it, like just not Trump.
Speaker 2:They just don't want Trump to have control over it. It's always the opposite person, right? It's like, well, I would, I would let Biden have control over it, but I'm not going to let Trump have control over it, right, and so, like that's the. That's where there's tension there, but I agree with you.
Speaker 1:I'd rather see local control.
Speaker 2:So it's state control even, you know like, whether it's state control or city control or wherever it is, I think there's it's going to be an interesting path moving forward over the next three years on how that kind of plays out yeah.
Speaker 1:And I don't want to see you know of government is because I know I got some calls on. There was a news article about St George potentially getting a piece of that land for quote affordable housing, retainable housing. Now, you know, is there a need for more attainable housing? Of course we do have to be careful, though, in government. I am never a fan of anything in terms of, you know, rent controls, price controls. The city get involved in actually producing these quote affordable housing like that is for the free market and the private sector. Government can help by eliminating red tape and letting entrepreneurs and the free market take over and fill that void.
Speaker 2:Was that? Was there a big debate on the downtown plan? Because zoning, I think you know back to the the city council being 70 development right is like land use and development. You know, in having conversations about the zone changes and things like that is there. Is there a big spectrum of opinions on the city council right now as to what we should do for for zoning in the different areas, or I think?
Speaker 1:we're not super far apart. I think this is is where actually Danielle and I probably align the most in terms of I am not a fan of restrictions, and you know I. Going back to property rights and you know, love me or hate me for this I believe that people should be able to do what they want with their own property. Now there's a balance and this has been probably one of the more difficult issues for me as a council member and making some of these land use decisions is balancing my libertarianism in that way and I'm a Republican but I'm also very libertarian in terms of land use and property rights is balancing that with okay, but you also have to assure proper infrastructure right.
Speaker 1:You also have to assure there's not a true infringement on somebody else's freedom or somebody else's property rights that are a true public safety issue that's going to occur from what they want to do with their property.
Speaker 1:Short-term rentals always come up as a hot button Right and my opinion on that I'm sure differs and I know differs from other council members because, again, I think, as a property owner, if I want to live in my property and short-term rent part of my property, that's my right as property owner and especially having it be owner occupied it eliminates a lot of the concerns out there of noise, disturbance and nuisance and all of these things that people worry about. So personally I don't have a problem with owner occupied short term rental. But anyway, that's a balancing act and you know, I think actually Danielle and I I'm not going to speak for her, I guess, but from conversations I've had with her I think that we actually align a lot on, you know, being giving property owners that ability to, in terms of zoning you know, do what you want with your property so long as you meet those other requirements.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think there's been a lot of progress, if I can use that term.
Speaker 2:Progressive opinion on land use in St George more so than other cities right, but St George can't just do it themselves. Right, and affordable housing is and I've said this a bazillion times. It's so complex and there's no magical wand that's just going to solve the problem, and most of it is impacted by, pure and simple, the interest rate. Is that it was really affordable to live here in 2015 and 2017 because property values were kind of an enormous space and interest rates weren't super high. And those. Those are the two little functions that make up 60% of affordability, the other being wages, and I think the city and government can do a little bit better in raising the wages for city jobs and government jobs, but they have to do it within their budget, right, and so if they have sound budgetary policy and they can afford to pay the government employees more, I think they should, because that'll help raise the wages across the county in the private sector as well, because the government employs like 40 percent of our county Like truthfully, it's like 40 percent is government jobs.
Speaker 1:It's high at the hospitals, a high the school district which is part of government, Exactly.
Speaker 2:And city officials and all those other things, and so it's such a huge, huge portion of it is where you raise the wages there. It typically is going to trickle into raising wages for the private industry, but we have to have land that is used for entrepreneurial business creation and I think I think we've done a pretty good job of that, especially with tech ridge. Uh, what they've done out in desert color? Um, there's. There's these master plans that I think have done a good job bringing in new businesses that have allowed to diversify Fort Pierce Industrial too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Fort Pierce.
Speaker 2:And it's honestly, I could say, on the industrial side of things, with the inland port out by the airport. That's a good, that's a really good ad, because industrial space there's a big need for it and we're right on I-15. And now we have an airport that can support shipping stuff out for it. And we're right on i-15, and now we have an airport that can support shipping stuff out. Industrial manufacturing, those types of jobs I think are going to be huge over the next 50 years. So anything the city can do to help grow, that'll be awesome. Um, what else can we cover? What else you want to chat about?
Speaker 1:man, I feel like we hit on a lot from like the drama from the drama of the the rhinos versus the extremists to, yeah, the state to the city level.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to have you back on specifically to talk about your campaign and just how you're going to differentiate from the candidates, and so anybody listening in, we're going to cover. It doesn't happen till late June. It's like June 20th is something like that. Is that where they put their name?
Speaker 1:on the line.
Speaker 3:No, the filing is the first week of june yeah, june 2nd to the 6th. Yeah, you have to file.
Speaker 2:Six is the cutoff okay, so once, once uh candidates start filing weeks I know it's coming up fast, wow, yeah so so we'll be following the the local elections for the big five cities in Washington County, uh, interviewing the candidates. So love to have you back on.
Speaker 2:It'll be a shorter episode we're going to talk, just campaign like, hey, this is what you stand for, I'm gonna ask some survey questions. That way Everybody can go to a single website and say, hey, here are the candidates, this is what they stand on, here's the interview, here's a list of questions, so that they can kind of, if they can't make it out, to the meet and greets, which they have a ton of those you're in for a fun summer.
Speaker 3:So I have a question on that.
Speaker 1:I can't wait.
Speaker 3:So since you've publicly announced, congratulations.
Speaker 1:Yes On the 435 podcast.
Speaker 3:On the 435 podcast.
Speaker 2:Big announcement.
Speaker 3:Are you what's your strategy? Like short-term strategy, maybe in the next week or two? Are you going to like hit social media hard, media hard? Are you going to get a bunch of signs out? Are you going to do things?
Speaker 1:different maybe than you did last time.
Speaker 3:What's kind of your thought process there it's so, and I have a reason in asking that question yeah, and it's so.
Speaker 1:I'm actually going to be out of town on a humanitarian trip nice leading up until the filing, so there's not a whole lot. I'm going to be able to do um before then, but yeah, I'll probably announce on. So when does this drop?
Speaker 2:uh, do you know? Tuesday okay, it'll be tomorrow, so I'll probably announce on social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, either we could delay it too, if you want oh, I don't care, you can put it out whenever, um which I mean, yeah, I guess where we talked about the convention too, you might want to drop it yes, while it's still kind of relevant right semi-fresh.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I don't know, I'll probably announce on social media, maybe when I officially file that first week of June and I threw out all my campaign signs. So I'm going to have to like totally redo all of that. I need to start making phone calls and see where I can put signs and get them designed and all of that. So it'll be interesting, because the first time I ran I didn't know what to expect. I was a no name, nobody knew who I was, and so I kind of just came out of nowhere. And then, you know, to be the top vote getter in that primary election was like, oh OK, I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess my message is coming across. And my message was so simple. It was just about liberty and freedom. And of course that was fresh during COVID, when all of us were so tired of the mandates and that's what really, you know, spurred me to get involved. And so this time, where there's kind of been some distance now since COVID and some of those mandates, I mean my message hasn't changed in terms of that's still, what I'm about is individual freedom and liberty and the proper role of government, but it's the work isn't done yet Like we need to continue to move like we've.
Speaker 3:We've shifted the needle in a really positive direction. I got a campaign slogan for you, michelle Tanner keeping St George great. I love it you can take it free, okay, thank you, hey. I need all the help I can it. You can take it free, okay. Thank you, hey. I need all the help I can get. I didn't mean to cut you off, no.
Speaker 1:I need all the help I can get, and so yeah, that's. I guess what I would say is, if people like what I stand for, then yeah, like it's going to take all hands on deck and it'll be really interesting because, because I am such a person that I'm not afraid to say something, even if it's politically unpopular. I've at times offended the left. I've at times offended the right, like I'm not really boxed in, as we started this opener with. I've been painted as a rhino, I've been painted as an extremist right, because I'm simply not afraid to say what I believe. And you know, what I think is right is what I'm going to stand on principle over popularity, and so that's why I think this race slogan too, so, that was actually part of my campaign.
Speaker 1:Slogan last time was principle over popularity and and um silence in the face of tyranny is dangerous was also one of my my campaign slogans as well, cause I don't think we should be afraid to be a voice and, you know, stand on those principles.
Speaker 1:So I don't know where there's people in both of those camps that I've probably offended in one way or another. I'm hoping that you know kind of the the middle ground there, who who is willing to have that open dialogue and wants to continue to see my type of a voice on the city council. That I do feel reflects a lot of our community. I'm hoping that we are able to rally together and move forward.
Speaker 2:Sweet Well. Michelle Tanner, st George City Council. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having an unpopular opinion every once in a while. We always got to have it. City elections coming up this year, november mayor and two city council seats coming up. Michelle tanner's running uh, let's see who steps up against michelle tanner. I don't think there's gonna be a whole lot of people raising their hand being like, oh yeah, I'll face michelle, that's kind of my reason behind asking that I was gonna wrap question, go it do.
Speaker 3:it is, I think, if you and I don't know anything about campaigning, but if you come, come out hot and heavy, it's going to weed out a whole bunch of people, because last time, when there was like 16 or something, it's just it's completely pointless and so hopefully some of these people that are thinking about just paying the 50 bucks and being annoying they see you run and they're like I'm going to mess with it and instead maybe we'll have like six candidates that will have like meaningful conversations and debates. Yeah, it'll be interesting.
Speaker 1:I mean I think it's healthy. I mean as much as it would be very, a lot easier and less stress in my life to just run unopposed. I doubt that's going to happen, obviously, but it's okay, it's healthy to have that debate I agree, but I do think there's, especially from the last elections.
Speaker 3:There was probably six, seven, eight people that just did it, just because they could throw their think there's, especially from the last elections there was probably six, seven, eight people that just did it, just because they could throw there, and there's nothing wrong with that. They can. Yeah, I can think of one.
Speaker 2:I can think of one. He runs every time he's going to run again. It'll be. It'll be interesting. All right, guys, thanks for coming on. We got to wrap. Enjoy everything we talked about. Make sure you like, subscribe, hit the bell and follow Michelle Tanner on social media because she says a lot of great stuff.
Speaker 2:All right, guys we'll see you out there. Thank you, bye, bye. Thanks for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Make sure you're following us on all the social media websites. We love your support. We love the dialogue. We want to continue that going Find.