75 Episodes of Good Government (S4E12)

Celebrating our 75th Episode – we turn the tables on host Dave Martin when executive producer David Snyder asks him the questions.

GoodGovernmentShow.com Thanks to our sponsors:

• Ourco
• How to Really Run a City
• Route Fifty
• National Association of Counties (NACo)

Transcription

David Snyder: This is the good government show.

Dave Martin: So folks, what we’re going to do today on the Good Government Show is we are going to look back at 75 episodes of the Good Government Show.

David Snyder: The impetus for the show was, and is to provide a balance to the constant negative coverage that government and government stories get.

When we’re at the conferences, the different legislative conferences, we hear again and again from different, government executives, if you will, that they listen to the show for best practices.

You learn that there’s a whole lot of good government out there.

Dave Martin: Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. And on this episode of The Good Government Show, well, I have a very, very special guest. And I have to say that because, well, he’s my partner, so welcome, if you would, the co-executive producer to The Good Government Show. my partner and friend, David Snider. David, welcome to this side of the Good Government Show.

David Snyder: Thank you very much, David. It’s a pleasure to, Well, maybe it’s a pleasure. You know, I’m shy, so I don’t normally. come on to the mic. You know, I’m the guy behind the scenes, but, you’re joking me.

Dave Martin: You’re not.

David Snyder: It’s pleasurable.

Dave Martin: Okay. All right. What are you yelling at me? You’re not shy. So good for you. So, folks, what we’re going to do today on the Good Government Show is we are going to look back at 75 episodes of the Good Government Show. David, how did we get here?

David Snyder: Well, that’s a you know what? That’s a great question. it was, a long gestation from, our point of view. we started, a couple of years ago, in a relationship with, the National Association of Counties.

Dave Martin: Yes, we did.

David Snyder: And, and we have been recording interviews with counties, ever since. I will say, though, the, the impetus for the show was and is to provide a balance to the constant negative coverage that government and government stories get. If you polled people, around the country, about the effectiveness of their government, I think they’d probably come up with a negative number.

Right. Like, they they would, by and large, come back with, oh, man, it is not working well. And the reason they feel that is because all of the news that they get, is about the bad stuff. Right? And so we set out, on a mission to right that wrong because, conversations with the county government, people, the folks, the commissioners, the workers, we found that easily 90% of the government functioning works beautifully and invisibly, right?

Like nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody notices it because nothing’s going wrong, right? They only notice the stuff that’s going wrong anyway. That’s the antidote. Like we. We wanted to be an antidote.

Dave Martin: Yeah. And one of the first stories we did was, the, R3 program in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Our friend Christian Line back, told us about this. And these two women who were in charge of ultra, you know, jail alternatives for people who got arrested. You know, they just sat down at their desk one day and they said, this isn’t working.

What are we doing wrong here? What are we doing wrong here? And they sort of looked at what they were doing, and they came up with the program. And what they did was, is they taught people not just a new job, but how to work. And they put them through an extensive program. It wasn’t just a one week program.

They put it through an extensive program where they learned the construction trade. but they learned how to work. They learned that you have to take your lunch to work. They learned that you have to wear shoes, that you have to open a checking account. And so it wasn’t just like, oh, well, here’s a program, you know, go take this program and go.

And we know it’s successful because they got their recidivism rate down to like, you know, 10% of the people, which is, you know, far below the national average of like 60% of the people would get out of jail and go to programs, go back in their group is is way lower. It’s like 10%. And it was just two women who just sat there, poured themselves a cup of coffee, sat at their desks, looked at each other, and said, how do we make this better?

They don’t make the.

David Snyder: Papers, by the way. It’s like, that should be front page news, you know, like, the Redding, Pennsylvania recidivism rate is at 10%. Yes. Right. But where it’s it’s buried somewhere in the back. And so that’s why that’s why we exist. Yeah.

Dave Martin: And and they didn’t, you know, they didn’t make the front page of the papers. They didn’t make the local news. They didn’t get a big bonus. They’re not running for office. They’re just two women who work in government who said, we have to? How do we make this better? How do we fix this? So 75 episodes in, I’ve learned a few things.

I’ve been impressed by a few things I hope you have too. And, okay, now I’m the host. I’m turning it over to you. so welcome, please, your host for today’s show, David Snyder.

David Snyder: I’m not even going to pretend to be the host. But I will say, David, as we look back from this point, at 75. And by the way, we’re going, you know, we we are going, forward on this, but what is your favorite, like out of 75 episodes? What is, what is the thing that rang your bell the loudest?

Dave Martin: there are so many things that have just struck me, and I could just go on for the next half hour and talk about these, but I’ll try not to. this is one of my favorite guests was Oz Nesbitt, and he’s a county commissioner. He’s president of the county commission in Rockdale County, Georgia. and that’s Augusta, Georgia.

And he told me about the three E’s. Are you ready? He said, emotions, egos and entitlement. You have to avoid those three ugly E’s emotions, ego and entitlement. He repeated it several times and he said it. And if you don’t, you’re going to jail. So I just, you know, I’ve I’ve actually listened to that show a couple of times and I’ve gotten to know Oz Nesbitt, a little bit better over the years.

But, you know, he’s right. you know, if if you’re a politician and you are an elected official and you let your emotions are your ego, your sense of entitlement get in the way, you’re not going to do your job. So that’s number.

David Snyder: One. And also people will not like you. Yeah, right. And so like it’s such an interesting thing because, it is life changing advice. It applies to everything.

Dave Martin: And or if you’re a politician, he said you’ll wind up in jail. So that was it. That’s that’s one of the ones that stand out. But there’s so many others. So I’ll let you fire away with the next question.

David Snyder: Well, I would then think that he would be what you would consider at the top of the list of, you know, favorites.

Dave Martin: Sure. Absolutely.

David Snyder: Favorite guest?

Dave Martin: Yeah. one of the things that we’ve talked about recently that I was really excited about, well, really interested in hearing about, you know, one of the things, in the news items is immigration, you know, what are we doing about the immigration? You hear lots of stories. You see things on TV about, you know, the you know, there are some people who have denigrated, you know, these folks, you know, who are coming into the country, David Stout is in El Paso, Texas.

He is a county commissioner there. And he is a, you know, he’s bilingual. you know, he said, don’t forget, these are people. At the end of the day, they’re people. And they’ve literally walk through hell on earth to get here. you know, many of them, most of them, all the people I talked to. And he said, you know, what you’re seeing on television is not what I’m seeing in El Paso.

I go to our, you.

David Snyder: Know, our by the way, though, that’s, that was a very similar, hit from, Todd Gloria in San Diego. Absolutely. And I found it interesting that, that when we are talking to Border town, border city, border county, executives, they’re seeing a very different picture than what we are seeing, in the northeast, for example, on the news.

Dave Martin: Right? Absolutely. And that’s that’s why I wanted to talk to them. And that’s what I found so interesting. Yeah. Todd Gloria, the mayor of San Diego, David Stout in El Paso, Manny Ramirez, who’s a county supervisor in Santa Cruz, Arizona, that’s Nogales. That’s that is a city literally cut in half by the border. And he says, yeah, we could be doing better.

Yeah, there’s other things we could be doing. you know Mattie Parker from Fort Worth, Texas. You know, she’s not on the border, but she’s in Texas. You know, they all sort of said the same thing. This hysteria over immigrants is not what we’re seeing at the border. Yeah, we could do better. Yeah, we can always do better.

Yeah, there’s things we could do. I mean, Ruiz is is a great example. He is a first generation, you know, Mexican-American. His father came to the country and built houses. He actually lives in a house his dad built. But he’s like, no, you know, we’re not, you know, we’re not overrun. We’re not. It’s not a problem. There are.

And, you know, again, these border towns, you know, they all said, oh, no, I go over to Mexico for lunch. I went the other day for dinner. Unfortunately, with the way things are now, it’s not that easy. But you got the impression talking to these guys that living on the border has lots of advantages. You go back and forth, you go over for lunch, you go over for dinner, you go to the beach, down in, in, in San Diego and Rosarito.

you can’t do that anymore. But what I was impressed with and most surprised by is their story is not, a narrative that gets pushed on national news. And I was glad to hear that.

David Snyder: That’s a bit. You know what? That’s just a very good point. So, David, as you’re, a little weighs in on the 75 episodes. Yep. We started, a questionnaire.

Dave Martin: Yes.

David Snyder: Which, which we’ve asked, like literally all of the, all of the subsequent guests. Yes. To go through the questionnaire. And so, and, and it is, it asks questions about them locally and it asks questions about the job that they do. And so, what from your vantage point, what is the best example, you know, of, government doing good?

Dave Martin: Oh, the best example of government doing good. there’s been so many examples of government doing good. Hillary Shive is the mayor of Reno, Nevada, and she was the she’s just the outgoing our past president of the Conference of Mayors. she was just so delightful to talk to and so delightful to meet and get to know.

But her personal story is kind of impressive. in some sense impressive. She has a history of mental health challenges in her family, and she was having some challenges herself. And so she tried to get help for her family, and she found out how difficult it was. And I think we titled that show is the Mayor can’t Do it.

Who can you know. So when she became president of the Conference of Mayors, you know, she set out to make mental health challenge awareness, services, something that everybody was doing across the nation.

David Snyder: And by the way, it’s it’s it is a national issue.

Dave Martin: It’s a national.

David Snyder: You know, right. Especially coming out of Covid, you know, we all started to recognize, mental health.

Dave Martin: But she was trying to get help for her family, and she’s having a really hard time doing it. And, Jim Cavanaugh is a county commissioner in Omaha, Nebraska. You know, that’s also his issue. So, you know, when you talk to them, you know, one of the questionnaires, when you talk about, you know, what good can government projects you’re working on, you know, those two people, two very different people, very different circumstances.

Jim Cavanaugh was a lawyer who handled people who had, you know, government claims and Social Security claims and stuff like that. That was what he was working on. But two very different people working on two very different issues. Greg Puckett in West Virginia also, was was working on these issues because he’s in West Virginia, where they have, you know, drug problems and recidivism problems and jailing problems, and that leads to mental health problems.

And so, you know, those were good government stories that I was excited about.

David Snyder: David, when we were at the different legislative conferences, we hear again and again from different, government executives, if you will, that they listen to the show for best practices. Right, right. They like, Greg Puckett in West Virginia or, you know, wouldn’t necessarily, know what’s going on in Reno, Nevada. Right, right. But the ideas that she is implementing are pretty interesting.

Right? And so he gets, you know, he’s able to get a tailwind from, you know, that information, you know, by listening to the show. And so tell me when you are reflecting on, you know, what what what would be a great example, like dig in a little bit. Tell us like what? What about the mental health. Like give me some specifics on on what that what that program was.

Dave Martin: Right. So one of the things that everyone you know is trying to work towards when you look at tackle mental health challenges is, you know, lining up the right people with the right services. And, you know, one of the problems that you know, people have is too often, the police are the first line of offense, I guess, for lack of a better word, when you’re dealing with mental health challenges.

And what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to say, no, no, no, no, this is not a police problem. This is a mental health problem. So let’s let’s not deal with this as a, as a prison issue or as a jail issue, as a criminal issue. We need to deal with this as a health issue. So that’s, you know, and I think that in some countries, some countries, counties rather, and cities, what they’re doing is, is they’re having, social workers respond with police, or having, you know, social workers get involved much, much earlier rather than like, oh, wait, this guy served three years and he’s crazy.

Well, gee, wonder why it’s let’s, you know, let’s attack this problem early on. That’s one of the big specifics that I took away from some of the ways that they’re challenging, you know, mental health problems. Yeah. And, you know, sort of on topic, but sort of off topic, we went to, Boone County, West Virginia, where Appalachian Botanical is a company that started to, beautify, and improve on former mining sites.

In brief, when you remove the top of a mountain, you take the coal out, and when the coal is all out, then you have to either put the mountain back or make it better than it was at Appalachian Botanical. What they did was they turned the Raven Crest Mine in Boone County, West Virginia, into a lavender farm.

And what they’re doing there is they are it’s a second, second chance job company, so that people who’ve been to jail, who’ve had been to rehab can get a job and work at a job, and mostly they have social services there. So if they see if someone doesn’t show up for work 2 or 3 days or shows up for work and is not quite ready to work, they sit down with them.

What’s going on? What’s the problem? Let’s get you in. Let’s get someone over here. Let’s get someone to talk to. And they’ve been very successful in several ways. they have turned a former mine site into a lavender farm. They have put some 200 people to work, of which about 75 have stayed working and have been effective and have done a good job and have gone on to other places, which is great.

But they’ve also expanded. They start with a just, you know, lavender oil and lavender creams, and now they’ve got a whole line of, I think 25 products that are all lavender base huge success story. And I get to talk to Gayle mentioned about that my friend in West Virginia. And she is on the, Appalachian Rural Commission and she’s she and they are doing a great job in keeping their eye on what’s going on in Appalachia.

David Snyder: So, David, you’re from Brooklyn, New York.

Dave Martin: I live in Brooklyn, New York. Yes.

David Snyder: so can you explain the crush that you have on West Virginia?

Dave Martin: yes, I can. I never what is imagined going to West Virginia. I just it’s like, who wants to go to West Virginia? Why would I want to go there? I, you know, I, I you see those pictures of rural Appalachia of, you know, all the images that you have of Appalachia. And I went there and I met some really incredible people.

and what they’re doing in West Virginia is they are trying very, very hard to get off a coal economy because that was the state. And they’ve come up with different plans and different programs. they’ve come up with alternatives. They’ve there are people in there that are trying to make a difference, like Appalachian Botanical. McDowell County is the city of Welch, once a very, very prosperous city of 100,000 people, I think.

And now they’re down to like 20,000 people.

David Snyder: My number is in the first municipal parking lot.

Dave Martin: And I said, well, here’s why. Because people would come into the city of Welch. And, you know, it’s sort of in it’s up in the the Appalachian Mountains and there’s no flat land. So they had to build a parking lot because every Friday all the mines paid and every Saturday people had to come in to do their shopping, to get their haircut, to buy a new pair of shoes, to buy a new pair of pants, and to see everybody and cash their check and all that stuff.

And there was no place to park. A guy said to me, David, you don’t understand. When I was a kid right here in downtown Welch where you’re standing, you couldn’t you couldn’t walk. It was just it was crowded. There was just people everywhere. So they had to build a municipal parking lot. But I got to go to Welch, and I got to meet the folks in Welch.

you know, I’ve been up in the hollers. I’ve been driving around town, I’ve met folks. I got to go to the Greenbrier in, Greenbrier, West Virginia. What are the most beautiful American resorts and and the and the country, fantastic place, fantastic people. Tammy Tinker is a county commissioner there. she is a friend of the podcast and a friend of mine.

just great. And and I think I mentioned before, Greg Puckett in Mercer County, they’ve got a program now where they are. In brief, when the coal jobs go, the people who lived in the company towns had houses. But when there’s no coal jobs, there’s no reason to be in the in the town. And many of them just left.

And so they left your houses that are abandoned. And nobody’s paying attention to them. Nobody’s taking care of them. They become dilapidated. Bad elements move in, including, animals and vermin, and they become garbage. Thompson eyesores. And I’ve seen a lot of these. and what Greg Puckett is doing is he’s got a program where they are tearing down 2 or 3 houses at a time, clearing them out, clearing out the people that shouldn’t be there, many of them getting into services, getting rid of the garbage dumps, getting rid of the vermin shelters and, you know, cleaning them up, you know, 2 or 3 houses at a time.

That’s a story to go back to West Virginia four and get on an ATV. And I didn’t mention and I have to I went to almost all of the had to live in quite a few sites.

David Snyder: That’s a little that was my next question.

Dave Martin: Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, I read a little too much about it that I was in West Virginia. I said, well, I gotta go down to the Tug Fork River. And I got to see this place. And I met, one of the Hatfield descendants who’s got a little museum there and Sarah and on the, Lance Hatfield’s last homestead.

He’s built a little museum there. And I went to, Randall McCoy’s, house where, New Year’s Eve, bunch of Hatfields came in and shot up a bunch of McCoys. the guy who owned the house there walked over to me and said, you know, did you park your car in my driveway? I said, yeah, and he goes, well, that’s my driveway.

He said, oh, I’m really sorry. Let me move. Because now come on over and talk. And I was with the guy for like two hours. It was fascinating. you know, we walked around because, oh, look, if you if you want to get a shovel, you can probably dig up some bullets from the from the feud. I’m like, no, I’m good.

But I.

David Snyder: it was amazing.

Dave Martin: Yeah. The well, is still there that, Randall McCoy built and, the homestead still there. And he said, you know, they were standing here and this was they were standing there, and it was it was fascinating. So yes, that’s my fascination was West Virginia. Let’s move on to others.

David Snyder: And then driving in with New York plates.

Dave Martin: Yes, yes, I will tell you the story. I was driving up a holler and okay, so hollers are these sort of areas between the hills? like a valley, but they call them hollers and, you have to say correctly, if you’re there and, there was this one place and, you know, they were talking about in McDowell County, they need more teachers.

They have a huge teacher shortage. So they had a program where they would give scholarships to high school kids to go to college and come back and be teachers. They built a, an apartment house for them. So they’re making progress in McDowell County. But they said, oh, yeah, we’ve had teachers that have come in and they sort of live in the hollers and they don’t last long at all.

Let’s drive up a holler. And I drove up a holler and every other house was abandoned. So one house was someone lived in, one house was abandoned, one house was a converted trailer that’s up and down the holler. And in my Subaru Outback, with New York plates. I drove up the holler. And then as I drove back, there were people standing up looking at me with their heads going, like following the car.

Like, who is this guy and what’s he doing? everybody was, you know, no, no incidents. You know, they say you have a there’s. You haven’t met a friend in West Virginia? No. You always meet a friend in West Virginia. That’s it. You always meet a friend of West Virginia. So, yes, that’s my West Virginia story. Can we talk about the keys?

Can we talk about the keys?

David Snyder: that that, you, have lived there and went to school in Florida. I understand that you are. You were, emphatic about covering the keys.

Dave Martin: Well, here’s why, the.

David Snyder: Monroe County, specifically.

Dave Martin: Right. And the Florida Keys is one of my favorite places on the planet. yes. I spent a lot of time down there. a lot of time in both Allen Mirada and Key West. I’ve been fishing out there a bit, diving out there. I’ve been snorkeling out there. I’ve spent afternoons and hours. But what’s one of the problems?

You know, the keys is a very fragile ecosystem and it’s at sea level. And one of the reasons, one of the many problems they had is back in the 50s and 60s, they wanted more waterfront property for all these houses, for people who were coming down from South Florida and wanted a summer house or winter house, or, you know, Yankees from, up north wanted a winter house down in the keys.

And they didn’t think about water flow. And as a result of that, many of the canals, I think there’s a thousand canals, became stagnant and and the water was there just was horrible. And, you know, people were telling me in Key Largo they could not sit in their backyard because the smell was so horrible. And they’ve come up with a program to clean that up.

Monroe County is really, leading the way in water flow challenges and how to overcome them. And, it’s just it’s just beautiful. And they’re doing a great job. You know, they’re they’re cleaning up, you know, 3 or 4 canals a year. they’ve got a long way to go. and now the other issue they’re dealing with down there is the sea rise.

they get these king tides and, you know, water floods the street. I was talking to this one person who lives on the end of a street. It’s a beautiful property. But to get there, sometimes they have to drive through, you know, one, two, three feet of water, crocodiles, fish, you know, in the street where they’re supposed to be.

And, you know, there’s lots of challenges of cleaning that up, but but they do have, people that are working on it, and it’s the Florida Keys, and it’s just it’s just beautiful.

David Snyder: Well, and there there’s a center of excellence like Rhonda Haeg and that team, they are, you know, they are top of class and water management.

Dave Martin: Yes they are. Yeah. They’ve done they they are working on things and they’re creating they’re creating solutions to problems that nobody ever thought about before. And that’s that’s my infatuation with the keys.

David Snyder: All right. So David. Yes. Tell me what you’ve learned from the questionnaire.

Dave Martin: Get involved. That’s issue number one. When I ask people, the question I ask is, you know, if people don’t like what they’re seeing, what should they do? And everybody’s answer pretty much universally up and down is get involved. And it can take any, you know, you can take it at any level you want. You want to run for office.

Run for office. You want to be, a poll worker. I’ve done that, you know, do that. You want to just show up at meetings, you know, be involved. Do things that will help. Don’t just sit back and complain. You know, do something. You know, every city, every county, every state has some kind of board. They have school boards and they have, zoning boards, and they have athletic departments and athletic and parks department advisory councils, anything.

If you’re a big baseball guy and you want to build more baseball fields, then go to a parks department meeting, go there. Volunteer. That’s one of the things that I that they said, get involved.

David Snyder: I love that. And then what have you noticed about, you know, when you ask the question, you know, who are your who’s your political heroes?

Dave Martin: Oh, political.

David Snyder: Heroes. You know, there have been some surprises in, in those answers. and so what, you know, what is, what is, touched? You sure. responses.

Dave Martin: few Teddy Roosevelt’s, which is interesting. who do we talk to? Oh, Tara Stamps recently. She’s a county commissioner in Chicago, in Cook County. her mom was a huge activist and apparently quite famous in, the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago and in the city of Chicago. She said, you know, my mom is my hero. a few people were inspired by an uncle, a father, a mother, a parent, you know, someone who was involved in politics.

certainly that a lot of people cited Ronald Reagan. one guy in Texas, Lyndon Johnson mentioned as, as a political hero. all.

David Snyder: Right.

Dave Martin: Matt Meyer, who is running for governor of Delaware, who’s a county commissioner in Newcastle, he cited this, who was it? It was, I think it was a president of a small African nation who drove around in a Volkswagen. It would just, like, stop at bus stops and park his card, get out and go, hey, how are we doing?

How’s everybody thinking? so there are people on the local level that have, inspired folks to get involved. And there are people, you know, nationally, that have inspired people to get involved. So it’s that’s a fun question because you never know what the answer is going to be.

David Snyder: Well, exactly. And then, when you were interviewing Jaron Brandon, from, Tula may.

Dave Martin: County. County. Yep. That’s the heart of gold.

David Snyder: He’s one of the he’s one of the youngest, people that we’ve interviewed.

Dave Martin: Yep. Yeah.

David Snyder: And his hero.

Dave Martin: actually, I don’t remember who his hero was, I can’t remember.

David Snyder: His hero was Jon Stewart.

Dave Martin: Oh, right. Right, right, right. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. Thank you forever. Yeah. And, well, just, you know, you talk about younger guys. I talked to Justin Bibb, who is the mayor of Cleveland, 35 years old, elected mayor. he is working to transform Cleveland. You know, it’s one of the old Rust Belt cities that’s got challenges.

But, you know, Cleveland is, you know, according to him, it’s it’s it’s coming around. he created something called the 15 Minute City, where within 15 minutes you can walk to a park, to green space, you can walk to work, you can walk to a store, you can walk to entertainment. so, you know, that’s what’s that’s what’s going on in Cleveland.

That’s another young guy. I love talking to young folks, because they’re inspired. and, you know, you talk about getting involved and you talk about Chairman Brandon. He goes back to his town after living, I think, in San Francisco. And one of the problems he found was there was no place to live. There was a housing problem.

So he became a county commissioner. I think it’s county supervisor in California so that he could work on the housing problem.

David Snyder: So, David, we have time for one more question.

Dave Martin: Yes, I have way more answers. Go ahead.

David Snyder: I know, I know.

Dave Martin: I’ve learned a lot in five episodes.

David Snyder: But hey, what’s coming up? as we’re approaching, 100 episodes, what can.

Dave Martin: Sure. Wow. Okay. 100 episodes. Brad Cavanaugh is the mayor of Dubuque, Iowa. I met him at the Conference of Mayors. interestingly, one of the questions I ask is, if I’m coming to your town, what are we having? What are we eating? What’s the what’s the local dish? they have something called the stuffing sandwich, which apparently is, you know, Thanksgiving stuffing between bread.

I don’t know what that is, but bread and bread. Bread and bread. But, anyway, we’re going to talk with Brad Cavanaugh. he, is in Dubuque, as I said, which is on the Mississippi River. They call Dubuque the masterpiece on the Mississippi. we do have an update on the Key West. water canal situation.

they are certainly making progress. the new president of the Conference of Mayors is Andy Jensen. he’s from Columbus, Ohio. we’ll be talking with him. I have talked to in about going back. Sorry. Mary Jo McGuire. and chamber was the outgoing president of Naco, the National Association of Counties. And James Gore is the incoming president.

he’s also a vendor. So we talked about wine. So go back and listen to that show.

David Snyder: You also talked about steak. Yeah. Talked about a lot of food.

Dave Martin: Yes. But he’s also because he’s in Sonoma, California. he is on the frontline of the wildfire situation. And he has become in, some somewhat of an expert in how to fight fires and how to prepare for fires. so we talked with him about that. What else is coming up? Oh, Cindy, actually, I think that’s coming up, very soon.

Or will be released soon. She is, an undersecretary with the Department of Agriculture. And, what I thought was fascinating about that talk was all the things that they work on in agriculture you didn’t think of. Do you think it’s just farming? Well, they’re working on renewable energy. They’re working on housing projects. they’re working on one of the, you know, one of the things they are working on is having summer food programs for kids in schools.

So that was really interesting. Just because of the the wide depth of things that they talk about that I didn’t know about. I gotta mention one more thing. Back in West Virginia, Rick Hanley is a county commissioner in Mason, West Virginia. And we talked about the man. Do you remember the Moss man?

David Snyder: Yes.

Dave Martin: Supposedly they’re a ordnance factory. There is a boss man. He’s, green eyed. There’s a phantom that people claim to have seen. Anyway, there’s a mothman statue in downtown Mesa, West Virginia. I’m driving through. Just check out the Boss Man statue.

David Snyder: All right. David. Yeah. So, I’m coming into Brooklyn, New York.

Dave Martin: Okay.

David Snyder: what are we going to eat?

Dave Martin: Well, as you know, from our conversation with former mayor Bill de Blasio, de Pharaoh’s Pizza is the place to go. There’s Giuliani’s pizza right downtown. right under the Brooklyn Bridge. and right around the corner from me, luckily, is dinosaur barbecue. It is an outpost of the Syracuse, New York, dinosaur barbecue. But that’s right. That is that is you.

You can walk to that from my house and, hey, it’s Brooklyn, we have Italian food. We got everything here. Whatever you whatever you want, we got right here in Brooklyn. So, any time, anytime you want to come, we can start with pizza. We could have a little barbecue. We got stuff.

David Snyder: By the way. I’ll come for pizza first, and, and I’ll be seeing you soon.

Dave Martin: Yes, yes, I’m sure you will be. Hey, this has been an incredible journey. what I what I what I’m most impressed with in 75 episodes is just how hard so many people work every day. You know, most of these people, you know, they’re not they’re not in it for the fame. They’re not in it for the glory.

They’re not, you know, Hillary shy in Reno. She’s not there to make headlines. She’s there to get the work done. She wants to make people’s lives better. She wants to make sure that people have access to better, you know, health care and better mental health care. you know, same with Jim Cavanaugh. Jim doesn’t need this job. He was a successful lawyer, but he wanted to help.

He wanted to make a difference. You know, he wanted to do things better. you know, I’ve joked a couple of times with a couple of different people, you know? What are you running for next? What are you running for? And Haslam like nothing. This is it. I you know I’m not you know I this is where I want to be.

David Snyder: I’m fulfilled. Yeah.

Dave Martin: And you know, I, you know, a lot of, a lot of people just say no, this is my focus. Right here is my town, my city, my county. you know, making things happen, making things better. You know, these aren’t these aren’t people who are like, you know, Greg Puckett. This guy drives all over the country. He drives all over the country.

from West Virginia because he wants to make West Virginia better. He wants to do everything he can to improve things that are happening in West Virginia. You know, he’s not running for president. He’s not running for governor. You know, that same thing. That’s what’s blows me away. And, you know, the heroes that people have and the people that the folks that people look up to and the pride they have in their hometown, just, you know, I hope people take I hope people listen to the show and they take away the idea that these people who work in government to a really good job and they really try hard and they don’t always succeed

it government’s not perfect. You know, one of the questions I ask people is what would you you know, as a, as a, you know, political insider, as a government insider, what would you like people to know about government? And their answers? Are some of them hilarious? Government slow? We don’t always get it right. We don’t always do the right thing.

There’s way too many people to talk to. You know, we don’t control all the money. Just because you know you want a new park doesn’t mean we can give you a new park just because we have, you know, a budget doesn’t mean we can have to spend it all. So, it’s kind of funny. And that’s. I think one of my favorite questions is, what would you like people to know about government?

But they’re all good. And, you know, half the time people kind of look at me and go, ooh, that’s a good question. And I think one of the things I love about the questionnaire is most of these people are responding to the media and interviews for the crisis of the day, the crisis of the moment. What about this?

Why didn’t you do that? Why did that happen? Why did this happen? Why do you mess this up? Why is that messed up? And this gives them a chance to really, like, think about, like, what do I think about government? What do I think about what is what’s my what is my definition? Good government. Yeah, it does inspire me to do this job each day.

What are the things that I’d like people to know about government, what you know. And then the last question is, tell me about a good government project that you’re working on. And they all get excited, like, oh yeah, I didn’t tell you about this one.

David Snyder: So this is what gets me out of bed, right? Right.

Dave Martin: Exactly. So all those things I think have been really impressive and really fun, and I’ve certainly enjoyed it. And I just want to say two things. We would not be here were it not for two people that we haven’t mentioned. One is Christian Line back, county commissioner in Berks County who inspired us to to put this idea in our heads.

And we have not even talked about our other partner in this venture, Jim Ludlow, who is the guy that our.

David Snyder: Hero.

Dave Martin: Our hero. He is the guy that pulled you in, and then you pulled me in. And the three of us have been partners for five years, and, we would not be here without, both of those two guys. So thanks to them.

David Snyder: We have inspires.

Dave Martin: Us. Yeah, yeah. For sure. David, are you having fun?

David Snyder: Totally having fun. But we have to stop now.

Dave Martin: Yes, we do, but I’m going to ask you one question before we go. One. If you had to listen to one show over again, which one would it be?

David Snyder: I loved Matt Chase, who was the, nerd. Yeah. Director of, of Neca.

Dave Martin: He’s the executive director of the National Association of Counties. Right?

David Snyder: Yeah. And I think he, like, I watched him respond to the questions. And then you were like, it was during a, an election. And here we are in the middle of another one. Right. And he talked about the civics of counties managing elections. And, you know, and county government is the oldest form of government in the United States.

And so it’s, it was really like an eye opening thing. And it was actually very, very interesting, I think. And Matt came away from the interview very excited about having the having had the conversation. Right.

Dave Martin: No, that was an interesting conversation about, you know, how government works and talked about that. You mentioned elections. We have a the election supervisor from Santa Fe, New Mexico coming up. And one of the things, you know, I’ve talked about people is even when we talk about elections, these are free and fair elections. And one of the one of the reasons why is because if they wanted to cheat, they wouldn’t know how to do it.

They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t pull it off like, no, we have enough trouble managing these as we do. David, I am going to I’m going to leave it right there. We will come back and talk more after 100th episode. thank you for doing this. it has been a, celebration of 75 episodes. we didn’t know we’d get through a first season, so we did.

Our first 12 went well. We did okay. Then we came back for 12 more, went, oh, we did okay. And then we.

David Snyder: Saw. That’s because we’ve learned that there’s a whole lot of good government out there.

Dave Martin: There’s a whole lot of good government out there. There’s a whole lot. I mean, I have files and files of stories that that we haven’t even aired, and there’s so many people that we want to talk to. And I’m looking forward to doing more of those. So, David, I will see you after 100th episode. Thank you for joining us.

This is the Good Government show. You say it.

David Snyder: This is the good government show.

Dave Martin: Perfect. Thank you. You have the job. Thanks, folks. Thanks for listening. Keep listening. more episodes to come. this is 75. We’ve got at least another, 75 at us. We will talk again. Thanks for listening.

In the Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe, then share and like us and review us. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

Then listen to the next episode of The Good Government Show.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.