The Get “Stuff” Done President

James Gore just wrapped up his year as president of the National Association of Counties. He says he’s a member of the Get “Stuff” Done party. He talks about what he’s seen over the past year and why he’s hopeful for the nation and the nation’s counties.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

James Gore: The best wine comes from grapes that are grown under stress. You know the best wine does not come from, you know, this nice fertile field. It comes from these grapes and it’s kind of I equate this to like people is, is that you got more character if you’re growing under stress. I believe that hope has to be based upon resolve.

The first counties were in the 1600s. They were called shires. And in, in in areas in Virginia and, and other places, where our country was just fledgling and coming forward. And so counties have always been there and they always will be there. I tell everybody my real political party is to get stuff done. Party. The GSD party.

Oh, good. Government is all about delivering results just each and every day. Imperfect, relentless progress. I refuse to subject my children to a pessimistic future.

David Martin: I’m a member of the Get Stuff Done party, says James Gore, the outgoing president of the National Association of Counties. That’s not exactly what he said, but you’ll hear all that coming up. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m Dave Martin. On this episode, I talk with James Gore. He was a guest back in December of 2023, back in season three.

So feel free to go back and listen to that too. But first, help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are on Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram and Blue Sky. Please share our show with your friends and our viewers for your listening and join our good Government show community. Check out our website for the links.

James Gore is a county supervisor from Sonoma County, California, and for the past year he was president of the National Association of Counties. I wanted to catch up with James after his one year term as president. Our conversation left me with two big impressions. First, James is a dynamic guy. He’s always in motion, and he’s one of those people that wants to talk to, and he’s not afraid to have a conversation about, well, anything.

You’ll hear that. My first question to James is looking across at the nation’s counties. Do you have any hope for government in the country? His answer is an unequivocal yes. So there is reason to be optimistic. And since James is from Sonoma, California, well, first we had to talk wine. So coming up, the immediate past president of the National Association of Counties, James Gore.

During his term, he represented all 3069 counties across America.

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Welcome back James Carr, the current NATO president. We are here at the National Association of Counties. Welcome back to the show.

James Gore: Look at you, David. Here we are again.

David Martin: Here we are again.

James Gore: Yeah. You look more young than ever.

David Martin: Oh, you’re a beautiful man. Is that beautiful for saying that? You are also a county supervisor in Sonoma County, California? I am, you are? Lots of hats, but we have to start at the very beginning. How’s the gorgeous family’s into, del. How is the wine coming? What are we drinking? What’s less bodily orbit? Well, we’ll talk a wide, and then we’ll get to the other stuff.

James Gore: As you and I have talked about in the past, as is many times, I love the connections of wine to life. Right. The first one is, is that the only good wine is one you like? Secondly, the second thing is, is, is that everybody knows what a balanced wine is. You know, when you drink a glass of wine, whether it’s your first one or your thousand to one is right, it’s too hot, which means too much alcohol.

If it’s too tannic, if it’s too acidic, it’s kind of like getting used to people. Some people just are a little off kilter. But the other thing that I’ve always loved, and we had a couple of killer wines the other night for dinner, we had, a night’s Valley wine that was really opulent and done up. We had a cab from Ashes and Diamond out of cab out of Napa.

I am Sonoma, so I don’t drink too much Napa wine, but I was going to. Come on. It’s really good. And we got a flowers Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast, and they were good.

David Martin: So when you go out to eat, what do you like to do with friends? Do they just automatically hand you the wine list?

James Gore: Yeah. And then I feel like I have to do something because my lists are big. Yes. Right. I mean, even though, I mean, I know, you know, I grew up in the wine business, and I worked in it a lot. Like, I mean, I, I don’t know all that stuff, but I can figure something out.

David Martin: All right. Yeah. What’s it like to drink with your family?

James Gore: You know, my family is hilarious. We we, we kind of swim in wine.

David Martin: You’re hilarious.

James Gore: We kind of swim in wine, so we’ll do big feasts. We live in a place in California where everything grows grape grows great. Not just the grapes. You know, we have phenomenal wine, but, you know, my my house and then my brother’s house across the street. You know, he he he’s growing heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers and, you know, potatoes and sweet corn.

And then I have orchards on my property. So I have Meyer lemons and pomegranates. So when you.

David Martin: When you’re with the family who picks the wine.

James Gore: It’s a cornucopia. Well, whoever’s house we’re at, we raid each other’s cellars because then it inspires you to drink the good stuff and not wait until it goes bad. Gotcha.

David Martin: So, a little old family rivalry.

James Gore: Going on, and the. And the biggest thing about wine for anybody who doesn’t know this is, is that the best wine comes from grapes. That are grown under stress. Okay. You know, the best wine does not come from, you know, this nice fertile field. It comes from these grapes. And it’s kind of. I equate this to, like, people.

This is that you got more character if you’re growing under stress. But physiologically, if you have a vine that is grown in an alluvial valley just in like a high drainage with a ton of irrigation, it is not as high quality as something that is on the rocks and rocky soil and on the bench lands. And there’s a reason for that is because when that vine struggles, what it does is it forces it not to put all of its energy into vegetation growth and all the B.S. what it does instead is it forces it into its babies.

It’s it fears that it’s not going to live since it’s since it’s striving all the time. So it puts all of its, all of its energy and all of its content and umph into the berries. And so that’s why you get these high, intense berries and, and these intense flavors.

David Martin: This has been wine talk with Jim and Dave. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in.

James Gore: Yeah.

David Martin: I’m sorry. What were we supposed to talk about? Oh, government. Government. I remember now. All right, you have just.

James Gore: Government is very tannic, right? It’s very. Makes you want to pucker.

David Martin: Yes. It does. So you have been the president of Naco for the past year. You have traveled the country. You have talked to county government across the nation. We have had a very rough year, especially coming out of Washington. Give me a reason to be hopeful about government and about government that you’ve seen across the nation.

James Gore: Well, there’s a couple things. One is, is that I, I believe that hope has to be based upon resolve. And when I look around a group like this, when I have 3069 counties that I report to as their president, not I lead, they are the leaders. I look around and I see a bunch of, kick butt individuals who are delivering locally and are going to continue to deliver.

You know, the first, the first counties were in the 1600s. They were called shires. And in, in in areas in Virginia and, and other places, where our country was just fledgling and coming forward. And so counties have always been there and they always will be there. And but I will acknowledge that we are in crazy times.

We’re in very divisive times. We’re in fractured times. We can do a good job of coming here and focusing on the things that we agree upon and not focusing on those other things. But, this you’re seeing that.

David Martin: Are you seeing. Yeah.

James Gore: I mean, I absolutely am.

David Martin: Okay, good.

James Gore: Because these are practitioners. Yep. So, yeah, there are people on the far left, on the far right and the far whatever here at this conference, who want to fight, who want to bring it up and do it. But basically, I deal with a lot of practitioners, people who don’t get to abstain from votes locally. If just like we’re seeing with this big bill that passed, it’s going to be a cost shift of $1 trillion over ten years to counties.

We don’t have that kind of money. That means we’re just going to have to do less with less. What do we do for the 17 million people who lose their health insurance? What do we do for the, the benefits, the food and feeding benefits? There’s this whole idea and this promulgation that the bill that just passed is going to create enough economic activity that everybody’s going to have to take care of themselves.

And I would love to see that happen, and I will fight to see that happen. But basically, we are in a this is a disruptive element. We are in disruptive times, and we’re going to have to eat it and try and take care of people.

David Martin: And are you seeing that? Are you seeing people being taken care of? Tell me about a project that you, you stumbled across in your past year as Naco president, where you went, wow, that’s a great idea.

James Gore: Well, how crazy is this? Beaver County, Utah, southern Utah, right in the area where you get to the national parks. Highest per capita creation of renewable energy in this country. Really enhanced geothermal systems, moving and deploying solar everywhere, wind machines, data centers going in and national parks there. I mean, who would think that when you go out into this country at the same time I look over, does anybody know that Texas is the number one renewable energy producing state in this country?

David Martin: I did not.

James Gore: Know as much as Reno.

David Martin: Did you know that before this year?

James Gore: Well, yeah. And then the other thing is, is that in my home, home state, my home country of California. All right. You know, there’s people each and every day are rising up there figuring out how to how to get diversion so that you get people instead of having mental health issues going into your jail and having your our jails around this country being basically the de facto asylums for mental health is having good diversion centers creating placements, not just programs.

I mean, I go around and I see great stuff everywhere, but you never hear about it because we are addicted to the bleeding lead. We are addicted to the dopamine and the antisocial networks, and I even doom scroll. I can’t act like I’m not a part of it, but that that dopamine fix does not sell well when you’re like, hey, we just, created a diversion and we don’t have, we recycle 20% more than we did four years ago.

People don’t really go for that right now. And yet that.

David Martin: In my whole life I might be.

James Gore: That has to be done. That’s why you have to tell these stories. Why people have to give a shit. Because it’s there.

David Martin: Yeah.

James Gore: And I just don’t know if you have to delete that word from your show, but.

David Martin: We’ll get why it’s your character. But I think we’re going to be okay here.

James Gore: I tell everybody my real political party is to get stuff done. Party? The GSD party.

David Martin: What are the things that you said that you wanted to focus on when in your in your year as Naco president was we us? Yeah. Do you feel like you succeeded?

James Gore: Well, yeah. Absolutely. But you have to be honest. And you have to talk about the divisive we to be able to get to the unified we. I was just in a board for him. We have 130 with three board members. Think about that. That’s either an asset or a liability. Yeah. Now we’re trying to tell everybody here with National Association of Counties is, hey, we as Naco, we’re fighting against a lot of the provisions of this bill and the other bills because it’s a negative impact to counties.

They’re not just leading programs, they’re cost shifting them to us like we haven’t. There’s no mandate that’s been removed for us to have to take care of what they call indigent care, which is the least fortunate in our communities. There’s just a cost shift moving. And so I have to look to everybody and say, hey, I know a lot of you voted for this, and you like what’s happening?

Do you like the disruption? But our job is to fight to protect counties. Are you okay with our tenor? And some of them challenge me and I’m like, okay, well, thanks most, but but but by and large, unanimity is a is a far. So if I get to 8020 that’s a supermajority. We’re good, we’re good. We have and we have a bunch of people who are rational.

They know even if they, you know, look at this country voted for this and Congress, this was a tsunami. Yes. And, I don’t like what’s going on.

David Martin: Okay.

James Gore: Yeah, I’ll be very loud about that back home. But when I’m with these folks, I’m going to figure out how what what business needs to be done because I’m a big boy and I’m an adult.

David Martin: Do you feel like as you travel the country over the past year and you heard and you saw and you were on the ground that there are people across the nation who are trying to, you know, improve their little corner of the world.

James Gore: Absolutely, absolutely.

David Martin: Does it give you hope?

James Gore: It does give me hope. And once again, what gives me hope is are the examples of action. The young woman who sang the Star-Spangled banner this morning here. Absolutely spectacular. I talked to her this morning. So what’s she doing? Well, she’s got a two year old. She’s a musician. She doesn’t tour anymore because of the two year old.

And you know what she has? She has a nonprofit that she helps young kids who don’t have opportunities, to get into, learn singing lessons, learn to get into the institution. I see those those stick with me because I see people stepping up and not just endeavoring, but acting to imperfectly achieve better each and every day. And I think as the world gets more and more lost in the esoteric everything.

Yeah, we’re like, you know, at a dinner table. I don’t really want to talk to somebody about Iran’s policy. Some people do.

David Martin: That. You want to talk? Why? I want to.

James Gore: Why? And I want to talk about what’s going on in my community. I want to talk about, like, what are we doing? What’s going on? How are we how are we taking, you know, kitchen table is where we need is where a lot of conversations are going back to because it’s a cacophony. If you just get lost in the world.

David Martin: Have you had a chance to focus on stuff in Sonoma for the past year?

James Gore: 100%, 100%?

David Martin: I know one of the one.

James Gore: I actually am very different as a president of Naco than most. I have not traveled that much. Okay, I was very clear that I had a, a ten year old and a 13 year old, and now doing this job for me was not going to every state convention and speaking to everybody and being an ambassador, it was internal.

It was management. We have business structures that we have here. I’ve created 2 or 3 different task forces, a disaster task force that’s trying to make sure that we reform FEMA, not not to lead it. We have homelessness efforts. I’m hosting all of these forums, but I don’t have to travel everywhere to do it. I need to empower other leaders.

You know, I can suck up the oxygen in a room, but I don’t have to. And it’s.

David Martin: Amazing. I would say it’s you engage in the room.

James Gore: Well, it’s amazing how contagious leadership is. If you share it.

David Martin: Yes, that’s good leadership.

James Gore: And it’s amazing how when you.

David Martin: It’s not.

James Gore: It’s not me doing.

David Martin: It.

James Gore: So you think I’m up and people you know especially the narcissists in the world. And I’m not talking about the casual ones, I’m talking about the real ones. Yes. And we definitely have those in politics. We all know that.

David Martin: I know that one of the issues that you worked on was you have a fire management program and a challenge in your, in Sonoma. How have you improved it over the last few years? Oh yeah. What have you done?

James Gore: That’s the examples, right? 2017 Mega fire burned down 7000 homes in our community. 2019 we had another huge one. We had adapted so quickly, and it had taken such a force to say never again. Not never again. A fire, but never again will we be caught on our heels. We had tested our our alert and warning systems. We had evacuation zones.

We had, tech and we had wildfire cameras. So what did we do? We evacuated 40% of our community, and we held the fire of those suburban, and urban interchanges. A couple hundred of homes burned down horribly, but not thousands. 2020 during the pandemic, another mega fire. Again and again, we are killing it back home. And yet at the same time, the world will always throw us problems.

Okay, you can’t defend your community against every flood, every hurricane, every tornado, every earthquake. And do you feel.

David Martin: Like you’re better prepared now?

James Gore: Better prepared is part of it. Is government absolutely. 100%. I’d put our emergency management system up against any of the 3069 counties in this country. But number two, you got to remind people that resilience is about personal resilience. They have to be prepared. They know they need to know that they live in a world where I can take care of the systematic stuff, but they got to take care of themselves.

David Martin: We’re recording this show on a Saturday in July, and tomorrow your term actually officially ends.

James Gore: Oh no.

David Martin: Monday there. Sorry about that.

James Gore: Don’t don’t squeeze me up.

David Martin: You got two days. What are you gonna do?

James Gore: Yeah, you know what? I’m going to fill up with it. Okay. Because.

David Martin: Your last two days.

James Gore: Well, here’s the thing. Is coming here this week, there’s a there is a deep, kind of a foreboding feeling I was dealing with, which is how divided we are. How fractured politics are, how I was going to come here and be with 3000 of my colleagues around the country. And how was I going to be authentic with them about the, you know, not be general, like not talking about the real issues, the fact that this bill that just passed is, the largest fiscal bill in our nation’s history, adjusted for inflation.

It’s larger than the New Deal. It’s larger than the past four bills. That passed during the Biden.

David Martin: Just takes money out, not put.

James Gore: Takes money out. And so, like, we have to talk about this. We have to be real. We we have to be authentic and we have to be grown ups. And yet, for me, I always love it when I’m in the game, you know, that that mess. I mean, you can always prepare. You can always try and think.

You can always internationalize. But I love being with the people and looking them in the eyes and being like, hey.

David Martin: Hey.

James Gore: How are you doing?

David Martin: You agreed.

James Gore: You do agree with me on this? No. Okay. Take care. Bye.

David Martin: Right.

James Gore: Like I don’t need I don’t need to convince you in my opinion. Okay? Old dog that doesn’t want to learn something new. I tell people these days, my biggest pet peeve is strongly held, lightly informed opinions.

David Martin: You might be a liberal lawyer or my friend, I know. So you wake up on Tuesday. What do you look back on? You’re on your year. What stands out for you.

James Gore: Stands out to me is the relationships and the fact that, that leadership is really all about succession. You know, I got, JD Clark, my brother, from another mother. I’m, I’m a I’m a practical Democrat from California, and he’s a practical Republican from Texas. And people wouldn’t think that we would jive. And we are, you know, we’re all for it.

But we are, you know, it’s amazing how aligned we are. And people in this world wouldn’t think that. And George Dunlap is coming behind and the exact board is stronger than it’s ever been. You know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And Naco has a great culture. And I’ve been that was given to me and I, I’ve been able to be a steward of it as a leader.

And I, I feel like we’ve done well with it.

David Martin: And, you know, I think the important thing here is that, you know, you set, an example, an outgoing example for someone to be a leader and to be around. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Gore: Was it.

David Martin: Fun?

James Gore: Yeah, it was fun. And it was. And it was another thing to do.

David Martin: Was it harder than you thought it was going to be?

James Gore: Yeah. Yeah. But hard. Not because I didn’t. I didn’t let myself travel. Yeah. As much as others in the past of. Okay, I’m younger, I have kids. A lot of the people who have done this. But you didn’t you in the past.

David Martin: You did some traveling around.

James Gore: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but it’s, But, you know, life’s all give and take. I. If I was going to ever complain, I would have to complain about my desire to get involved in everything. And then, have to deliver on what I, on what I’ve committed myself to.

David Martin: There is a at the local level, you have to get the work done, right. Yeah. And at the National level, you can talk about what you want to do. And at the national level, it seems like we’re going in one direction at the local level, we have to go in a different direction. How do you square that?

James Gore: The only thing you can do is do the work. You don’t get to control the messaging. It’s very hard because all of us would love those of us who are digging in the trenches, delivering in the trenches of democracy at the county, the city level, whatever that might be. Would love to, to figure out a way to change the issue of the lack of trust in government.

But so much of that is dictated by the larger stereotypes that exist. I mean, it’s very difficult, to control what you can’t control. So you better control what you can. And doing the work is all you can do each and every day. So I put my focus where I can. It’s kind of like that old serenity prayer, right?

David Martin: Yes. I mean.

James Gore: You know, Lord, grant me the, you know, the whole issue about the strength to take on what I need to take on, you know, the grace to release what I can’t and the wisdom to know to know the difference between the two. So I just bludgeoned it. But that’s good enough.

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All right. So please go back and listen to the original show that we did and then come back and listen. We’re going to see if your answers have changed okay a year Naco president’s Naco board before that Sonoma County supervisor define good government.

James Gore: A good government is all about delivering results just each and every day. Imperfect, relentless progress.

David Martin: What have you seen people can do that makes an impact or a difference in government?

James Gore: The people up show up the biggest same they. I saw a bumper sticker, maybe 15, 20 years ago that said the world is run by those who show up. And it’s absolutely true.

David Martin: All right. Who inspires you?

James Gore: Who inspires me? My wife inspires me.

David Martin: That’s out of force.

James Gore: She’s a badass.

David Martin: You.

James Gore: Know? She keeps me grounded. She is an entrepreneur. And, and and, you know, she’s got no ego. And then, and I’m just, you know, I’ve become more and more of a family man than ever. I my kids, my boy Jacob, we fish and do baseball. My daughter, we read together and.

David Martin: All right.

James Gore: Surmise about the future.

David Martin: What keeps you in public service?

James Gore: I refuse to subject my children to a pessimistic future.

David Martin: That’s simple. You basically want to be an example for them.

James Gore: I used I used to, as a younger man, endeavor to, just change the world, that old adage, and be involved and do it. But once I had kids, I realized that it’s an inherent conflict to be to live a pessimistic, selfish life because it’s not just about providing an example to them. It’s about working my butt off with all of these people to make sure that we don’t leave them a big heaping pile of crap.

And I’m tired of, the fact that so many adults in this world, don’t don’t embody that.

David Martin: What would you like people to know about government now that you’ve been, you know, at a fairly high level that had a national view, too?

James Gore: Yeah. It’s messy. That doesn’t mean it’s dirty. It’s messy. It’s, it’s about it’s oftentimes it’s more about relationships than it is about partizanship. Especially if you’re on a county board, as you know, in my, in my county, it’s not it’s not about political parties or even about if they’re moderate or extremist. It’s about the politics of personality.

Are they risk averse? Is that person risk averse? Does that person like to be entrepreneurial? Do they like to lead staff? Do they like to have staff lead them? It’s amazing to see how much of the world is really run by how people process, life issues, decision making.

David Martin: What was the best part of being Naco president?

James Gore: That’s part of being Naco president was, oh. It was kicking it off. It was having my family, there last year in Tampa, when we gave our vision and did a speech and, and went through it, it was, you know, just I just I work with all these people, and we don’t talk about kids. We don’t talk about that.

We operate so much in the present. And it’s really hard to focus everybody on the future because we are operating in the trenches. When you’re in trench warfare every day, you don’t look up and see the horizon, you don’t see where you’re going because you try to propose a great idea. And then somebody says, yeah, but you didn’t pave my road bill.

Or you’re like, hey, I want to build this new system of, of water management for the future. And they’re like, yeah, but you didn’t get my permit process, James. So you have to deliver in the now and endeavor to be in the future. And I think that’s a big thing for me.

David Martin: What was the hardest part of being of being president?

James Gore: Oh, the the the weight of reconciling that. I have very strong opinions about the way the world is going. Yes. And that there’s a part of me that puts that into my local life and my life and how to be authentic about that here. But at the same time, how do you, look people in the eye, in the eyes that you deeply, deeply disagree with and you don’t respect many of their positions?

Yes. And to still have to sit with them and say, I’m going to be an adult enough to talk to you about the things that we can’t agree upon, like to be able to do that, you know, and it’s, oftentimes people always say, you know, you just got to focus on what you agree upon. Well, if what you disagree upon is visceral to you and it’s impacting people who are close to you in your lives, it’s hard to it’s hard to reconcile that.

But that’s life, all right? That’s life.

David Martin: So the next question I usually ask is, what’s your favorite local dish? And your answer? The last time I asked you was, come to your house and you’re going to cook me a steak ribeye, ribeye. Yep. I’m going to ask you a different question, though. We’re like, you and I are going to sit down. We’re looking at a wine list.

What are you going to what are you going to have me sample?

James Gore: Oh, oh, you know, what I’m going to have is let me see.

David Martin: Think about that.

James Gore: Yeah. I do have to think about that because.

David Martin: You got to make the right choice.

James Gore: It’s a really good one.

David Martin: Yeah.

James Gore: You know, it has. It can just be the best wine. It has to be the right experience. Okay. So. Right. You know, Garden Creek has, which my friends Justin and Karen, created and small, operation cold Wines and Alexander Valley, they have a wine that they call tessera, which is really a Bordeaux blend. So it’s a Cabernet based wine, and it’s some of the best stuff in Alexander Valley or anywhere.

But the authenticity that they imbue into every part of growing and processing and creating and, you know, their tasting experience. And it’s not foo foo. It’s authentic. They are farmers, right? So it’s just the right mojo. So it’s it’s it’s it’s just that that’s what it embodies. And it have to be it’s a strong damn wine. So it have to be at least, 7 to 10 years old.

All right.

David Martin: So let’s just reopen wine talk with James and Dave. Yeah. What would you tell somebody who’s not a real wine drinker? I mean, because wine list can be intimidating. You know, people look at them and think, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. What would you tell somebody?

James Gore: My dad used to say, the only good wine is one you enjoy. But I’ll tell you, if I put good wines in front of people, they’re like, okay, but that’s.

David Martin: What if you’re if you’re if you’re not as wine knowledgeable as yourself, what what would you what do you tell people?

James Gore: I tell everybody, you know, the difference between something that’s balanced and unbalanced just like you know that about a person just like you know that about an experience. Once again, is like the basic elements of wine and you’re looking at balance is there’s a tartness, which is the normal acidity, there is a pucker flavor, which is tannins. Right?

There is, is is there sugar in it. And it’s supposed to be a dry wine because usually when they leave residual sugar in, they do it to, cover up, inconsistencies and blemishes or kind of a good wine. Is it too flat? Is it too watery? Is it too acidic right now? I could say all those things to people, but I can actually put a wine in front of them and be like, does that taste balanced or not?

Or can they know.

David Martin: All right.

James Gore: So they know. Yeah. Check the.

David Martin: Balance. All right.

James Gore: So I’m a kind of funny guy because I also say that I need balance. I create balance by averaging extremes. All right. But that works. That’s my life.

David Martin: I this is a good government show, and we always bring it back to good government. Before we wrap up, tell me, you told me about a couple of things. Tell me about something. Some good government project or some good government program that you uncovered in the last year that you said, wow, that’s pretty cool. I’m taking that home.

James Gore: This country, if you look at what’s happening locally and you try and extrapolate it or connect it to with what are the big things that are going on in this country and the future? We took these tours, to, 4 or 5 counties in Tennessee near Oak Ridge National Laboratories. And the energy revolution is upon us.

You know, the real space age of our times is the I race. It is data centers. It is the fact that even though we have more renewable energy than ever, our electricity consumption is going up. Crazy. But these counties are becoming hubs of innovation for that world. The, you know, the work that they’re doing to site locations to be able to connect new forms of energy, enhanced geothermal systems, all these other things.

You know, it made me very hopeful, as you say. It’s like it’s very inspiring to go to a place where there’s a national laboratory that has the fastest supercomputer in the world, and they’re developing fusion technology, and it’s going to be here in 20 years. And then you’re also trying to go like, what does that mean as AI gets implemented locally?

And, you know, right now we could have autonomous driving, cars everywhere. And one of the biggest jobs in this country is, is, is our drivers. And so what’s the big displacement that’s happening? So even though I’m excited about things, local, state wide national innovations, we are in for massive amounts of more disruption, not just from this presidency, but from technology, from innovation, from climate change.

And so, you know, saddle up and get ready for the ride. Do you want to be involved or not? Yeah, that’s your choice.

David Martin: James Gore, the county supervisor from Sonoma County, California, a professional wine drinker and the outgoing president of Naco. James, always a pleasure. Cheers. Thank you.

James Gore: Athleisure.

David Martin: After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors Kassim Reid of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt, talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts.

A few things I hope you caught James Gore as a Sonoma, California county supervisor. He’s also the immediate past president of the National Association of Counties. James says government is messy, but that doesn’t mean it’s dirty. I also like when he said deliver in the now, but plan for the future. And his mantra as a government official is deliver imperfect, relentless progress, imperfect, relentless progress.

I like that mostly. I just like his optimism. Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends and our viewers right here. We’re listening. And check out our website. Good government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government in action everywhere. And join us again for another episode right here.

We’re listening. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show.

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.

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