SCHOOLS

The speaker is discussing the financial troubles of the city of Radford and the mismanagement of funds by the city council. He claims that the city is in serious debt and is continually borrowing money to survive month to month. He also criticizes the current council for not addressing the issue effectively. The speaker promises to uncover more details about the situation and bring them to light. Someone told me long ago, there's a calm before the storm I know it's been coming for some time When it's over so they say, it'll rain a funner day I know, shining down like water I won't know, have you ever seen the rain I won't know, have you ever seen the rain Coming down the day Yesterday and days before Welcome to One More Round Podcast, where we find the truth, no matter how deep we have to dig. Let's get in the rain. I'm your host, Keith Marshall, and let's go one more round. Everything we have to fear is fear itself. Tear down this wall. We will make America great again. If I say something and you don't want to listen, don't listen. I'm living on my own. One more round. Hey, welcome to One More Round Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Keith Marshall. Welcome to the rain. Today, we're back on my favorite subject, definitely your favorite subject by the numbers, and that is the city of Radford. I'm really disappointed. I'm really not happy that I'm going to have to bring out a couple things that we're going to talk about today. I find them personally disgraceful, personally devastating to what I always thought was just the best parts of the city and the direction that our city council and our city government actually has gone. Now, I will say this. I think people are starting to really wake up to what's happened here in the city. They're starting to see how our wealth and our prosperity has been squandered, quite frankly, by an inept couple of council people that run the show for the last few years before the present council. I'm not talking about the present council now, but I am happy to say that I think, I'm not positive, but I think the present council is starting to wake up to those facts. They're starting to realize, and this is me talking, my opinion, just from listening from a distance, not getting it directly from anyone, but from watching and listening from a distance, from listening to meetings, from reading the news, from following the events that are going on in Radford, I think the new council are starting to realize that this ship that's been built by great hands over the years has been potentially permanently damaged. It's taking on water fast. It's listing, and it needs a steady hand to till. We don't have one there. I'll just say that right now. I don't believe we have one there. I believe we're in bad trouble, and I believe we're running a shell game in the city of Radford with our finances in order to quite literally to survive month to month, week to week. We're broke. We're still broke. We were broke a year ago. We're even more broke now. To illustrate that and to talk about that, I want to go through the Monday night meeting. There was several actual meetings that was held Monday night with city council. That's Monday the 13th, and by the way, I would strongly encourage you to listen to those. There's two or three meetings that are available that happened that night, and you can find them. If you just Google Radford City YouTube, generally it will pop right up. Now, you can't always tell which session you're picking. I want you to focus. You should listen to them all, but I want you to focus on the work session that went over a new loan that Radford City will be applying for, a new loan of $4 million, and we're going to get into that a little deeper. As you know, there was a pretty important episode that I did back a while back called, Will Radford City Remain an Independent City? In that episode, we talked about the fact that Radford City had applied for or was wanting to apply for, basically, I will call it a payday loan. It's a temporary loan to help you pay your bills when you do not have the cash or the funds to make those payments. They needed that $4 million, and it was mentioned in that meeting. This has been, by the way, tried to have been walked back, but it was actually mentioned in that meeting that payroll, the cost of payroll was a significant concern as they were running out of money. Quite obviously inferred that they weren't going to make payroll if they did not get this money. We found out, or I have found out, that they owed a backlog of money to AEP. They literally needed to make a payment that was a couple months behind to keep the lights on in the city. They had run the money out in their reserve funds, in nearly every enterprise fund, including the electric fund and the general fund. They had spent up millions of dollars in ARPA funding. They had flat out run the city out of money. Malfeasance, mismanagement, you can think of a lot of things to call it. I believe all the words are correct. They did that. Now, I know for the last little bit since that's happened, our mayor and some within the city have ran around the city to try to refute the facts and say, ah, that old Keith Marshall one more round podcast, he's just causing trouble. He's just putting a negative light on everything. He's hurting the city. No, no, you took care of that on your own. Congratulate yourself, pat yourself on the back. No one has done worse. I can say you can search the annals of time in Radford City and no one has done worse. So if you're going for the prize of worst ever, you got it. You got it hands down. But anyway, they tried to refute what was going on. They tried to say that these things were not really happening. We weren't out of money. And then, of course, the audit report come along and we found out they were down to $66,000 in the bank. So you heard the truth here and you heard a lie from them. They had run the city out of money. There was a kind of a Laurel and Hardy routine I think you should watch between the mayor and the city manager pre-designed questions to ask to kind of try to refute what's being said, quote, unquote, by some. A couple people have asked me, you know, that little thing that they say, politicians say when they want to make a point. But the truth of it is, old Marshall here on OMR was right all along. They were out of money. They'd spin us dry. And I'm sad to report as I come to you today that things are not getting better. You could probably make a strong case that they're getting worse. Because in this meeting, and we're going to go over some quotes and some other things that happened in the meeting, I want to dig into that Laurel and Hardy routine a little bit for some questions and some actual mistruths I think that were told based on some facts that I have been able to dig up. And I've got some good ones for you today. I do. I've got some pretty important breaking news. News that I promise you that no one else is going to tell you about. But I'm going to tell you about it. You're not going to read it in the run-up times because they're not going to cover anything negative when you have a bunch of Democrats blowing up a city government. They're not going to tell you about that. There's very little coverage anywhere else. And these details and these facts that I've been able to uncover are not going to come to you probably any other way. I wish they would. I would like to retire from podcasting. I do not have a lifelong desire to be a podcaster. I really don't. I don't want to be a reporter. I don't want to be a blogger. At this point, I want to be a fisherman. I want to fish. But I feel an obligation, at least, to my friends, to my family, to the people in the city, and definitely to the city that I love, to get this truth out there. Number one, so it'll stop. So we can turn this ship around. We can repair it. We can quit sinking. And also, secondly, to make sure it never happens again. I want you to understand what exactly you voted for. And what exactly you got. And where it's leading us. And I'm doing my best to get this information out. And I'm going to continue to do so as long as the Lord allows me to have the ability to do it. And I have the knowledge and I'm able to find the facts. I'm going to bring them to you as best I can. But I want to jump right into this meeting on May the 13th. It was a work session that they had to go over a new loan that the city was deciding to get in order to pay their bills. Again, payday loan number two. Now, officially, they call this a revenue anticipation note. They're anticipating having some money one day. But I like the acronym RAN. They ran flat out of money. So maybe that's a better name than payday loan. Maybe we should just call it the RAN loan. I ran out of money loan. Well, they had promised us. And I believe the meeting was on September 11th of 2023 when they dropped this bombshell on the citizens of Radford that they had spent us dry. And that they were going to borrow $4 million at 4.5% interest, I believe it was. It was going to cost us a couple hundred thousand additional dollars in financing fees in order to get that loan. And, again, this one is going to cost us, again, somewhere between $250,000, $300,000 just in fees for the privilege of borrowing money to help us survive. But they came to us in that meeting, September 11th, 2023, and let us know that they were broke. That they were going to have to borrow money just to get through the day, to get through the month, to get through the next cycle. But they promised us in June they would have this money paid off. They would be taking care of this. It was a bump in the road. It was just a rough patch. They like to use this word, rough patch. It was rough, all right. Just a rough patch. So, they promised us they'd pay that off. Well, let me tell you what. They didn't pay it off. To my knowledge, they didn't pay $1 of it off. To my knowledge, and I'm pretty sure about this. I could be wrong. But I don't believe they even made an interest payment on it. They may have, but it's my bet that they owe more than the $4 million in order to pay it off. What's the fees that they had to pay? Because they didn't even pay interest on it. Maybe they did, but they definitely did not pay off any of the principal. So, they have a new plan. New plan. The new plan, as was presented, was that when the revenues come in. Now, you realize, you all realize now. You are paying your new taxes for the upcoming year. You have gotten your bills. I think it's due somewhere around June the 5th. And it has the new increase on it. You should notice you are paying more in taxes. A direct result of the malfeasance and mismanagement of our government. We're all going to pay through the teeth to try to bail us out. Will it be enough? Well, I hope so. I'm not sure. The trend is not looking good, to be honest with you. But we're going to pay more. So, the plan is, as we make those payments, as they come rolling into the city. Now, keep this in mind. That's about half of the revenue. Maybe slightly less than half because you're December. You also have personal property along with real estate taxes. So, this is not quite half, but it's a big chunk. Close to half of the revenue that comes in. It's definitely half of the revenue that comes in from real estate taxes. So, you're looking at about somewhere in the neighborhood of a little over 4, 4.5 million. Somewhere 4.2, 4.3. Somewhere in that neighborhood is the amount of revenue that they're going to bring in from taxes that are going to be paid and that are due on June the 5th. Hurry down and pay it, by the way. They need the money fast. So, anyway, they're going to take that money, pretty much all of the money that we collect in real estate taxes, and they are going to pay off their original, their original $4 million loan. They're going to pay it off so we don't owe any more money on that specific loan. Now, they had looked, and I think I mentioned it in the last episode, they were looking at refinancing it. I think that blew up. Possibly they were not allowed to do it. Possibly the fees were too high. I know it was supposed to cost around $300,000 to refinance it. Instead, they decided to take all of the revenue that comes in in taxes, almost all of it, and pay off that loan and turn right back around and borrow $4 million more to continue this idea that, hey, if we borrow it, and if we can borrow it long enough, that things will turn around. I hope that it does, for our sake. I hope that it does. But it was quite an interesting discussion, and I encourage you to dig in there. Listen to that. Kind of start to understand how counsel is starting to feel about this. I really think at some point they're starting to realize that the light that they saw at the end of the tunnel may be a train. I think they've been promised that it's a light, and it's a good light, but I don't think it's a good light. I think it's a bad light at the end of the tunnel. I hope I'm wrong. I am praying that I'm wrong, but I don't think that I'm wrong. But I guess to give you my overall impression of that work session, to tell you what I drew from it, I'm not sure. I know somebody's lying. Possibly several people are lying, but I definitely feel like some people are still in denial about what's going on. Maybe the fact that this information is being disseminated into the public, the truth is being brought out. Maybe that fact is just, the fact that they cannot control it is just driving them crazy. That they have to continuously try to refute it rather than embrace the truth and fix it. And I mentioned I was going to go over this lower and hearty routine. I'm going to, and you'll have to listen for yourself. I tried to write down the quotes. It's kind of hard to do, but I tried to write them down in my chicken scratching. And I want to go over an exchange that happened between Mayor Horton and the city manager as they went through the need for this loan. And truthfully, this whole exchange here that I'm about to go through, it was really done to refute the podcast. People are talking about it. People have heard the truth. And now they're starting to realize that the things they heard are true. Again, I mentioned when I said that the city was out of money and they'd ran us out of money, people were lied to. And they said, oh, it's not that bad. We're in great shape. Things are looking up. Until the audit report happened and they realized that they had $66,000 in the bank. Then we talked about the hotel and some under-the-table things that were going on about the hotel that I didn't feel like we should be a part of. That we were giving our money to that. And in my personal opinion, the financing for that, or excuse me, the incentive for that, should have never been approved. I just felt like it was dirty money. And, you know, of course, again, the mayor went out in the community and told people, that's not true. And other people refuted it and tried to change the truth. But then, of course, we had this article that's come out in the run of times. And we clearly could see that Radford University was an investor. Someone else, actually in court documents from a lawsuit there, showed Radford University is investing in this process. Mayor Horton is an employee of that. He shouldn't have been voting or involved in that process. And again, once again, one more round podcast, I told you the truth. And it was refuted and now it's proven again. And I'll tell you this, I do my best to get the facts out. That doesn't mean I can't make a mistake. But I'm never purposely going to tell you something or put something out there that I know is not true. I'm not going to put something out there that I believe is only halfway true. If I do not know that it's personally true, I have not seen the evidence with my own eyes, then I'm going to be very careful. I'm going to let you know in those circumstances that I believe this is true. I'm not sure. It's my opinion. But when I tell you something's true, it's going to be because I believe with all of my heart that it's true. And I believe that I have irrefutable proof that it's true. But let me get back to this exchange. And let me just start with this is a question from Mayor Horton. He actually had to ask three questions. He didn't even give the city manager time to answer. I don't know. I couldn't see the city manager's face. So maybe the additional questions were warranted. But here's kind of how the exchange went. This is from Mayor Horton. Talking about the $4 million that they want to borrow again. And he asked, Example, And he continued the third question. Are we spending $4 million more than we have? Well, I'll be honest. Of course, the city manager said no, which I don't believe is true. But I just can't believe that you would ask that question. It just seems dumb. Are you kidding me? You borrowed $4 million in September. You have not been able to pay $1 of it back. You used the whole $4 million. You spent it. You borrowed the $4 million. You used it to pay your bills. To keep yourself afloat from September until now. And you're asking the question, Could we have made it without this money? Is it true that we couldn't have paid the bills on a monthly basis without this money? Well, of course it's true. You borrowed $4 million and you spent it all. Of course it's true. You're using this money to make payroll. You're using this money to pay debt. You're using this money to pay the light bill. You're using this money to pay all kinds of residual costs within the city. Matter of fact, if I understood it right, almost all of it was owed the day they got it. So the question is obvious. You can't make it without this money. And there's a good chance you can't make it with it. But the city manager replied. He said no, it's because we have the debt. We have that we are paying it off with the new. But it's not financing anything. It's just going towards the cash flow to help us over the hurdles. You see that word a lot, hurdles. And then he goes on and he says something that really bothered me here. Because I don't think it's true. The information I have tells me it's not true. He says, you know, I could be wrong. But from the information I've been able to gather, I don't think I am. He says, we probably could pay some of this. This June payment. But I'm afraid, and of course I hate to put inflection in his voice. It's hard to do. You go and listen to that yourself. But I'm afraid to run the risk of not having enough cash to get us through the year, the year end and to the transition to the next year. Well, doesn't that answer right there? He says, if we don't have this money, I'm afraid we're not going to make it to the end of the year. So how did you answer no to the mayor's questions when he asked, you know, if we didn't have this revenue, could we make it through a 12-month period? Well, the answer is no, you couldn't. He says right here. Because I'm afraid to run the risk of not having enough cash to get us through the year end and to the transition to the next year. You don't have any money. So it goes on. It goes on. Let me continue. So the way this has been portrayed by some, by the way, that's me. I got my hand up. The way this has been portrayed by Marshall is that the city is insolvent and bankrupt. What is your response to that? Well, that's a nice planned question. And I kind of like the response because he said, you know, let me read it again. So the way this has been portrayed by some is that the city is insolvent, insolvent, excuse me, and bankrupt. What is your response? Not bankrupt. This is the city manager's name. Not bankrupt, certainly not with the assets we have and the revenue we have and the opportunities that arise out there. We have made all of our obligations. Bankruptcy would be, you know, I don't know, even know, and, of course, the mayor interrupted and says, well, that's part. That's the hard part. It's being portrayed very differently than what it is. Well, is it really being portrayed differently than what it is? Is the city not out of money? Is the city not able? I mean, let me ask it this way. Is the city able to pay all the bills that it owes? Can it cover all of its obligations? Is it meeting all of its obligations? Has it met timely all of its obligations? Well, I'm going to tell you that it has not and that it is not. Now, is it to the point of insolvency? We're close. Have we declared bankruptcy? No, we haven't declared bankruptcy. I don't know how that process would work either. But let me go back to Horton. I want to finish what he said. He says, that's the hard part. It's being portrayed very differently than what it is. Well, I'm going to tell you that it's not. He went on to say, now, I know that our frustration is that we thought we would be done with this. That a year ago, when we, basically what he's saying is, we thought we were going to be done with this. We thought we were going to borrow this $4 million. It was going to fix this little, quote unquote, rough patch. We paid off in June and we'd be done. We are right back where we started, behind in our debts and in our payments or in our obligations. Maybe not our debts, but certainly our obligations. We have mounting unpaid obligations. And when I say obligations, I think you know what I mean. But when you get your light bill, when you get your bill from the city, your utility bill, that's an obligation you have to pay. You don't pay it the first month. That obligation is still going to be due the next month, along with that month's obligation and an additional fee. You understand that. You have a car payment. That's an obligation. You have a divorce. You have alimony. You have a child support. That is an obligation. Well, the city has obligations, too. I'm glad that he used the word. We're meeting our obligations because we are not meeting them, at least not in a timely way. In fact, I've learned that at last count, the city had about $700,000 in the bank. Much better than the $66,000, don't you think? But I'm hearing that their obligations right now are totaling $6 million. $6 million. $700,000 in the bank, $6 million in obligations. They have risen to $6 million because we're not meeting them in a timely manner. They're growing. We owe it and do not have the amount of cash needed to make the payments. Now, we're borrowing $4 million. That doesn't add up to $6 million. Now, I know things come and go. I do not know the cycles with which the payments are needed and made. But I was told by a good source that we were down to $700,000, and we owed $6 million. But I want to point out something else that I found, and I mentioned it at the beginning of the podcast. I find it particularly egregious. And I have mentioned this fact in another podcast. And again, it was another one of those things that I mentioned that I was hearing was true. It was refuted out in the public as something that was not true, I was told. But it is true. And I have now been able to prove it's true. And that is that we are not meeting our monthly obligations to Rafford City Public Schools. We agree, and by the way, I did an episode about the confrontation between the Rafford City Council and Rafford School Board and our new superintendent, Dr. Joyce, about the new raise that they were giving. And I still haven't changed my opinion on that. I think they were giving too much. That's my opinion. It's not a huge thing. I thought it was tone deaf. I mentioned it. But something that I mentioned in that was the fact that Rafford City had always, and it was very important to us when I was on city council, we took great pride in our funding of the schools. We couldn't give more than as much as some other localities, but we gave well above our means, I felt like. We tried really hard to have the best funded schools we could afford to have. And over the last four or five years, there's been just a horrible deterioration in the relationship between Rafford City Public Schools and the Rafford City Council. It's been terrible. I find that quite ironic because during the elections of 2018, the schools and the people, you know, within it were definitely supporting one side of the aisle, and it wasn't the side that I was on. I'm just saying. Not that I'm mad about it or anything. I've tried to forget about it. But, you know, when you run for office, it's a personal thing. When you put yourself out there and you work hard and you give up your family time and you miss ball games and you miss those things, you know, it's a personal thing. But, you know, you got to get over it. You win some, you lose some. People make their choice, and you live with their choice, and they'll have to live with their choice. And, truthfully, I'm glad to be doing more fishing. Just the podcast keeps drawing me. But I do enjoy bringing these to you. But, anyway, I digress. So, anyway, they've developed into a horrid relationship to the point that they couldn't hardly speak to each other. There's a lot of animosity there. Now, I know there's some new council members and there's some new school board members, and I'm not drawing them into that mess. I think they're trying to work hard to have a good relationship because it's the best thing for our kids and our families. Not just our kids, but the parents of those kids. They need to work together. It's very important. And I think they're trying to do that in spite of some bad influences that seem to keep them apart. So I think they're trying to work together. But one of the things that was important to us was school funding. And you should understand how it works, as I have been told that it works. The city has an obligation, and it's been pretty much spelled out by state law. And there's a whole equation based on your population, based on your income levels and everything within the city, about how much the local government needs to contribute to their public schools. And for the previous fiscal year, it was a little over $5 million, as I understood it. And that is paid, those obligations are paid in monthly stipends, or monthly payments, however you want to, whatever you want to call it. And you can do the math, but basically a monthly payment runs about $486,000 per month that goes to the school. And you multiply it by 12, and you'll get a little over $5 million. That's how it's done. Now I want to go back to this statement about the city meeting its obligations. Well, I'm going to have to report to you that they're not meeting that obligation. In fact, counting the month of May, the Rafford City government has not made a payment to Rafford City Public Schools in five months. In fact, the last payment that they made was in February of 2024. But it was to pay the amount due for December of 2023. So basically for the year 2024, they have paid nothing to the public schools as far as their monthly stipend. If you do the math, they're in the hold to our kids about $2.4 million. Don't tell me you're meeting your obligations. You're not paying your bills. And guess who suffers from that? I'm hearing there's some potential concerns about meeting payroll within the school system because the city of Rafford is not meeting its obligations. Now this is a far cry from the song and dance that was presented to the public about the pro-education candidates that were running in 2018. About how they were really going to work with the schools and get things done. Well, they're working all right. They're working them. They're not paying them. They're hosing them. And to the point that after learning this, I'm a little angry at myself for even bringing up the race and talking about it. Feel free for some of y'all to say, I told you so, Keith. I still don't agree with the race. I still think it was a bad idea. But you know what? Had I known how bad things were, I'd have kept my mouth shut. I would have. I would have. I'd have just said, well, you did something dumb, but my goodness, as bad as you're being treated, you know, whew. I will tell the public schools this. Hold on to your wallets. They're going to try to take your extra money if you ain't careful. It sounds like the schools, I'm sure they're not perfect. I'm sure if I dug deep on them, I'd find some areas over the last few years that I would not like or appreciate. But they've done a decent job managing their funds, and that has not happened in the city government. Has not happened. And I don't think we can mention those two in the same sentence because, truthfully, there's some other areas within the schools, I think, that need some correcting. There's some other situations that I haven't liked over the years, some things that I probably would have liked to have talked about. But I'm not. I'm going to shut my mouth because I tell you what, I find this so egregious that you're not making your obligations to our schools. You're not making the payments that you're supposed to make. You're $2.4 million behind. I just I'm ashamed I even mentioned the raise, even though I think it's a bad idea. No, seriously, I try to I try to be fair. I try to tell you, give you my opinion. I try to use common sense and logic and that applied to the raise. But this right here goes beyond common sense and logic. This goes to just a dereliction of one's duty. And by the way, both the mayor and the city manager knew that they were not meeting their obligations to the schools during this meeting when they went through this whole Laurel and Hardy routine of exchanges. City manager knew that it was not meeting their obligations to the schools. And the mayor knew it, too. How do I know that? Well, I'm going to read it to you. And normally I would give them plenty of time to go out and say, I'm lying about this, too. And then it would circle back around, boomerang back and hit him between the eyes. The truth would. But let's just go ahead and get the proof done tonight. I have in my formerly Copenhagen stained fingers here, a letter. From Dr. Joyce from the Rafford City School Board, and it is written to Mayor David Horton and city manager David Redpath. And this particular letter was sent this week. I believe it was May 10th that it was sent. Or somewhere in that neighborhood. But here's what it reads. And I'm not going to read the whole letter because it goes into some extra stuff that doesn't really have anything to do with what I'm talking about. Or at least not directly. But here's what it says. Good afternoon, Mayor Horton and Mr. Redpath. As the end of our 2023-2024 school year draws near, Rafford City Schools respectfully requests from the City of Rafford a payment schedule outlining how Rafford plans to make available to the school division all outstanding monthly installments dating back to January 2024. For clarity, our last payment from the city was received in February for the scheduled December 2023 obligation. Now, I've added additionally to that the month of May. January, February, March, April, May. Five months. Five months times $486,600 and some dollars. It comes up to about $2.4 million of not meeting your obligations. You know, one has to wonder when it's time to call for a complete change of leadership in Rafford City. I don't want to throw things like that out there lightly. And generally, that doesn't cross my mind. But this denial, this continued malfeasance, this idea that somehow a magic wind is going to blow across the city and all of our debts are going to be paid and our obligations called up without bankrupting every citizen in the city to catch up the bills that you squandered and the money that you squandered, I think we need to start thinking about that. And I think it should start with those that were a part of this malfeasance over the last four or five years. We need to start talking about that. Because this is not getting better. This is not improving. And somehow, when all of this was going on, you did not manage to make the necessary cuts, whatever you needed to do to make sure you met those obligations, and you chose Rafford City Public Schools not to make your payments to them. That's what you chose? You just wrote that off? Said forget it? I don't understand that. Now, if it's a common practice to not make your monthly payments and to pay it every six months, I've never heard of that, and certainly the schools have not heard of that, because they're sending a letter saying, hey, we need our money. Can you tell us how you're going to get it to us? You know they've got to be worried. They've got to put the lunches on the table tomorrow. They've got to pay their teachers and janitors and workers and administrators. They've got to pay their light bill. This is ridiculous. You know, I'll go back to the questions that the mayor asked. Is this us borrowing money just to be able to finance our budget? Yeah, your monthly payments to the schools are budgeted. You're not making the payments. You are borrowing the money in order to pay the bills that are within the budget. Duh! I mean, you should know the answer to that question. You got the letter. You know that you're not paying the bills. Again, question. Would we not be able to run the city of Radford on the tax revenue we collect in the 12-month period if we did not have this money? Well, you're not doing it now. You know when you got the first $4 million, or you should have known if you've not dug and figured this out, you should have known that you owed the whole $4 million before you got it. No, you weren't bringing enough money to pay your bills. Are we spending $4 million more than we have? Oh my goodness, you don't have $4 million. You have $700,000 right now and $6 million in obligations. Yes! Goodness, I don't know. Guys, I'll tell you. I'm not a whiz at math. I'm a little slow sometimes. It takes me a while to pick up on things. But I'm pretty astute when it comes to looking at how much money you have and how much money you owe and knowing which is the bigger figure. I think most of us get that. So where do we go from here? I'll tell you where we start. We start by all of us getting involved and demanding more of our leaders. I did not see significant cuts in that budget, not real significant cuts. They certainly were not outlined to us. We need drastic cuts in the city in order to survive, and it has to hurt. It's not hurting us now. We are simply going and borrowing more money. And in addition to borrowing the $4 million and having to pay it off, we're having to pay financing costs of $250,000, $300,000. And now we're squandering the future of our children. We're putting our schools in a bind because we're not paying our obligations to them. It's time for real leaders to step up. It's time for men and women that care about the city and don't care about themselves personally that put the city first. And I don't care which side of the aisle you're on, even the ones that made this mess. It's time for you to quit worrying about what Marshall says and do the right thing. You're either just living in a shoe and you can't understand common sense, or you're part of the problem. I believe you caused the problem, the fact that you weren't running your government like you should, the fact that you were spending on every one of these things that you thought would make yourself look better. The whole, if we build it, they will come routine. We saw the movie. That's the only time it worked. It doesn't work any other time. There's a movie. It's a good movie. But it doesn't work. You can't go out and put lipstick on every pig and all of a sudden think that you have stallions and horses pulling the carriages. No, you're pulling the carriages with pigs. They just have lipstick on. We need drastic cuts within our city government in every aspect. You cannot just go and take the money. Let me tell you what they do. This is what I think they do. I think oftentimes extra money is built in departmentally across every department in the city. They'll go in and say, well, it's going to take, let's say, $180,000 that we're going to spend on books at the River City Library. I don't know what they spend on books. I have no idea. But we're going to spend $180,000. I'm going to budget for that. They're not going to spend $180,000. They're going to spend $50,000. But they've built in there $130,000 extra money that are hiding there. They slip in and say, well, we're going to cut $10,000 from the library budget. We're really doing a lot. Well, you're not doing anything. You're cutting money that you were hiding anyway, in my opinion. That's the kind of cuts that happened. Real cuts, not cuts that hurt, not cuts that say, yeah, I know so-and-so retired. We're not hiring anybody new. But how are we going to get the work done? We're going to work harder. That's the way it works in the real world. You're going to have two jobs instead of one. It stinks. Hey, I've been there. I don't like it either. But when you're broke, you're broke. I feel like I'm screaming on top of a mountaintop. We're broke. The ship is sinking. We're almost underwater. And there's a captain and a couple captains, at least three, that are all holding onto the steering wheel, trying to drive it, and they're just telling everybody around them, don't bother, don't listen to him. I know there's water around your ankles. That's not really water. We're not really sinking. Well, we are. We're sinking. Could it change? Could things really pick up? Could this new tax increase and new electric rate increase and new water and sewer increase and all these things, will that help? I hope so. Because if we have to go back and dip again, you know, I don't know where some of the people are going to get the money to pay this. Will it help? I think it will help some. But let me point out one other thing. And I've mentioned this over and over and over and over again. I really believe in my heart of hearts, if you ask me, and someone did ask me this the other day, they said, Keith, is there any hope for Radford City? And I told them, I said, just a little hope. There's a little hope, and it lies in the foundry property. If we can get that developed and develop quickly, and by the way, I understand, I've heard from multiple sources, that our EDA is chomping at the bit to get going, to develop that property. There are people that may be interested now that we can get that moving quickly. That little hope to generate the huge revenues that a stronger industrial base can generate. There's a little hope if we get that process moving. But I come to you today, on May the, today's May the 15th. It is still not in the hands of the EDA. It is still being held up. And I will submit this to you. The reason it's being held up is political. I believe that with all my heart. The mayor and some people within the city government, possibly the legal team, are purposely trying to hold this up until after the election in November and out into January. They want to make sure they have their people on council. They want to stack the EDA, in my opinion. They want to control it. And you know, if our mayor controls it, then you really know who controls it. And that concerns me. And we're going to squander the next six, eight months, just for politics. Just for personal control of one or two people. Rather than getting it moving and trying to turn this around. It should have been done six months ago. Longer than that. But it's being held up. It sat for five years. I campaigned on that. That was what my largest issue was. Look, we need to develop this property. It's one of my biggest issues. I was made fun of for it. Then the city bought it. They bought it after a new council was on their way and the EDA was going to buy it themselves because they knew they were smart men and women. They knew it had to be developed. So our mayor jumped in there. He wanted to take credit. But he's got it, he's holding it. And he's not doing anything with it. And it's a sham and a shame. It's our last hope. We're not going to make enough pizzas. We're not going to make enough donuts. I'm sorry. We're not going to be able to, whatever, come up with enough liquor creation businesses in order to get this done. We need a stronger industrial base. We just lost a major component to that in mode closing. And we're still sitting here. So two things. I mean, two things. Please start doing this now. Do some real major cuts. Don't approve any more huge vehicle purchases. Find something used. Fix something. Do whatever you have to do to survive and to keep everybody safe. You can do that without spending tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars. No more digger trucks. No more. Stop. We don't have the money. Act like we're in trouble. If you don't believe that you're in trouble, you cannot work yourself out of the problem. I don't mean quit. It means get busy. And don't just take people's word for it. Make them prove it. Make them prove it. Who knows? Maybe this is what I've told them is news to some people within the city government. Maybe our elected officials. Maybe they didn't know we were behind in our payment to the schools. Maybe some do and some don't. I know the mayor knew, though, because he got the letter. So I'm going to end this here. I'm not going to go any further. I think I covered what I need to cover. I think I've brought you the truth yet again. Just another example. And this time, our kids are suffering for it directly. Our kids are families that depend on the public schools. Our teachers that are, you know. Can you imagine being a teacher today? Should they even have to think about the payroll for the schools? Are you kidding me? They shouldn't. I can't imagine having to deal with some of the things that are going on now. And certainly, if we're going to fund anything, we need to fund our schools. Our fire, rescue, EMS, and our schools. Top three, baby. We've got to do it. You can't fall behind in those. You cannot put them in the position that you put yourself because you're not making your payments. Making them suffer because of your malfeasance. That's wrong. That's wrong. Now, I'm going to end this here. We've jumped. We're about to hit 50 minutes. We're getting close to it, so it's about time to quit. Sorry to bring you the bad news, but I brought you the truth. I brought you the truth as I've found it, as I've been taught it, and showed it, and as I've been able to read it myself. You take it for what it's worth. I suggest you get involved. By the way, I think the city could use another or two strong conservative candidates running for different offices coming up in November. We need those people. If you're just a liberal tax expender, I'm going to work against you. I promise you that. But if you're a fiscal conservative and you want to save this city, I think you should consider getting on board. Fight the good fight. Let's turn this thing around. It can't be just my voice. It's got to be multiple voices out there speaking, getting involved. You don't have to be rude. You don't have to be hateful. Sometimes the truth is tough. Sometimes you have to say it like it is. I don't really enjoy having to do it all the time, but I feel obligated to do so. I think it would be a good idea if there were a lot of voices standing up speaking loud and clear about what is right and what is wrong and how to move this city in the right direction. Because we are certainly, we are certainly listening and heading down to the bottom. And I don't want to see that happen. All right. I'm going to finish this episode, as I always do, with our theme verse. And that is found in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verses 13 and 14. And God's word says, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. Hey, thanks again for joining me here on the podcast. I always enjoy the time we have together. And I look forward to talking to you next week. Until then, I hope God richly blesses you and your family. Good day.