Tom Starnes

Mayor Tom Starnes is interviewed on the One More Round Podcast. He discusses his upbringing in a farming community and his parents' influence on his interest in politics. He talks about his career at the Arsenal and his decision to run for city council in Radford. Starnes reflects on the importance of industry and manufacturing in the area and the housing challenges that came with it. He also mentions his wife and children and the support he received from them during his political journey. Starnes discusses his successful election to city council and the number of candidates who ran for the three available seats. The interview concludes with a discussion of the year of his election and the podcast host's own involvement in politics during that time. Hey, welcome to One More Round Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Keith Marshall, and I'm continuing the series that I started in regards to the Radford City's leaders and heroes. And I have with me today someone I believe that fits into both categories, at least as far as I'm concerned. He certainly was one of Radford's leaders and one that probably led longer than anyone else. But he's always been someone who's been one of my personal heroes, and he was just always known as the mayor. And I'm here today with Mayor Tom Starnes. He's agreed to sit down with me a little bit today, and I'm going to pick his brain and we're going to talk a little bit. I think it's important as a city that we remember our past, and we certainly take the time to listen to people who've been there and done that, people who have accomplished a lot, people who have the experience that we don't have, and people that have had the opportunity to learn from their own mistakes and to straighten the ship if they ever needed to, and somebody that I know that many of us know and love, and that's Mayor Tom Starnes. Tom, thank you for sitting down with me here today, and we're sitting here in Tom's dining room, sitting at the table, and it's really a great opportunity to sit down with you. I appreciate you taking a minute and sitting down with me here today. All right, we're going to get started, and just kind of how it's going to work, I'm just going to ask Tom a few questions, and you just let me know what you think. So, tell me something. Did you grow up in Radford, or where did you grow up? Now, I grew up in Scott County, Virginia, which is farther southwest. A little community that was primarily dominated by Starnes' and it was actually called Starnes' Bluff. Starnes' Bluff, that's cool. Now, was it a farming kind of community, or was it a... It was a farming community. I grew up on a farm. I had two older brothers and two older sisters. I was the baby in the crowd, and my older brother and older sister were quite a bit older, and they were gone really by the time I was a teenager and so on. So, ultimately, it was just my brother and my sister and I. Now, your dad, I'm assuming, was he a farmer. Did he do anything else besides farm? My dad was a farmer, and my mother was a school teacher. Now, did you raise cattle? We did. We raised cattle and tobacco and everything that's associated with cattle, raising hay and corn and worked on a farm, really and truly started working in the fields when I was probably 11 or 12 years old, and I've often told individuals that now that would be considered child abuse. But everybody back then, you know, the kids were. Oh, yeah. I'm really interested in that dynamic, the fact that your dad was a farmer and your mom was a school teacher, and I'm thinking, I'm just guessing, you straight me out if I'm wrong, I bet you learned hard work from your dad. I did, although my mother was the task driver, really and truly. Dad was a carpenter also, and early years, he worked away from home quite a bit. In fact, when the arsenal was built, he actually, and I don't remember that, but when the arsenal was built, he actually worked on building the arsenal as a carpenter, and in later years went to other munitions plants and so on as they were being built in the 40s. So you were raised in the early 40s, 50s? Yeah. Okay. And so your mom, she taught school, what, did she teach a certain grade or all grades? She taught elementary, and I never went to school a day under her teacher, when she was a teacher. I never went. Yeah, but you had to live at home with the teacher. I did. I had to live at home with the teacher. So I bet she was pretty strict as far as getting your schoolwork done. She was. She was. So you grew up in Scott County. You grew up, you leave home, you get out of high school. What does Tom Starnes do then? I went to college. I graduated in high school when I was 16. Went to college. Well, let me ask you, was it unusual for people, I don't think a lot of people went to college. They didn't. Not too many people, but again, my mother was the driving force, and all three boys wound up with college degrees, and my two sisters went to business school. Wow. So where'd you go to college? I went to Milligan College. It's a university now. It's in Johnson City, Tennessee. What did you study at the time? I majored in chemistry and got a minor in biology. Okay. So you go to college. What's life like then? What do you do? I forgot how to college. I went to work in a lab with a small company in Elizabethton, Tennessee. And I worked there about six months and decided I didn't want to work in a lab. And I knew that the Arsenal was hiring at that time, and in fact, one of the other guys that worked in the lab had recently got a job. And he touched base with me and wanted to know, hey, are you interested in coming to Radford? They're hiring. So I came to Radford. What year, what time frame were we talking about? October of 61. October of 61. So you're in Radford and you got a job at the Arsenal. What were you doing there? I was hired as a production supervisory trainee. So I worked shift work the first couple of years and then worked various jobs at the Arsenal. Ultimately, I became production superintendent and then later was transferred to the maintenance and became the maintenance manager and then engineering manager. And I guess I was trying to find a place I'd fit in. I got you. Different, several different places. Ultimately, how long did you work at the Arsenal? I worked about 35 years and then retired and stayed there a year doing the identical job. Never moved out of the office after I retired. I stayed off about six months and then there was a company up in New Jersey that was renting some facilities at the point. And they contacted me and wanted to know if I would be interested in coming back to the Arsenal and running the operation for them. And I did that. And it was a small operation, but I did that for about six or seven more years. Now at some point, and I know we jumped ahead until you retired, but at some point when you moved to the Arsenal or back to Radford, Ms. Starnes come into that picture somewhere. She did. She came. We were married when we came to Radford. Been married about a year. Came to Radford and our daughter was born just prior to coming to Radford. And then our son was born a couple of years later. Now you didn't always live in this house, I bet. No. When we came to Radford, housing was very hard to find. Really? And that was because of probably the foundry at Arsenal. Yeah, right. And we lived on 4th Street out in the West End for a short period of time and then we moved actually up over what little grocery store on 8th Street. Okay. And then ultimately a small house on Carson Street became available and we lived there about four years and then built a house over on Dundee Drive and then moved over here probably 40 years ago and we've been here ever since. A lot of people don't realize how important industry and manufacturing was to the base of the citizens of Radford. Not only did you have the foundry here in Radford and the Arsenal across the bridge over past Fairlawn, but you also had Burlington Mills. I know my granddad worked at Burlington Mills and my uncle and several other people. So manufacturing was huge and a lot of the housing that was built were built as feeders or as residences for their employees. Yeah, and in fact the government, the house we lived in on Carson Street was built during WWII for people who worked at the Arsenal. There were several, Radford Village, Sunset Village, and a few some houses over in Fairlawn. So you're living in Radford and you're there with your wife and you have a couple kids. At what point do you remember ever having that first inclination that, hey, I think I may do something really crazy and run for elected office? Well, I always had an interest. My parents were always, they always voted and stayed up on things. Did they talk about politics? They did, they did. And when I was in college, actually, I was a member of the student council, president of the dorms and so on. So I came to Radford. So just touching on that for a second, probably your parents had a huge influence. They did, they did. Alright, so you come to Radford. Came to Radford and I knew the Daltons and got involved with some of the local politics and there was a guy who actually lived over on the corner of 6th Street named Horace Smith that I had worked for and Horace ran for city council. And he didn't make it. He didn't get elected and later he became a school board member, but he didn't make it and I tried to help him get elected and he was unsuccessful. So three or four years later when city council elections came up, he said, Tom, why don't you run for city council? So I talked with my wife and with the kids and so on and I decided to run and it was sort of ironic. What did your wife say when you made that suggestion? She encouraged me to do it, but I'm not sure either of us realized how much time and effort it was going to take. I guarantee you that's the fact. But the first time I ran and a lot of people have a tough time visualizing this, but there was actually 17 people ran for three seats. Wow. Now that's public interest. 17 people. And I came in second. Charles Charlton, who grew up here in Radford and was the first minority person elected to city council and he was number one and I was number two and I believe Ms. Duncan, Margaret Duncan, if I remember correctly, was number three. And y'all three made it on the council? Yeah. Okay. So about what year was that? Where were we at? I was probably 74, I believe. 74. Okay. Actually, somewhere in that time frame, just interjecting myself into this, that's when I got involved in politics for the first time as a little boy. I actually helped hand out cards for my butcher, who was Ted Best. Okay. You remember Ted. I do remember Ted. And the market, but that was my first time I ever got involved. Would have been in the early 70s when I was a little kid going door to door. But anyway, so you get elected to council and was it a culture shock? Did you really know what you were getting into? Not really. And the ironic thing, the city manager resigned the first council meeting we had. Was that expected? Yeah. And it was a lot of people said, gee, change needs to be made. And back then, city council appointed the manager for a two-year term. And I felt after the guy resigned, and I guess he resigned because he wasn't sure how many votes he was going to have. And I talked to council about that and I said, you know, it's not fair to the individual and it's not fair to city council, the very first night you're on city council to be faced with making a decision on whether to retain or fire somebody, and ultimately. It's kind of hard for you to get comfortable and start making decisions if you're facing every two years, you're facing being removed, you can't get anything started. And I told city council, why don't we just change that? The city manager serves at the will and pleasure of council. So that's where that began. Yeah, that's where it began. And as people know, they still serve at the will and the majority of council can hire or fire a city manager. Correct. But it's just, it's continuing. You assume it's continuing until they make that decision. So you're on council. At some point, you had the opportunity to run for mayor. Tell me about that. Well, when I was first elected, the council chose the mayor. Oh, I see. It wasn't an independent election. It wasn't an independent, and it was that way for several years. And then later, one of the council members said, gee, we really should put it out unless the people vote on the mayor. And I didn't have any problem with that. And the charter was changed, and it was probably eight or ten years after I'd been on council when the charter was changed until the mayor was elected from the population. So you eventually ran for mayor. You won. You served a total of 32 years as Rafford City Mayor and then, of course, four years on council. Correct. So looking back across those 36 years, I mean, I know there has to be just 1,001 events, but is there anything in particular that stands out with you about those years, a particular period of time or a particular circumstance that kind of comes to your memory often? Well, there are several things. I think during that period of time, Rafford was in a position where a lot of we were able to accomplish, I believe, a lot of things. One of the things that sort of stands out, back then, annexation was a big deal. And during that period of time, the city was actually able to expand the boundaries, if I remember correctly, about three different times. The area from Harvey Chevrolet, the West End, it actually ended when I was when I first came on council. The city limits ended right near in the West End where the divided highway started. Oh, four lanes. Four lanes. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. And there was about three annexations, and we also tried to annex a portion of Pulaski County and actually went to court. And in the court, one of the requirements was that to annex, you had to be contiguous with the area you were annexing. During the court hearings, it was discovered that Montgomery County owned a small strip up the middle of the river, so Rafford did not join Pulaski County. It joined Montgomery County, and Montgomery County then joined Pulaski County. So that got thrown out of court, but the court at that point in time did give Rafford that little strip that Montgomery County owned up the middle of the river. So we are now contiguous with Pulaski County. You know, that's something you always hear. We should have annexed Fairlawn. We should have annexed. It sounds like we actually tried to do that. We did. We actually went to court. And we actually lost. Okay. That makes sense. Anything else? Well, I think you look around, a lot of things did happen during that period of time. Bishop Park was developed. When I went on council, the land had been purchased. It was developed, and it was very controversial. I remember, we'll get into that. You know, that park in particular, I hear so much from people outside of town about how jealous they are of Bishop Park and how nice the park was. And I think people ought to hear, what was the process of developing that? The council prior to me becoming a council member and a couple of other people had purchased the land. They got a grant, but they bought the land and just purchased the land from a private source. And we purchased it. And the first time I ran, that was the election issue. Really? Bishop Park. Bishop Park. It hadn't been named, but they said, nobody will ever use it. That's the fourth thing. And that's where they named Duncan's Bottom? Yeah. Okay. And why was that? It was named because of that? It was called Margaret's Bottom, Duncan's Bottom. She was the mayor when the land was purchased. And she really took a lot of flack over that. And I remember we were just building the houses down on there now where people go and have picnics and all that. And we had a hundred-year flood. And I was at work one day and one of the Radford residents called me and he said, Tom, I hope you look down at the river this morning and saw the river over the top of all those shelters. Oh, wow. And then another individual, a guy named John Tout, several years later, John approached me and he said, Tom, he said, I'd like to come to city council and get on the agenda. And I said, fine. And when he came to city council, he said, hey, I just want to say publicly, he said, I made my first comments and they were all negative about Bishop Park. And he said, I just want to say publicly, it's a tremendous asset to the city and I was wrong. Oh, that was pretty honorable. It was. And probably of all the investments in the park, there's very few that have touched more families, more people than Bishop Park. It's just been an outstanding resource for the city. I know my kids played soccer there and played some football there. And, of course, I've been to I don't know how many church picnics down there and other things. Just a great resource. And it's beautiful. As you come across the bridge and you look at it, it's just a wonderful family setting. It's a really cool thing. So that's a really major thing that was developed while you were on council. What else? We, of course, replaced the recreation building, new recreation building, developed the industrial park in the west end, built a new library. The library, you grew up in Radford, you probably remember it was part of the rec hall, just a couple of rooms really. And we were able to do that. Actually, two schools were constructed. Dalton was constructed. Belle Heath was replaced during that period of time. We did a lot of things. I was fortunate to work with some good city managers, good members on the city council. We didn't always agree. Well, it's pretty obvious that you accomplished a lot. We haven't taken on projects like that or been able to for some time. Correct. So you're on council, you've served 36 years. You obviously were fairly unwavering, steady. I know you're fiscally responsible. I mean, you just are. The city was financially sound. It was sound. You mentioned that the school system, you built a couple of schools, but I think for people that are listening that maybe didn't grow up in Radford and hadn't been here as long or don't remember, our school system was the jewel of the New River Valley. I mean, it was the school system in the New River Valley at the time, and I say that with pride, not arrogance. It really was. So let's go to 2010 and jump ahead just a little bit. You've accomplished all these things. You've seen amazing things happen in the city. The city is sound financially. We're doing well. I know in 2010, that's kind of when I first got to know you a little bit because I was running for council for the first time, and I can remember being on the debate stage, the forum stage, and just thinking to myself, my goodness, I am up here with Mayor Starnes. I mean, to you, it may not seem like a big deal, but to a kid that grew up in Radford, and you were always the mayor, that's Mayor Starnes, that's Mayor, and I'm sitting there and I'm looking across and I'm like, I'm up here on the stage and there's just something wrong with that. But anyway, ultimately, you lost that election. I bet you lost. So I just mentioned you've accomplished all those things, and I know, just personally, as someone who's served eight years on council, you give up a tremendous amount of your life, your personal life, to do that. You miss kid functions, school events, ball games. Oftentimes, when other people are spending time playing games with their kids or doing some of that, and I'm sure you did all those things too, but there's no way to do a good job, especially not as mayor. There's no way to do a good job and not give up some of your personal things. You do. And that, my wife was, she's no longer with us, but she was very understanding, and you do sacrifice a lot, and I just don't think a lot of individuals realize that, that you do that. I can recall one time, maybe the last election, my wife and daughter and kids were going to visit my son in northern Virginia, and I think it was one of the grandkids' birthdays who lived in northern Virginia, and I said, hey, it's a week before election. I really need to be in Radford. And they went to northern Virginia to attend a function for grandkids who live in northern Virginia. You know, and I think people, they have a kind of false impression of what running for office is like when you're really serious and you're trying to do a good job. They see things on TV, and they see the pomp and the circumstances, and all those things. Well, none of that exists at the local level. Exactly. It's just grinding, hard work, door-to-door, sweat equity, knocking doors, meeting people. You know, there's nothing grand about it. It's just work. I mean, it's enjoyable. There are some enjoyable parts about it. But it's hard work. So, you know, and I remember 2010 a little bit, and I can remember you campaigning going door-to-door, and I honestly, a lot of the way I did things, I took from you and speaking to you and got your advice. But so you run, you put all that time in there. The city, you know, if you could look at Radford City now and try to compare it back to 2010, it's not the same city. It is not the same city. It has changed significantly. And so you lose. Let's just be honest a minute, and I can be honest about how I felt. I lost an election, too, for mayor. So I know how that feels. But you're sitting there on election night, and the votes are counted, and you realize that Sunkee and Hale have lost. Where were you at at that point? We were here at home, and it was the precinct that I live in here, and Plan A was the precinct I always depended on to get reelected. And when those results come in, they were still one or two of the other precincts. I didn't have the numbers yet, but I knew then that was bad news. And there were several people here, and I said, hey, this doesn't look good, and it is. You put in a lot of time, a lot of effort knocking on doors, and I did that 10 different times. I knocked on almost every door, household, in the city of Radford, and that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. And Radford is not a flat city. It is not a flat city. When you're walking door to door, yeah, it's uphill most ways. It really is. But I remember that last night, my last night on city council, I was walking out, and a lady came up to me, and she said, Tom, I really think you did a good job, but I just thought we need to change. And I guess that was true. Well, we've got one, that's for sure. So, you know, I have to be honest, or let's be honest. Is there a, after all that work, a sense of betrayal a little bit? That's a tough word, I know. Maybe that's a little heavy, but it's hard not as a human being. It does affect you, but life goes on, and you've got to realize that there's other people who do have other ideas, and maybe they're better, and time will tell. So, a few years later, you decided to run again for city council. What were you thinking? You had more to do? Yeah, I really did, and I didn't make it. Well, you know, one of the things I've noticed, and this is something that I have learned just personally the hard way, it sure is a good idea to have experienced people around you. Because when you wake up one day and you do not, and you don't have a resource to go to, it's tough. And, you know, you kind of learn that. I finally got into my 50s and started doing things right, because I did a lot of them wrong. You kind of learn from your own mistakes. So, you know, just to our listeners here, especially to our young people, it's a good idea to listen to people with gray hair. They got it, they earned it, they earned it honestly. They've made the same dumb mistakes you made, and they're trying to keep you from doing the same thing twice. And I think, honestly, I think council and the city has missed your leadership over those years. So, you know, looking back on those 36 years, do you have any regrets? Anything you wish you would have done different? I look back and there's very few. There might be one or two votes that I would change, but very few votes would I go back and change if I had an opportunity. But, you know, I depended a lot on a couple of individuals. Also, the city manager and the finance director. Those were two people that I liked to bounce things off of. We were fortunate. I think we had some excellent city managers. We had one or two that could have... were not the cream of the crop. And I know, one, Bob Asprey. He and I served together for many, many years. We hired Bob while I was on city council. And Bob and I are good friends. Just wonderful. They are. Remained good friends all these years after we both left. In fact, he and I still serve on the New River Resource Authority. And a lot of these authorities that the city is a member of now, he and I worked to get them established. I don't think people realize how difficult... You know, any decision that you make on council, you've got a 50% chance of making somebody mad. Maybe not any decision, but any major decision for sure. Correct. So how did you deal with that over the years? You know, your kids go to school. You know, the teachers teach them in school. You see them in the grocery store. You know, if you make a decision in regards to the school board or whatever, teachers may not like it or somebody that works for the city may not like it. How did you handle that? I have told individuals that I did the best job I could. I looked at the information that was available. A lot of times I would actually go out and look at the job, the rezoning requests coming up or something like that, or those type of things. I always wanted to make sure I knew and had as much information as possible to make a decision that would hopefully be the correct decision. Right. So let's jump to 2022. Okay. I know as a grandfather myself of five, and I feel kind of like a high school kid sitting here with you. I don't feel like a grandfather. But anyway, not because you're old, just because you're the mayor, you know. I'm sitting with the mayor. But anyway, so I know how proud we are of our grandparents. So what was it like in 2022? For those of you who don't know, our current vice mayor of the city of Radford, Seth Gillespie, is your grandson. He is my grandson. What was it like just on election night when he won that election and you saw him? It was great. Kenny Ford, who was a former city employee, policeman, we were all down at headquarters, or at the VFW building. You were there. And we were all trying to get the results and everything. I don't know how Kenny got them so quick, but Kenny sent me a text. We all wondered how he did this stuff. And he sent me a text, and there was the result from all three precincts. And I reached it over to Seth, and I was overjoyed and showed him, hey, here's the text. You're the vote-getter, the leading... The most votes. The most votes. And that was a great moment, really. And the first meeting, the meeting where they set up for the next couple years, he was voted in as vice mayor of the city of Radford, and he's doing a pretty good job so far. Pretty good job, and he's probably having to learn the hard way the lessons. He has. He has. And I'm sure that you're a willing source of advice to him when he needs it. Yeah. I do. If he wants it, I'll give it. I understand. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way. That's right. Yeah, okay. All right, so Radford City, right now. Honestly, unlike most of our neighbors around us, they're going through a pretty tough time financially, particularly financially. We've seen reserves spent down to almost nothing. Our general fund balance recently dipped to $66,000, is what our auditor said, and we've been even paying our bills kind of late. We borrowed $4 million, kind of a payday loan, just to catch up and make payroll, and we're hearing now that we're not going to have the money to pay that back on time. Before I get into that, though, the reason I bring that up, that's not the first time Radford has seen some tough financial times. I know when I was on council, that was the Great Recession around 2018. There were some tough times, but probably the worst financial hit that the city of Radford has ever taken, you may correct me on this, but I think it was, was when the Lynchburg Foundry closed. So you were on council when that happened. Tell me about the financial impact of that on the city of Radford. That was tough. In fact, when the foundry closed and city council worked diligently to try to save the foundry, and we gave them incentives that we didn't give anybody else. We actually made some major improvements to facilities in the city of Radford, especially water. We sold them water at a cut rate, but it was advantageous to the city because they were using half of the water in the city of Radford. We also gave them some breaks on electricity. So you know, a lot of people, and I know how this is, I remember we had a fruit stand close in the city of Radford, they left. And I would read things on the internet, of course this was before the internet for you, when the foundry left, people would say the city ran them out of town, just crazy things. And one of the things that you hear a lot is that the foundry closed because the city was bleeding them dry and they wouldn't work with them. So I want you to set the record straight. We had numerous meetings with the foundry personnel, the union personnel, the leaders of the foundry, and ultimately it got out. Some of our southern neighbors could sell them electricity about half of the cost that the city of Radford could. And they utilized, in their process, a lot of electricity and gas and soil, melted steel. And it got down to Justin, an economic decision for them. And as I say, we gave them, and I had a summary one time, and it's been what, 15 years or so, on all the incentives that the city of Radford had given the foundry to try. Because we realized the importance of what the foundry provided to the city of Radford. But they were also competing with China and all the foreign countries and so on. I don't know whether they're still in business down in Georgia or wherever or not anymore. I'm sure they're under the same name. So the foundry, what kind of financial impact was that on the city? It was tough. Don't hold me to these numbers, but total, it was probably close to a million dollars. Yeah. That city. And as I say, at one point in time, we had a summary of everything we had given to them. But it's been 15 years, and I can't remember. I was thinking it was even higher. It could have been. It could have been. It was pretty, to our budget then, back in, what was that? 2006, 2007, somewhere in that neighborhood? Correct. That had to be a devastating impact to the budget. But I'm really curious. We saw the foundry close, and I know that in 2010, when I come on to council, the foundry opened up for just a little while. They just kind of did a short run in a few years. And we saw the financial impact immediately because of that. So your own city council, you're faced with a huge economic loss. The largest employer in the city, or as far as the largest profitable employer in the city, shuts their doors. You have hundreds and hundreds of citizens that lose their job. The city loses its largest revenue source in electricity and water. And we're very dependent on that as a city because we're sitting on a river. We sell water. We have our own electric company, electric co-op. We sell electricity. It's a big deal. So how did you deal with that financially? What did you do to right the ship or to keep the boat afloat? Almost immediately, the city manager and working with council and members and so on started looking at the budget and realized that, hey, here's what's going to happen in the near future and started making plans on what we could do to cut back on expenditures to hopefully not be in as rough a position as possible. And the city manager at that time, if I remember correctly, was Bob Asbury. You probably froze wages. You probably froze hiring. You cut out any unnecessary spending. So you went through that. It was a tough time. In the next election, which is coming, would be 2010, you've lost and you've left. But tell me, what kind of financial shape was the city in when you left? The city was still in pretty good shape. We had, and I recently looked it up. I've got an old audit. And roughly, we had total reserves, this is in all of the funds there, a little over $11 million. Wow. $11 million. That's after the Foundry closed? That's after the Foundry closed. Now, do you attribute that to quick thinking, quick decisions? It was. And traditionally, I think we had watched expenditures. I remember a former city manager saying one time that he would, before he either retired or got fired or died, he would like to present a budget that the mayor voted for without major cuts. But we did. I remember that. Yeah. I remember that stuff. We went over, and I think council did a lot of things. You didn't rubber stamp things. We did not rubber stamp things. And the city managers would generally say, hey, here's a project. I'm not sure we got the money to do it. Right. But it's ultimately up to city council. But most city managers during my tenure came to council, and they were pretty good financial people. Right. They were progressive people, but they wanted to make sure that the city was going to be able to pay the bills. I gotcha. So, I can't get past the irony of this while I think about it. And go with me here a minute and let me explain where I'm going. So you leave in 2010. You've served the city for 36 years. You lost. They chose somebody else. And I will say this, while I was on council those eight years, things were fairly stable, too. We had some dips in the road. We actually built even more reserves for the first few years when the foundry opened back up. Worried about them closing again. We didn't want to count on that money. So the reserves were pretty good. But I can't get past the irony, though, that you left in 2010, and 12 years later, we're jumping to 2022, the grandson of the former mayor comes into office, and the figures don't look anywhere like they did in 2010. Actually, we've seen the fact that our reserves were almost completely depleted. You talk about $11 million. We were down to almost nothing, to the point we had $66,000 in the bank. We're month to month paying our bills now, paycheck to paycheck. I think most people can understand that. We took out a $4 million loan just to make, and I mentioned that, just to make payroll, to catch up, to make payroll. And it looks like we're not going to be able to pay back the $4 million on time. We're not going to meet our deadlines on that. Just looking at it by the numbers, it looks hopeless. But let me ask you, is it hopeless? I don't think it's hopeless. So let me ask you this then. I believe you. I don't think it's hopeless either. But, you know, and I'll leave Seth out of this. He's got to make his, row his own boat. But it's 2024. If Mayor Tom Starnes walked back into the city council chambers, which by the way are named after you, the council chambers are named after you now. If Mayor Starnes walks back into that city council and he's in charge again, what does Mayor Starnes do? The first thing I would do would probably be have the city manager to provide a report from the treasurer on how much funds we actually have today. To the minute, to that day. To the minute, to that day. I would also have him provide a report from the finance director. What are the incoming bills? What are we required to spend based on the contracts we have, the employees we have? Plans that are unavoidable. Plans unavoidable today. And then I would have meetings, city manager to set up with all department heads and with the city manager and the school system and say, hey, we're all in this together. We're gonna get through it, but we're gonna have to do some things that affects... It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt. Affects every citizen in Radford. But in order to remain a city, in order to be a viable community, we've all gotta share in the hurt. But it has to happen. And here's what I foresee and have the city manager come with a plan, give a deadline on I want your recommendations to us to accomplish this. And city council to act appropriately once they've had time to look at the information. And this is something that can't be delayed for six months. It needs to occur now, really. They're actually working through the budget right now, so probably immediately is not soon enough. Correct, correct. You know, for someone that's elected and tries to get reelected, that puts them in a tough spot. It does put them in a tough spot. You know, I mentioned a little earlier that even regular decisions that you make, 50% of the people are not gonna be happy. So let's say if you freeze all hiring, well, that's gonna be tough. For an employee that's having to do a little extra work. Or if you don't give raises, the cost of living certainly is going up, so that's tough. There may be situations where you don't buy new trucks or you don't buy new this or that, so you don't upgrade some things that you would like to do. You have to put those off for another day. No question. So if you were gonna give advice to someone in elected office, what would that be? I mean, how do you, I mean, I mean, they wanna get reelected a lot of times. You know, they wanna spend more than one term there sometimes, or whatever. What should they do? What's most important? I think you have to do what you honestly think is right. And then let the chips fall where they may. You may not get reelected, but do what you think is right and is best for the city, because that's what you're elected to do. Do what's best for the city. And there are some things that we've indicated that can be done, in my opinion. I haven't intentionally stayed away from council. I probably, since I left, I've probably been to four or five council meetings during that whole time, and I've intentionally stayed away. I have been to a few, but not very many council meetings. So, let me ask you this. We have a presidential election coming up, and I'm not gonna ask you about that, but go with me here. President Trump's running, he's 77 years old. Joe Biden is the president, and he's 80 years old. Could we see Mayor Tom Starnes again? Never again. I have been there, and it's strange you mention that. Now, Gary told me last interview that he's asked to run for mayor all the time. He told me he's too old to run. Well, there comes a point in life where you need to let another generation do it, and I still think I'm fairly competent, but I will never run for elected office again. So, I want to ask you what I asked Gary in my last interview to finish things up. You were married many years. Your wife just went home to be with the Lord, and I know that's been tough on you, but you've raised a fine family. You have good kids. You have grandkids. You've served your city for 36 years, not just as mayor, but I see you out picking up trash and doing things all the time. You've never stopped serving. So, we all wonder what people will think about us when we're gone. What would Tom Starnes, Mayor Tom Starnes, like people to remember about him? I think I would like for people to say that I did raise a good family, and that is something I'm proud of. Sharon and I had a great life. It was not always easy being in politics, and I worked hard, but we did have a good life, and I hope people will look back and say he was a good family man. He worked hard for the city. Maybe I didn't always agree with what he did, but I think he did the best he could. I think Tom most would certainly agree with that, and I wanted to take a moment to thank you, Mr. Mayor, not only for sitting down with this interview, but for serving the city right for those many years. And I, for one, voted for you in 2010, and I would vote for you in 2024, just so you know. But I understand. I understand. This old boy don't want to run for any more office of the mayor, so I can understand how you feel.