KZYX - Elections 2024 | Election 2024: KZYX interview with Mike Greer

Mike Greer, from Crescent City, is running for California State Assembly District 2. 

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Elections are coming this November! Find out all you need to know about the candidates and issues from KZYX.

This is Elise Cox from KZYX News. Ss part of KZYX's election coverage, I interviewed Mike Greer who is running against Chris Jones for the California State Assembly District Two.

District stretches from Santa Rosa to Crescent City and our candidates come from each of those two areas with Mike Greer hailing from Crescent City.

ELISE COX : I'd like you to make your pitch to voters. Why should they elect you pick?

MIKE GREER: I think maybe the main reason that I need to be elected is the simple reason that we have sustained over the last 10 years, the same policies, the same problems and things haven't changed. Our costs have gone up whether it's the cost of energy that, you know, the cost of living, you know, groceries. Uh It's all that's gone up. Our insurance, all these different things have happened and nothing has been done. We've been given promises after promises after promises, but nothing has happened. And from someone from Crescent City, we don't have any say. So in rural counties, what really happens? Everything is based on city issues. One size does not fit all, but that's exactly what they're doing in the legislature. And so I have experience in um, different government aspects, different political aspects uh from, you know, being currently a county, not just a county office of education board member, but also a unified school district board member. So on both of those, I represent, uh Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino on Lake County on the California School Board Association, County Office of Education are also a member of the legislative committee for the School Board Association, which gets all education bills that are passed, that comes by us where we get to get, give our input. That doesn't mean that we get what we want, but we at least get to see what's there with it. I've been a city councilman, you know, like I said, I've been on school boards for over 20 years. I'm a retired teacher. I taught for 20 years. I was a California Teachers Association Union president for a number of years. I was also a service center chair. I was over a five county area of Calusa Sutter, Yuba, Nevada and Sierra County of teachers and helping with their training and the things that were coming through. CTA and some of the changes in education that need to be taken care of. Education is my main platform. There are certain things that we need to change. I have that knowledge, I have that ability to be able to do that because I understand both sides of the board. I understand what it's like to be a teacher in special education. I understand what it's like to be a board member and having to deal with the fallout from all the different aspects of things that the union has brought forth, the parent brings forth and so forth. So I understand all of those things and I think, because I've worked for so long with CTA as a Republican over the years that I'm able to get along with other groups of people. And I think we need to do that. We don't see that civil discourse anymore. One of the other things we have in California is we have a one party government because of the supermajority. We need to get rid of that supermajority. And that's another reason I'm running is to get rid of that. We need to have those conversations about legislation in the open. It's not happening anymore. Anytime there's a question about legislation being passed the Republicans get shut down. They, they're not even allowed to talk during the last session when they're pushing all the bills through. They were being cut off in the microphone. They had 30 seconds to talk on something and then, you know, Senator Mike Mcguire, you know Jim Mo, they shut him down, they wouldn't let him talk, but we need to have that discussion and we're not gonna get it until basically we change horses, we need to get rid of the supermajority. And that's one of the reasons I am running.
ELISE COX: I understand. Ok, if you, if you were elected, you would have to work in order to get things passed, you would be working with Mike McGuire on issues.

MIKE GREER: I, I like him. Ok, I've had many discussions with Senator McGuire. I like him. And one of the reasons I do like him is because we can discuss things he, he's open, he'll accept that or a lot of others don't let me talk about some of the things like, so you've been following the legislature pretty closely.

ELISE COX: Xo you're a Republican but it, it's a little known fact that Republicans and Democrats actually have more in common than we have dividing us. And I'm wondering about some of the bills that were passed that, that were passed that you agree with?

MIKE GREER: Ok, I'll tell you that.

ELISE COX: Let's start with the agreement and then we can go into things that you think, um, needs to be fixed.

MIKE GREER: There are some, uh, uh, most of my issues aren't with the bills that were passed. A lot of it is the unintended consequences of those bills. Ok. and when you talk about education, there are certain things that we need to do in education. Ok. When we all agree that we need to find some way to have teachers. Ok. How does that where we disagree is on how we're gonna achieve that. OK. They believe we can achieve it just through union, uh dictating everything on education, through CTAT, this is how you're gonna do it. I don't agree with that even as a past ct, a union president, you know, and service and all that. No, there are other things that need to be done. OK. So we need to take a look at that. The flexibility can we, can we delve into that for just a second? Ok. So I, um, I don't know a lot about this, but I'm going to share the little bit that I know which is that there's a teacher shortage. Maybe you can tell you can, you can talk about that. 00, absolutely. And I think there's a couple issues with the, uh, teachers. It's not all pay, that's what everybody hears. It's all about pay. It's not necessarily though most teachers in, especially in the rural areas, they are some of the top income earners in the rural areas. Ok. They're way most of them, uh, unless you're a brand new teacher, then you don't have, you know, the same pay as some of these older experienced teachers. But you're, you know, way above what the rest of the community might be making. But what's happened is that the safety in the classroom is a bigger issue than, than the money. I think, I think if teachers could feel safe in the classroom, feel like they're being supported by their school boards, supported by their parents. Ok. You're gonna find a lot more teachers wanting to stay in. Teachers have been restricted. You can no longer keep a third grader in for recess to finish their work. Instead of going to pe instead of saying, ok, finish your work, then you can go out and have recess. They're not allowed to do that anymore. That's against the law. So they're taking away a lot of the authority that teachers have. And therefore, as I go into, I go into 50 to 70 classrooms a month as a school board member and not just in Dell North County, but different areas. And as I see the way that the classroom management is, it's very difficult, especially in high schools where you have the high school students or, you know, are back talking to teachers, not, you know, they're upsetting the classroom so they're not able to teach those that want to learn. So you have a lot of that. So we have to look at the safety in the schools safety for the teachers, giving back them some of that authority that they had in the past. So they can teach. Another thing is up in Dell North County, we couldn't find teachers. We're still short special education teachers. And so we ended up hiring five teachers from the Philippines, which is easier for to do than hire five teachers from Oregon because of the restrictions in California. That's part of that problem. We need to have reciprocal agreements with other states that if a teacher is certified and has been teaching in that state, they can come to California and just teach and not have to take additional California classes. But yet that's what we have, even though they're proven teachers, they should still have to go through a little, they have to go through more, you know, different classes and things to do. Just specifically for California. We need to go ahead and streamline that so we don't have to do that. That'll give us more teachers. California is still a great place to teach. There's no question about that, but by taking away that authority and by taking away the authority from the school boards, what they can do that also makes it more difficult to do it. We no longer have the flexibility in our school boards to be able to reassign funds that are given to us to be able to help take care of some of these issues, whether it's the safety issues, you know, and you know, whether it's curriculum issues, you know, uh staffing issues, we don't have that authority anymore. Ok. They're taking that away. So let's kind of on a related issue which is a separate issue, but also related to education is housing. And I don't know about Del Norte. I know Mendocino prices tend to reflect the bay area. They're not as expensive as the Bay area but they can, um, be out of reach even for a teacher who's making, um, a relatively high salary. What are your thoughts on housing for teachers? I mean, in, in the Bay area there are, the teachers were crammed into. This is, um, a couple of years ago. Um, and housing has gotten a little bit looser in the Bay area. But, um, they're cramped. They were like sharing like four to a house, you know, and these are professionals in their thirties who would, you know, much prefer their own little apartment. No. And, and I understand that you're absolutely right that the housing costs have skyrocketed. And part of that is because of government legislation that has caused that it's a government induced housing costs is what it basically is. I have been uh to seminars on workforce housing. I have also talked with our people up here and it's not Del Norte, it's Del Norte, it's Portuguese, it's Portuguese, not Spanish, sorry about that. But a lot of people I did, I did the same thing when I moved here. Yeah, but yeah, so it, it's still going, but it's just so I have actually talked with the city council, I've talked with the board of supervisor, I've talked with the hospital. How can we start doing that? How can we start having uh this workforce housing? Because it's just not with teachers. You know, it's with police officers, you know, it's with professionals that work for the cities. So it's all areas with it and how can we do that? So there are bonds, there are not bonds, there are, there is funding that is available to a certain extent through the government to be able to establish it. And you've seen that establishment in San Francisco. You've seen some of it in L A. You've seen some of it in San Jose. So you do see that taking place. Our housing costs aren't quite the same as it is in the Ukiah. It's even worse down in Santa Rosa. You know, you're talking in order to get into a house, you're talking $800,000. I didn't have a house when I first became a teacher. It's something I had to achieve. You can't just become a teacher and expect you're gonna have a house. So what you're looking at at workforce housing is the district or somebody's gonna own that? Let them take that money right out of their paycheck for that rent. But does that mean that we reduce it down to a great degree where we're actually subsidizing all that? I, I don't think we can do that. Uh I think one of the problems we have with teachers and their pay is a simple fact that because again, this is where my experience as a union teacher, I, I don't like the way we give raises to teachers. OK. We have a step and column teachers wherever they are, basically, you could get anywhere from out right about a 2% raise every year, always because it's in their stepping column. But when you give these raises like this past year where there are 10% and you have a teacher making $90,000 a year and you do have those, ok, they're gonna get a $9000 raise. You get your teachers that are making 50,000, you got a $5000 raise. And so you get that big gap that it gets bigger and bigger and bigger as a school board member. And even as a, a teacher, what I say is ok, if a school board has so much money that they can spend for raises, well, take that money and say, oh, this is how many employees we have, whether they're uh CS E A, whether they're CT A, you know, whether they're administration, ok, take that money and divide it and give everybody the same amount of money. It just, you know, and that way you keep that same amount, you can still have that statement column, but you're gonna, you know, you're gonna have that. So there's a lot to be worked out on that. But to me, we need to take a look at how the union always push for this great big raise, which benefits those that are retiring and does very little for those on the bottom. We need to bring that bottom up and I know exactly what the union is gonna say to you. Well, in that case, we need to start them higher and I have no problem with that. Let's start at a higher rate. That's fine with it. But yet we still have, you know, they won't accept that. We won't, they won't accept just giving the bottom level more money because everybody wants it. Let's go to some other issues because education is very important um to our audience. But um so is, um people are also very concerned about water. We're going to have a scarcity of water and we need to do something about that. That right there is one little pilot project that we've been working on here in Fort Bragg and it is tied up in red tape. Everyone wants to know what's happening with the, like the desalinization buoy. It's tied up in red tape and, but that's where it is a year later. No, you know, we're still not, we're still not trying out this method which may be um easier on the marine life, which is really important because Port Bragg. Yeah. II, I have the backing of the fisheries because I feel it's extremely important. And that's why, you know, I'm in Fort Bragg, I've been down there numerous, you know, numerous times because it is. But the shortage of water, there's a couple of different ways that you're going to have to address it. One is we're going to have to have, you know, tearing down, uh, you know, you know, letting Lake Pillsbury go away by tearing down the dam is gonna be a problem. And what's happened is the state and environmentalists have put, you know, the cart before the horse. Basically, they, you're gonna say, let's take it down and cause this problem before they have any solutions. We need to have solutions first, not last. That's, and over the last 10 years, we've had a water bond in place in Sacramento that they haven't been using it. They're finally starting to use it for uh a couple of reservoirs and, but it has not been in place. The Democrats have been fighting it forever. They're the ones that are holding the red tape right now on what you're talking about, desalinization plants. It's a very expensive way to go, but it might be necessary. We need to have surface water uh reservoirs some way. It might be on the, if you have a big ranch, you might be able to have some type of a uh a lake on there yourself that you can develop some way, ok. Uh or different ways to go about it. But we need to stop having all this red tape because you have to go through. So you have to go through coastal commission, you know, and this, this is where the problem is and this has all been by the party that's in there right now. The Democrats are the one with the red tape that's who's calling and that's what needs to be changed. We need to get rid of it so we can try these things and we can listen to people say, OK, let's see what happens instead of mandating saying, no, this is what you have to do and forget everything else. Well, there are um there can be impacts that are very negative, for example, desalinization, you know, on marine life. And so, um I mean, I, I understand like I, like I'm saying this little buoy that we just would like to try out is tied up in red tape. And so we want to remove that, but we wanna make sure that as we move things forward that were also sort of protecting the entire ecosystem. And I know that the Republicans um that was the platform of the party like 100 years ago, you know, and um it would be lovely to see some invite Republican environmentalists pick up that mantle. I, I believe in common sense when we do it. Ok? And we have to look at all of it. And a good example of that right now is the wind turbines on the ocean. I am completely against the wind turbines on the ocean. They want to go ahead and put floating platforms 25 miles out, anchor them to an ocean floor that has consistent earthquakes all the time. We don't know what's gonna happen. Uh you know, this part of the coast, the north coast is, uh, the tsunami capital of the United States. Ok. What happens when you get those wide big waves out in the ocean and those platforms start to tilt. Ok. We don't have the knowledge yet or the science that tells us, oh, it's not gonna be a problem. All the other windmills are close to shore so you don't have that type of stuff. We need to take a look at it first. We know that there's gonna be affecting the, uh, Pacific Flyway. Ok. I'm an outdoors man. I love the outdoors. That's one of the reasons I'm in Crescent City because I, you know, I got five minutes. I'm at the harbor 10 minutes. I'm in Jedediah Smith Redwood Park from my house because I understand these things. What's happened in the past there. These groups aren't using common sense. For instance, let's go back to the spotted owl. They wiped out an entire industry in northern California, especially in District two because of the spotted out and when they came to find out afterwards. Oh, wait, spotted owls are here. We didn't have enough scientific evidence. We need to have some of that and we need to listen to scientific evidence from both sides, not just from one side. Right now. The spotted owls are in great danger because of the ba barn owl that happens to like their territory. Ok. And so what are we gonna do. Ok. Now, they're saying we'll go shoot the barn owls. But with the wind generation, it's a bad idea right now. Uh When I first started doing this in the primaries, I was the only one of all the candidates that was against it. Since that time the tribes have came out against it. We don't know how it's gonna affect our environment, you know, in, in the ocean, we don't know what's gonna happen to the migrating whales. We see what's happening out on the east coast so far after a couple of years, they still haven't came up with what they think the problem is. We don't know. So I do have a, I do have another question. Um So um one of the things that we can do on the coast is um we can do pumped the sort of it's pumped hydro. So one of the things with hydro, you know, we have plenty of sun. It's, I just, I little, I had a, I, I'm in the redwoods. I added like a 10 panel array. I'm producing way more than I consume. I produced a megawatt and just like my first, I was so surprised because I thought I could never do solar because it's, I'm pretty, it's pretty, we're in the shade. So if we, we could, we have plenty, plenty, plenty of electricity. We put panels up, we're gonna power ourselves. The issue is storage except we are so blessed on the coast because we have a reservoir which is the ocean and then we have a change in elevation which are cliffs and all we need to really do is build the inland reservoirs where we, so we pump out the water during the day, we release it at night and we, and we have a nice little cycle and of course, we have to study the impact on marine light for this as well. You have a lot of stuff like that right now, but not with the ocean. Uh You have a lot of places that actually do that up on the Feather River, you know, Bucks Lake, they actually pump it up, pump it back down and it's very common in a number of areas. One of the problems they're gonna run with what you're talking about, of course, is how is that seawater going to affect the pipes? How is it going to affect all these things? What are you gonna have to do? So there are some technical things there, but it makes a lot more sense and I, I think that people, if they can have solar, if it works for them, they ought to. I compared my PG and E bill. This is before I had solar with my friends in Miami. I was paying four times more. And um do you know why it, it's, it's mostly the cost of what California requires in green energy. Ok. Our hydroelectric plants are not considered green energy by the state of California, the California Public Utilities Commission. And so we have to import that. Now, we don't have, we only have about 17 to 20% of the energy coming into the state. That's actually green energy, but it's, it is coming across the transmission. We have to buy it elsewhere, we have to get it from other states. Ok. And that, and that's where, that's where the cost is because of the regulations in the state of California and because of the, uh you know, California Public Utilities Commission and the regulations they put on the fact that they don't regulate the things that they're supposed to regulate. Um I, I would say that it was really interesting to me that Ukiah has long had, it's generated its own electricity. It has, and it is um significantly less than Fort Bragg. You're, you're right. Micro grids are the way to go and I agree with you. So, I mean, I, I do think that we could probably aggressively step on the gas around this and lower the price of electricity which would help with cost of living. Um, e even micro grizzle that electricity has to come from somewhere. And, and that's where the, the key is. Where does the electricity come from? I'm just telling you, I'm, I'm generating like from my neighbors. They are living off of my panels and they're just 10, you know, it's not a lot of, we I think that we can generate enough to take care of our population and maybe even grow a little bit because at this point, we don't have like energy or water to absorb people who want to move to the coast. Like we don't have really any. Um, yeah, I say, I, I'll tell you truthfully, I think your bigger problem is water, not electricity. We don't have one of the big problems we have as far as electricity is, we don't have the infrastructure. It's just with the wind turbines, they say we can have that uh wind turbine, that energy, uh you know, being, you know, on land in 10 years, but they're also telling us the same thing that it's going to take us 20 years to give you the infrastructure to receive it. And that's why they're gonna be dropping that line from Humboldt from down north, down probably in my opinion to Morro Bay. But I really think that in another 15 years you're gonna see a lot more nuclear power. And I think that's really the way we're going to be going down the road, much more, much more efficient. Uh I mean, when I was a youngster, I actually helped build nuclear power plants, my dad was superintendent to build a number of nuclear power plants. And so I understand, I, I don't understand what's in it. They have much improved. France uses mostly that now nuclear power and there's a reason for that because it is effective. It's much better. It's, you don't have the same issues that you have with, say the, the, you know, bird population, uh, with the windmills, you know, and so forth and, uh, some of the small heat spots that come with solar panels. I think that's the way we're going to be going in another 10 to 15 years. And I think what we're seeing now is gonna be gone down the road. Health care. The coast in particular is in a dire strait around health care. You can't have a baby on the coast. There's no, you have to actually drive to Willits or Ukiah. I just had a friend that had to drive to Medford, Oregon. Ok. Um, they're actually talking about shutting down cancer treatment. You can't imagine like someone having to drive over highway 20 or 128 to get their cancer treatment. The first thing that we have to do, we have to address that overall health care that we don't have. I don't have an eye doctor here. I'm very limited in, you know, any type of doctors here. And it's the same way, whether it's in Crescent City, whether it's in Shelter Cove, whether it's Fort Bragg, whether it's in goa, whether it's down Bodega Bay, it, we just don't have it. Ok. One of the, there's a couple of reasons, in my opinion that it's that way one, we don't have the number of doctors that we used to have most of them because of their insurance costs have gone working for hospitals where they can actually make more money as much as we like to think that doctors aren't in it for the money. They still have to make money to survive. Ok. And the state does not pay health care workers enough. And if you're in areas like we are, then we need to take a look at what that pay structure is because we have fewer of them. Maybe it's that supply and demand, maybe we need to pay more for the health workers here. And that's why I'm talking with the uh hospital here. We're talking about workforce housing because I know they do it for the uh nurses and doctors that actually work at our hospital here. They, they do that. And so we can take a look at that type of stuff. We need to make sure it's overall care for everyone, whether it's cancer, whether it's pregnancy, you know, uh whether it's for your child that has, you know, uh, you know, some type of a, a cold cough or whatever we need to have that instead of emergency rooms, you're finding a lot of other clinics that are there. But the clinics are very limited on what they actually have in goal. They have a, a great doctor there, but they're overworked and they don't have the money to upgrade their facility that they need. We need to take it on a uh individual basis and do it that way instead of doing it as an overall state plan, what the Democrats have done one size fits all. It doesn't work, does not work on the coast. And we're getting, as mentioned earlier, more and more people are looking to move here. We've had a lot of friends that would like to move to Crescent City. One of the two main reasons they don't. And the main one is health care because it just, it doesn't exist the way it should. And we need to go to the state level and say, ok, this is what we need to do. We need to pay more then that's what we have to do. So where are we gonna get that money from? We need to take a look at where all this money is going right now. All the billions and billions of dollars, especially the ones we've lost in the state. Where's that money going? But yet the governor doesn't want anybody to be held accountable and vetoes all those bills, but we need to find out where money is going so we can reallocate it. So of money going. Um, uh, going and not, and not seeing a payback. One of the things that has happened is, I think it's $24 billion and only, um, services, um, that has, that doesn't seem to have put a dent in the homelessness problem. That's correct. It, it hasn't. We have been throwing money at the homeless home, mental health care and education, billions and billions of dollars. But yet we've seen our education decline, we've seen homelessness increase and it seems that we're getting the same thing with mental health illness, that money is not being followed on how those programs need to work. We don't know what they're giving because most of those programs are ran by nonprofits. Ok. Once the companies have that nonprofits, we lose track of accountability. It's just like in Santa Rosa that, well, down in Sonoma County dem, it's supposed to take care of the homeless to give him a $25 million contract. But yet they didn't insist on them getting the accountability for it, I will say. Um, so I moved to Menno County from Oakland. Oakland. Voters voted for like a $2 billion kids first tax that went directly to, um, all that, that really was funded nonprofits that were, that was the goal was better outcomes. And, um, really the, um, they, they surveyed themselves, that was their accountability. They like had a survey from their, the people that oftentimes they just gave away money vouchers. And then they would ask people that they gave the vouchers to. How did we do? And they would say great. And, um, I, I pulled the public records on this, uh, many years ago and, um, Oakland right now is, you know, cal matters, wants it to go into Receivership. It's in such bad, bad shape. Um And um, I mean, we've really never seen the city be so dangerous. I have never seen it be so dangerous as it, as it, as it is now. Um I do wanna say I don't wanna correct you. We have in Ukiah, the point in time count found a reduction. Ukiah Fort Bragg. Um we have been building housing and we have been putting in place um models that redirect um people who have substance abuse issues to get help. Um We, we are not moving them from place to place to place. We are redirecting them into systems that can help them and there are consequences if they don't want to get help. Um They can't just continue sleeping like a Ackerman Creek. I need to share some clean, clean up photos. My last, my maiden name is Ackerman and they recently did a clean up last week. I was supposed to join them this morning, but I couldn't, I mean, it was, people had built a complete shanty town in a Ackerman Creek in the Ukiah area. I mean, they had houses, they had solar panels, you know, they had, you know, anyway, they had appliances and um obviously no sanitation or any safety. Um uh And anyway, they've been, they cleaned that up. Uh but we are so combining with the build and they're using Ukiah and Fort Bragg are using grass. So they're building these houses with grants that are coming from the state which you as an assembly person could champion. Yes. So let me clarify something. When I talk nonprofits, there are some nonprofits that are doing super, what we need to do is evaluate the nonprofits. Those that aren't doing the job. We need to take those funds away and give it to the ones that are doing the job. Ok. I'm not saying all nonprofits are bad. What I'm saying is we need to look at those good ones. We need to fund those that are successful and get rid of the ones that are not successful. That's where the accountability comes in. I want to see results. We don't see results. Ok? We see in Santa Rosa, you know, I just think that you take your surveys, you know, that particular time, you know, point in time that you do that we do the same thing in education, do the same thing in towns. Ok? We need to go ahead and do those a little bit more often because we really don't get everybody at that time. Ok. We know that, uh, homelessness in Santa Rosa has gone up. We know a lot of places, it's gone up. But we also know that because they are moving from place to place to place, you don't get a lot of them counted that are there. We have one here in Del North. We have a couple areas that they call the swamp that people won't even go into because it's just dangerous to go in and make those counts. You know. And the sad thing is we've got kids in there that we educate that are in those camps and we don't even really know what there is. So we need to do that, but we need to make sure the money goes to the programs that work. And just as you said too, is that they don't want to, there are consequences. We need to have consequences for actions. Ok. Again, that's back to accountability, which the government is in California, the governor and the legislatures vetoed a bill for accountability because they don't want to know where it's not just 24 billion for the, uh, a homeless that's gone missing, it's closer to over $40 billion that they don't know what happened in different areas. And we don't know. I'm looking at some of the things that we're doing in, in mental health through the school systems. But, I mean, do you agree? There's really no excuse that we don't know where the money went because the money should be very easy to track. It isn't, it isn't. And the reason why if you get a, for instance, if you get a nonprofit that 30% of nonprofits go belly up. Ok. So what happens to their assets? Because some of the first things they do is they go out and build, buy properties so they can have an office. Ok. Buy equipment. So once it goes belly up by law, those assets can only be transferred to another nonprofit. So those people that were in that nonprofit that goes belly up, they become board members of another nonprofit. So basically, its charter schools are some kind of the same way in a sense is they can go ahead and set up different LLC S and ship that money around. And the other big problem, we don't have the staff to follow it and to keep track of it. And because we're talking about such a large amount of money and so many different ones, the state doesn't have the staff to do it, nor the willpower to do it. So we'd have a lot of, um, nonprofits on the coast people. It, it's a, it's actually probably the biggest employment sector on the coast. I think it, we would want to be specific about how, how that sector is working. And I just know that it's a very major source of employment. Um It, it is. Yeah. There, there's no question. There's one group of nonprofits that are, to me, as I've looked into some of this that really seems to be doing well. And that's your food banks. Ok. I mean, they're fulfilling the need in different local rural communities. Uh They seem to be functioning very well. They're using the money for what needs to be done and their overhead isn't so high that for instance, in one nonprofit on, in southern California, they actually had six nonprofits hooked to their organization which you'll see all over the coast. They're all hooked together. A lot of them, they had seven trucks for a farm to fork operation. And that maintenance guy, according to their records was receiving $275,000 a year to take care of seven trucks. I, I would say that we have musical organizations like Symphony of the Redwoods and the Ukiah Symphony and they operate on a shoestring budget, but they bring so much to the community. Um And I, I think that, you know, there's a flock works, which is, they recently got a new director which are doing off all the after school programs. Um So I do, I think that there is a lot that is happening um in the nonprofit sector that's very positive. So we're over. Um I really so appreciated this conversation and for, and I thank you so much for engaging with me and I do um for voters who want to engage with you. What's the best way for them to ask you questions if they thought this was an interesting conversation and they wanted to follow up with you, what would be a way to do so they could do that? OK. My best way, the best way to get hold of me because of issues on the phone and so forth as I travel is go to Mike Greer Assembly 2024 at gmail.com. And we check that each time. And one of the things I think that's really important that we don't seem to discuss enough is the economic issues that are facing the state, the fisheries, you know, the, the logging, you know, all these different things, we need to face those because that's where the government has really failed. The people on the coast is because of its overregulation of what's happening and they're trying to kill out the fishing industry. They've, you know, pretty much did it with the logging industry and so forth and we need to take a look at some of those things that it's not one size fits all. But so, yeah. And also II, I would appreciate the support of the people because we need to change unless you want things to stay the same. You know, if you want things to stay the same, you know, vote for my opponent. Ok? If you want things to change and to try to get rid of that supermajority so that your opinions can be heard and will be heard, you know, then I need, need your support to do so and I would appreciate it. Um, are you on social media at all? Like if people wanted to? Oh, you want, I have a, a Facebook. Yes, I do. I do have a Facebook, Facebook one. and we try to put it out as much as possible. We do have a couple fors coming up. We have one, tomorrow night in Hayfork we have a form. I have another one coming up in Santa Rosa on the radio, Ksro. Uh, my point myself, it's coming up. Uh, and I have a couple other ones coming. So check on that, check on my website at, uh, Mike Greer Assembly 2020 four.com onto my website and you'll be able to find out a lot about it and learn more about