Episode #131: Feeney Talks with John Lyons

Show Notes

#BeAGoodFriend and check out episode #131 of #FeeneyTalksWithFriends featuring  John Lyons. 

It was great to talk with my #friend, John! 

John is a car enthusiast and “town weatherman.”

 

We talked about:

Marsha and WHFD (minute 1)

John’s daughters (minute 2)

Podcast sponsors (minute 3)

Being the “Local Facebook Meteorologist” (minute 5)

Parades (minute 6)

John’s job with classic cars (minute 7)

Newport, RI (minute 10)

Wooden Wagon Car (minute 12)

Cars: First, Last, Best, Worst (minute 14)

3 Keys (sponsored by West Hartford Lock) to being a “Weatherman” (minute 20)

Dr. Nancy DePalma (minute 24)

What makes Ronni a good #friend? (minute 29)

Michael Cantor (minute 30)

Mayor Sherri Cantor (minute 31)

Breaking News! (minute 33)

Covid and Politics (minute 36)

Being a “Celebrity Server “ at Donut Crazy (minute 40)

Rocky from Two Guys and a Lotta Wine (minute 45)

The Fix IV (minute 47)

Upcoming Podcast Guests (minute 48)

Board of Education (minute 50)

Parade sponsors (minute 52)

Upcoming events (minute 57)

ARPA Funding (minute 1.03)

Vessel & Affordable  Housing (1.06)

John’s favorite teacher (minute 1.08)

Podcast Sponsors: 

The Fix IV - www.thefixivtherapy.com

West Hartford Lock - www.westhartfordlock.com

Keating Agency Insurance - www.keatingagency.com

Goff Law Group - www.gofflawgroup.net

Parkville Management - www.parkvillemanagement.com

Luna Pizza - www.lunapizzawh.com/lunas-menu

PeoplesBank - www.bankatpeoples.com

Float 41 - www.float41.com
Maximum Beverage - www.maximumbev.com

Creators and Guests

Host

Eric Feeney

After teaching for nearly a decade at his alma mater in Waterbury, in 2014, Eric Feeney began teaching at Wolcott Elementary in West Hartford. Shortly following, Sam Sohn, the father of one of his students, passed away suddenly from a heart attack. He left behind four beautiful children and a loving wife, Nancy Wallace-Sohn. Eric saw first-hand the toll this took on the family as they navigated their way through this unthinkable tragedy. The following year, Rashad Collier Sr., another father of a student in Eric’s class, passed away in Hartford as a result of gun violence. Rashad left behind two fantastic children and a loving wife, Denise Villegas. The impact of these tragedies weighed on Eric and motivated him to build an organization that could provide assistance for similar situations. With that, Friends of Feeney was born. In 2019, Friends of Feeney Inc. became an official 501©(3) nonprofit organization, allowing more funds to be raised and expanding the range of services provided to children and families in need. Today, over a decade since Eric’s idea to build a community organization dedicated to supporting our friends in need, Friends of Feeney has burgeoned into a reputable and recognized organization capable of providing financial and resource support to numerous families and individuals across greater Hartford and beyond. Through this work, an incredible community of children and families has been recognized, who care for and appreciate each other’s kindness.

Producer

David Chmielewski

David started his video career in the early 1990s working on video crews as an independent contractor for such companies as Martha Stewart Living, IBM and Xerox. After graduating Southern Connecticut State University with the degree in Corporate Communications, David continued his video production career and accepted a position at WFSB in Hartford, CT. Within a few years the news and production studios became his charge and David designed, installed and maintained the televisions sets for the various programs at the station. At the end of 2013 David founded DirectLine Media, a video production company that specializes in creating memorable and compelling video content for businesses.

Editor

Stefania Sassano

Stefania's acting journey began as early as the fourth grade, where she took on the role of Scarlett O'Hara in a stage production of Gone With the Wind. This early experience sparked a lifelong passion for the arts. With a background in musical theater fueled by her love of music and singing, Stefania stepped into larger roles, such as Fraulein Kost in Cabaret during her sophomore year at the University of New Haven. This performance earned her a nomination for the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival—an honor she would receive again in her junior year.

What is Feeney Talks With Friends?

Eric Feeney talks with #friends! Eric is the founder of the nonprofit organization Friends of Feeney. Their mission is to help children and families who need assistance after heartbreak and tragedy. www.friendsoffeeney.com

All right, all right.

Feeney talks with friends. Episode 131.

We're here with a good friend.
How are you doing, John?

I'm doing well.
How are you? Nice to see you.

Thank you for having me on.

John Lyons, the local weatherman.

So, something like that.

And and many titles.

Writer,

car enthusiasts, weatherman.

Dad, girl. Dad, somebody.

Somebody has been Google
searching Google, Google, Google,

what's going on? How are you, sir?

Pretty good, pretty good.

My name is Eric Feeney,
founder and president, Friends of Feeney.

Our mission is to help

children and families that need assistance
after heartbreak or tragedy.

And I use this podcast.

Feeney talks with friends
and I talk to wonderful people

that do great things in the community.

And John, you've been in the West
Hartford community for how long now?

20 years and four months.

20 years and four months.
You know, for a fact.

How did you know that? Well,
we moved to town maybe three months.

We moved to town on December 22nd, 2004,

and I almost burnt my house
down on December 25th, 2004.

So I met, that's how I met the West
Hartford Fire Department.

So you got it down pat?

Yes, yes.

So good fire department here
because they saved your house.

They they absolutely saved my house.

Very lucky.

So, yes, shout out to West Hartford.

Bravest. Absolutely.

So we had, Marsha McCurdy. McCurdy.

She was one.

She was in the crew that saved my house.
Come on.

Yeah,
she really was, former podcast guest.

Go back and check it out. Yeah.

That's great.

To review episode
130 Ali Baluchi blue Jean creative.

She does website.

She does the Friends of Jeannie website.

And she knows your daughters.

She said one fosters
dogs and one is involved with outer space.

Yes, yes. That's amazing. Yes. Wow.

Yeah.

My oldest, went to work for a
not for profit that sends people to space,

and they've sent 2 or 3 people to space,
I think. Wow.

And then she

she did that for about seven years,
and now she's doing personal coaching.

So which is not something I could do.

But she's good at it and making a living
and not asking me for money.

So something's working.

Hey, that's all that really matters
right now.

And then the day. That's right.

John and Sydney is, She's a yes.

She's a dog, foster.
She bought a house here in town.

She scrimped and saved.

And, you know,

you know, what do they call that
loan poor or house poor,

whatever they call house poor,
I guess the term.

But, she, bought a house near in town,
and then my son just graduated college

last spring, and he's here in town working
for a competitor of the establishment.

We're sitting out here, so I.

We shall not say their name so.

Well,

speaking of which, we're here
at Maximum Beverage.

This is 340 North Main Street.

Shout out to our sponsors.

Thank you for hosting
us. Maximum Beverage.

And thank you to our podcast host
Direct Line Media.

This is Stephania and Dave

there have there in 11
Sycamore Way in Branford, Connecticut.

And we have some other podcast guests.
Maybe you could do this too.

When I point to them,
you could point to them

because we have that new logo
now we're going to add this.

We're going to try it.

If I point hearing
like Keating Agency float

41 The Fix, Ivy Luna Pizza golf log or

look at this people's Bank, Parkville
Management and West Hartford lock.

You're going to need another direction.

Exactly.

So, Scarecrow, this. Exactly.

So with our, being the local weatherman,
what inspired you to do that?

How did you get into that?

So I've always been
a little bit of a weather nerd.

I did not majored in college,
but I took some courses and, so I,

I'm trying

to remember, but post on my personal page,
my personal Facebook page.

I resisted Facebook for a long time.

I was a late adopter,
but late puts me around 2010 or 11.

I probably joined

and so I started posting
weather to my page

and that caught the attention
of Ronni Newton.

Nice.

And Ronnie was at patch at the time, and
she said, were you do weather for patch?

I said, sure, I'll take more distribution.
What the heck?

And I did one report and they shut the
they shut the place down and fired Ronnie.

So we all like to think it's
because of my one weather report. So.

But by then I kind of caught the eye.

Patty I'll be,
Who have you had power Patty yet?

Yep. Okay, good. Patty.

Where we got Patty?

I'll be episode 113.

Look at,
you know, and I'm going to start. Jenny.

No names that you have pursued. 29.

Oh, we're going to have some fun
with, numbers here. Okay.

That'll that'll happen later in our fourth
hour of broadcast.

We'll we'll, we'll get into the numbers.

But, so Patty, said, hey,
why don't you start doing it

on the neighbors and friends page?

So I did. You know, Patty's great.

She's been very good to me,
letting me do it.

Give me the latitude to do it.

And, you know, Patty's a big part.

So, Ronnie, big part of a lot of stories
I imagine we're going to

talk about tonight.

Because you already mentioned the article
I wrote, which they're

they're both a big part
of that article, too.

But we'll we'll get into that.
But very cool. Patty.

Yeah. Wonderful.

She's instrumental
on allowing people to get help

when needed or care for their home
or their children.

So there's a, there's a
she's got a great, platform.

It is I'll say this a lot tonight
because I'm

sure going to talk about a lot of people
that do this in town.

She does a lot for the town, for nothing,
meaning for free.

She does not get paid
and is strictly volunteer.

And, she's one of a whole list of people
who just gives and gives

and gives and gives to our community.

And, it
she needs to be recognized for that.

Yeah. Patty. Yeah.

She was the honoree of the Park Road
parade once. Yes.

Yeah, I actually I'm going to take crowd
nominated her.

I think a couple other folks did too.

And I brought I brought a car up for her,

that she was going to ride in.

It was all set.
It was a convertible, and the top broke.

We couldn't get the top to go down,
so we had to put her in another car.

And we ended up not having the the car
on the parade because the top broke.

But yeah, that was exciting.
That was a lot of fun.

I'm sad the Park Road parade is no more.

It just seemed like
it was getting rained out every year.

Yeah.

And, but it was such a fun event,

you know, it was just it was kind of cool
because it was tied to.

I know it's

tied to the Park Road community,
but it was tied to nothing from a holiday.

Yeah, perspective.

And I think that made it more
it was nicer that way.

It was definitely special.

Like, yeah, the first Saturday in October.

Yeah.

Almost to start back to school or,
you know, kick off, clean up the leaves.

Yeah. Clean up or autumn.

And they always seem to catch good colors
but bad weather, you know, good good

leaf colors but bad bad bad weather.

Certainly the last few friends of Feeney
won best float a couple times this year.

So congratulations.

Okay.

We're excited and we're sad that to see it
got to see it go.

But I we used and I know

I'm not supposed to be interviewing you
but I can't help myself.

Will you be bringing the float
to the Memorial Day parade?

Absolutely. We will look for that. Yeah.

So yep.

And we'll have an after party
at Luna Pizza, please.

You know what?

I, we
we had a discussion before we went live.

Not only pizza. It's good thing
we're not six.

I'd be eating while I'm talking. So.

Yeah. So go back and check out 130
we just hosted.

Allie was her podcast was at Luna Pizza.

She does the website and social media
for Luna Pizza.

Okay, so we hosted it there. Okay.

Luna Pizza is a great sponsor
and supporter of Friends of Feeney.

So yeah, that's a quick parade.

Parkville Park Road is pretty quick.

Yeah. So show up, right?

Yeah. Well, eighth of a mile,
maybe the route if that.

But but the Hartford parade, we
we just did the Hartford Saint Patrick's

Day parade. That's quite a parade.
Yeah, that's a big parade.

My calves were pretty burning
at the end of that one.

It's been a long time since I've been to
it because, you know, work

and things tend to conflict, but, it's,
it's my work.

I do a lot of weekend travel.

That's part of the challenge
with what I do.

I do a lot of weekend travel. So.

And I'm around during the week to annoy.
What is your job?

So I, I do a lot of cars.

Work? Yeah. Vintage cars.

Somebody.

It's funny, somebody texted me a referral,
I signed this. Yeah.

John Lane is a broker, and I'm like,
no, no, no, no, I don't broker.

No. It's a it's illegal.
And B, I don't do that.

And but it's no, but I, I consult.

So if, you know, God forbid,
somebody in your life died

and they had a collection of classic cars,
I sit down and consult

with them on the best way
to sell those cars for maximum money.

I don't do probate.

That's for, you know,
that's for probate judges.

But, but I can.

I know all the ins and outs of title work
and auction law and all of that.

So that's what I do.

Yeah. So what's concourse,

What's that?

Okay. Now classic.

Give me give me a text.

Okay. Well, yeah,
that's exactly what it is.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I founded the I'll explain that and.

Okay. I don't know.

So you're gonna have to give me

more context on the notes,
but are you looking at Newport?

Concord, or what are you looking at?

I just have to.

I'm trying
to, New England, Concord, new charities.

Yeah.

So what what what I did,
and when I left corporate America in 2004,

I wanted to do something to give back.

And I didn't know anybody.

So I decided to have an event in Hartford,

the Hartford Concord Elegance, which is a

I used to know the translation,
but it's basically a display of elegance.

And cars are judged and all.

And, you know, somebody sold me
on Hartford being the rising star and,

you know, worst,
most money ever lost in my life

and the worst one
I've ever lost in my life.

I think we got 100 attendees
to a show that we budgeted.

10,000 attendees.

You know, I don't want to, so I won't.

I won't go too far down that rabbit hole,
get myself in trouble.

So the next year, we moved it to Newport
and, Newport.

Still running
today? I'm not involved with that.

I'm divested, but it's, it's, Newport
was a huge success, and it just took off.

And, it's been a great it's
been a great 20 year run now.

So, yeah, a lot of interesting stories
not relating to West Hartford, but,

you know, you get involved
with, Preservation Society in Newport

County and that's, you know, there's
no more political organization.

And you'll learn a lot about politics,
learn a lot about,

you know, swimming with sharks.

And there was a whole bunch of ex
Clinton administration,

officials that were on the board of,

Preservation

Society of Newport County
when I was doing a show up there.

So it was it was know
the Tennis Hall of Fame is in Newport.

Yeah, the Tennis Hall of Fame.

And then you've got the all train
car museum, which now owns the show.

Newport Newport's.

You know, we're not here
to talk about Newport, but it's beautiful.

I, you know,
I like to get up there whenever I can.

Is he
is he a Newport guy? Okay? Yep. Yeah.

So who else? Yeah. Newport.

Great place.

Yeah, a lot of a lot of West
Hartford folks who do get up there.

We have very close friends that,

you know, lived in West Hartford,

then bought a summer home,
and now they've migrated

and now they're living
full time in Newport.

They sold their West Hartford home,

but we still see them every year
when we get up.

So they have a cape,
the kite store, do they?

Okay.

Like, the
piers that you can walk out on the beach.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's just beautiful, fun. Fair.
Oh, yeah.

Maybe that's not Newport.

I thought they had a clock tower
designed by. No.

Okay, that's P-Town in P-Town.

Yeah. Provincetown does. Yeah.

Has that built by the same guy
who built the Waterbury clock tower.

Oh fun fact.

Okay, there we go.

Waterbury, hometown Waterbury, friends
of Feeney where you can go to learn

so you know it.

Oh yeah.

Back to so yeah. Auto dealerships.

So you have an eye for cars.

You just know like you can price it.

I can price that. I'm wrong a lot.

It's tricky because the market, you know,
cut off of the sale.

So, yeah, basically I get a consultancy
fee based on a lot of different factors.

Rarely I take on live clients.

I usually my clients are normally

in the netherworld or in the next world,
or whenever I call it.

Yes, on a live.

Yeah. And, but that's how it works. And.

Yeah, it's.

You think, you know, but,
you know, the car

market is very sensitive,
so it's got kind of two.

I don't know how to describe that.

I don't think I've ever tried
to describe this before. There's.

So you get the economy right, the economy
goes up, the economy goes down, whatever.

But with cars you also get
what's in vogue, what's not in vogue,

and recognition of what is truly great
and what's not great.

So like 20 years ago, 2005 six,
right before the Great Recession,

wood bodied cars,
like they call them woody wagons

from like 1930s and 40s for like
all the rage, you can name your price.

And then around the turn of the decade,
2010 or so, that market changed.

And yeah, maybe it changed
due to the Great Recession,

but it hasn't come back at all
while everything else has come back.

So we've you saw it a submarket
within the collector car

market change kind of permanently,
which is heartbreaking.

I love Woody, so beautiful cars and,

I don't know,
maybe maybe you have your staff

pull a photo of one,
or I can send you one. One word.

Yeah. What is it?

Woody wagon, like, you know, pulling back.

Yeah. What, are you lagging? Yeah.

You know Ford. Woody at the Woodside.

Yeah. Correct.

Woodside. Like.

But don't think like 1970 as well.

No, no. Not that I know this is actual
wood. Gotcha.

Yeah yeah yeah.

Die knock was started in about 1948
and went on I'm talking pre 1948.

Gotcha. Yeah.

So how many cars do you own?

You know, sorry, I just did the count.

Just because for insurance,
I have 11 cars.

Collector cars. Right.

11 collector car, 11 collector cars.

Yeah, yeah.

When you store them, orange.

Mostly in orange, Connecticut.

I've got a couple out in Auburn, Indiana,
that are getting ready for an auction

that's going to be out there next month.

But, you know, they photograph them
and catalog them and all that.

So, all right, let's play a game. Okay.

Called first, last best worst. Okay.

Your first car, your last car,
your best car and your worst car.

Okay.

Well,
my first car I bought from a blind woman.

I was in high school.

I did my license, yet

I had a wicked stepmother
who did not want me to get my license.

And, of course,
I was not very accepting of that.

So I bought a car anyway and drove it
anyway.

And, but it was 1966 Dodge Dart,

four door sedan, 225 slant six engine.

And, that car was more rust than metal.

A car lasted me five years and,

I sold it to my roommate and erect it
three days after I sold it to him,

I was heartbroken,
but my first car was a 1988 Dodge Dart.

Okay.

88. Okay, that's the small one.

The gas miser. Yeah, a little tiny.

Yeah, a little, little tiny.
Yeah, a little tiny.

You would have been a real fuel miser.

Yeah, it would have been like 40 miles
a gallon. 88.

Completely different car, I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah, they they evolved a lot.

All right.

So first,
what was the best worst and last.

Yeah. Okay. So best

I'm going to go daily driver here
because it's just

it's like picking among your kids
when you talk about the classics.

But I, I had so I had

I was doing a lot of work in Newport and,

they part of the deal was like, you know,
I had a good budget for a good car,

so I bought, a, a Genesis G90.

Best car on the road.

If you're looking for a car
that's a luxury car.

Best car on the road.

They still make them.
They're fantastic cars.

No one's ever heard of a good model.

What's the Genesis G90?

Genesis is the upmarket brand.

Never heard of it.

They're fantastic cars.

So Genesis is the upmarket
brand of Hyundai. Kia?

Okay, Hyundai and Kia are fabulous cars.

They're fantastic cars.

People like to judge.

I judge cars for the merits.

And Hyundai and Kia,
they make fantastic safety, durability.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just when you put the whole package
together, it's just great cars.

That's the girls.

Yeah. With their permit.

Okay. Looking for a car? Okay.

Maybe we'll finish.

Yeah, we can, we can chat.

We can chat in a non podcast.

I'm happy to help you on and on podcast
environment. See if we can find you.

You're not going to buy him G90. Yes.
Because no no Genesis but yeah.

No. Yeah.

So but so
so the G90 did come out on 2018 and

nobody knew what it was.

They weren't selling.

So I went to a dealer and the sticker on
it was 76 six for the car I wanted,

and I bought it for 53,000,
because there were so many discounts.

Factory at 10,000, the dealer 10,000.

And then there was some other big discount
on the car.

Remember what it was?

I drove it, got rid of it during Covid
and got my money back and then some

because the market had.

But now, unfortunately,
the Genesis G90 is now 110 grand, which

I would never spend on a car.

Not certainly a daily driver.

And they are, people now recognize
what great cars they are

and they're really hard to get.
Not a daily driver.

Is this the car that you drive
every day? Yep.

That's just to determine.

So that's so that's first best, worst.

I two really bad ones.

So one of my goals in life
I always wanted to own a Jaguar.

By the time I was 35 and I was working
in corporate America, I was doing

well enough,
but probably not to justify the Jaguar.

I was 1999, I was about to turn 35
and my wife approved it.

Jaguar reintroduced
the S type Google search in 1999.

S type

they came out in the middle of the summer
and they were not ready for prime time.

And I went right at least one
and what a crap show.

It was terrible.

Oh, lemon law.

Yeah. The car ended up being lemon law.

They ended up handing me another one.

I took it to a dealer, traded in,
and just never looked back.

Yeah, they were really, really,
really bad early on.

Interesting. So that's my worst.

And what's the last? I'm sorry.
What was the first?

Last best worst first car? Okay. Last car.

Meaning the car.

I'm driving right now.

You're laughing
more or less when you were driving.

Yeah. So you're laughing at me?

So my wife had a.

So one of the challenges with cars
today is,

the tech is so advanced
and it's so computer software based.

Yeah.

That very often when there's a recall the,

the, the car

manufacturers don't have the software
to fix the recall.

So my wife drove a VW Arteon,
which I love.

I love a good deal.

We bought the Australian.

We bought it wholesale and we it on
Arteon is an Audi A5 and VW clothing,

and it's about two thirds
the price of an A5.

So this car was great.

So you bought the car? Would love it.

We were going we were driving to Florida
on December 1st this past December 1st,

and on November 29th
my wife says, oh, by the way,

the airbag light's been on for
the last week and the car's beeping at me.

I'm like, okay, that doesn't sound good.

So we bring it to the dealer
and the dealer.

You know,
I know that I know that Mitchell VW.

I'll give them a plug. They're great.

They're just they're
they've always treated us very, very well.

And, Scott Dale is their service manager.

He's a good friend.

Have known him
for as long as I've been up here.

And, he looked at me, says, John,
you're not gonna like my answer.

He says, you need a part, but we have like
40,000 VW is across the country.

They need the part
and there's like 14 parts in the country.

I said, call another deal,
see if we can buy one. He laughed at me.

They said no. So I'm like I said,
what do I do?

He said, well, can somebody sit
in the back for the whole trip?

I'm like, no. I said,
how about you give me a loaner?

Who's going away for a month?

He's like, John,
I'm not giving you a loaner.

Come on, get real.

So long story short,
it was the sitting in the back.

What was that gonna solve?

Could someone sit in the back because the
airbag deployment or lack of deployment.

It's not the moment somebody sat in front.

Oh, there's
like there's going to be liability

because we know there's a problem.

We know there's a serious airbag fault.
Yeah.

So so long story short,

they made some calls
and they cut us a deal

that I'm not really supposed
to talk about.

We ended up with a Jetta 2025
Jetta crashed.

Beautiful.

Gets 40 miles to the gallon,
has satellite radio.

Nice.

The car is beautiful. It's a Jetta.

It's a 20, whatever. $1,000 car.

And I couldn't, you know,
I couldn't be happier.

It's a great car.
So that's my last night. Sorry.

That was ten minutes there. First I could
I could do too long on this.

I'm sorry about that.

So we're on your time.

It's all good. Yeah, yeah. All right.

All right.

When we're on the games and. Okay.

Three keys that make you a great local
weatherman for.

We had.com and friends and neighbors
on Facebook.

I don't know if I'm great. Three weeks.

I think plenty of good.

I think plenty of people would say
I'm not I'm nowhere near great.

Probably including myself.

I get so frustrated I make a mistake.

It's just I just don't.

Most weathermen make mistakes or weather.

Yeah, yeah, they do.

But when you're doing hyperlocal,
should be a little easier.

Got. Should be a little easier.

And then people misunderstand too.

Like,

we had a big windstorm happen.

We had a windstorm happened two days ago.

I posted about it,
but we had a windstorm 2 or 3 weeks ago

where the winds were coming from
the south.

I don't get nervous
with winds from the northwest.

That is a typical
that's typical weather behavior.

The trees are used to it.

Things aren't going to blow down.

But when the winds come,
the south and southeast,

the trees and stuff aren't used to it.

That's when damage happen.

They're not used to predicting that angle
that.

Yes. Yeah.
They're just they blow in that direction.

So they used to I mean I know it's silly
opposite way though.

They're not used to it.

I think there's more layers

and they're more likely to follow
100% more, more likely to be damage.

October 29th Superstorm in 2011.

What?

That's what I remember.

That's what got me noticed by Romney,
was that storm

was because I made
I mean, I canceled Halloween.

I'll give you an example.

I got that forecast wrong,

but the comment I made in my weather
forecast caught everybody's attention.

I said, I can't believe we're going to
get a foot of snow on the end of October.

I just can't think it's possible.

But if we do,
the damage will be beyond imagination.

And it's that line
that got the attention of Romney.

That's that's
that's the part of the story I left out.

So, so I, I, I talked about the winds

coming from the south and they didn't
quite get a strong they got to 35.

We thought they going to get to 40.
No big deal.

But then a day later
they're blowing hard from the north.

People are like
why aren't you reporting on these winds?

I'm like, because they're from the North.

And that frustrates me because it's
like I'm no, I don't worry about winds

from the north and northwest
because we're used to it. Okay.

You know, not even.

But the winds from the south are nasty.

That's why hurricanes if the
if the center tracks to our west. So.

All right,
not at all answering your question.

Okay. Three keys, three keys.

I don't know if I can give you three keys.

What I focus on is map analysis.

And I understand, you know, magnets.

We all know magnets.

If you put the opposite end together,
they repel. Right. So,

weather, weather systems like that,
you put a low and a high.

They repel. They do not they're not
going to be drawn to each other.

They're going to repel.

And what happens in between is going to be
what we're talking about.

And so that's so it's just really map
analysis

and understanding
how weather systems react.

I do not use
computer based modeling at all.

I read some of these.
I can't even talk the language.

I don't even understand the language.

The computer based

modeling that, you know, the smart guys
because I'm not one of them.

The smart guys like Ryan Hanrahan
and Gill.

Forgive me. I'm sorry, Gill,
I'm forgetting your last name.

And but the
the professionals that are on TV use

are so above my pay grade.

You know, they've got these powerful
computers that the networks have invested

in or these powerful subscriptions
that, like the town is invested in that

that offer really fantastic,
very high end computer data.

And it's, I just I just look at the maps.

I just look at the maps. So interesting.

I don't know, that's 2 or 3 things,
but it's very cool what I do.

Yeah.

Now, can you dispel, dispel a rumor?

Okay. About who?

Someone says that you just call a friend.

So a meteorologist, a phone,
a friend, phone a friend.

I do like meteorologists
in the South, I do.

I have a host.
We set up a giant game show studio.

It's really great. Blue
with a lot of lights.

And we play the music
in the background and, and,

And then I'm offered a chance to phone
a friend, a friend, or I can narrow it

down to two possible forecasts from four,

or we have an audience, a live audience.

I can ask the audience what they think.

So I do those three things,
and that's, Yeah, that's what I want to be

a weather millionaire.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly.

And then we mentioned rainy a lot.

Yes, again.

Episode 3029. Tune in.

Come on, 29. Go back.

Check out watching this. Come on.

And I didn't know that
Ronnie just saw your comment

and then you became friends because
you guys host a lot of we ha roundtables.

You seem very friendly.

I thought you guys were friends for like,
a very long.

So way back, or did you meet?

All right.

Ronnie has different memories
of how we met than I do.

My first memory of meeting her

is, There was a

coach fired from Hall High School,

and the kids wanted to have

a rally outside of,

board of Ed one night, one by town hall.

And this is the time
when rallies weren't happening.

Every 15 minutes
was kind of a special thing

when there was a rally in town.

I don't mean to say that,
but it really is the truth.

So. And Nancy DePalma is a dear
friend of mine,

had a huge influence on where
I've gone politically.

She was, at the time
the assistant superintendent,

working for Karen List,
I think it was before Tom Moore.

So, the kids came to my house
and a couple of them

who wanted to organize,
and I kind of walked them through.

I said, look, this is what I would do,
and I'm not an organizer,

but it just, you know,
these were 16 or 17 year

old kids, 15 year old kids,
they just didn't know.

And man,
they pulled together quite thoroughly.

I was so moved by it.
It wasn't a pro firing or antifa.

They were
they did not want the coach fired.

And it was a situation where, you know,
a lot of sensitive things happened

with schools and board of Ed and certain
things, you know, you don't want to share.

I don't know the details.
I'll never know the details.

But obviously there were some details
that were not shared,

you know, for whatever reason.

So they had this huge rally outside town

hall and Nancy called me furious,
feeling like I put it all together.

I said, Nancy, they did it.

I just told them how to do it. And,

and, but my first memory of

meeting Ronnie was standing out
on the sidewalk at the end of that rally.

We chatted for like a half an hour
just getting to know each other.

That was my first memory.

Her first memory.

We didn't meet in person,
but I think she thinks we did.

I don't know, but it was terrible.

A child disappeared.

West Hartford child.

I don't want to mention
names. Disappeared.

Who went to school with one of my kids.

And like, when that happens,
you just think the worst.

And, Ronnie, we roped Ronnie in to help.

To help. And she.

I think she did a story on it
and that that's so that.

But that was before I met her.

That was maybe 2011 or 12.

So I lose track of time.

Remember I met Doctor De Palma,
my first interview for West Hartford?

Captain Slater was the principal of Hall.

I was in the National Guard with him.

Okay. And I taught in Waterbury.

And I said, hey, Captain Slater,

I was hoping to get into the West
Hartford school system.

He's like,
you ought to meet my friend Nancy.

Shit Whiting Lane.
She was at Whiting Plane.

We met,

I think, maybe even on a Saturday,
but sat down, talked about West Hartford.

She's awesome.

And just, like, opening my eyes
to get to know West Hartford

and then, like, maybe a year or two later,
I was hired at Walk It.

My doctor. Okay, so it was doctor DePalma.

So wonderful person the first time I met.

And I made a lot of enemies
with this meeting.

First time I met Nancy DePalma,
we were brand new to town,

and the my kids
were going to school in flip flops,

and it was pissing me off. And,

I was

and I
was not get having any luck with my wife.

It was a battle
that she did not want to fight.

And I get it, you know, with the kids.

So I walked in and r-n.c the office.

No appointments, literally marched in.

And I said,

you've got to stop letting these kids
wear flip flops to school children issues.

John Lines, you're absolutely right.

She sent a note home
the next day to every family

at Whiting Lane
said, effective immediately.

No more flip flops. Nice.

So she was my rock star.

But meanwhile, you know,
I made enemies a half a half the fit

because it's like these moms
and they just want it as easy as possible.

It's like, I just put your thumbs
up, like, get out of my hair.

I want you to school.

I need to get to work.

Whatever. Well,
if you're playing recess or PE.

Well, we we had an argument at that, so.

Yeah. Exactly right. That's a camp.

So what they were doing in PE is
they were going barefoot.

I'm like so I had a big fight
with I'd love to know who it was.

But in Nancy's office a year later,
because my son came in with a broken toe

and, they're having the kids
participate in PE barefoot.

And Nancy called somebody at the town,
the town center.

Just. And I just tore heard.
I don't even know who it was.

I would love to. I would love to
if I got to ask Nancy who that was.

I see Nancy every once

while I bumped into her a week ago,
and I got to find out, but it was just.

Yeah, I have very strong opinions

when it comes to like,
kids safety and common sense.

What I feel is common sense.

So be a good friends are model,
you know, pick up trash, hold the door,

be charitable, give compliments.

What makes Ronnie a good friend so.

Oh, she's just super loyal.

I mean, she's she's incredibly
like she's always got your back.

Yeah. She's the most competitive person
I've ever met.

Holy cow.

I would not want to get caught
in her crosshairs.

I think she's one of the two hardest
working people in West Hartford.

I think the other is, Cherie. Nice.

Yeah. And I just.

I've never seen to harder

working people give more hours for less.

Now, Ronnie, she earns money.

But on my business, what's yours?

But the amount of hours she works,

I guarantee it ain't a very good hourly
rate.

And Cherie does it for nothing.

You know, she's an unpaid volunteer
that puts up with a lot of crap.

And she's been a transformative mayor
for the town of West Hartford.

Yeah,
I mean, just Cherie Canter, episode 35.

Oh, there we go.

I was going to go there.
I was going to quiz you,

but you got a future podcast guest,
her husband Michael.

Oh, are you going to have him? Okay.
All right, all right.

Michael, Michael,
Michael's great is great.

Any questions lined up for me?
What should I ask him?

He. I got to tell you,
what he does for a living is fascinating.

Talk to him about, intellectual property.

Oh, my God, I know that sounds boring,
but it's amazing what he does.

I know he got to a certain age.

He had to step down from being president,
but he still works there.

He was in the Hartford business app.

Or he basically he basically create
the kind of law that they do.

I like there's so much I know
and I don't know what I can say safely.

So now, nothing illegal, nothing illicit.

All good.

But I just don't know what they like
to share and they don't like to share.

But he literally invented

the type of law that he does.

And it's huge.

It's a call intellectual property law.
Okay.

Geez.

It's amazing.

He's brilliant and he's so down to earth.

Like he's just like

like a lot of these, you know,

highfalutin types
are not down to earth at all.

He's just like, oh, he's just super cool.

He's just like a regular guy.

So, you know, I'm looking forward to him.

He works with my friend Lauren.

I'm looking forward to talking with them.

Sherry gave me his number.

I got to reach out to him.

We saw each other at a Christmas party.

So good people, great family. Yeah.

Big UConn fans.

Yes. Well, she's on she's on the board.

Which can be tough at times.

I'm going to have something
named Kanter. Right?

I hope so, if not, they better start soon
because she's been at least

as far as West Hartford goes.

She's been I'm look,
I've been in town 20 years.

I've had three mayors.

And the other two, you
know, one of them were good friends with.

And the other one,
I don't know real well, but great guy.

But the way Sherry led us through Covid

and the way the development
that she's overseen, the responsible

development and growth of West Hartford
has been amazing.

Yeah, I could
I could spend an hour on sure.

We could do an hour on Sherry.

She's said, yeah, we had
we played a game on our podcast.

Go back and check it out.

She's she's a great guest, great friend.

She could cartwheel still. Yes she can.

Yes she can.

I had one of the biggest reasons
why I'm missing the Park Road parade

100th podcast.

We did a big celebration
and I had Javier Colon, Frank Whaley,

and I'm like, Sherry's here, Sherry
come up.

And I was, you know, instead of saying,

hey, say a few words, I'm like,
can you cartwheel?

Did you boom!

It was amazing. Then I'm like, Ben,
do you want to say something?

She's like, no, no, thank you.

So when we when we interview Sherry
and we've been lucky enough

to interview her
a bunch of times, is I always,

you know, we'll get to the issues and
then I always try to book five minutes.

Sorry, Sherry.
What's on your mind? Because.

Because she.

All right, so here's the way I describe
Sherry is there's

I think there's levels
of brilliance and leadership.

And to me the apps.

Okay. Self-actualization. Maslow's
hierarchy of needs. Okay.

In that little tiny triangle, the very,
very top is seeing around corners.

Sherry can see around corners,

she can see around corners.

And that that to me is it's
brilliance and leadership.

And that's what that's what Sherry is.

She can literally see around corners
like it.

Yeah, well,
we did a lot of Weehawken talk.

You brought up Covid.

There's an exclusive wood just dropped
yesterday.

Yeah. Exclusive? Yeah. Exclusive breaking.

Do you have a breaking news
sound effect that we can follow? And

all politics is local. Yes.

Covid,
five years later, part one just dropped it

on March 17th, 2025.

That was yesterday.

Yes, yes, my Saint Patrick's Day
and it was great.

We had our com shout out to Ronnie
and everyone over there. And

who is it? Time?

Don't ask me all their names,
Tom, Bob Carr.

And don't ask me the last gentleman's
name. I cannot pronounce it.

Oh, yeah.

So, But they have it
where it can be read to you now.

Yes, I was, I was listening to a story
the other day, and I was working,

and I was having it be read to me like
I was watching, listen to a podcast or.

Great, I listen to yours today. Okay.

With the playback, it was awesome.

And I thought it was really good.

So Covid, five years later,
you want to get into it

and don't give away the whole article.
Yeah.

Why don't I, I don't care.

I was first of all it's a cliffhanger,
so you gotta tune in anyway.

So tune in next month. Yeah.

I haven't even written it yet.

I'm like, okay, now what?

So, you know, now I'm obligated.

So I, you know, we were doing the TV show
and then when Covid kind of calmed down,

we just didn't have as much,
you know, it's town.

We're not doing statewide.
So we just didn't have enough.

I don't want to say,
but as much stuff to talk about.

So the TV shows became less and less.

And I like contributing to we
are we all like it when I contribute.

So I, started to do a monthly car article,
which.

So that was going in life.

Life was kind of the lead on
that was going on in

life, West Hartford Life Magazine
or whatever that is called.

And and then let's just say
there was an issue.

So Ronnie and I resigned in protest.

And I was actually really happy because,

I just it's hard to write about cars
when you kind of live cars.

It's like,
what am I going to write about this month?

So I've done the Genesis. Okay.

I've done the catalog, I've done
the Tesla, I've done this, I've done that.

You know, Keech Griffin,

he gets a car every two weeks.

Oh, so he's a member of Empire,
and then he writes about.

Yeah. Okay.
Was he the current or something?

I'm not exactly sure. Yeah.

If you
if you're going to be a member of Empire,

you got to be like,
you got to write something.

Keep Griffin.

So, anyway, long story short, you know,

we had this kind of sudden and abrupt end
maybe six months ago to the life deal.

And so I started to do something,
and I, you know, I love politics.

So I'm like, all right, Ronnie,
I have an idea for for an article.

And she was here's
what I love about Ronnie.

Ronnie will resist, but I love Ronnie

because she can be sold
if you're doing it for the right reason.

With Ronnie, she can be sold.

And I hope she listens. This part.

And I always tell Ronnie, like,

if I need her to do something,
I'll call and say, Ronnie,

I'm asking you this, but I'm asking you
for the right reason, and I.

I'm at a point with her where I can say
that she just knows that's the case.

But I will also tell her, Irani,
I'm asking you to do this,

but it's for selfish reasons.

You're like,
all right, let's talk about it.

Whatever. So,

you know, it's a level of trust
thing, but, you know, don't you know,

you don't want to burn that bridge,
you know, that's not

Ronnie is not somebody
you want to burn in town.

So, so I had this idea,
and she was really resistant to.

And I said, look,
I said, I think I can do it.

I'm on the town DTC.

I don't know if you know that the town
Democratic Committee I I'm I'm a member.

I was a district chair for a while now.

I'm a member.

And, so she was nervous and I said,

look, we'll put a disclaimer and let's
just try it once if it doesn't work.

So she's okay, you know, she trusts me.

She knows.
I'm really just trying to be helpful.

So I started writing
this. All politics is local,

every month, and I'm trying to.

I can't remember what I've written about,
but this month, I was really.

This is a monthly. It's a monthly?
Yeah, it's a monthly.

Gotcha.

So, so this month
I decided at Covid five years later,

and it was such an interesting time.

And I had such, you know,
interesting memories from that time.

And then kind of like there was a certain
look, Covid was horrible,

but there was a certain innocence to it
back in the day.

I mean, let's not forget,

Trump was the one who said,
okay, Operation Warp Speed, let's do it.

And everybody was on board.

Trump's supporters were on board.

Democrats wanted the vaccine,
Republicans wanted the vaccine.

And then what it really gave rise to which
I'm going to talk about in the next up,

next article, is it gave rise
to a lot of these social media

influencers,
which started probably April of 2020, May.

And a lot of these influencers,
let's be honest, were dumb as a rock.

They have no infectious disease.

See me, I have no infectious disease
knowledge whatsoever,

but I understand I'm able to admit
that I do not have any.

So I'm going to go seek

an expert who has a ton like we did
with Doctor Bennett for the show,

and we're going to I'm
going to bring in an expert,

and I'm going to listen to his advice
because he's an expert for a reason.

Because he did, you know, college.

He did post-grad. He did, medical.

He did his residency.

He he has the training.

And we've got people who are online
who don't have college degrees

or are from very,
shall we say, suspect universities,

schools that are giving and dispensing

medical advice
that they have no business giving.

And we started to see a move toward
that in the middle of 2020.

And it's you know, there's no doubt
in my mind that really impacted the 2024.

I think that
and then obviously the whole dei,

you know, pronouns thing,
I think those are the two biggest things

that really impacted the 2024 election.

But it's you know, what
what Republicans have done here we go.

Political is they've

they've managed to create these platforms
where people like Tucker

Carlson and, who's the guy in the the guy
in, Oh, God.

Charlie Kirk. And,

I'm trying to remember
the one in, Steve Bannon,

you know, and a million other
Laura Loomer.

I won't comment,
so I'll just go like this.

So anyone listening
doesn't know how I'm reacting.

My facial expression here, who

they have no understanding

of infectious diseases, and yet they're

out there going on.

You know, I don't understand what
causation versus, what what's the about?

You didn't read any of this in the article
that's going to come next.

I'm going to get I'm going to get in
and, it's all right.

It's, you know, I just it's
just it's really it's really this is.

Yeah. Yeah.

So this is the exclusive part then? Yes.

There we go. There now
we have exclusive now please.

More breaking
news. Music, please. Thank you.

So we, you know, it's I just,

you know, I just think it's, it's
there was like a certain

we're all in this together innocence
to it.

Kind of like we were after 911
and kind of like

we were after the challenger
and kind of like after we were, you know,

when other momentous when Kennedy was shot
and other momentous

moments in the history and and now that

like I feel like that just can't happen
like, like there was a plane

crash and like,
within ten minutes of the plane crashing,

it's a, you know, because of a desire,

you know, you know, and, and like that,

that's not at all construct of at all.

It's not constructive.

So agreed.

We'll check it out on
we had.com and look out for part two.

Yes. What day you think going to drop it.

Oh come on, come on now you're
putting the pressure on a guarantee.

It'll be in April

I promise being promised April
I'm actually I don't travel a whole lot.

I'm actually speaking of the Covid.
Do you remember this event?

I need to see.

I need to pull this over.

Okay. That is, Wow.

That's Mary Faye on the left. Me. Ronnie.

Oh, wow.

What now?

Wait, I don't know.

It's at a coffee shop.

I need help with this.

Okay, we're going to.

I'm in the photo, so clearly I was there.

This was friends of Fini.

We had a celebrity server event.

Oh. Come on,
come on on Park Road at, no, no.

Nope, nope. Try again.

I gotta look now.

This is the owner of the establishment
right here.

Oh, was it Germany or no? Nope.
Keep going.

I don't know, this is donut crazy.

Oh, I remember that. That's right.
Ronnie was nice.

She kind of pulled me in on that.
I was like, the last second.

Add to that.
That's why I didn't remember it.

Because Ronnie was nice enough
to come on serve donuts with me.

It's all right.

So this is Irene on our.

Okay, donut crazy episode ten. Yeah.

Brooke daily
I know Brookdale shoot for sure.

Fin she lawyer or she, real soon.

She's an advocate for Down's
syndrome and autism.

Oh, good for her.

Okay. Her son
Finn, was my third grade student.

Okay.

Very fair.

You know, she's on the podcast,
so you come up,

what episode number is Mary say?

I want to say

75. Okay.

All right.

80. Okay.

Go back and check it out. 80. Okay.

You gonna watch it?

So yeah, I'm going to watch I'm
definitely gonna watch that.

But you complete you complete all this.

You're the last missing piece.
There we go.

But this date was March 8th, 2020.

Yeah, I remember it was right.

It was the Sunday
before they closed school. Remember that?

That was our last week of school.

This was the last Friends of Feeney event.

Yeah, pre-COVID.

So, yeah, it was a cold, windy day.

We have Mike Golic,
my gold junior, showed up.

We had,

what's his name?

Kenny Mayne showed up from ESPN.

Okay, Dennis. How's Scott?

I love donut crazy, but I don't go.

I can't eat it. Donut crazy.

Yeah, we had be a good friend.

Donuts, friends, a few donuts.

It was a great event.

But yeah I
it kind of connects to the Covid okay.

All right. Thanks. So we had.com.

That was a crazy week.
That was that was a crazy week.

I flew back into town that day
so I yeah I remember now

I flew in to make that event.

I flew in that day to make the event.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Sorry I didn't remember where
it was I apologize.

All good.

It was great that.

Oh, no, it was not great that it was
it was scary that they're like,

oh, we're just going to close schools
for two weeks to clean.

They said two weeks.

They said two week leech and clean.

And then it was not one

it was not I mean, it's just yeah.

You said the NBA.

Then I remember Rudy Gobert.

He was a French player
for he plays for the Timberwolves now.

But he said he got diagnosed
with Covid right.

And he touched the mic.

He touched all the mics.

And then next
you know they canceled the NBA season.

It was like five years ago. Crazy week.

It was it was just like you mentioned
NBA closing.

It was so on on the 12th.

Like it was nuts.

It was every five minutes.

It was a major story.

And I think while we were on air,
MLB canceled, if I remember correctly.

And we had at one point
we handed the mic to Ronnie

and said, Ronnie, just give us an update.

Talk for ten minutes.

Like it was insane.

Insane. And yeah, the school closing.

And then like,
I know it's a little thing, but Patty,

I remember distinctly the conversation
with Patty about going to approval

for her page like that was a huge deal.

That page was fine.

You know, all the Wild West stuff
that used to go on it still.

But but she had to approve
every approval she.

So she made that when they announced.

So what happened is
I don't want to get in trouble, but

so basically,

do you know what it means
when a story is embargoed?

Do you know the term?

Yeah, Ronnie told me that.

So stories embargoed one it's like,
okay, you're in the media.

I'm telling you
what the story is going to be,

but I'm not allowing you to share it.

And so trusting.

So, Ronnie,
when we were getting ready to go on air,

the school closure was embargoed.

So Patty and I had a, like, a sidebar,
and I said, look, Patty, you can't.

I remember
I was like four, 430 in the afternoon.

And I said, Patty, you can't tell anybody,
but they're going to close schools.

And she says she was worried about model
because people were scared

and they were posting
appropriately scared comments.

And she said, should I put on my approval?

I said, look, I would, I was too figured
it'd be off in two weeks.

Students are my model moderator.

So basically,

if you post on neighbors and friends,

it doesn't go live
until somebody looks at it.

Make sure the administrators approve.

It agrees with their rules and regs.

Yeah, yeah, Sandy, Patty
and I forget who the other one is.

Have you had Cindy on yet? No.

Iraqi Rocky. Oh, you got a Rocky?

What episode number
come on. 110. Oh. Whoa.

You know, he could be lying to me and
I'll never know, so I'm really impressed.

So ten special episode.

We did a a special collab.

Two guys and a lot of wine slash friends.

That's cool at the same time.

Did you do it at the studio? Do.

That's cool.

They typically go 30 minutes.

Yes, we went about 60. Yeah.

You got to go along with that.

And Bobby P loved it.

It was great when we did it.

The 30 minutes, like we blinked our eyes
and then we hung around

the studio and finished the bottles.

Yeah, I love the game.

I brought a bottle of,

bread and butter. Pinot noir.

I know Rocky is like,
he knew where he knows stuff.

He's amazing press.

He knows he he absolutely knows the stuff.

Yeah, he's in there. Good.

And then I saw you at the event
in November there.

45th. The 45th anniversary.

Yeah.

I mean, I made an appearance, I had
we had to be somewhere.

We were double booked that night.

We were going to a birthday party
that night.

This is like three months ago.
Right through from us.

Yeah.

Yeah,
that was a really fun and sound issues

that night,
which was such a bummer for the broadcast.

Like, we could hear them,
but it was such a fun night.

Interesting, interesting moment.

That night,
I met Sean Daly for the first time.

We had Sean Daly on. Yeah. No. Okay.

And we shared ideas.

And an idea he brought up was a good one,

about helping, the registrars out
and get them a little more pay.

And, you know, it was nice to see the two
parties work together and get it done.

Nice.

I know you just,

girls basketball in town, so.

So he's he's he's passionate.

Whether you agree with him or not.

He's a passionate guy,
so gotta appreciate the past.

Yeah, yeah I know. Yep, yep.

Should I have him on?

You're asking me.

Yeah. I don't know him all enough.

He he will.

The people will listen.

You know, he has no shortage of,
I think, opinions and thoughts or let's

hear some upcoming guests.
Should I have him on or not?

Let's go. Oh, boy.

Michael Kanter,
we talked about. Absolutely.

Lieutenant Foley police, right. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Officer Barrett, it's great.

He is part of the homeless division
of Hartford.

Great person.

Oh. That's interesting.

Aaron Fox owns fix Ivy.

Okay. Never get a fix.

No, you hold on. Let's go back to that.

Yeah, I'll fix you.

Oh, yeah. They're amazing.

Amazing.

They freaking give you an IV,
and it's not, like, medically required.

They're not sticking a needle in me
unless it's in Medicare Part.

Oh, it's a registered nurse.

So what are they? We're.

What are you sit and just chill on a
couch and you get vitamin C?

Magnesium, zinc, all types of good stuff.

And does it make run a marathon? Do you?

You feel really?

Yeah. Do you sleep well that night?

Sleep like a baby.

And what do they charge for this service?

Don't say 75 to 100 bucks. Wow.

We get a shot.

Okay, in the bottom,

there's the power shot, the relaxed shot
and the rocket shot.

Oh, God. Okay, I gotta try it.

Okay, I'll not going to try. Okay.

Maybe
we'll maybe we'll do a special podcast.

I'll do it live on air and I can
I can talk about what's happening.

It's like, you know, the, you know,
the news guys who like, get their,

you know, their heart test or
their colonoscopy or whatever live on air.

It's like, we'll do it, we'll do it.

It's right across from a pizza.

Okay. Go get your pizza. Thank you.

You got pizza there for me?
I'll be there to get a slice in.

And I've yet to see
who else is on this list.

Rich Coppola was sports
on, channel eight for 20 years.

Oh, that's cool, that's cool. Yeah.

Ryan McGinnis. Ryan. Soft wash.

You need any power washing?

Ben Fuchs, Fuchs financial.

Okay. If you if you just.

He related to my, rabbi.

Yep. That's his dad.

Oh, neat.

Oh, it's his kid. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

My, my my first child went.

Oh, no.

Sydney went through her.

Wait, I don't I get this wrong.
No. I'm wrong.

No, none of my kids had Rabbi Fuchs.

They had all they all had Michael Pincus.

I've had Michael Pincus on yet.

No. Michael would be a great guest.

Rabbi Stephen, chat Nova okay,
episode number four.

Kidding. I'm just thinking on.

Yeah, yeah, 70.

They're all 70. Yeah.

I was gonna say, wasn't Mary Fey 70?

She might have been 60.

Now that I think of it. Okay.

Oh, my friend
Thomas and Ryan, they're from Bristol.

They're insight plus technology.
They want it in a raffle.

So we're raffling off podcast.

All right.

Okay, okay, so I just I'm like one level
above the raffle, but I'm like four levels

below, like town council and like the,
the real media and a ace

has been on trying to think
Liam has been have you had,

have you had
how about oh, you've had Chief Reddick.

Yeah. Amazing guy. He's great.

How about,
how about the chief fire department?

Oh, you gotta get get ahead, Marcia.

But she was the deputy, okay?

She's retired.

She she did grad school,
and it's doing other things she has.

How about agent Billings Smith? Yep.

That's ace. That's.

Yeah. She's. Yep.

All right. How about bored of it?

Have you had any board of Ed members?

No, but I want Lorna. Do you. Okay.

Her daughter and my daughter,
our good friends.

Okay. Lorna has committed,
but we just have worked it out.

All right, say on it.

If I see her, I'll.

I don't know, I'm not sure if I, I think,
I think we have a good board of ed.

We had we had some bumps in the road
maybe a few years back,

you know, with outside influences
coming in and speaking on stuff

that they just didn't know
about during the public comment section.

And happily, are you guys kind of that's
kind of stuff that a little bit.

Well, I, I, I oh, they, they modified.

Well they, yeah,

there's been a couple of adjustments
to public comment, but it really

maybe like a time.

So what was happening now
it's a touchy issue.

But what was happening is you know, so

there's always the the enemy
the enemy in the closet.

Right. And right now that enemy is die.

Four years ago,
it was, social emotional learning school.

And you haven't heard us
yell at or uttered in two years.

So outside forces,
we're talking about how in West Hartford

is this liberal bastion of ACL
not even understanding what ACL is,

not even understanding
what West Hartford is,

and not even understanding
what education in general.

So you had a lot of folks coming who were,

I believe, not properly

informed
and not properly up to speed on the issues

and talking
quite angrily at the board of Ed.

Well, not really

talking about issues
that were related to West Hartford

and so that caused a change

in, public comment policy.

But then they made another change
just recently because

that's kind of stopped.

And it seems like the dice stuff
is falling more at the national level.

They're not coming
after school systems with it.

They're going after pilots, apparently.

But but not school systems.

So yeah.

Oh, I mean, we got some future events
or past event first.

Our parade was amazing success.

We got the shirts,
we had sponsors on the back.

I just want to shout out a few sponsors,
see if you know, you know, Seth Brown

ear, Nose and Throat of Connecticut.

Okay.

Lyons auto on New Britain
have an unrelated but know them

well Ryan Keating yep, I know Ryan well.

Keating agency, French cleaners.

Yeah. Ryan is on Arapahoe Road,
I believe. Right.

Oh, yeah.

You were on their podcast.
What's happening?

Oh that's right.

Yeah, that was a while ago.

What year was that?

Oh. Are you.

Do you know the
answer? Okay, don't tell me

what's hap 2018.

Very good. Bam.

Very good.

Direct line media.

Cricket press. You work with.

I don't read them,
but I'm familiar with them. Yeah.

Lake George Steamboat Company.

You ever go on the Minnehaha? No.

Anthony's abatement? No.

Imma feel bad. These are all good.

These are all good folks.

The credit union, American Eagle,
sweet bear coffee.

Amazing.

Sweet bear crafts are they is brand new.

My former students mother started it.

Proceeds
go and help people with disabilities.

Nice.

She was just on the news talking about it.

So sweet. Bear coffee. Thank you so much.

My barber lost arts. There
we go. Very nice.

You got a free haircut out of that deal
occasionally.

I know, shouldn't I?

Yeah, I think you should be free. Cut.

John said so. There we go.

Greater, greater. Host Lions club.

You're going to the pancake breakfast
in April?

That's right.

They usually do it in April.

It's usually the last weekend in April.
Right.

I think it's April 26th.

Yeah, it's the last weekend in April.
They do it every year.

I miss it every year because I've got
an event that I have to go to every year.

Yep. They put a sign right near our house
about a mile from our house.

I always see it and I love pancakes.

Yep. April 26th.

Okay, save the date, people.

The fix I've talked about West Hartford
lock, Eric Brown. Uri.

Uri Uri kotlowitz.
I've known you for years. Great.

Uri. Uri helped me on my car show
when I did it briefly.

Oh, he likes cars. Yeah, he's dream
he's a big car guy. Yeah.

You know what
I, I give Uri, there's a couple of guys.

I give a lot of credit
because they show up at town

council meetings
and you think they're going to complain,

and then they get up
and they say, I've looked all the facts.

I really thought this through.

I think this is a great idea.

Or if they disagree,
they've got their ducks in a row.

And it's not a not in my backyard issue.

It's something more like

more substantial

that you can sink your teeth into
and really give it thought.

You're he's
one of those guys I Gary I saw 40.

You had Uri on episode 40.

There we go. Okay. Brown and Uri
all right.

Dasani MJ this one.

Yeah okay.

I have a suit from the Swanee.

Right. That's in town, right? Yep yep yep.

Future podcast guest. Okay.

Core down drilling.
What do you know about drilling?

What type of drilling are we drilling?

And I know nothing
environmental in geochemical.

Okay. Pink flamingo.

Why do I know that?

Right next to Luna Pizza.

Oh, okay. Ashley. The balloons. Okay.

Why are BIC property?

You need your grass mowed.

Call my guy wire back. Okay.

Bergen financial. York. Bergen.

Okay. Sweet chili on park road.

Okay. Sweet chili time. We had dinner.

We had dinner. Sweet chili
with Ronnie and Ted three nights ago.

No way. Yep.

Would you have?

I had I got to think this through. Okay.

My wife had shrimp,
and it was really good.

I say 1 or 2 of her shrimp.

I had chicken with rice.

So what's that? That,

there's a term for it, but it's like a,
like a stick.

Oh. Sticky rice. Oh, it's so good.

Oh, my God, it was so good.

And then,

Ted had beef and I don't remember what
Ronnie had, but if you look on yesterday's

business buzz,
you will see pictures of all of our meals.

So, because Ronnie takes pictures of me,

I know if I go out to dinner with Ronnie,
if we go out for dinner,

I don't touch the food
until Ronnie is taking her pictures.

So anyway.

And there's food from a Ronnie
Ronnie Newton ism.

I'm sorry. There's food on sweet chilis.

Sweet chili.

What do you mean? Oh, yeah. Yeah,
yeah. Sweet chili.

Got a plug on yesterday's business buzz.

Rightfully so.

Make a note of that.

Who's good? They've been around
a long time. 20 years plus.

Really? Yeah,
they've been around a long, long time.

Sweet chili. Great people. Yeah.

Sally and Bob's okay.

We like Sally and Bob's. They're.

They're like 120.

They were just on the podcast okay.

Wings over Helens.
Awesome. Helens for now.

Yeah I have a buddy of mine
who's in DC that

we get together for breakfast
so we can bitch.

And sorry that's so one foul language
I'll use.

Forgive me.

But, yeah,
we just bitch about the state of politics.

So naturally, of course, we would never
complain about local politics.

Never.

So anyway, people's Bank, Webster and CPF,

can you explain to me so People's United
People's Bank was people's Bank.

Then they became People's United Bank.
Then they went away.

And now we have a new people's bank.

It's a totally different entity.

People's bank together.

Yes. P and the B cap.

Yes. So it's not anything to do
with the old people's Bank

or People's United Bank or the pub,
because we like to call

a meeting with them tomorrow.

Ryan super hit them hard. Ha.

Let them take $10,000 sponsorship level.

That's a that's a silver level.

In case you're wondering,

they sponsor the podcast,
they sponsor the golf tournament,

and they're sponsoring our next
this parade and next.

Oh, come.

Yeah. You've already hidden for the 10th
anniversary.

Okay. Good for you.

Good for little less than ten
came close to making you. So

now that's great.

And we got some upcoming,
I just mentioned Memorial Day.

That's.

Check us out on Farmington to South Main.

Quick little parade, but wonderful.

A soccer event, Hartford Athletic.

Do you ever go to the Hartford Athletic?

June 6th, please, I feel bad,
I'm shaking my head to too much here.

So I feel our goats game.

We've been to yard. Good.

I went to one last summer.
It was a lot of fun.

We had our seats, like, in,

I don't like, in a mezzanine.

And right
field, like, upper level was really nice.

They had food and drink,
and it was really cool.

I felt very fancy.

So I serve on a couple.

I serve, so I serve on
zoning and wetlands here in town.

And then I also serve on, Greater
Hartford Transit.

And once a year, transit does a yard Goats
game.

And, we went so there's two
it's a funny story for the transit game.

So we,
we got a brand new executive director

that was like one of the very first events
he's going to with us.

And I've been on for five years.

My term was five years. And,

so I decide I'm going to resign.

So like,
yeah, I'll, I'll talk to Sam's dog.

I'll talk to dog at the,
the Yard Goats game.

Low key. We sit down, chat.

So I sit down dog, you know, really
happier on board, you know, happy.

I was able to be part of the interview
process.

And, you know, I was on the
the subcommittee that helped find.

And, you know, it's been a really great
five years.

But, you know, I feel like, you know,
it should be somebody else's turn now.

And so I'm going to
I'm going to step down.

He goes, John,
we just hanging to the end of the year.

I just, you know, I was like,
okay, of the end of the year.

We'll reevaluate five months later.

I don't want to say his name
because I don't

I didn't run this story by him, but
two story five and say to the other West

Hartford person, without any prior
discussion between the two of us,

walked up to dog and resigned as well,
and Doug gave him the same speech.

We're both still on the board,

so but literally

within five minutes, unrehearsed,
two of us back to back, we resigned.

It was pretty funny.

So I don't know.

Yeah, we're guy so and it's really great.

Hartford Transit
does a lot of good for the community.

They do all the paratransit and they just
they do so much for the community.

But they're based on the Hartford.

So but they handle
they've got a bunch of member towns.

And so

yeah, our our fifth annual game,
August 15th.

Okay. Tickets are on sale.

And then Johnny's got you on to
Johnny's dog.

I'm not a jogger, Ronnie.

I'll be there. I'll speak for Ronnie
and say she'll be there.

So how's that?

Ronnie, do you ever see Ted run?

He. Ted's a good runner.

I say, I'll I'll drive by him
and he'll be running, and I'll be like.

I walked my dog once
and I see this guy just flying.

Yes. Yeah.

Like the stride on this guy.

And he's like the picture of health too.
So yeah, I mean, that's.

So what did I do?

I walked a dog, went home,
put on my running stuff.

Did you see now me, I go home and just
stick my head between my eyes and cry.

I can't do this. I try running
and I injure myself.

So I walk, I try to walk
and I'll run up and down a lot of stairs.

You know, dog, we have to talk.

Well, no. Hold on.

I cannot believe I just said that.

I'm shocked that I said that.

Hopefully my wife does. Yes,
we have a dog.

However, a week ago, without my knowledge,
my wife agreed to foster

a second dog
who is about this big and ten weeks old.

And so right now we have two dogs,

but we will not have two dogs for long
or be very clear.

So that's great. Yeah,

yeah yeah.

Our mark.

Wow. Well don't keep going for another.

We go for our number two
I mean am I that interesting.

So this is great.

See we shot for 50 minutes with Feeney.

We hit 60.

Any recommendations for of what podcast TV

shows, books oh I gotcha

local politics, cars.

I mean, I'll talk
local politics all day long with you.

You know, I get I get,

you know, I've been on a little bit of a
I made the decision after the election.

I was not going to quite hold back
the way I was.

And, you know, one thing
that's really been on my mind is

I feel like we are really blessed
in this town.

I don't know if you know the folks or not,
but our town employees are incredible.

And our teachers. How about the teacher?

Aren't you a town employee?

You're kidding.

Yeah.

Okay, so you're included in that, right?

So I, I, I call
you guys West Hartford smartest and I call

our kids West Hartford is brightest,
so I don't know what's up.

All right. Is that the right nomenclature?

That's what I call you guys.

So, Yeah, you could go look back
at some transcripts of BOE meetings

where I've spoken, testified. And that's.

Those are the terms I use.
Thank you. So I feel like,

if Board of Ed is not

focusing on, kids or the budget,
they're doing something wrong.

I'm very passionate about that. So,

but, so I see people go after an even

notable people,
shall we say, go after our town employees.

And that makes me crazy
because I be because of my role on zoning.

I get exposure to them all.

And these guys, they work
70 hour weeks on an average week.

They they are if half of them,
if they went to the private sector,

they'd earn ten times as much money
and they'd be in an executive suite

like they're that good.

And so it really bothers me when,
and there was

I don't know if you saw Romney's
admonishment in business Buzz yesterday

talking about the town employees
and talking about how,

you know, our Electeds are all volunteers,
unpaid volunteers.

And because people are
all wound up over the budget,

because this is the time of year
people get lined up over the budget

and, you know, they're working hard
to trim it, to try to minimize the impact.

We're kind of in a weird spot right now
because,

so we had Arpa funding, you know what?

Arpa funding was okay, American
Rescue Plan Act funding from Covid.

So a lot of money from Arpa,
which I do not think there's a mayor

in the country or a town in the country,
used it more judiciously

than West Hartford, than Mayor Cantor
Rick Ludwig,

the town manager
and and the town of West Hartford.

So Arpa really ran out in 2024.

We've got some carryover on projects,
you know, shovel ready,

you know, to use the Obama
term, shovel ready projects.

So we've got we've got some money.

We the town of West Hartford, has some.

So you're going to see
like the beautification of the center,

you know,
all the trees are going to be replaced.

A lot of signage
on a lot of beautification.

You're going to see around town.

That's going to make the town, you know,
function look nicer and function.

But Arpa is basically gone.

But the good news is because of mayor
can't just leadership and vision.

We have fantastic residential projects
coming online.

I mean incredible huge
I mean, one park we've got

I think four and Rick Ludwick
get him on. Yep.

Get him on as a guest.

I think we have four projects right now
that are are under construction, ready

to begin construction, under construction
or just finishing construction.

That's going to rank
and certainly in the top ten and maybe

even on the top five grand list
participants in town

Yukon, one Park Road.

And there's a bunch of others
I'm forgetting about,

but there's a two Yukon properties.
Those are two of them.

There's one Park Road, but and and it's

it's it's
Mayor Cantor's leadership and vision.

Talk about her being able
to see around corners that understood that

the economy where we're between
what things cost and, and

and the way the economy is right now,
you can't build single family homes.

It's not about not wanting to.

You can't afford to do it.

You can't make money doing it,
certainly for middle income people.

Yeah.

You could build a million
and a half dollars, mansions.

But you can't build the $600,000 home.

The 500,000 are home.

It costs too much per square
foot to build.

So to buy the dirt
and then to build a house,

it costs a third of an acre in this town
today.

That's not wetlands and not really

crappy on, like some terrible street.

I don't mean terrible

socio

economically, I mean terrible,
just terrible view.

Terrible to get water or other resources.

Other, other utilities.

They're terrible traffic,
that sort of thing.

The dirt is going to cost
you 250 for a third of an acre.

So your construction costs are going to be
350 to 400 per square foot.

So that's 400,000 for 1000ft square house.

Nobody wants a 1000ft square house.

So you're talking 800,000 under today,
800,000 construction costs, plus another

250 for the dirt to have a three bedroom,
two and a half baths house.

That is nice.

So that's
why all these condos and apartments.

So, Sherry, recognize Mayor Kantor,

recognize that we have to do multifamily.

And to her credit,
she's really, really working hard

to make sure that there's an affordable
component in everything that is built,

everything the Yukon properties
are 7.5% between the two.

This new one,
that vessel which you're going to vote on.

And let me disclaimer I'm on zoning,
but I did not vote on this.

This one I did not.

The way zoning works,
I don't vote on everything.

So, but vessel is a,

is, 10% affordable by deed.

It's deed restricted.

You're talking
40, 50, 60, 70 years by deed.

These things are designated
as affordable housing.

So it's because of that vision.

We're seeing huge growth in our rentals.

But for the next year
or two, we're in between.

We're we're in a we're in a gully

this is my I've not been told
this is a strictly my opinion.

Let me be very clear.

Based on my review of the budget,

my review of what's going on, no one has
told me anything, but we're in a gully.

We lost our plan.

We lost some of the other stuff
that we had.

We've
got all these great projects happening,

but the money's not quite online yet.

It's coming, but it's not quite there yet.

So we got a year
or two of a little bit of discomfort and,

and you know, the other thing
that happened is, the I believe

the teacher contracts and I think fire
police were all renegotiated.

Yep. I'm not teaching. I'm not speaking.

I'm not speaking for the town.

I'm simply offering an opinion.

And some of it I'm not for teachers,
not was rhetoric.

I keep hitting the mic. I'm so sorry.

Retroactive to 2021.

I was a teacher.

Okay? Not teachers.

Okay, so it wasn't teachers
somewhere around. Freeze.

Maybe the cops were on freeze for so long.

Perhaps. Yeah, but so.

So it's it's a little bit
so we have, you know, in past years, when

I've looked at the board of Ed Budget,
I've looked at the town budget,

particularly Board of Ed.

It's like, yeah, okay, we got room,
we got room, we got room.

I've, I've got through this budget.

I think I've done a really good job.

And it's like it's up
7% and there's just now seven, 7.18%.

I was bustin,
Paul was in his chops as a 7.8%, 7.18%.

He knew I was just goofing on him,
but, future I want him on the podcast. So.

Yeah. Paul would be great.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Paul and Dave Kent, Rick
led with Rick, and, you know, another one.

Maybe he won't do it.

I'm going to get some trouble here.

Dallas Dodge.

He's awesome. He's really tall guy.

He's tall.

I don't think
there's our height requirement.

Yeah okay. So I got to be the tallest.

Oh yeah okay, okay.

Because there's a height of height
now, but, you know, yeah.

Dallas,
I think would be an interesting question.

We wanted to come on, but.

Yeah, get get, a LaToya would be,
you'd have fun on the Toya.

She's on board of Ed. Nice.

You know, fun with her. She's passionate.

She'll give you.

Should give you a good hour. Hour
and a half.

So perfect. Yeah.

So not great talking with.
No, this is fun.

Sorry, I go on, I apologize before we end.

I'm a teacher.

Favorite

teacher, Eleanor Carr,
Greenwich high school.

Well, senior year, she was awesome.

Just inspired me to do the writing
that I do.

And, Yeah, she was just terrific.

So really great. She died a few years ago.

She died right at the beginning of Covid.

Not out of Covid, but like 2018, 19. So.

And I want to thank you
for volunteering your time.

Celebrity, sir. Sure.

Are you just generous donation.
I also want to thank you for that.

That was very kind of you.

Thoughtful and kind. Generous.

Your good friend had a good time
talking with you.

A lot of politics,
a lot of cars, a lot of Wycombe.

My next episode, we'll discuss women. Yes.
Okay. Yeah.

Probably not. Right.

And then part two,
we're going to cut that out.

Okay. Make a note.

Your little notepad there cut out
you know minute 64 to 65.

So part two coming on the Wycombe
all politics is local. Yes.

On three will say be a good friend
to to each other.

Yeah. Okay. 123 be good friend.