Episode 91
Episode 91: Fluoride, Water, and Streets, with Russell Schreiber
This week on Get It Right Texoma, Mike, Terry, and Trey dive deep into local happenings with Wichita Falls' Public Works Director, Russell Schreiber, and uncover all the juicy details (literally) on Texoma's iconic "Red Draw" from legendary local spot, P2 (The Deuce). 🍺🍅
Here's what's on tap:
- 💧 Rain & Infrastructure Chat: Russell breaks down how recent rains impact lake levels, wildfire risks, and why Holliday Creek can’t flow uphill (who knew?!).
- 🛣️ Streets & Pipes & Costs, Oh My! Ever wonder how much fluoride costs the city each year? Spoiler: it's enough to buy a truck! 🚚
- 🍻 Legend of the Red Draw: Was this Texoma classic really invented at P2? Discover why it's dubbed "the redneck Bloody Mary."
- 🎉 Local Events: Don't miss the final Wichita Falls Gun Show at the MPEC and get early tips for enjoying the festive City Lights Parade! 🎄
- 🚧 City Hall Renovation: Updates on when our beloved city offices will finally be back under one roof.
📍 Local Highlight: Shout-out to P2 (The Deuce)—great home cooking, legendary bar vibes, and possibly Texoma’s last drive-up bar!
🎧 More Texoma fun awaits! Visit:
- Get it Right Texoma https://getitrighttexoma.com
- 🍎 MacTech Solutions: https://mactech-solutions.com
- 🏍️ Eddie Hill’s Fun Cycles: https://eddiehillsfuncycles.com
- 🍠Lollie and Pops Sweet Shop: https://lpsweet.com
Subscribe, like, and stay tuned to Get It Right Texoma for more laughs, insights, and local love! 🌟
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- YouTube
- Spotify
- Apple
- Joe Rogan
- Trump
- Russell Schreiber
- Wichita Falls
- P2 the Deuce
- Pioneer
- McBride
- Benny Keith
- Gibson
- Wichita Falls Gun Show
- Mike Rucker
- Amazon
- Texas A&M Forestry Service
Transcript
You make this rather snappy, won't you?
Speaker B: y heavy thinking to do before: Speaker C:Hey there.
Speaker C:Welcome to another episode of Get It Right Texoma with trio Mike, Terry and Trey.
Speaker C:Very happy to have you here.
Speaker C:We get together to form, entertain and enlighten you as often as we can.
Speaker C:And we appreciate you joining us on YouTube.
Speaker C:Obviously, if you're watching, you know, we're on YouTube.
Speaker C:Be sure to hit the subscribe button on that.
Speaker C:And there was something else too, Wasn't there, on YouTube?
Speaker C:But we asked people to do.
Speaker C:Was it subscribe?
Speaker D:Well, there's a.
Speaker D:Yeah, just getting the.
Speaker D:The bell.
Speaker D:I think that the notification.
Speaker C:Yes, notifications.
Speaker D:Subscribe versus the bell.
Speaker D:And you want to know when we're published.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Also find us on Spotify and Apple podcast as well.
Speaker A:But right next to Joe Rogan.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:You know, I mean, you know, if you're going to watch Rogan, you might as well stick around for us, right?
Speaker A:It was good enough for Trump.
Speaker D:We're working on getting him as a guest.
Speaker D:No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Actually fill in, host.
Speaker C:That way we can vacation, you know, fill in for us while we vacation.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker A:He didn't talk enough.
Speaker A:He, he's, he does a lot of listening.
Speaker A:He does.
Speaker C:He does.
Speaker A:And as you can tell, we're gonna have a guest later.
Speaker C:We are gonna have a guest later.
Speaker C:We've got Russell Schreiber joining us.
Speaker A:His first time on this show.
Speaker A:He was on the radio program several times.
Speaker C:Yeah, he's.
Speaker C:He's done the radio program with me in the years past, but this will be his first time on the podcast.
Speaker C:He is the public works director for the city of Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:Good dude.
Speaker C:Arguably the second most important guy in city government.
Speaker A:He's a good guy and he's very.
Speaker A:And he's very serious and he's damn good at his job.
Speaker C:If not the most important guy in city government.
Speaker C:I mean, when we're talking about streets, when we're talking about infrastructure, when we're talking about all the things, all the water, all the things that make your city work, this is the guy who is at the helm of that.
Speaker C:So we're gonna get a lot of good information.
Speaker A:It's like I said for years, you know, how important in the school district.
Speaker A:And I said this, actually said this at convocation one year when I was doing this speech.
Speaker A:The teachers are the rock stars.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker A:And they're, they're the face.
Speaker A:They're the face of your business or the face of your district.
Speaker A:And all that.
Speaker A:And they're super important.
Speaker A:They're very.
Speaker A:They're vitally important into the education process.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker A:But let's don't forget about the bus drivers.
Speaker A:Let's don't forget about the maintenance people because I will tell you when.
Speaker A:If the first person that shows up in the morning at the school and flushes that toilet and water starts coming back the other way and flooding everything.
Speaker A:It's not the teachers.
Speaker A:No, no, knock on the teachers.
Speaker A:But it's not.
Speaker A:The teachers are going to be out there fixing that.
Speaker A:It's a maintenance guys and they're going to.
Speaker A:And they're going to get everybody all hands on deck.
Speaker A:They're going to be.
Speaker A:You might have electricians out there with mops.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter.
Speaker A:Everybody's in charge of trying to get that school building back, going to where it's usable because it's not usable when you have toilet water all over the floors.
Speaker C:Got to get it under control.
Speaker C:Yeah, got to get it under control.
Speaker C:We got a few things happening we want to talk about coming up here.
Speaker C: The original gun show since: Speaker A:Yeah, this is the original.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:I think there have been some imitations.
Speaker C:There have.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But this is the.
Speaker A: The original gun show since: Speaker C:Well, to borrow a phrase from the old Gibson days, often imitated but never duplicated.
Speaker A:Did that come from Gibson?
Speaker C:I think so.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well.
Speaker C:Well, they used it.
Speaker A:Did they?
Speaker A:I didn't know that it was.
Speaker C:It was.
Speaker C:It was on their print ads.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Was it really?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I don't remember that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So often duplicated, imitated, but never duplicated often.
Speaker D:I'm going to look it up.
Speaker D:Imitate.
Speaker D:Now, see, this will be said it.
Speaker C:This is coming up December 7th through the 8th.
Speaker C:So it's.
Speaker C:It's a Saturday Sunday show.
Speaker C:December 7th and 8th.
Speaker C:It's going to be their last time at the multipurpose event center.
Speaker A:Last time we shot falls.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker C:They're moving to burn.
Speaker C:Contract negotiations have not gone well.
Speaker A:Apparently not.
Speaker C:And so they are moving the show to Burt Burnett next year.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:That is now official.
Speaker C:Yes, yes.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:I'd heard rumors to that.
Speaker A:I heard it directly from the person who's making the decision.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Well, I'd heard a rumor to that effect, but I hadn't gotten the official word.
Speaker A:So this is the last time at the impact.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:So be sure to go check it out and support.
Speaker A:You know this, of course, Mike Rucker has been involved with the gun show for how many years?
Speaker C:Probably a decade at least.
Speaker A:His wife run that.
Speaker A:Run the gun show now, I would say.
Speaker A:I bet, I bet 20 years.
Speaker A:It may be because Joe Tom White ran it for many, many his family.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so Mike Rucker and his wife have taken over and they've, they've run the gun show for ever since Joe Tom got ill and was unable to.
Speaker A:And now they, they actually own the gun show outright.
Speaker A:The Wichita Falls Gun Show.
Speaker C:They do.
Speaker A:So anyhow, they do go check it out.
Speaker A:There's more to guns in it.
Speaker A:There's more than guns at a gun show.
Speaker C:Yeah, but that's the important thing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh yeah.
Speaker C:I know they got other stuff but you know, I go to the gun show for the guns.
Speaker A:I agree.
Speaker A:Guns, guns, ammo, knives, that sort of stuff.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker C:Guns and ammo.
Speaker C:I'm yet.
Speaker C:Look, Second Amendment, baby.
Speaker C:What more do you need?
Speaker C:Coming up, December 21st, it's the City Lights Parade.
Speaker C:7pm Starts at 8th and Austin, winds its way through the heart of downtown Ohio up Nice street and, and then up to Bluff and then basically a big rectangle if you will.
Speaker C:And that's coming up the 21st again.
Speaker A:That is a well attended parade by the way.
Speaker C:It is.
Speaker C:I would advise getting there a lot earlier, very early.
Speaker C:You're gonna want to get there before six, really.
Speaker C:And just hang out.
Speaker C:There'll be some vendors.
Speaker C:I'm sure there'll be some things to do.
Speaker C:There usually is.
Speaker C:But, but you want to get there early.
Speaker C:Number one, so that you're not hiking five miles to get to the parade.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And number two, so that you got a good spot too.
Speaker C:Because there are, there are some.
Speaker C:I mean anywhere you're stand, you're gonna get to see everything really.
Speaker C:But, but there's some better, better locations, better spots than others.
Speaker A:Get it right, Flute?
Speaker C:Yeah, that would be awesome, wouldn't it?
Speaker C:That would be.
Speaker C:Oh, okay.
Speaker D:That's our next thing that.
Speaker C:Oh, it is.
Speaker C:Yes, it is.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna go into that.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's hell of a view.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Anyway, so here we go.
Speaker C:Moving on.
Speaker C:Here we, we try to focus on a local restaurant every EP.
Speaker C:And this time around we're going to talk about P2 the Deuce, one of the original Pioneer locations in Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's no longer called Pioneer.
Speaker A:It's been called P2 ever since I can remember.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean it is technically pioneer number two.
Speaker C:It's still pioneer number two.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But this, this, this, this rest.
Speaker C:The Pioneer chain of restaurants was founded by the McBride family.
Speaker C: Probably what,: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Probably when they found it today, actually, it was during.
Speaker A:I read a whole thing about the McBride family, and they started in there when they were.
Speaker A:When Call Field.
Speaker A:There was an Army Air Corps base called Caulfield, which we're.
Speaker A:We're right over here where Caulfield.
Speaker A:This probably was part of.
Speaker C:Probably was, yeah.
Speaker A:And so the McBride family, I believe the father, the dad McBride, I believe he worked for, like, Benny Keith.
Speaker A:He worked for one of the big food service people back in those days.
Speaker A:Lost his job, got laid off.
Speaker A:And so the family would make sandwiches at their kitchen table, and the kids would come over to call Field and sell the sandwiches to the soldiers.
Speaker B:Original roach coach.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was the original roach coach.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:And they got so popular that the military let them put a building or a shack or something on Caulfield, and that's how they started going that direction.
Speaker A:There's a really cool.
Speaker A:Look it up.
Speaker A:There's a really cool history of that.
Speaker A:But then it morphed into the Pioneers.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And the pioneer was.
Speaker A:Pioneer Restaurant was a.
Speaker A:Was a.
Speaker A:A big deal in Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:I don't know how many they had at one time, but they did have.
Speaker A:They had two steakhouses, they had a Mexican food restaurant, and then they had all these Pioneers and basically the Pioneer restaurants.
Speaker A:If you're not from Wichita Falls, it's basically home cooking.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I think there were seven Pioneer locations.
Speaker C:I've been told that there really never was a P1 that they started.
Speaker C:P2 was the original first restaurant.
Speaker A:I don't remember.
Speaker A:I didn't remember that part.
Speaker C:It was an imaging thing.
Speaker C:Let's make it sound bigger than it is.
Speaker C:So this is pioneer number two, you know, but I think there were seven Pioneer locations.
Speaker C:I know there were at least four or five McBride branded restaurants at one time in town.
Speaker C:I think.
Speaker C:I think there were four.
Speaker C:And then, of course, she had.
Speaker C:What was the.
Speaker C:What was the Gordos, which was Right.
Speaker C:Which is right next door to McBride's Steak & Steakhouse downtown.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which is right down the road from you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Land and cattle.
Speaker C:And actually, the only.
Speaker C:As far as I know, the only McBride family restaurant that is still in family hands is the McBride's on Maplewood.
Speaker C:Fort Swanson owns that.
Speaker C:Ford is the grandson of Fat McBride, I believe, right?
Speaker A:I believe that's right.
Speaker C:And he bought the restaurant back.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:A number of years ago.
Speaker C:He had left the family.
Speaker C:He bought it back, and now it's back in the family.
Speaker A:So that's kind of the history of the pioneer restaurants in Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:But they were.
Speaker A:It's really.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:It's all good food.
Speaker A:Great, great food.
Speaker A:But P2 is really known from.
Speaker A:They've got great food there.
Speaker A:But it's also known as a bar.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the big thing for it.
Speaker A:And it's one of the last drive.
Speaker A:It may be the last drive up bar in Wichita Falls.
Speaker C:Maybe.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because.
Speaker A:Because Bar L was gone now.
Speaker A:And also the P2 holds the distinction possibly of inventing the red draw.
Speaker A:The red draw was, I believe was invented in Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:And it was either invented at P2 or the bar L.
Speaker A:Now, the red draw, if you don't know what that is, that is beer and tomato juice.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:Oh, and by the way, if you don't like tomato juice and you don't like beer, put them together.
Speaker A:It's really not that bad.
Speaker A:But I've actually.
Speaker A:But those.
Speaker A:That was always been the big rivalry.
Speaker A:Who created the.
Speaker A:The red draw.
Speaker A:But they do sell them there.
Speaker A:But it's actually a bar, a drive up bar.
Speaker A:You can drive up, you can park there.
Speaker A:People ride their motorcycles there.
Speaker A:Great food as well.
Speaker C:I know a guy who refers to it as the redneck Bloody Mary.
Speaker A:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's the redneck bloody Mary.
Speaker A:That's a good way to describe it.
Speaker B:All right, so P2.
Speaker A:So go check them out.
Speaker A:They're on the corner of.
Speaker A:They're right off of Scott street there.
Speaker A:So they're on Indiana.
Speaker A:I'm sorry, not Indiana.
Speaker C:Lamar, like Lamar and thirteenth or twelveth or something somewhere down in there.
Speaker A:Yeah, they're right there across from the old library.
Speaker A:The arts.
Speaker A:The art center is.
Speaker C:If you head south down Lamar Avenue, it's going to be on your left hand side.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:Can't miss it.
Speaker C:You won't miss it, I promise it.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker C:Follow your nose.
Speaker C:Follow your nose.
Speaker C:Anyway, all right, I guess we'll take a break here.
Speaker A:Yeah, we can take a break.
Speaker C:We've got Russell Schreiber coming up next.
Speaker C:He's our special guest.
Speaker C:He is the public works director for the city of Winchendon Falls.
Speaker C:He will join us here momentarily.
Speaker C:We'll take a very short break.
Speaker C:Be back in a moment with more Get It Right Texoma.
Speaker C:Stay tuned.
Speaker C:Hey, guys.
Speaker C:Welcome back to Get It Right Tech Soma with trio Mike, Terry and Trey.
Speaker C:And our very special guest, as promised.
Speaker C:We told you we were going to have him here and he is here.
Speaker C:Russell Schreiber is with us.
Speaker C:He is the public works director for the city of Wichita Falls, Texas.
Speaker C:How are you, sir?
Speaker B:I'm well, Mike.
Speaker B:Good to be here.
Speaker C:Glad to have you here.
Speaker A:I bet you're even better now that we had some rain, didn't.
Speaker B:I'm loving it.
Speaker B:I can't remember the last time we had over 8 inches of rain in less than a week in November.
Speaker C:Isn't that nice?
Speaker D:November.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D: Of: Speaker D:We had.
Speaker D:Didn't we?
Speaker A:She said.
Speaker B:He said November.
Speaker D:No, no, I know, I know.
Speaker D:I was just saying.
Speaker D:Yeah, November.
Speaker D:And then I was like.
Speaker D:But May, though, that was the big one.
Speaker B:Don't get a lot of rain in November.
Speaker C:Yeah, it has been unusual, and it certainly.
Speaker C:Well, one thing for sure, it helped lake levels, obviously, which are still coming up, because we're at this point, as of this interview, we're still getting runoff from these rains.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:So we're still getting some benefit from it.
Speaker C:But the wildfire situation.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:Was starting to get a little out of hand.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker C:We had.
Speaker C:We had a couple of really big ones here within the last 30, 45 days.
Speaker C:And these rains have certainly helped tamp.
Speaker A:That down, let me tell you.
Speaker A:Not only.
Speaker A:Just speaking on that real quickly before we get to the rain, not only do we have great volunteer fire departments all around the county, the Tri county area here and even into Oklahoma, but also we have the Texas Ag Forest Service, that's based in Burke Burnett, Texas A and M Forestry Service based in Burke Burnett.
Speaker A:And they've got some really good equipment, a lot of good training.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:But explain everybody a little bit.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:We just.
Speaker A:So we get.
Speaker A:Just because we get in rain in Wichita Falls doesn't necessarily mean it helps Lake Arrowhead.
Speaker A:So explain to me, explain to everybody where the watershed is and how all that works.
Speaker B:The watershed for Arrowhead and for Kickapoo is in Archer and Young and Baylor counties.
Speaker B:And the watershed is the area of the ground that slopes to the creeks and the rivers that drain into these reservoirs slopes into the Little Wichita river, which feeds Lake Arrowhead, part of Lake Arrowhead's watersheds in southern Clay county as well.
Speaker B:So that, unfortunately for us, that's where the rains fell.
Speaker B:Yeah, if they fall in Wichita Falls, if they fall basically from the sale barn out on 281, if y'all know where that is.
Speaker B:They fall from there north.
Speaker B:That goes around behind Arrowhead, and it misses Arrowhead.
Speaker B:It doesn't.
Speaker B:It doesn't flow into Arrowhead.
Speaker B:So, yeah, while.
Speaker B:While rains in the city are certainly beneficial for everybody's lawns and the cropland and everything in Wichita County.
Speaker B:We all need rain up here as well.
Speaker B:But none of that water actually makes it in the airhead.
Speaker B:People have asked me, well, why don't you divert Holliday Creek into Lake Arrowhead?
Speaker B:I'd love to, but it's simply impossible to do.
Speaker B:You can't make water run uphill.
Speaker B:So to divert Holiday Creek over into a creek that would drain into Arrowhead, you'd have to be forcing the water to run uphill.
Speaker D:So is a water basin the same thing or not?
Speaker D:Is that a different thing?
Speaker B:It's kind of the same thing.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker D:Because I was bringing up a map here just to see what we have here.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker C:Yeah, we've got five water districts in Texas.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Water districts.
Speaker C:Aren't there water.
Speaker C:Did the state have water districts around the area?
Speaker B:There's 16 regional water planning areas.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker B:And we're in Region B.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker B:That's how the state breaks it up.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:For some reason, for some reason, I had five districts in my.
Speaker C:Maybe I'm thinking city council or something.
Speaker D:There was.
Speaker D:Didn't the Archer county mud.
Speaker D:What does that mean?
Speaker B:It's their municipal utility district.
Speaker B:They're a water supplier.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's a lot of those.
Speaker B:There's Dean Dale, there's Pleasant Valley, there's Cashin, and then the cities, Burke Burnett, Owl Park.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker B:They all have their own areas that they serve.
Speaker B:And the rural water systems have a CCN or a Certificate of Necessity and Convenience, which is an area designated through the state that they are the sole provider for water in those areas.
Speaker A:Which, by the way, real quickly, Unpleasant Valley, which if you're not familiar, it's a little community that's between Wichita Falls and Iowa Park.
Speaker A:I'm not going to say it's unpleasant, but there's no valley there.
Speaker A:I always love it when they name these things.
Speaker A:Like, it's flat and like I said, it's not unpleasant.
Speaker A:I wouldn't call it pleasant necessarily, but it's average.
Speaker A:Yeah, but it's not a valley, so.
Speaker C:Well, let me ask you, why is the water system in Texas?
Speaker C:This sounds very complicated to a lot of people.
Speaker C:You got all these different organizations and all this grouping and all these different muds and whatever else.
Speaker C:Why is it so complicated?
Speaker C:I mean, it's water, right?
Speaker C:I mean, it shouldn't be that.
Speaker C:Well, yeah, that's gotta stay in the obvious.
Speaker C:In a way.
Speaker B:This podcast is long enough for that discussion.
Speaker A:Probably.
Speaker A:Who owns the water, has the water, sells the water.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's all Surface water in the state of Texas is owned by the state.
Speaker B:Anything, any pool of water that's over 200 acre feet, an acre foot is basically 325,000 gallons.
Speaker B:Any pool of water that's larger than that is owned by the state.
Speaker B:And if you want to use that water, you have to apply for a state water.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Which is what we're doing with the Lake Ringgold.
Speaker B:Even if the reservoir is not built, you still have to apply to the state and get a right to use that water, even if you build a lake.
Speaker B:And so that's how everything operates as far as surface water goes in Texas.
Speaker B:Now, groundwater is different.
Speaker B:Groundwater still functions and operates under the right of capture, which means if I own a piece of ground and I drill a well, I got the right to capture any and all water I can capture in that well under my piece of ground, even if it pulls water from other areas outside of my actual footprint of my ground.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So like, if they hit a aquifer, like, say, like down to Central Texas, there's a lot of wells in Central Texas.
Speaker A:They hit St.
Speaker A:Edwards, Edwards Aquifer or whatever down there.
Speaker B:Right, right, right.
Speaker B:And so that's how ground.
Speaker B:And now groundwater is regulated a little bit through groundwater conservation districts.
Speaker B:So if you're in an area that uses a lot of groundwater, like Ogallala area in North Texas or West Texas, they have groundwater conservation districts.
Speaker B:They have the authority to limit how much water you can pump out of the ground.
Speaker B:We don't have that here in Wichita Falls.
Speaker B:We don't have any groundwater to speak of.
Speaker B:So we don't have one of those.
Speaker B:But that's kind of how the whole water system is regulated.
Speaker B:Now, if a municipality or somebody wants to use water, it's always been the user's duty to sponsor a project.
Speaker B:Wichita Falls.
Speaker B:We wouldn't expect Dallas or Fort Worth to pay for our water.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We're the ones that need the water.
Speaker B:We put together, we sponsor the project.
Speaker B:And so everybody's responsible for their own water supply.
Speaker B:That keeps Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonios from coming up and grabbing all the water and controlling all the growth and development across the state of Texas.
Speaker C:Well, that kind of segues into another thing, too.
Speaker C:We've spent a lot of time over the years talking about Wichita Falls growth and development and probably more aptly, the lack of growth.
Speaker C:Our population has been very flat for decades now.
Speaker C:We haven't seen a lot of movement up or down.
Speaker C:And one of the things.
Speaker C:And talked to the chamber about this a lot.
Speaker C:And the why and the how and what do we do about it is the only group that seems to be growing here consistently over the years is 55 plus.
Speaker C:So from your perspective and your position, how involved is your department or your division of the city?
Speaker C:How involved are you guys in development and helping to determine what do we need to do to grow our community, to grow the city?
Speaker B:Well, that's a bit of a complicated question, Mike, but when, when the chamber and the EDC attract new industry into town and they're doing a great job with Ron Kitchens and those guys over there in the, in the 4A board and y'all have heard of some of the great wins they've had?
Speaker A:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:They're doing a great job.
Speaker B:We get involved in some of that as far as, hey, if we want to locate this industry here, is the water system able to handle it?
Speaker A:Where's the infrastructure?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Is the infrastructure able to handle it?
Speaker B:That's kind of how we get involved.
Speaker B:And then from a long range planning perspective, we take get involved as it relates to the regional water plan, that type thing to ensure as we grow that we have enough supply, water supply in our system.
Speaker C:I know, I just saw a story yesterday.
Speaker C:Winco, a new grocery store chain is coming to Wichita Falls and apparently they have approached the city about extending Winona down to wherever I guess to help aid in traffic flow for them.
Speaker C:Obviously it's going to benefit them.
Speaker C:Do you see offers like that often?
Speaker C:Do companies come to town and go, hey, let's partner, go to the city, hey, let's partner with the city and let's, let's build out this infrastructure, let's build out this road, let's help upgrade this water main or whatever.
Speaker C:Does that happen often like that?
Speaker B:It happens with the larger developments.
Speaker B:We just don't see that the larger developments that need the street widened or extended.
Speaker B:Now if a development comes in and an extension of the streets required to accommodate that development, that developer is required to put that in.
Speaker B:It's not on the other rest of the taxpayers and the ratepayers across the state.
Speaker D:What about the Maplewood between Lawrence and McNeil?
Speaker D:There was some funding by builder.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, bond issue.
Speaker B:We created that connection in there to relieve some.
Speaker D:But didn't the apartment developer have some play in that?
Speaker B:You're right, they did.
Speaker B:They paid for a piece of the widening in there.
Speaker B:We've done it on Production Boulevard with the new Amazon facility coming in.
Speaker B:They're partnered with us on that.
Speaker B:The Winco.
Speaker B:There's a lot of great winds there.
Speaker B:For the school district.
Speaker A:I remember when we built the career education center, we had to widen part of the road out there.
Speaker A:Hatton Road.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Hatton Road was widened and the connection to Brewster Drive, connection between the two there, between Midwestern and Hatton.
Speaker C:Is there any.
Speaker C:Is there any thought process within the city that, hey, if we do certain things, we do certain projects to improve certain areas of the city or to develop, you know, redevelop some of the infrastructure, be it water, sewer, roads, whatever.
Speaker C:Is there any thought that some of that helps to encourage other businesses to come to Wichita Falls or to expand operations here?
Speaker B:Yeah, I would think so.
Speaker B:I mean, the business park's a good example of that, Mike.
Speaker B:They had the business park out there.
Speaker B:It was shovel ready, if you will, for certain pieces and parts of it, sure.
Speaker B:But at the time, it was just the real slow part of the time in the economy and everything like that.
Speaker B:But now that everything has been out there sitting there ready, I mean, the whole business park's going to be developed soon.
Speaker B:I think it looks good.
Speaker D:It was a lot less expensive back then.
Speaker D:That's the other thing.
Speaker B:You can do that kind of stuff, but you have to have money to go do it.
Speaker C:Well, that's the thing, you know, none of these projects ever gets less expensive.
Speaker C:I mean, they just.
Speaker C:The price tag just keeps going up, putting it off.
Speaker C:Matter of fact, I made a comment.
Speaker C:Someone made a comment the other day about all the.
Speaker B:There were.
Speaker C:Apparently there were multiple water main breaks in the last several days and.
Speaker C:Yeah, and you know, some of that has to do with ground movement.
Speaker C:We've had all this rain, like we talked about a moment ago.
Speaker C:There's a lot of ground movement, but some of that is attributed to the age of the water mains themselves.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You've got a lot of old pipes in the ground that decay, and over time, you've got to replace those.
Speaker C:And you and I had a.
Speaker C:We talked about this on radio years ago, and the price tag was pretty astronomical then to go in and replace everything that needs to be replaced.
Speaker C:And you've got hundreds of miles of pipe.
Speaker B:60 something miles.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So you get.
Speaker C:You got a lot of.
Speaker C:You got a lot of miles of pipe there to replace.
Speaker C:To do that all at once would be extremely expensive.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:Well, it means it's completely disruptive, too, because you gotta rip up the ground and you don't have enough people.
Speaker A:You could do it.
Speaker A:You couldn't do it all at one time.
Speaker A:You'd have to do a piece here.
Speaker C:And a piece here.
Speaker C:You have to do these things in phases.
Speaker C:It has to be planned out.
Speaker C:It takes time to do that, obviously, and a lot, a lot of money.
Speaker C:You know, and I, and I made the comment on a post on Facebook that, you know, this is the consequence of kicking that can down the road, of just ignoring this and letting this go.
Speaker C:That infrastructure ages and the ground's going to move no matter what, no matter what you do or don't do, it's going to move.
Speaker C:But by not addressing these issues now, you have, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10 water main breaks just bam, bam, bam, back to back.
Speaker C:What's the plan right now?
Speaker C:Obviously dealing with the water main breaks.
Speaker C:You got to patch what's broken, you got to fix it, get it going again.
Speaker C:So you restore the water service.
Speaker C:What is the long term plan right now on that stuff?
Speaker B:The plan, Mike, is to try to increase the budget annually to replace more of those areas.
Speaker B:We track all the water main breaks, we know where all of them are breaking, and we have a fixed amount of money each year, roughly about million and a half dollars that we spend to replace old deteriorated water lines.
Speaker B:And the cost of those lines have increased by 100% in the last two years.
Speaker C:Wonder what could have happened.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:So our dollars just don't go as far as they used to when it comes to replace water and sewer mains, for that matter.
Speaker B:So over the course of time, the plan is to try to keep increasing those repair rehab dollars, focusing those on the areas that are the most problematic water quality areas, the water main breaks, where they're breaking every, you know, week or so.
Speaker B:And that's the only way to do that now to increase the funding since the utility, the water utilities enterprise funds, which means it only gets money that it generates from the user fees.
Speaker B:So to generate additional money, you either got to sell more water or you got to go up on your water rates.
Speaker B:And neither one of those going up on water rates is not all that popular.
Speaker B:So the idea here is hopefully in the next couple of years we'll see some debt relief from some of the earlier bonds that we sold and we'll have more money to be able to focus toward rehab and replacement of water mains, infrastructure in the treatment plants, themselves, equipment, that type thing is the icon.
Speaker D:I got a question on that.
Speaker D:If, if you guys were able to get what you wanted to just replace every old pipe out there and got it done, is the technology such that these would not deteriorate the same way the old stuff did?
Speaker B:This is, I think that's right.
Speaker B:Terry, I think, I think that the new, the new pipe materials, the PVC pipe materials and things like that will last 100 years.
Speaker B:Just like the old clay top.
Speaker B:The old clay, not clay lines, the old galvanized, the ductile iron lines.
Speaker B:Ductile iron lines last a long time.
Speaker B:The cast iron lines last quite a long time.
Speaker B:But you, you wind up with, with water quality issues with this whole metal materials in your system.
Speaker B:With PVC pipe, it's, it'll last a long time.
Speaker C:Pretty clean, pretty efficient.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So of course we all know that we have the water reuse project.
Speaker A:Now you guys don't have that on all the time.
Speaker A:Is that correct?
Speaker A:Is it depends.
Speaker A:It only.
Speaker A:You only run it when it's necessary.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So how do y'all determine when you're going to turn the water, when you're going to have that going?
Speaker A:And not.
Speaker A:Because it does cost money to do it, it's free.
Speaker B:Sure does.
Speaker B:We've modeled the reservoir itself based on the water availability model and how much inflow comes into the lake carrier head and how much water goes out, how much evaporates.
Speaker B:And it's been determined that when the water level drops 6 inches below the spillway is when we turn on the ipr, the reuse system.
Speaker B:And it's been running non stop for the last 18 months.
Speaker B:I forget since last time the lake was full, which has been quite a while back, but it runs continuously.
Speaker D:So what does that increase the bill?
Speaker D:If you weigh your bill, what's your electric bill?
Speaker D:Whatever the energy that you all use to put into that, what does that?
Speaker B:It's hard to say, Terry.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Because we have some chemical costs that are involved with that to remove the phosphorus, we have the disposal of the sludge, we have the pumping cost.
Speaker B:Obviously I did a rough number and if I can remember off the top of my head, and it's been, it's been close to nine or ten years ago.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But I think when we did the DPR, I think the cost was like 60 cents a thousand gallons.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker B:And I think the IPR was like a $10 or $50 somewhere in that neighborhood per thousand gallons to treat that water, to pump it back into Lake Arrowhead.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker D:That's including existing costs.
Speaker D:But that's not above the base.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker D:Or that's a total for that.
Speaker A:No, that's it.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker B:That's what it costs cost to treat the water, to put it back in.
Speaker B:And once we take it back out of Airhead and we bring it back through the treatment plant, that's about a.
Speaker B:I haven't looked recently, but that's about a dollar, another dollar per thousand.
Speaker C:Before everybody gets all bent out of shape about that cost.
Speaker C:Think about this.
Speaker C:You'll go to a convenience store and pay $2.99 for a bottle of Smart Water.
Speaker A:That's what I've been.
Speaker A:Hey, look, I've been saying this and I've said it on radio a million times, and I've said it there.
Speaker A:I, I.
Speaker A:It drives me bonkers when I hear people that live in Wichita Falls talk about their water rates being expensive.
Speaker A:You go to your tap and it is, I would say, what, 98% accurate.
Speaker A:It's going to work about 98, 99.3% of the time or whatever it is.
Speaker A:And clean, good, clean water comes out of your tap for, is it 7/10 of a penny?
Speaker B:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker A:A gallon?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:It is the best bargain there is, honestly, in consumables.
Speaker A:And people complain about it.
Speaker A:It's like cheese.
Speaker C:I spent most of my childhood drinking out of garden hoses.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I'm 53 and I'm still breathing.
Speaker A:Well, I know we talked a lot about water, but what other, what other?
Speaker A:Your public works director encompasses a whole lot of other things.
Speaker A:So what are the other big projects you're kind of working on right now, your department's working on?
Speaker B:In addition to the normal water and sewer rehab, we're doing the concrete pavement and the asphalt pavement rehab.
Speaker B:We got those projects going.
Speaker B:You may have noticed Kemp street from right in front of the mall, where we're going in, making those base repairs.
Speaker B:Eventually all that gets milled off and a whole new surface gets put back on there.
Speaker B:Right now they're going in, they're going down 8 inches deep and repairing the bases, the base material.
Speaker B:So that project's ongoing.
Speaker B:We have a project that's in the works for the landfill.
Speaker B:The regulations for landfill gas emissions have changed.
Speaker B:We're going to be required to put in a gas collection system out there now.
Speaker B:So we're working with consultants to try to figure out how to do that, the best way to do it.
Speaker B:Are there potentially companies out there that will come in and build that and harvest the gas and put it back into the Atmos pipeline, if, if you will, or sell it to an end user.
Speaker B:There could be a way, hopefully, for that project to possibly support itself.
Speaker B:Even though it's another regulation that we have to meet from the state.
Speaker B:Hopefully there's a way to make that thing self supporting.
Speaker B:We got the ring goal we kind of talked about that project.
Speaker B:We're still working, advancing that project forward.
Speaker B:We're in the, the state water right phase right now.
Speaker B:It's at District Court in Austin.
Speaker B:It's been appealed.
Speaker B:The water rights been issued.
Speaker B:We have the right.
Speaker B:The opposition is now appealing that.
Speaker B:So just another step in the process.
Speaker C:We kind of knew those hurdles were going to happen.
Speaker C:I mean, it was kind of expected.
Speaker C:You kind of baked that into the long range plan anyway, that there were going to be challenges to that.
Speaker C:And we've talked about this before about how, you know, you don't just go out there and scrape off a piece of land and flood it.
Speaker C:Hey, we got a leg.
Speaker C:You know, there's a process to this.
Speaker C:There's a lot to it.
Speaker C:And this is why it takes 20 years to build a dadgum lake.
Speaker C:Because it's not just the physical construction of a reservoir.
Speaker C: you know, you got, you know,: Speaker C:You know, there's, it is what it is in that regard, I guess.
Speaker A:But have you seen a, just out here, I'll say.
Speaker A:Have you seen a increase, decrease or about the same as far as regulation from the state on your, in your area over the last decade or so?
Speaker B:It's been an increase.
Speaker B:It's been an increase, Trey.
Speaker B:You know, like I just mentioned the landfill gas collection system now.
Speaker B:And I don't know, maybe with the new administration, maybe some of that gets relaxed.
Speaker B:You know, with the election being over now, there was a big fight with waters of the US When Trump was in place.
Speaker B:He relaxed the definition of waters of the U.S.
Speaker B:biden got in, he reinforced it and strengthened and expanded it.
Speaker B:Rumor is now Trump's going to roll that back.
Speaker B:So it's kind of a bit of a moving target.
Speaker B:But all that affects the 404 permitting process for Ringo and it affects it dramatically as it relates to mitigation and what that's going to cost.
Speaker B:The other thing that we're seeing on a water drinking water level is you're seeing the TCQ and EPA ramp up, ramp up the new lead and copper rule.
Speaker B:How much lead can your water have in it?
Speaker B:You got to go out.
Speaker B:And we hit.
Speaker B:We've had to survey all of the 34,000 services inside the city.
Speaker B:We had to go determine what type of material that service line was made out of.
Speaker B:We had to physically inspect it and we had to report all that to the TCEQ and epa.
Speaker B:And then eventually the rules are now the lead and copper rule.
Speaker B:Eventually all those galvanized services, which I think there's 5,500 of them in Wichita Falls, may have to be replaced.
Speaker B:On whose nickel?
Speaker B:We don't know yet.
Speaker B:But that's just the moving target.
Speaker B:And then they're talking about the new pfas, the polyfluoro, the forever chemicals and the firefighting foam and stuff.
Speaker B:They're talking about beginning to regulate those.
Speaker B:And so we're testing for that stuff.
Speaker B:We haven't found any in our system yet.
Speaker B:But it's just, I'll be between all of us sitting here and the people watching this, I'll be glad if Trump can reel in that EPA just a little bit.
Speaker A:Well, he just, he just named who's going to be in charge of the epa.
Speaker B:He just named her or him.
Speaker B:I read it yesterday.
Speaker C:Yeah, I can't think who it is.
Speaker A:Lee Zeldin.
Speaker A:Yeah, Lee Zeldin, a former state representative for out of New York and actually ran for, ran for governor of New York and got pretty close for a Republican.
Speaker A:And I've seen him a lot in interviews and stuff.
Speaker A:The guy seems very reasonable and level headed type guy.
Speaker C:Well, I mean, we run into this so much.
Speaker C:You got all these damn three and four letter agencies out here that the federal government won't reign, they've refused to reign in.
Speaker C:They go out here and they make rules and regulations that become de facto laws that, you know, basically you guys and all of us citizens, everybody's got a gun to your head, you will do this or else and it costs you money.
Speaker C:And yes, and I think most people don't stop to realize just how, you know, they, oh, we're going to make your water cleaner hip hip, hooray.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And it's only going to cost you about $10 billion.
Speaker C:I mean, you know, people don't stop to realize that agencies make these rules and these regulations.
Speaker C:But in the end it's not the government paying for it, it's the taxpayer.
Speaker D:All right, I want to know something.
Speaker D:Just this is serious.
Speaker D:This is really serious.
Speaker D:So if when they take out the fluoride, Trump was talking about taking the fluoride, how much would that actually say?
Speaker D:I'm just curious.
Speaker B:For us, it saves about, about $80,000 a year.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:We spend 80,000 on fluoride.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker D:Okay, that's a very interesting.
Speaker B:I'm just playing, but let me talk a little bit about that.
Speaker C:Yes, please.
Speaker B: day, back in, I think it was: Speaker B:And the city's done so since that time.
Speaker B:Now, you have to understand, I think the maximum level that the EPA allows is like 1.5 milligrams per liter.
Speaker B:0.5 of that is naturally occurring in our supplies already, means it's coming out of the watersheds, out of the ground.
Speaker B:And fluoride's actually in the water.
Speaker A:Fluoride is a natural.
Speaker A:It's a natural occurring element.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's already there.
Speaker B:And so it comes into the treatment plant at 0.5 milligrams per liter.
Speaker B:We add another 0.2 milligrams per liter to a point seven.
Speaker B:So we're about half of the maximum level they say you can actually have in your water.
Speaker B:And 1.5 is still.
Speaker B:You can still have up to 1.5 and drink it.
Speaker B:You're not violating any of the regulations.
Speaker B:So that's kind of where the city is at this point.
Speaker B:And it was all done back in the 70s because of the, you know.
Speaker D:The push for keep saving our teeth.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker D:But I wonder if it really has any effect.
Speaker D:I mean, I'm not expecting you to address that.
Speaker D:But I'm just curious if having fluoride in our water, since everybody has.
Speaker D:Probably has fluoride in their toothpaste, does that really make any difference?
Speaker D:And is it a waste of money is my question.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't.
Speaker B:I don't know for sure.
Speaker B:I can't answer that.
Speaker B:I'll tell you what it costs.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:$80,000.
Speaker A:That's impressive that, you know, off top of your head.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, what people don't realize as well is when you talk about all this, when you're talking about regulations, all the testing and stuff like that, all that costs money because we have people that were paying, that are employees, that they're not just sitting around like this with nothing to do.
Speaker A:They've got stuff to do.
Speaker A:But now we're having to give them other tasks.
Speaker A:So either we're having to hire somebody separate to do it, or we're having to redirect real resources.
Speaker A:So everything has a cost to it because there is a labor cost.
Speaker A:Just because somebody works for the government.
Speaker A:That once again, like you said, and you said a million times, the government doesn't generate money in most cases.
Speaker A:I know the water thing is an enterprise deal, but for the most part, the government doesn't generate money.
Speaker B:It.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:Taxpayers pay for Most of stuff.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Well I mean I love it when people start talking about oh free this, free that.
Speaker C:Free.
Speaker C:It's the most overused, abused four letter word in the English language.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:Nothing's free.
Speaker C:Well, there's a cost that is borne by somebody somewhere all the time.
Speaker A:The other one's forgiveness.
Speaker A:That one drives me.
Speaker A:We're going to forgive.
Speaker A:No, no, no.
Speaker A:The taxpayers paying for it.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:Well, as we're kind of getting close to the end here, do you want to.
Speaker A:Is there anything else you want to bring up and talk about?
Speaker A:You want to address anything in a little bit more detail like green gold or anything like that?
Speaker B:I guess I'd like people to understand it that Public works is involved in a lot of things inside the city relates to development, economic development.
Speaker B:Water, sewer, solid waste.
Speaker B:We have our.
Speaker B:We have.
Speaker B:We touch a lot of things and we're doing the best we can with what we have.
Speaker B:We've had some prices are increasing for US Dollars just don't go as far as they used to and but we'll continue to do the best job we can.
Speaker B:Hopefully Ring Gold will.
Speaker B:Will be advancing that and taking the next step over the.
Speaker B:After the first of the year be moving in a positive direction there.
Speaker B:And I guess that's about it guys.
Speaker B:I really don't know what else to say.
Speaker D:Well and I want to make a point though on something that that water and the streets in your city affect your day to day life more than whoever the hell the president.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:I don't care what party it is.
Speaker D:These guys are working for you and me to make sure that.
Speaker D:That we can get we don't knock at the alignment out of our.
Speaker D:In our car they make sure we have clean water.
Speaker D:And even though I don't live in Wichita Falls, I benefit from being close to Wichita Falls because Dean Dale is where I get my water from.
Speaker A:Well and you're here, you're here more.
Speaker D:Out of the right.
Speaker A:You're in Wichita Falls more hours of waking hours of the day than just.
Speaker D:Like I am for the Republic.
Speaker D:The voting, the percentage of the vote.
Speaker D:So at 10, 10% during off election years or 20% people registered voters show up about 10%.
Speaker C:It's about 10% easy.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:You're letting a small number of people determine what happens in as far as taxes.
Speaker C:The fact of the matter is and I think you'll agree with it your.
Speaker C:Your infrastructure issues, streets, water, sewers, all this every single day has a direct impact on your ability To.
Speaker C:To engage in commerce.
Speaker C:If you don't have good streets, if you don't have flowing water, if you don't have toilets that flush and work, if you don't have all these things working, it is going to dramatically impact how commerce can happen in your city.
Speaker D:And your Amazon delivery doesn't make it as on time or they breaks the truck.
Speaker D:But, you know, whatever.
Speaker D:But I'm just saying.
Speaker C:And we need this last mile facility to succeed in a big way too.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And I want to.
Speaker A:Real quickly, I want to give you flowers here.
Speaker A:We had a.
Speaker A:And I think I texted you this is about a year ago.
Speaker A:We had a water line break right next to our store and it shut our water down for a couple of days.
Speaker A:But the city guys got the.
Speaker A:The city water people came out and they jumped on that thing and got it going.
Speaker A:And I mean it was.
Speaker A:They did a great job.
Speaker A:They, they.
Speaker A:They got.
Speaker A:They had cursed.
Speaker A:There is the street guys come out and knock the street loose.
Speaker A:And then water guys get down in there and stuff like that.
Speaker A:And the.
Speaker A:I walked out there just to say hi to him and see what was going on.
Speaker A:And the in.
Speaker A:The guy was like, oh yeah, we're doing it.
Speaker A:And he explained the whole thing to me.
Speaker A:And they did a great job and they got on it.
Speaker A:And so I do want to want people to understand the people that work for the city of Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:I think for the most part it's like there's bad apples everywhere.
Speaker A:But most part they take pride in what they do.
Speaker A:They want to do a good job for the citizens of Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:And I think they do the.
Speaker A:They do, like you said, the best they can do with the resources they have.
Speaker B:They do.
Speaker C:I think we got a lot.
Speaker C:The city's got a lot of opportunity, a lot of.
Speaker C:A lot of possibilities.
Speaker C:And I just.
Speaker C:I want to see everybody from city hall all the way down the chain working toward making things happen.
Speaker A:Real quick, I know we got to wrap up city Hall.
Speaker A:What's the timeline?
Speaker A:Expected timeline to get all the offices back.
Speaker A:Because then you got them spread over down.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:All over creation.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I believe.
Speaker B:And don't quote me on this, but I think it's February or March of next year.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Move back in date.
Speaker A:And I bet you everybody's gonna be happy to be kind of back under one roof rather than.
Speaker B:Yeah, that scattered out deal is a little bit difficult to manage, but we'll get through it.
Speaker C:This project's been going on a while.
Speaker C:You had to get the foundation right under Those, I mean, that the wings were sliding off the hill.
Speaker C:I mean, it was a very costly.
Speaker C:It's been a very time consuming project, but finally that building will be right.
Speaker B:Hopefully for another 100 and something years.
Speaker B: I mean, it was built in: Speaker C:You can get another hundred out of it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, you go in there with all that old exposed concrete stuff and you can tell, you know, think about it.
Speaker B:1923, they had to mix all that by hand.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And wheelbarrow it in.
Speaker B:And to get, to get a mix of concrete consistently the same from pour to port, you know, throughout that building is just.
Speaker B:That's pretty amazing.
Speaker A:They were artisans.
Speaker A:They really.
Speaker A:Those people were artists.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And those guys, those guys, those, those guys knew how to work.
Speaker C:I tell you, they earned every dollar they got.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And it wasn't much.
Speaker C:Russell Schreiber, thank you for being with us.
Speaker C:We appreciate it.
Speaker B:My pleasure.
Speaker C:People have questions, comments, anything at all.
Speaker C:How do they reach out to you?
Speaker B: -: Speaker C:Thank you very much for being with us.
Speaker C:We appreciate it.
Speaker A:Thank you, guys.
Speaker C:Stay tuned.
Speaker C:We're gonna come back and wrap up this episode to get it right.
Speaker C:Textile in just a moment.
Speaker C:Stay tuned.
Speaker C:Hey, welcome back.
Speaker C:Get a ride.
Speaker C:Tech summit.
Speaker C:We want to thank Russell Schreiber for joining us.
Speaker C:Great, great, great information.
Speaker C:Yeah, he's good dude from Russell, and.
Speaker A:He'S really smart and he's really, really knowledgeable.
Speaker A:It amazes me sometimes how he can pull some of the stuff, like the fluoride thing.
Speaker B:Yeah, pull.
Speaker A:He knew, he knew.
Speaker A:I mean, he knows how much roughly it costs fluoride, and that's just pretty amazing.
Speaker C:Well, you know, and I guess you do a job like that for a number of years and that becomes your, you know, that's your central focus.
Speaker C:I mean, the whole.
Speaker A:Just shows that he cares about his job and does a good job.
Speaker D:Yeah, well, that's a, that's a salary of an employee.
Speaker D:That's a truck.
Speaker D:That's, you know, $80,000 just for fluoride.
Speaker D:But anyway.
Speaker C:Yeah, it is.
Speaker C:That would be a new truck.
Speaker A:Not a loaded truck, but.
Speaker C:No, a tradesman.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, that's a tradesman.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:That's a whole.
Speaker C:That's a whole other topic.
Speaker A:Yeah, we don't have time to get.
Speaker C:Into that one, we'll talk a little bit about Trump and the election.
Speaker C:Trump.
Speaker D:What?
Speaker C:Yeah, this guy.
Speaker C:Maybe you've heard of him these days.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Kind of tall, little mouthy, pretty smart.
Speaker A:Kind of orangey here.
Speaker C:A little orangey, yeah.
Speaker C:Anyway, Donald Trump won 14 out of the 18 counties within 20 miles of the border.
Speaker A:And this is in Texas.
Speaker C:The Valley went for Trump.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:The border counties went for Trump.
Speaker C:14 out of 18.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And he carried all four counties in the Rio Grande Valley.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:The whole ground.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker C:Also known as the rgv.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:But here, read this other stat.
Speaker A:This is one of the most interesting little nuggets I found.
Speaker A:Star county in Star County.
Speaker A:Star county had voted Democrat in every presidential.
Speaker A: Presidential race since: Speaker C:Holy smokes.
Speaker A:That means.
Speaker A:And that is the longest streak in the whole nation of one county voting.
Speaker C:For one party the first time in 118 years.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And Star county went for Trump this year.
Speaker A:This.
Speaker A:This guy.
Speaker C:That is incredible.
Speaker A:Look, and look, I know that some people love him, some people hate him, some people are kind of like where I am.
Speaker A:I love his policies.
Speaker A:Don't like the guy.
Speaker A:But whatever it is, there's no doubt that this was a.
Speaker A:A big, A big win.
Speaker A:There was no doubt, not only in the electoral college, but the popular vote.
Speaker A:There's no doubt that this was a mandate.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:And to even put another bow on this, when you talk about bringing in.
Speaker A:Bringing in people, I saw in Wichita Falls a Trump bumper sticker on a Prius.
Speaker D:Well, that could be one of my neighbors, actually.
Speaker B:I love it.
Speaker A:I saw a Trump bumper sticker on a Prius in Wichita Falls.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, look, I never thought I'd see a Trump bumper sticker on a Prius.
Speaker A:Usually it's a coexist or some style hate bullshit thing on the back of a Prius.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I have to.
Speaker C:I have to.
Speaker A:Now slow down.
Speaker A:I still don't see a Trump bumper stick on a Smart.
Speaker A:A Smart car, whatever that is.
Speaker D:But a smart car.
Speaker A:Well, but a Prius.
Speaker C:I want to talk a little bit here about some of his cabinet picks.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So a couple of interesting things real quick.
Speaker A:Talk about who he did, who he came out publicly and said, I'm not picking these.
Speaker C:Mike Pompeo is not coming back.
Speaker C:Nikki Haley's not coming back back.
Speaker C:He specifically.
Speaker A:Well, you know, whatever reason.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of people out there.
Speaker A:There's a lot of people out there that talk about Nikki Haley kind of being a little bit of a warhawk.
Speaker A:And I don't I didn't know that in the past, but it came out.
Speaker A:Vivek Ramaswamy really brought that out during the campaign.
Speaker A:And that may be something that Donald Trump went and further investigated his team.
Speaker A:Look, the fact is Donald Trump is not going, I'm going to take this part.
Speaker A:He does, he can't possibly do every pick himself all by himself.
Speaker A:He has a team of people around him that are advising him on this stuff.
Speaker A:But any, I didn't want to interrupt, but that's that, I think that's pretty significant.
Speaker C:I think they're being much more strategic in his cabinet selections in all of this than they were the first time around.
Speaker C:This is a different game.
Speaker A:Well, the first time around, they didn't know anybody.
Speaker A:I mean, the first time around he was an outsider.
Speaker A:He didn't, he knew some of the people in Washington, but he didn't know, did not know the system of Washington.
Speaker A:And it is a system and he didn't know it and he didn't know how to navigate it.
Speaker A:And a lot of the people he hired he thought were going to be good people for him, and they weren't.
Speaker D:But if you think about it, too, you know how life happens, that, that things happen.
Speaker D:I don't know, you can argue whether it's for a reason or whatever.
Speaker D:But, but certainly the, the, he's prepared better, whether that was a divine intervention that put him in the place where he was and then we had a break and now he's coming back.
Speaker A:He's much more prepared.
Speaker D:Yeah, he's much more prepared.
Speaker D:And you know how life, you kind of have to go through life, whether you're the presidential candidate or just us as individuals to have experienced things and that prepare you for the next thing?
Speaker C:Well, I think so far the one that the pick that's the most on fire is the new border czar, a Trump I, a term I hate, by the way.
Speaker A:I don't like it either.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:But Tom Holman, he's a former ICE official.
Speaker C:Did you hear this guy yesterday?
Speaker C:Very blunt, very straightforward.
Speaker A:Yeah, I've heard Tom, I didn't hear him yesterday, but I've heard Tom Holman speak quite a bit over the last few years.
Speaker A:Yes, he is very blunt.
Speaker C:Very blunt.
Speaker C:And, and in a nutshell, we're going to fix this period.
Speaker C:It's going to happen.
Speaker C:So Tom Holman is going to be the border czar.
Speaker C:It looks like he's after Governor Christy Noem of South Dakota to be the director of Homeland Security, if you'll remember.
Speaker A:All dogs are shaking in Their.
Speaker A:Oh, if you'll remember, all bad dogs.
Speaker C:If you remember, if we go back a couple of years, I was saying that I thought she was going to be on the short list for vp.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And she was I think for a time.
Speaker C:And then some things happened and that.
Speaker A:Public perception of that stupid dog, her book.
Speaker C:Oh, that, yeah, that shifted.
Speaker C:Well now, now Director of Homeland Security.
Speaker C:I really like Christy Noah.
Speaker C:I think as a governor, I think she's very smart.
Speaker C:I think she's very capable.
Speaker C:We'll see how she does the federal level.
Speaker C:But I think she's, I think she's a good pick for a position now Homeland Security.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:Is she the right pick for that?
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:We also know that as of this morning, as of the recording of this, we're recording this episode on the 12th of November, I saw this morning, Republicans are going to maintain control of the House.
Speaker A:Officially.
Speaker A:Officially, they got the 218 votes.
Speaker C:So we got the House, we got the Senate, we got the White House.
Speaker A:Don't screw it up.
Speaker C:This, this is yet another historic opportunity.
Speaker C:Republicans, can you please try to keep your head out of your backside and get things done and done right, please, Please.
Speaker A:Well, I, I think Lee Zeldin has been tasked to be the, the director of the epa and I've seen him interviewed several years over last few years.
Speaker A:He's a real, he's a, he seems like a very level headed, intelligent person.
Speaker A:So I think that'll be.
Speaker A:And you definitely need some level hell and intel intelligence in that agency there for sure.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, so he, we'll see how his cabinet fills out.
Speaker A:I expect that Vivek Ramaswamy will be in the cabinet.
Speaker C:I do too.
Speaker A:I suspect that Tulsi Gabbard will be in the cabinet.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker A:I suspect that Robert Kennedy will be in the cabinet.
Speaker A:So we'll see.
Speaker C:Well, it didn't as in he or maybe Trump hasn't.
Speaker C:But maybe somebody affiliated with Trump has talked about RFK Jr being Secretary of.
Speaker A:Health or something or maybe whether he's gonna be a secretary or some advisor or some advisor type thing.
Speaker A:Yeah, because like Elon Musk for instance.
Speaker A:I think Elon Musk will be part of the Cabinet.
Speaker A:He won't be a secretary, but I think Elon Musk will be involved in, in the Trump administration.
Speaker A:Advisory, advisory role.
Speaker C:Which I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker C:I do not have a problem.
Speaker A:The guy who's probably the smartest guy on the planet right now or at least the best, best inventive Guy.
Speaker A:And by the way, he checks a box.
Speaker A:He's African American.
Speaker C:He is.
Speaker C:He is.
Speaker A:Nobody ever talks about him being African American, but he is.
Speaker C:He is.
Speaker A:He's an African American.
Speaker C:Technically.
Speaker C:He's from South Africa.
Speaker D:He's as African American as any other.
Speaker A:He's as African American.
Speaker A:He's more African American.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Because he actually.
Speaker A:Than anybody who's born in America.
Speaker C:Yeah, true, but.
Speaker C:And he's got a really cool story.
Speaker C:If you go back and look at his origins, how he started.
Speaker C:There was a computer.
Speaker C:It was a computer tech thing that he started.
Speaker D:Oh, well, PayPal.
Speaker D:He was behind PayPal.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:But before some video games stuff, mid-90s.
Speaker C:Stuff, Microsoft tried to take over what he was doing and he fought him off.
Speaker C:And really cool story.
Speaker C:But I do not have a problem with an elected official.
Speaker C:I don't care if it's a governor, a mayor, the president.
Speaker C:I don't care who it is, a congressman.
Speaker C:I do not have a problem with these elected officials going out and seeking the advice the council of people smarter than they are, people that know more than they do.
Speaker C:I have no problem with.
Speaker C:I don't expect my elected official to just because he's an elected official have all the answers.
Speaker C:He just suddenly blessed.
Speaker A:Anybody who's the boss knows that you don't, you don't have to be the best at everything in your business.
Speaker C:And you generally know you surround yourself with smart people.
Speaker D:The hydrogen bomb and all the stuff back during World War II and all the.
Speaker D:They had all those engineers working out there.
Speaker D:I mean.
Speaker D:Yeah, they can't clearly.
Speaker D:I mean, that's, that's an example.
Speaker D:And so why not do it in many other areas, especially these days with technology.
Speaker D:Technology.
Speaker C:Surround yourself with the best people you can find.
Speaker A:Well, this is, this great decision made me crazy when they were talking about the.
Speaker A:When people were saying, I'm not going to take that Trump vaccine.
Speaker A:Like Trump is in the lab with a lab coat on.
Speaker A:Or, or Ivermectin's the devil's poison, because Donald Trump said it.
Speaker A:Donald Trump had probably never heard of ivermectin before he heard some doctors say, hey, ivermectin, maybe it's.
Speaker A:It does these and this other sort of thing.
Speaker A:It may help help against the coronavirus.
Speaker A:And all of a sudden he mentions it and now Ivermectin is like said the devil's sperm or something like that.
Speaker A:And it's in, in the, in the media, and it's like, y'all, none of y'all knew what Ivermectin was.
Speaker A:But it's not like Donald Trump came up with that idea his own or.
Speaker A:Donald Trump invented this vaccine.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Come on.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker A:Use your brain.
Speaker D:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker C:But I.
Speaker C:But I do not have a problem.
Speaker C:Surround yourself, Mr.
Speaker C:Trump, with the best people you can find, with people smarter than you, with people that are involved in things that you are not directly and have not been directly involved in.
Speaker C:We need this country to be as successful.
Speaker C:This whole thing, maga, make America great again, it's not just a slogan.
Speaker C:It needs to be the goal.
Speaker C:We need to be.
Speaker C:You do not want anyone else at the top of the tree.
Speaker C:You just don't.
Speaker C:America is the only country, as far as I'm concerned, the only country in the world that is as uniquely poised as we are to be at the top of the tree.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Period.
Speaker C:Well, you don't want anyone else.
Speaker A:It's because our freedoms, our values, shared values and all that sort of thing.
Speaker A:There's a lot of reasons why a strong, prosperous America is good for the rest of the world.
Speaker A:You know, you hear the whole.
Speaker A:Everybody, the whole thing about all a good.
Speaker A:All tides raise boats or what's the saying?
Speaker A:A high tide raises all boats.
Speaker C:Raises all ships.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:So, I mean, you definitely want us at the top of the tree.
Speaker C:That means we've got to be the best at everything we do to the greatest extent that we can, and we've got to do as much as we can.
Speaker C:I'm looking forward and we're starting to see it.
Speaker C:I've noticed a few minor things.
Speaker C:We're starting to see more manufacturing coming back to our country.
Speaker C:We're starting to see some things being pulled back from China, being pulled back from Mexico, being pulled back from India, being pulled back into the United States.
Speaker C:Now I do think we are going to lean more heavily on Mexico and India for some things than we will China.
Speaker C:I think the realization that with China, that you're dealing with not just a communist country, but a communist country with bad intentions for us.
Speaker C:When you look at some of the things, some of the data breaches that they have been involved in that have been linked back to China, when you look at some of the other things.
Speaker C:Well, I mean, if you want, and I don't consider this minor, but trademark violations.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:IP stealing ip, it's mind boggling what they will sign off on, what they're okay with letting happen.
Speaker C:And you don't have a lot of legal recourse against them.
Speaker C:Almost none, in fact.
Speaker D:The only thing you can stop Is like we see in our store people coming in with counterfeit AirPods a lot.
Speaker D:And those have the Apple logo.
Speaker D:I mean, on the outside, just looking for the average person.
Speaker D:But then once we get it in, we can tell build quality and other things.
Speaker D:But.
Speaker D:But that is an example of this stuff.
Speaker A:You pull it out of the thing and the little thingy goes down.
Speaker D:Yeah, right.
Speaker D:Or that just the weight of it.
Speaker D:The.
Speaker D:There's just.
Speaker A:And if you look real close, there's a little C in front of it.
Speaker A:Says Crapple.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:No, they don't know they're Boulder.
Speaker D:That just says.
Speaker D:I mean, it.
Speaker D:It literally.
Speaker B:They violated.
Speaker A:Years ago, there was somebody knocking off Rolex as this company and they.
Speaker A:It said R O L and a tiny little L, E, X.
Speaker A:It was a Rolex.
Speaker A:It looked like it and all that.
Speaker A:And yet they look real tiny because that is R O, L.
Speaker A:Same.
Speaker A:Same thing.
Speaker A:But they put a little bit of yell between the set first L& the.
Speaker C:You know, there was a time when the height of counterfeiting anything was American currency and Rolex watches.
Speaker C:And now it's air.
Speaker A:Famously, the guy in New York City on Times Square who had the trench coat open and had the watches hanging there.
Speaker C:Yeah, the 995 Rolex.
Speaker D:And Apple is one of the one company's products that are.
Speaker D:Obviously, we see it a lot, but there's.
Speaker D:There's probably a ton of others, but especially Apple, because they can get those into the country and then they're selling them through, you know, these people that.
Speaker D:Oh, they think they're buying some good.
Speaker D:Some of these dealers, these guys are people selling them on ebay or.
Speaker D:Well, they're not really probably selling on ebay.
Speaker D:They're selling on Marketplace.
Speaker D:And when somebody contacts them, they don't.
Speaker D:Sometimes the person selling them thinks they're real.
Speaker A:Well, generally.
Speaker A:Look, here's the thing.
Speaker A:Here's about everything.
Speaker A:Generally, you get what you pay for.
Speaker C:Sure do.
Speaker A:If it's too good a deal to.
Speaker A:It's usually too good a deal is too good a deal.
Speaker D:That's right.
Speaker C:If it looks like it's too good to be true, it probably is.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Probably is.
Speaker C:Guys, we'll wrap it up here.
Speaker C:Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker C:We appreciate you being here with us.
Speaker C:We appreciate Russell Schreiber for being with us today, the public works director for the city of Wichita Falls.
Speaker C:And we thank you for joining us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
Speaker C:However you get the show, be sure to visit our website.
Speaker C:It's getitrighttechsoma.com.
Speaker C:also find us on Facebook.
Speaker C:Be sure to like our page, share this on your social media pages.
Speaker C:And also check us out Eddie Hill's Fun Cycles at 401.
Speaker A:Just check us out in general.
Speaker C:Oh yeah, well, you know, take your shirt off or what.
Speaker C:401 North Scott, downtown Wichita.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was gonna say break the Internet.
Speaker C: MacTech Solutions is located: Speaker C:MacTech-solutions.com the website and also Lollipop Sweet Shop, your online bakery, Lolly and Pops.
Speaker C:Sweet Shop L O L L I E Lolly and Pops on Facebook and get us online@lpsuite.com thank you very much for being with us.
Speaker C:Take care.
Speaker C:Until next time.
Speaker C:We will see you down the road.
Speaker A:Folks.
