6.5.2025 -- NLS -- Moose, Musk, and Haake on D91 Upheaval

On this episode of the Neal Larson Show, Julie is joined by guest co-host Paul Haake for a wide-ranging and engaging conversation that blends local updates, national politics, and some personal anecdotes. Julie kicks things off with a quintessential Idaho moment—spotting six moose during a rainy morning drive—and reflects on Alaska’s wild beauty.

The duo dives into a number of pressing issues: the ongoing Pocatello police shooting investigation and the transparency concerns raised by newly released public records; Senator Crapo’s perspective on the current federal spending bill and how it diverges from Elon Musk’s take; and reflections on the philosophical disconnect between government and private sector priorities.

Paul Haake, who also serves as a District 91 school board trustee, shares important updates on the challenges facing Idaho Falls High School and the school district’s plan to propose a new bond focused on replacing the aging facility. He highlights the declining enrollment trends, boundary realignments, and the tension between community needs and limited funding tools.

Internationally, Julie and Paul weigh in on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S.-China economic dynamic, and the broader global consequences of geopolitical power struggles. There’s also talk of Paul's recent travel to Asia and the unexpected encouragement he’s received to run for public office.

From school bonds to moose sightings to global diplomacy, this episode delivers a thoughtful mix of heart, humor, and hard questions.

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You could try clicking around, reading books, or taking online courses to figure it out—or you can let us handle it. At Sandhill Media Group, we’re your local experts in both radio and digital marketing.

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Transcript

You want to show us how to the station like people and any new drama. Good, good.

All right. I've been teasing all week that you guys are going to get used to that shortened opening. This is Julie Mason up Neil Larson's show. Remember, it's just the clocks. You'll get your full opening back next week. Exciting times though, here on The Neil Larson Show because Neil Larson is joining us from the road. He's still in Alaska on his way to Canada.

Hello, Neil. How are you? Good. Julie. How are you doing? Like I, I feel like we've been apart for so long. And it's good to see your face and hear your voice. And talk to our audience this morning. But things are going great. We're two hours earlier here. I got up at the well, the crack of dawn.

There's a more craft way of saying it, but the crack of dawn and about 3:00 this morning, local time. And I've been in the car for the past 2.5 hours, so I'm. This is a good time to stop. And I had service right here and I thought, let's, let's do a segment. Well, you just mentioned that we can see each other and they're probably listening on the radio going, how are they seeing each other?

Neil is joining me via Facebook Messenger video. So, we have discovered through the years that this is one of the highest qualities of audio that we can provide for the listeners. So that's how we're doing it today. Yeah. We are. So, Julie, my drive from Palmer, that's where I stayed for the last three nights. So here it's a little town, kind of a junction with a gas station and a few other things called Glen Allen.

And it's rainy here, but on my way, I saw, I think I counted six moose on my drive here and just the two hours this morning. Yes, I mean that that whole thing, you know, you I, I've never been to Alaska before, so I've relied on Hollywood and TV shows and kind of the whole Alaska lore to to.

But it's all true. Like you come here, the scenery is gorgeous, the wildlife is amazing, and it is abundant and they are what I've noticed, though they are a little skittish and so as you're driving along, I slowed down because I wanted to maybe stop and take a picture. They would they would run off into the trees. They're also skittish.

Like they don't like it when you try to get on them and ride them like they they just resist that a lot. And I'm no longer welcome at the zoo in Anchorage now because of it. So. But we'll it'll be a long time. I imagine you leaving that kind of a reputation behind as you exit Alaska. I know, shocker.

So you're not the only one seeing wildlife? Because I saw I left my house this morning at 545. The baby bunny that lives in my yard, scampered off as well, a little skittish, so yours was a little bit bigger. But I've got my wildlife in Idaho Falls as well. Yes, just a little bit. Yeah. No, that's that's good.

I some of the other wildlife and maybe we talked about this Julian in one of our earlier hits this week, but on the way here up through we came up through Lake Cod St in Alberta. And then we sort of just go our way over to the northeast part came out of Calgary and then into British Columbia and then into Yukon and then into, into into Alaska.

The bears seem more abundant in British Columbia. Just paying attention. I think we counted a dozen black bears, and we might have just stopped at a dozen, and it seemed like every few miles boom! There was another black bear 20ft off the side of the road. And then we got to a place called destruction. Bay Area's big old grizzly bear is just standing on the side of the road eating grass.

Didn't have a he could not have cared less that we were parked there looking at him, obviously safely from inside our vehicles. He was just, you know, foraging for some food and didn't seem to be fazed by us at all. But I just thought, this is pretty spectacular. I always go to Yellowstone National Park hoping to see a grizzly bear, and for me, it's about one out of every six trips to Yellowstone that I'll that I'll see a grizzly bear.

So I had the same hope on this trip. I was crossing my fingers that at some point in time, as we got up into northern Canada and and into Alaska, I'd see a grizzly bear. And, I lucked out. We saw one on the on the way there, and maybe I'll see another one as I travel home solo over the next three days.

I hope so for you. I'll. So. So you'll be coming on down through Washington then? That's going to be where you reentered the lower 48. Yeah, that that is the plan. There's a lot of fires in northern Alberta and parts of British Columbia. And that we saw a pretty big one. I sent you a picture of that and that has ended up since then closing the road.

So I am rerouting my my path home. And it it will add probably 3 to 6 hours on my trip coming home. But I get to hug the the mountain range on that eastern western side. Excuse me, the western side of British Columbia. And, it's if you've ever been to Banff or if you've ever been to Jasper National Park, it truly is breathtaking.

Like you and and I think from what people tell me and from what I can see, it is just more of that. And I believe my route home will actually take me back through Jasper and Banff National Park. So I'm I'm really looking forward to that. I've got a loaded playlist. I've stocked up on music and because there are long stretches and in fact, today I'll have service in and out.

But I'm in a big black hole tomorrow down highway 37 and there there may be hours and hours of time that I don't have any access to any data. So I'll be listening, of course, to Julie's True Crime podcast, but also, listening to audio audiobook. It's an 80s rock and, you know, a whole bunch of I just I dropped a new episode this morning just for you, Neil Larson ultra.

I mean, I knew that, I knew that, so I thought, okay, I'll add that to the list. Have you been following the news at all? Do you know what's been going on, or have you really, really stepped back and taken a break? I for the most part, I've stepped back. I have popped in and looked at the headlines a little bit here and there.

I see that there has been a pretty concerning escalation in the Russia Ukraine war, which is very concerning. And, you know, these are the moments, I think, where we're kind of past the honeymoon period with President Trump. And this will, this will test his his mettle, this it may be one of his first big challenges here to to try to move forward and de-escalate.

I've also noticed that, well, the the love affair between Elon Musk and Donald Trump seems to be dissipating. And I thought it would last longer than Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. But I was wrong about that. So you're wrong with that. He had a slew of exes that went out yesterday saying to just blow up the big news or yeah, the big beautiful Bill.

He doesn't love that. It, is creating more deficit. Now the white House is pushing back on that narrative. They're saying that they have underestimated the amount of savings that will come from it. So the figures that are being put out there on the mainstream media are just incorrect. In my interview with Senator Crapo yesterday, which I know you weren't able to listen to, he is not near as worried as what the mainstream media or as Elon Musk is pushing.

He reiterated that the Senate was very actively involved in the creation of the House side of this bill, and even though there needs to be some changes on the Senate side, because you've got like Rand Paul and Ron Johnson who don't want it, he said he really feels like they can get there and get to the finish line with it.

There is still some nervousness, but he didn't seem near as, like dun dun dun as the mainstream media is playing it out. Well, and, and I also think that Elon Musk and Senator Crapo and a lot of, people in Washington, they kind of approach it differently because you have Elon Musk, who has built company after company after company, and you have to make a profit.

You have to do better than just balancing the books. And I think if you're a Washington, and I don't say this in a negative way, it sounds negative, but if you're a Washington insider and a politician, you look at it like, okay, what what is our debt in relationship to the GDP? If the economy is improving under Donald Trump, it's much easier to absorb the the added debt that would come along.

That's not me making a case for it. That's me saying this is how politicians in Washington view it, that if if our economy is good, we can handle this credit card payment, we can handle this car payment. We can handle that. Elon Musk is saying you shouldn't have these payments. They're not necessary and you need to reduce waste.

So I think it's it's just kind of a Washington not able to escape. That view of debts and deficits are just part of life and we're never going to escape it. We just received a text from somebody that is posing the question, Couldn't Elon Musk be playing cards to protect Tesla? Now, I mentioned this yesterday. Elon Musk is frustrated about the EV tax credit being removed.

And so yeah, sure he can do that. And he has a platform to do it. I you know Elon Musk put something on X and it gets talked about. So sure he could be doing that. I think there's a little bit there too that Elon Musk is used to running companies like Neil just mentioned. And when he says something it goes.

And that's not the way Washington works. Yeah, that that's true. And I actually think now that you mention it, I think Trump is the same way too. We saw some of that in his first term there. He used to being the boss. There is no three branches of government. There's no ten different steps. They say it and it happens.

And that's the that's the light and not the luxury. But that's one of the benefits when you're the the CEO or the president of a company, you say it and it happens and it just it just doesn't happen the same way in Washington. And I do think that's been frustrating for people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. There is absolutely a learning curve there to bounce back to what you said you had, you had been following in the news cycle.

On Monday, we talked to Bill from Wealth of Health about this attack from Ukraine into Russia. You like if you haven't done a deep dive into that, Neil, when you get back, you need to because it took them more, more than a year to orchestrate this attack. It was all done within the borders of Russia. They didn't even bring anything across the border.

They had people inside Russia who formulated these. They looked like mobile housing units, almost like little cabins. The roofs of the cabins opened up and the drones flew out. And that's how how that attack became so effective. They just had no idea it was coming. That's like a James Bond movie or something like that is like a James Bond.

That's why I said you would. You need to watch videos of it because it was pretty amazing. Yeah, yeah, I will do that. Also, Julie, get me updated here. I know there was a public records request for the city of Pocatello from East Idaho News, and it showed that there was kind of some hesitation and confusion about the shooting and what happened and the course moving forward.

How how big a deal do you think this is? I believe that this is going to continue to simmer. I think if the the politicians, those city council members, Mayor Blad, the police chief, if any of them think that this is going away, if they give it enough time. I don't believe that's the situation here. I think that all this did was highlight, unfortunately for the city of Pocatello, the what some of us considered bizarre and maybe to delay response by both the police chief and the mayor in the wake of the shooting.

I think that we live in an age whether it's justified or not. I'm not saying that. I mean, I'm sure their stance is you can wait until we have our ducks in a row. That is not the reality of social media and the new era that we live in. You can't wait three days. And so and and even if and you and I talked about this, even if the very initial time that you come out as the mayor, it's only 30 to 45 seconds.

You just express, I am thinking about you. We're investigating this. I am interested in what you have to say. I will be with you. Give us a little bit of time. We're making sure everything is taken care of. Even if that had been done early on, I'm not sure there would have been as much frustration in Pocatello. And this public records request showed that some of the city council members, specifically one, was very frustrated going, I'm watching all of this, you know, explode on Reddit and social media.

And we're not saying anything. Don't you think we should be doing something? And and when he sent that official email, he didn't even get a response from Mayor Blad or from the police chief. Yeah. That that's that's harsh. And that that's a rough situation. And I'm sure we'll we'll be learning more also, it's taking them quite a while to, to do this.

How far into this investigation are they, this, this interagency investigation that they do? A little more. Geez. What is it? About six weeks? I would have to look back at the dates, but we're about that far. When I was covering this, this records request, I mentioned that a few weeks back. It was several weeks ago.

Probably two weeks ago. I chatted with a member of law enforcement, and I asked something similar to what you just asked. I said, is there any chance this is being slow rolled? Any chance that there will take a what might be unnecessary amount of time, just in hopes that the emotions will come down in this situation? And this member of law enforcement said, I don't think so.

And they said, yeah, I think that it's going to take some time. And I think that no matter what, whether it's next week or in four weeks, they released their findings, it is going to just automatically reignite what's been going on in Pocatello. Okay. All right. And I yeah I mean, I knew it had been several weeks. I was just wondering the progress of this, you know, are we are we getting close to the end.

But it sounds like maybe it is going to be a little bit longer before we get we get that, and, and yeah, I know it's hard because I think we're all skeptical. I think we all kind of lack trust of anything that comes out of government at any, any level. And so it's easy in a situation like this where it does take time to really have a cynical viewpoint on on this and to say this happened, there's plenty of video here to see exactly what happened.

You know, who exactly did it see? You know who to interview. Why does it take so long to review video and interview people and and come up with a conclusion? I think a lot of people would look at that, and there may be very compelling reasons and good answers to to all of those, those cynical questions. Well, I'll give you one right off the top.

I'm sure there's more than one, but one right off the top, which was discovered in the open records request, is that the lawsuit, what was filed by Victor Perez's family fairly quickly, and that delayed some of what was done, because you now have legal matters at play, and that changes the language that the city and the mayor and those respond were going to use.

And that might not feel warm and fuzzy to us, but it's the reality. It's the reality of the litigation process. And so you you can be emotional about this. I'm not going to tell anybody they can't have feelings about this. I just asked them to measure their feelings, knowing that, yes, there's a litigation matter that's at play here and that is going to take more time because of that.

Well, the legal system has never been accused of moving fast. That's true. No. Absolutely not. Anything else you've been following that you wanted to catch up on any other news? No. I'm trying to think I was going to tell you this one because I. I think that you and I will probably talk about it a lot more when you come back.

It will still be ever present. It has been released while you were gone, that all of the talks between the University of Phoenix and the University of Idaho, they're just done. They have pulled the plug on the whole thing. Okay, that that's a plug that's needed to be pulled for a long time, in my opinion. It's a it's about time.

And, and I think probably everybody's kind of happy that that one, what a what a mess. What a well, a cluster, for lack of a better word, that really the whole thing from start to finish has been a complete mess. And how much money and effort and resource was put into that? Only in the end to have it just be, you know, end up without anything.

Well, I'll, I'll answer part of that for you. It was a two year courtship. Yeah. Two years of working on this. That is a lot of time and effort and money that was put into it, into a proposed $685 million purchase. That's nuts. And it was all of that two year courtship was plagued by missteps by both parties that made everybody in Idaho go, what you're trying to hide from us?

Yeah. No, I you're right. The whole thing felt shady. And that's not an accusation. I'm just telling. I'm just saying what I think a lot of people felt like. Why wasn't it more transparent? And why was it so important that you keep trying to make this thing happen, even when there were lots and lots of problems with it?

I, you know, like, I don't know if there's any going to be any further investigation of what went down with that, but there were just lots of things that just felt like it was mishandled. I always believe that that bureaucrats and politicians should be as transparent as possible. And I think a lot of times the philosophy is different.

Be just reach that minimum bar of transparency to be legal. And and that's a, that's a wide that's a wide gap between those two points. But I but when you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars at stake, I think they need to work really hard to on the side of transparency. Let me read just one paragraph to you from the Idaho Idaho Ed News article about this.

It says the State Board of Education is going to meet Thursday. That's today to consider a termination agreement that would officially break off the talks and cover the U. Of I's due diligence costs. So I think that's going to make all of us feel a little bit better. That may be there is going to be some recovery of the costs here.

It says Thursday's meeting figures to be a formality. The state board has set a June 10th deadline for Phoenix and Uvi to come to an agreement, and it has long been apparent that the deadline will come and go without a deal. Okay. All right. Well, that's that, and thus ends the saga. Yeah. Dustin just grading. Yeah. It's okay.

Yeah, I knew that that would make you pretty happy that there was going to be an end to all of that. Yeah, I, I kind of got tired of the whole thing about a year ago. So it's like a movie, you know, two thirds of the way through, you're like, this is boring, but I'm we got to see it to the end.

So, you know, and one more thing before I let you go, because, you know, my true crime heart, it's got to talk to you about this. And it's part of my podcast today. Unfortunately, a very tragic situation out of Wenatchee. Wenatchee, Washington, or Wenatchee, Washington. There was a father, Travis Decker. He, was taking his kids for a day visit.

He's a homeless man, very highly trained, military, ex-military. And, he took his three daughters to a campground and asphyxiated all three of them. Since then, he has he has been on the run. There was an update, out of McCall yesterday that he might have been spotted there. No matter what, you're going to be driving through his his area.

You're okay. Well, in some of this area. So you might want to look up the Travis Decker story. But he's very trained. I'm not going to imagine he's going to be out and about hanging out at a maverick. But, you know, it it is a situation where people need to be looking for him, especially in the areas that you are going to be driving through.

I, I did see that story, and I saw kind of a graphic that showed him and sadly, the three little girls that that died. What a what a horrible story. But yeah, I will keep an eye out. So Julie, tomorrow I have no idea if I have service tomorrow. If I do, I'll let you know. But it's it's kind of uncertain.

Where it's available. I know, I'm like I said, I'm headed into a big black hole. So if I don't talk to you in the audience, and then I'll probably talk to you before then, but, it may be Monday. My goal is to be back Sunday afternoon. Evening ish. So, the plan is to be back on the air on Monday morning.

Well, we're going to be glad that you're back, but I really hope that you don't rush it. Really enjoy the beauty of everything you're about to travel through. It's a once in a lifetime experience that you're having. So. And it really, you know, take a moment, stop. Smell the roses. Whatever cliche you want to use, make sure you live it up.

I will do that. Thank you. And by the way, thank you for filling in. Julie. I'm from what I'm seeing online here and there. You've done a bang up job, so thank you. I appreciate that we do miss you. So it will be good to have you back. All right. Thank. We need to get to a commercial break.

Coming up next, local news eight with your regional headlines. Yep. Here. So, are you listening to me in a listen? Is that how you're hearing me? Oh, gotcha. Okay, well, no, because I'm hearing you through the camera, so I would hear you no matter what you're doing on program, on channel one, on your mic. But if you turn my slider down and hit the floor, I should come over the the the speakers in the studio, which might give it a little feedback.

So turn it up slow. Hello, hello. But it's awful. It's a little button that turns yellow when you press it just down. Every slider has a button. So and we're back on Newstalk 1079I am Julie Mason filling in for Neil Larson, who is an Alaska headed home. And if he was here, he and I would be talking about the four step lawn program at Town and Country Gardens and how awesome it is.

Now, I can't tell you who I was talking to, but I because the person's like, I don't want you to share that I shared this story with you, but I was chatting with someone and they said, I finally got rid of my lawn service and did the four step lawn program because you and Neil recommended it, and this person said to me, it's the best decision I've ever made.

Their lawn is looking fantastic. They're spending far less money than they had before. And, they they're like, I'm really glad I made the switch. So you should be like this person as well. Get on down there. Get your four step lawn program. I should tell you, the person that I was talking to also had not applied step two yet.

And they were they were asking me about calendaring. I said, oh no, you're ready to step two. So you're in the same boat. If you don't have your four step lawn program, you can get on down there right now. Grab all four steps you can put on step one, wait a couple of days and put on step two and you are right back where you need to be.

Step three and four come later in the season and you will have a beautiful green lawn as well. Town and country gardens and good morning East Idaho. It is a Thursday here on the Neil Larson Show. It's Julie Mason filling in for Neil Larson all the way while he is on his way back from Alaska. It was great to hear from him last hour.

Also in studio with me for the 9:00 hour school board trustee member Paul Hartke. So excited to have him here. I want to remind everyone before we get going, because we have already received some texts of questions for school Board Trustee Paul Hickey. You can send those, on and to the Stones Automotive Group call and text line.

That number is (208) 542-1079. Let us know what questions you have for Paul. Good morning Paul. How are you. Oh good morning I'm well thank you. How are you doing? Great. It's good to have you here. So excited. You are very willing to accept my invitation. And I will tell you, not everybody is that willing. So it's kind of like when you get asked to speak in church, you do it, but you're like, I don't really want to do this.

No, I was actually over in Asia when you sent the text and it was like 3 or 4 in the morning, just happened to be awake from jet lag and scrolling through my phone, and it came through and I was I was excited. Well, good. I'm glad you're here. You mentioned Asia. Tell us all about that trip and what it was like.

You know, there was really two big takeaways from that trip. I took a trip in April, and this was right after all the tariffs were being announced. And it was the escalation of the tariffs, not what we have today, but where we're going from 20 to 40% to 80% to 125%. And I jumped in a taxi to go to the train station.

I just landed, in China and, the I, the taxi driver says hi, and I said hi. And then he said, Niihau, which is hello, and Chinese. And I said it back, I have a little bit of Chinese ability. And he's like, oh, you speak Chinese. They can just tell from the tones. There's five tones that exist in the Chinese language.

And so when you say the tones correctly, they can pick up that you have a base of Chinese and I said, yeah, I can speak a little bit. We're talking in Chinese now. And the first thing he says is your government, your government is killing us. And I thought, oh boy, I, I've been on been in China for just a few hours and I'm already getting attacked on, on tariffs.

But we had a great discussion and I said, you know, we just want to be fair. We just want to be fair. Are you aware that, you know, you've had a higher tariff on, on, U.S. goods than we've had on China goods and we're just trying to make it fair. And he wasn't aware of that, which didn't surprise me.

They were only aware of what their government tells them. And and so we had a great discussion. And in the end, he asked me to run for president of the United States when I was getting ready to get out of his taxi. And how cute. And I said, no, that's that's not how it works. And he's like, well, you need to get rid of the one you have.

And I said, no, I said, I voted for him. That's who I support and I understand what he's doing. I think in the long run, this will be really good for our country. And, and that was the end of our discussion. But, you know, there's really good people over in China. That's one of the things that I really enjoy about my job is I get to travel to different parts of the world and interact with people.

And I've just learned that there are really, really good people all over the world. On this last trip that I just got home from a week ago, I was down in Malaysia and I had a meeting with about 300 people, and 95% of them were Muslim. And I'm looking at these Muslim families, and they had a couple of them had young children with them babies.

A couple of them had children that were 1 or 2 years old. So they were running around and I'm watching them and they're happy and they're having fun. And I'm like, you know what? These people are no different than people at home. They're working hard. They're trying to make a living. They love family. They love their children. They're happy.

They just want to exist, just like you. And I want to exist. But yet we hear the word Muslim in the United States, and we think of terrorists, we think of suicide bombers. And we have this negative connotation with the word Muslim. And and yes, those people exist, and there's some bad people that exist and in every aspect of life.

But for the most part, these are just great, loving people who love family, who want to work hard, make a living and just enjoy life. I think it's sometimes hard for us to remember that right when you say, well, we're living in two different worlds, we really are living in two different worlds. And, I think it's a very natural response for the human psyche to want a good guy and a bad guy.

I think you're right. And when we're talking countries, that's not how it works. Leadership can be good guy, bad guy, absolutely. But people are people. And we've mentioned this with the Ukraine Russia war before, I, I personally feel we've got a couple of, of not so great guys fighting each other in leadership, but some very wonderful Ukrainian people who are suffering the onslaught of what two bad leaders are doing to each other.

Absolutely. They're they're truly the the victims of, of a war that is really being fought between two men. Yeah. I mentioned Ukraine. I want to get back to your Asia trip, but I mentioned Ukraine. I had bill from Wealth of Health, and I did. You got to listen to that. I'm sure that, you know, you have some feelings about this continued conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

You went over there, you spent time just like Bill did, just like. Well, did he, from Sand Hill Media, tell us how you feel about the extension of this, this conflict and are you hearing from any of the friends that you made that, that it's getting worse? It's getting better. There's a potential for a peace deal. Anything like that?

Yeah. You know, I, I listen to both of those interviews and I agreed a lot with what they said. It is unfortunate of what's taking place. You know, a lot there's memes out there that said, you know, when when Russia stops fighting, the war will be over. When Ukraine stops fighting, they lose their country. And I do think there's a lot of truth to that, some legitimacy.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And and the people are the ones that are stuck in the middle again, there are some amazing, great people over there who are who their government just happens to be incredibly corrupt. I didn't realize how corrupt Ukraine was and I knew that area was corrupt. But Ukraine is the and I learned this when I was over there.

They're that they're the capital of the world when it comes to, the sex trafficking that takes place, especially with young children. In fact, we were I was made aware of it when we would rescue these families. You have to remember when when we first went over, when we all went over and Bill, when the war had just started and everyone thought that Russia was going to take over Ukraine in a matter of weeks.

And so there were all these women and children who were fleeing, fleeing the country to Poland just to get out of the country, not knowing how fast Russia was going to take over. And it was those people that we were that we were helping. And now looking at it and those people are they're stuck. They're stuck without a country.

There was an article, last night on local news eight interviewing a couple that are in Pocatello who their their visas going to run out, the family that I helped their visa, runs out in September. They are they filed for extensions. They haven't heard anything from the government. Everything that I've read and seen in the news says they're not going to hear from the government that when when that, when that time period, that two year time period from the uniting for Ukraine program expires, that they're expected to return back to back to Europe, back to Ukraine, but most of them won't go into Ukraine.

But they'll have to they should have to leave America should be leaving America, because their visa will expire. And my my counsel to them was I, I suggested they do leave America because if you stay and then you get caught in ice, comes and takes you in and takes you out of the country, your chances of ever coming back into the US are almost nil.

Probably are nil. They'll never have an opportunity to come back into the US if they overstay their visa. So I've counseled them to to follow the, the rules and, and if they hope to come back, their best shot is to to follow the rules, leave the U.S and then try and come come back in another way. Look, Fox news runs a commercial at the time with Kristi Noem saying exactly this.

Leave if you if you are, are going to be breaking the law, if your visa expires or whatever, go and we'll welcome you back legally through the system. That's got to be pretty daunting for these people, though, who don't have a country to return to. Exactly. And it is bad over there. This family that I helped, they live in the West.

They live just north of Kyiv. There's an electrical, plant near their home. And as you know, Putin is trying to take out all the infrastructure in Ukraine. And so that plant gets hit quite often. And that got hit really hard, oh, 3 or 4 days ago. And, their daughters are back in Ukraine. And, and so they were really worried.

They showed me some video surveillance from their house where you can see explosions. So they were quite close to the home that their daughters are staying at. And it is it's scary, when you're living there and you have explosions that are taking place, you just care for your kids, you care for your family, and you don't know what's coming next.

Right? Okay, let's get back to Asia because I'm not seeing I will say this, on a news portion of what we've been talking about, Trump did hold in an longer than one hour conversation with Putin yesterday. So the talks are still happening. I think that, Trump thought it would be much easier than this. I think we can infer that from the phrases that he used prior to his election.

And I think he's grown weary of these two men. I think he thought there was some humanity in them somehow, and it's just not existing. So the cease fire talks are still happening, and I think the meme that you mentioned where if Ukraine bends, they lose a country. And, and I think that that is why we're not getting a lot of bending by Ukraine.

Understandably so. I would say that this can't be as comfortable for, Zelenskyy as it was under the I mean, he would show up here and get however much money you wanted from the Biden administration, and that is no longer happening for him. That spigot has been turned off, so this can't be as as comfortable for him as it had been in the previous time.

Yeah, I think you're right. And I agree with you. I think Trump, looking at the war in from the knowledge that he had, I think he thought what lacks here is leadership. And when I get in office, I'll be that leader. And I'll talk to both sides and this will come to a conclusion. And and it definitely hasn't been that easy.

That easy obviously. And I think he underestimated these two men and their egos and what they want. And and neither one of them are willing to budge. And I do think in the end, if Ukraine wants to win the war, they are going to have to give up territory. And, and that's the only way that they will be able to end the war.

And, it's just a matter of how much territory and what a lot of people don't realize is that the area that Russia has taken over was very pro Russia before the war. Mostly Russian in those territories in Ukraine, the government wasn't good to those provinces. There's there's been a lot of things that have taken place in the last ten, 15 years, that weren't good to those people.

So, so I if you go into the details, you can understand a little bit why why Putin wants that territory. And again, then there's the weak enough for him to take. Exactly. And there was a lot of pro-Russian people in those territories who wanted Russia to come in. They wanted a Russian government. They voted for a Russian government.

So if you understand the situation and dive into a deeper, you can understand both sides. I in no way I'm saying I agree with what Russia has done. I'm very much against it. But I also can understand the conflict there. But I do think for that to end, there's no question Ukraine is going to have to give up territory.

Right? Okay. Back to Asia. The trips that you have taken, you mentioned that you were only in the country a couple of hours and someone was already asking you to run for president. I just heard from a legislator, texted and is listening to the interview and said they would like you to run for a state legislative position, so, but put that on your resume.

Paul Harkey no, I'm I'm pretty content with where with where I'm at. I have a lot of respect for for those people. And I appreciate what they do to to serve our state. But I'm, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at in life. Was that as his taxi driver, this legislator be disappointed. But was that taxi driver that you were talking to in China?

Is that the only conversation you got into about America on tariffs? And or was this an overarching theme that you were that was, you know, in every conversation you were having? Yeah, it was in every conversation that with the taxi driver, it was by far the most aggressive. And it was friendly. I mean, we were both laughing and going back and forth, but it was definitely the most aggressive.

All my other conversations were just more serious, like, how are these tariffs going to impact us? The company that I work for does manufacturing in China as well as they also import a lot of finished goods made in the United States to sell to Chinese consumers. And so for my company, we get hit on both sides from product that we get out of China, as well as product that we put into China.

And so of course, people are wanting to know how it's going to impact them. Are we doing price increases? The economy in China is is not great. It's been down for, for a while. And so people are concerned, they're seeing prices increase just like we have seen in the US or hear about taking place. And so they're they're concerned right.

And warranted. And again, when it's not the people, it's the government and their their willingness to harm their people and for the for the buck for the money is, is really what they're doing. Do you see a potential for some friendly relations to you? Were you getting the idea over there that that this is going to work?

Yeah, I think it will. Look, both both countries need each other. China without the United States would never have the economy and never be able to achieve the things that they want to do. And the United States, we we need China. And and I appreciate what President Trump is trying to do because he recognizes how much we rely on China today.

And he's trying to make us more self-sufficient, which I completely agree with. But but today we rely a lot on China. And so it, there is a partnership and I think again, put egos aside and just do what's best for the people that you represent. And and they'll come to a conclusion. There's, there's of course, a lot of mudslinging that takes place at the lower levels because they have to position for themselves.

But in the end something will get worked out. Confident of it. You mentioned, you know, put the egos aside. And I think those who disagree with, you know, the views that are shared on this program would say, well, the biggest ego is Trump. And I'm like, yeah, probably. But here's the difference between Trump and some of these other world leaders.

Trump is doing it for the people. He he imposed the steel tariffs yesterday with the push to get steel manufactured in America again. So a little bit of pain to have a big payoff in a while. This is not what what the leaders in these other countries are doing. The pain that they're takes on their people is to just enrich their own personal lives and those that surround them.

It's not to make a better country later on down the road. Right. And it's a negotiation, right. And so, you know, he has his book was Trump's book that well, I know he has the art of the deal of the deal. But as a business person, I see exactly what he's trying to do. If you want that tariff to end at 20% or 25%, if that's your goal, you don't start at 20 or 25%.

You you know, it's a negotiation. You want to land there. So you're negotiating. So you start at 40%. But our media takes that and they I just I laugh when I watch Trump how he uses the media to his advantage to get his message out there because he wants the other countries to know that he is willing and it's not.

He doesn't draw a red line, and then people go over it and then have no consequence. He he draws the line and if people go over, he says a 40 is not good enough. If you want to do it, it's not fair. And so we'll increase it to 80. And he's willing to do that. And it's all part of the negotiation.

And in the end it's going to be a great deal for us as Americans. We just have to be patient with the process and trust the process. He's also very willing to to negotiate, not be an all or nothing guy. Correct? I mean, we're struggling with the big beautiful Bill right now with Ron Johnson and Rand Paul because it's an all or nothing deal that they're proposing.

And that's just not politics. That's not how it works. I also believe that's why Elon Musk is struggling right now. He wanted an all or nothing deal, and it's just not going to happen that way. It's very rare that legislation is all or nothing. It's very rare that I mean, how often in the Supreme Court do we have a nine year old?

Right. Determination. There has to be a give somewhere. And man, that's just tough for people who really want to control everything to give up. Exactly. And that's that's life today also. Right? I mean, rarely in life today is it an all or nothing. You're always having to give in somewhere. You're having to compromise somewhere. So both sides walk away and benefit from it.

And both sides are happy. Are you 100% happy? No, I didn't get everything that I wanted. I had to give up a few of these things. But look, it's a win situation for us. It's a win situation for them. Both parties are happy. Let's move forward. Yeah, talk about marriage. Sometimes you eat at the restaurant, you don't want to eat out, right, Paul?

Oh, absolutely. That kind of stuff just happens. All right. We need to take a commercial break. Like I said, please go ahead and send it. We've got several messages already, but please send in your questions for Paul to (208) 542-1079. And we'll be back with school board trustee Paul Harkey after the commercial break. And we're back on the Neil Larsen Show at Newstalk 1079.

I'm Julie Mason. Neil is on his way back. He's hoping to be back on air with me on Monday, but I have a great guest in studio with me for this hour, school board trustee Paul Harkey. And, I told him in the commercial break, let's just dive into this whole school mess that we've got going on. First off, somebody sending a text and said, which district is Paul from?

He serves for district 91. Long time, 91, like member. Yeah. Didn't you all of your kids went through 91, right? Yeah. All of my kids have been educated through district 91. We've been in 91 for about 20 years now. Yeah. So know the district? Well, give them an update. I, we had the massive bond that failed.

Correct. Then we had some hiccups with getting a an elementary school built. And did we get the levy to, to, remind me because I was actually approved by the voters. Okay. Then the state tax commission came back and said, you can't use a levy to to construct a new facility. It has to be through a bond. We challenged that we we lost.

And so that stopped the progress of that elementary school. It would have been on 65th South, on the south end of town, where we're seeing a lot of construction, a lot of growth, a lot of apartment buildings, a lot of apartment buildings. Rockwell homes has, I don't know how many hundreds of homes. There's 3 or 400 homes that they're developing and building in that right in that area.

But it failed. And so we haven't brought it back to the voters. But at the same time, we are seeing a decline, which surprises me because, yes, you look at the construction, you you're like, Holy cow, we have to be exploring, built in. But really we're seeing a declining enrollment we have for the last couple of years.

We're projecting a decline again for this coming school season. And I'll pause you right there. That trends the birthrates in America are plummeting. And so what we would have thought maybe a decade ago or two decades ago about what the average family size was going to be, that's just not accurate anymore. So maybe it's a little bit of that.

It is a little it definitely is part of that trend because and we are looking at the, you know, who's moving into these apartments, into these new homes and it's yeah, it's people with no kids or maybe one child, but that's, that's it. And so enrollments declining. So that need today for that elementary school is, is no longer there.

We're actually looking at doing some boundary realignments next year that will because we do have some schools that are definitely at their capacity stretched. And some schools that are on the north end of town that could use some additional students. And so we are looking at boundary realignments for not this coming school year, but the the following. They're doing the studies now.

The district is to see what those boundary alignments would look like. Of course, that would go to the public and get public feedback before a final decision was made. And we're a good eight, ten months away from from even starting that process with the public. But through, through boundary realignment, we can take care of the, the elementary schools.

Our middle schools seem to be doing okay. The, the big issue that we still have that I feel we still have is just Idaho Falls High School. Something needs to be done with that school there. Still, even with the declining enrollment, it's not declined enough to, impact Idaho Falls High School to where I personally believe that it's it's a little bit dangerous for those kids to be in that school if something were to happen.

We have a lot of issues. Maintenance issues with that school. That was really it was in the news a year ago about the ceiling. It was a false ceiling. It wasn't the actual ceiling, but that had collapsed. And needed repair. And just the number of kids when you're in the hallway. I took you in the other day.

I did a journey with you. It is. It is shoulder to shoulder. Yep. And so if you just think, put panic on top of that when people are trying to get out of the building, it's a concern that it's a good building. Structurally, it's probably the. Yeah. And we're back on Newstalk 179. My big apologies for the abrupt end of the last segment.

Paul Hackett can attest, I touched nothing. I actually think it was the skyline side of the district who was upset with me saying that I really support something to take place for Idaho Falls High School, and so they cut us off. Yeah, maybe that's what it was. A little behind the scenes. We had a massive update to all of the computers yesterday.

So when I showed up this morning, things look different. They've been behaving differently. So if that's our biggest hiccup today, we'll take it. Before we get talking more about the the school and the bonds and everything and how district 91 is going to approach this from here on out, and also I wanted to talk about property tax.

I need to remind everyone about GP Prime meets.com. That's Granite Peaks Prime meets. Have you tried them I have we got a prime rib for Christmas and oh my gosh it's the new tradition. We absolutely loved it So I've gotten a few things from them. Yeah I went, I can't remember which holiday it was, but I walked in and there was like five people in line and I'm like, oh, the endorsements are working.

And which was fine because it's like a big it's like going to party hour there. Everyone talks to everybody. So it was no big deal. Yeah. And then I realized everyone was picking up their prime rib for the holiday. And I said, I got to do that. I got to try that the next time around. So you recommend it?

Absolutely. Great. We've had several of their things good. So GP Prime meats.com go there. You can see all of their packages also give them a call if you have any questions. They will absolutely help you. Delivery is free in the Idaho Falls area. And if you live out of Idaho Falls it's just a small surcharge so it couldn't be easier.

Again that's GP Prime meats.com. All right Paul I can't believe I haven't even said that's not the point Paul yet. But I should have worn that t shirt that someone sent me. It will live on in infamy. It's kind of like the what she said. Yeah. You know that choke we can pull out the. That's not the point, Paul.

I just about every, you know, conversation that can be brought in. So what does I what does district 91 do at this point. Do you come back with just a bond for Idaho Falls High School only. What's your thought process? You know, that's what I would like to do. It's something that we're going to start talking about this fall.

And then put on if, if it's something we want to move forward with, it would go on the ballot next year in 26. But for me personally, we've tried and, and before I joined the board and then since I've been on the board, everything that we've done has been for both schools, for skyline, because it has issues that needs to be addressed.

You know, plumbing, the plumbing is horrible at skyline. There's been several times that happens a couple times a year where the plumbing will flow back into up through the floor drains, and we'll have to stop using the restroom and bring people in to clean it up and so forth. And so there's definitely issues at Skyline High School.

But really need to address what's taking place in Idaho Falls. So all the bonds that we've run have has been something for both schools, which is why one of the reasons they're so expensive is because we're trying to address issues at both schools to get support from the entire district. I think this next bond to try and bring the cost down will be just specific to Idaho Falls High School.

At least that's what I would recommend. And when we start having those discussions to just run a bond that would create a new high school for Idaho Falls High School students, a new facility, safe, large for growth, larger for growth. But that would mean me. I mean, you've you've got the district divided in half, half going to skyline, half going to IAF.

And I know we made a joke about it when we came back in to this segment, but will you have half the district not vote for it because it's not for them? I, I believe that's that's a possibility. But we've tried this other so many times and it's failed that it's one of those things you want a different result, but you're doing the same thing over and over again.

The definition of insanity. We need to try something different. It may fail. I can totally understand the hesitation because the next bond would be then to address the skyline issues. Well, now the Idaho Falls side has a brand new high school. Are they going to support a bond that would address the issues that we're having at Skyline High School?

There's a bit of trust there. And will skyline support building a new high school that's only going to benefit the Idaho Falls High School students? People just need to take a step back again, see what's best for all of our students in the district, and and vote accordingly. Now, I was, perusing ECS. This is how I get a lot of our our audio clips and everything, and I follow several state legislators.

One of them put up a poll on his ECS account and was just asking constituents if we could get rid of one of the three, which would you like to get rid of? And your choices were grocery tax, sales tax or property tax? Property tax one overwhelmingly surprised? Yes. And it would be what I would have expected as well.

What are you hearing from constituents. Because I'm short I mean we're we're selecting district 91 here as the what you're an expert over. But this would be across the board in East Idaho. So what are you hearing from constituents about property tax? We hear the exact same thing. And it's really tough from a school district perspective from a school trustee perspective, because with our legislature, school districts only have one way to fund what they need to build schools or to maintain schools, and that's through property tax.

We don't we don't receive other funding. Or there's no other ways for us to raise funding to do these things other than through property tax. So it's really tough. And it's it's frustrating sometimes when we put forth a, a bond. And then legislators that are in our district sometimes don't support it. It's like, but it's tough because you only allow us one channel to raise the funds to build a new school, which is property taxes.

Nobody wants their property taxes to go up. We're an ag state. We have a lot of farmers in our district. It they're the ones that pay a lot when are impacted a lot when those property taxes increase, to, to fund building a new facility. And so I understand I'm not sure exactly what the answer is. I have some ideas through through other taxes, but I, I it's really discouraging when the only way for us to fund these projects is through property taxes.

What that said, Idaho Falls School District 91 is the lowest taxed, district in our region of our size. We did a side by side there, and that was it was interesting to see how low district 90 was in comparison to everybody else. Yeah. We we, if you remember, in our last bond, this was a little bit controversial, because we paid off our bond early in hopes of going into a new bond.

And some people were upset by that. But we paid that bond off early, so people saw a further decrease in their taxes this last go around. So. And we were the we were the lowest tax district before that were even lower taxed today. So, patrons of district 91 are some of the lowest taxed on their property taxes of all the school districts in the state.

You know, it's an interesting funding mechanism because you're asking all property owners to pay for something that may be only half or three quarters. Actually use on a day to day basis. And, and the response to that would be, well, this creates a strong community. So everyone should pay into it. And I get that response. But I'm sure you hear from constituents that are like, I'm on a fixed income.

I am 65 years old. I don't even have kids that go to school yet. You want me to fund a new high school, correct. And the way that it's set up today, there's there's no way around that. I definitely understand that argument. I hear that argument. I have parents who are retired. They're only on, you know, their savings and what they've put aside for their retirement.

And and when costs go up, they have no other ways to increase their income to, to pay for those things. So I, I hear that argument. But there's no other options. That's the only option again, that we have is through property taxes to fund these initiatives. If you do bring forward a new bond to replace Idaho Falls High School, we've got somebody who has sent a text, are you going to change the future plans?

Like what would you do with the vacated Idaho Falls High School and where would the new one be built? Does all of that stay the same? Yeah, I'm not sure what the listeners heard when when we got cut off. The one of the things I was saying is, is Idaho Falls High School itself. The bones of that school are solid.

That is one of the best built buildings in all of Idaho Falls. I often tell people, if if we're in a Ukraine type situation where we were being bombed, the first place I would take my family is to Idaho Falls High School. The walls are thick, they're solid, they're concrete. It was built during the World War Two era.

You know, it's it's just a solid, solid building. And and it's very safe. The the issue with that building is not it's falling apart. The issue with that building is there's too many kids for for the type of building that it was when that building was built in the 40s. They didn't imagine, you know, 1200 kids being in the hall or technology and the technology piece as well.

And so you go in one place. I like to take people like I took you and there was the chemistry where it's the concrete theater type seating five, five people to a row, and they're so close to each other that if someone is on the inside the the entire row, if you're that person against the wall and you need to leave, you get called down to the office or you're not feeling well, or you need to go to the bathroom, the four people to your right.

I'll have to, except for you to be able to exit. And again, you think of a panic situation and it's it's not a pretty sight of what you could see, what that would turn into, what I'd like to see Idaho Falls High School turn into if we were able to build a new school, as is our C tech Architect program is we graduate so many people in so many different fields.

I mention those because I love this. Yeah, we have pharmacy tech. Cna certified nursing assistant, EMT, firefighting, police work, baking, welding, construction. I know, oh, one of our most popular programs, the, the security for computers, cyber cybersecurity. Yeah. And there I'm not getting all of them. Bev hot will be so upset with me.

She's our she's our administrator over that program, but there's. I'm getting emails of parents complaining because their kids can't get into those programs, which, which I understand those programs are so popular that we need to expand. So Idaho Falls High School is that large enough for the kids that we have there today? No, it's too small.

But can I incorporate the C tech facility and our programs there? Absolutely, because we're talking 3 or 400 students in C tech compared to 11 or 1200 students at Idaho Falls High School. Yeah. And you're meeting the needs of multiple students at that point, correct. All right. We've got one more commercial break before the end of the hour.

Feel free to send a text to the (208) 542-1079 if you have questions for school Board Trustee Paul Harkey, and we'll be back after the break. Time goes by so fast and we're back on Newstalk 1079 Paul, we have about one minute left. I got a couple of questions that people wanted to talk to you or, or offer some sort of opinion towards these.

Sure. I'm sure you have a district email. Can you share that for people to the constituents to send you information? Yes. Zone two at SD 91.org. Okay. Say that again. Zone two. Zone two at SD 91.