Episode 33 - EBR Library, Cleve Dunn, CATS, Bologna

In Episode 33 of The Sadvocate Podcast with Dave & Drew, Dave Roppolo and Drew Murrell catch up on what’s happening around St. George and the Baton Rouge area. This week’s news includes the latest developments in the CATS corruption case, Louisiana DOTD’s plan to use AI for interstate traffic flow, new controversy involving Pastor Tony Spell, and the District Attorney should work for the EBR Parish Library.

Dave and Drew also respond to listener texts and comments, including questions about Central and Baker politics, the AP Meme Guy, Tony Spell updates, and the great breakfast cereal debate: Fruity Pebbles or Cocoa Pebbles?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome back. It's the Savigate Podcast. We are Dave and Drew, episode 33. Tony Dorsett's number. Your host, Dave Rapolo, writer at the Savagate. I'm Drew Merle, St. George, City Councilman, and local attorney. So there you go. No guests this week. No guest right now.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

You know, I feel like if we have too many guests, sometimes the uh spotlight's taken off us and people forget about us.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

That's fair.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

You have Wade Evans on the show. People are like, who the hell are these other two guys?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Why are these two dudes talking? Wade's supposed to be talking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

I mean, Wade Evans comes rolling in.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

We might as well just leave him the key of the office. To be fair, and and we were talking about this during the Wade Evans part two interview. Um, that man is a wealth of knowledge. I guess knowledge is what I'll call it. Um, we learned a lot during the Wade Evans interview, none of which had anything to do with being mayor or uh the future of Central or even his own re-election campaign.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

But be honest with me, have you had a butthole free baloney sandwich?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

So since the interview and since he brought, and if you want to go here, I mean, I'm we're not kidding. We're not we're not being crass. Uh butthole free baloney, he started saying it, and I'm thinking for the first minute of that, I'm going, God, do I not know something I'm supposed to know? Am I not in on it? Then I look over at you and you're doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Like, what the hell is he talking about?

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Yeah, yeah. And I uh unfortunately I went home and Googled butthole free baloney, and ATT kicked me off the head.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

I had a change of nervous. So look, guys, if you don't know to use your incognito browser by now, uh please do not Google butthole and baloney uh at work, at home, at a school.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Uh you can do it at the library. Yeah, grab your wife's phone if you do, or you know, someone you don't like and Google it. But apparently, apparently it's baloney with um with all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Then there's the other end of it where he's really talking about high-end baloney, which I thought was an oxymoron.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah, jumbo shrimp.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Same thing. Um and and here he is. And and not only he just I mean, kept going. He's very passionate. When Wade gets on a subject that he is passionate about, that's a runaway train. I don't even remember how he got on that subject. And I'm scared. He brought it up. We he he literally found a way to work butthole baloney into I bet you were the only interview he does ever. That wrapped up. Hey, if that gets out, it could kill his campaign. Kieran, can you ask Wade about butthole free baloney next chance you get? Thank you. Butthole free baloney. Yep, fascinating. And I went home and I told my wife about it. She slapped me, and then I said, no, not what you think. Uh, and then we had a conversation. She didn't know what it was either.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

So should be a fun election when Wade uh gets kicked off. We're gonna have some fun with that.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

If he has an election party, uh, can we go to it? It's gonna be the best. Will it have butthole free baloney?

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Yeah, he's got to now. I mean, that could that could either kill him or get him elected, get him across the finish line. No one's gonna remember the Surflake when they find out that Evans eats butthole free baloney.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

And that's the problem. He he wanted to get us off Surflake and he took us to butthole free baloney. Uh, that man is a journey, a true journey. You're always a good time with uh with King Evans. So good. So good. What's going on in St. George, Drew? Well, you know, a lot of wonderful things are going on. Uh the mayor, I believe, announced last week, and this has been something we've been working on for quite a while. Uh, there's an Uber uh program, pilot program coming to the city of St. George, where we're gonna take a look at at what public transportation looks like in the city of St. George uh and kick it up a notch with some Uber subsidies. So uh public transportation will involve you getting a percentage off Uber trips that are within St. George uh to help you out, let you go some pla fun places and uh make sure that you're safe. Uh and it doesn't tie up our city into this massive agency that you can't work with and deal with in the future. Is that more cost effective than buying a couple of two million dollar buses, though? Uh I mean, a couple of buses, uh so a bus, a whole bus concept is like a million to two million per bus, because you got to have A, a bus, B a driver, insurance benefits for the driver, pension for the driver, maintenance for the driver, bus stop, bus barn, bus depot. I mean, yeah, that party never stops. Uh, and so we were looking at what we could do to help citizens get around St. George, and we thought door-to-door is what we would expect to have at this point, not bus stop.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Yeah, pay as you go. Why would you be paying all this money if there's five people riding the bus for a whole 24-hour period?

SPEAKER_02 4:55

And the beauty of the Uber pilot program is if you're if you're participating in it, every dollar that we put into that program is for you currently. Yeah. It's not paying for pensions for people who retired 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

It's not going to somebody who might embezzle half the money from the program.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yeah, and if you cannot happen, I'm saying whether you're doing it full-time or side hustling, yeah, you'll have increased opportunities to be an Uber driver if you want a job. It's it's that's going to be available to you, and and you work your hours, you work your route, but know that St.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

George is going to have an increase of people tooling around to Perkins Row and Jones Creek and so it will be a subsidy, and you've got to start in St. George and end in St. George, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

That's correct. So other than hospitals, which will be the local area hospitals that are connected to the uh city boundaries, uh, Arlay of the Lake, Baton Rouge General, Women's Hospital, Oshner on O'Neill, um, those will be exceptions. You can go to those places if you need to. But outside of that, yes, start, finish in the city of St. George. Even if you lived in Denham in Ascension and you came into St. George, parked your car, and took an Uber from there, you'd be able to do that as well. Okay. Well, you'll have 10 rides a month. Uh right now the program is slated, but we're gonna have some public meetings about it to give you 50% off those 10 rides a month. Nice. And if it's it's a pilot program, so we'll start it, see how it works, see where it goes, uh, see the response, and adjust accordingly as we go. But this is kind of the way St. George looks at everything. We take a new look at an existing service and see if there might be a different path that could result in something a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Someone else doing this? Is this like a thing in another city? Y'all check out.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Well, we'll be the first one in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

But that's okay. There are several Texas suburb cities that that look and feel like St. George. Uh Wiley, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, Kyle, Texas are all doing this program. Uh, and they all do it a little bit differently, and it's what fits for us. So we'll have meetings about it. Uh, definitely engage the public and make sure that we're we're meeting the needs that are there. Sweet.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Should uh reduce the number of DWIs and very excited.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Uh template uh name we're batting around Go St. George. Go St. George. Go St. George. Yeah, very good. I'd like to credit Robert in my actual law office for coming up with that.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

He gets does he get a uh cut?

SPEAKER_02 7:16

He does not get any benefiting whatsoever.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

He's probably trademarking it right now. Yeah, he he's he's designing t-shirts as we speak. And he's gonna he's gonna quit, and then when y'all go and run it, he's gonna sue St. George. That'd be great. The American way. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

We we can't be a true public transportation until we have lawsuits and indictments, I'm told. Yeah, but no embezzlements. No embezzlements. Nothing to embezzle.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

That's the beauty of it. There's nothing to embezzle.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

We need somebody high up in here that's gonna test positive for meth. How do we we're who do who qualifies for that program? Oh, goodness, goodness. Just just fun with our friends at cats.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

So uh looks like the library tax passed.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

I heard.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

I heard 64%. Yeah, very, very overwhelming success for them. That's great. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of money. Very excited. Um you know what I would say, and I think what uh I would request is that given the amount of dollars that the city of St. George contributes to that library, I would humbly, and I will be humbly requesting a seat on the library control board for a citizen from St. George.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

I mean that sounds uh that sounds I mean that sounds obviously uh I don't sound like that's a problem. I mean uh Because we don't have one currently how many people are on the board? Uh I believe seven maybe total. Yeah, I think St. George contributes 17 million a year.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

How much if between 15 and 17 million, depending on whose numbers you want to listen to.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Are any other municipalities represented on that board? Central Zachary. The city of Baton Rouge. But but not Central Zachary. They have libraries, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Uh I'm told they do. And I'm and that no, they do not have representation either.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

It seems like the board should at least be expanded to include a seat from each one of those.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

I would I would think that the idea would be uh along the lines of what the uh BREC board looks like currently.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Where you start having uh you know some municipal participation outside of Baton Rouge would be nice for the amount of money.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

You won't be on the library board? No, not at all. They'd probably kick you out at the first meeting.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Not happy with me. No, not happy with it. He's back. Those uh anti-censorship folks sure are mad when you when you want to have uh good hearted debate, civil discourse.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

When you point out that they are what a hundred and what is it, 130 million cash? 160. Last I read they were making six million a year in just interest.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

I heard there's a library bathtub where you can come in and check out bathing and money.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Yeah. Tax dollars. It's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

What about the DA? Is the DA got it? Do they have any cash left? No, no. DA is it now on my list of every time we have a group that really needs money and doesn't have it, they all need to go work for the library.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

I'm thinking about uh we're you know, we're we're doing the St. George Food Truck Festival, you may know about, and we're uh we're we're partnering up with the Greater Baton Ridge Food Bank. I love that. But I'm really considering to see if Hillard War wants a piece of the action. Maybe we could support the DA's office.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

That'd be a portion of the proceeds to benefit a nonprofit, the DA.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

We could do like pictures of of DA employees who are like homeless with no food. You know, look, for 25 cents a day, you could support this for less than a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

This young prosecutor can prosecute. Three cases. Oh my god, that's so great. That'd be something to think about. So, yeah, other than that, I mean, Hiller Moore, as I guess, librarian, we make we make the DA's office a library branch because you can always build more.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Uh, and then they'll he'll be the head librarian of that branch.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Yeah, put put put uh put his offices in there. Maybe the homeless people want to leave if they find out the law is in here.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yeah, I mean, that would be yeah. There's room where we have 16 libraries, 18, 30. I mean 42. Feels like well, I it's hard to count because we live in the book desert. That's true. So I'm not really sure how many libraries we have. It is a book desert.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

One it is a book desert.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

That's right. We got 200,000 people going through the uh one library we have, almost as much as the main branch. But oh, you know, by the way, I'll throw this out there. You know what I was told, and it's actually in an article on believe it or not, RKF's website, WRKF, that it's expected, because we're more affluent in St. George, that we would have cars and can drive to the other branches, whereas the other branches are being built in areas where people don't typically have cars and may have to walk or ride their bicycles to the branch. That is a determining factor in where they build library locations. Really? So when you wonder why has this area got so many library locations.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

They all have cars. They got cars.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

They don't have cars in other parts of town. They got cars. So we got cars we should go drive to wherever. So there you go. And that's not me. I didn't say it.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

That is literally from the sounds like a sentiment that uh they may have had before the internet.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Feels weird, right? Yeah. Hold hold on, let me go look at my little library real quick in my life.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

So they're building libraries closer to people who have no cars so they can walk to the library.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yep. That that's uh that is not fair.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Well, in that regard, they need all the money they can get because they're gonna be building one, I guess, every couple of blocks.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Well, if everybody's broke from paying all these taxes, then they won't have to be able to afford cars in the future and they'll have to walk to the libraries. A self-fulfilling prophecy. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

You know, the library could write a check to the DA's office right now and fund them for three years and never feel it. Never feel it. Nope. I agree. Three years. Easy.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Solve the problem. They're not doing that. No, of course they're not gonna do that. We voted overwhelmingly to give them their money and protect it to other people like us. Like and the DA. And the DA. Man. Some crazy priorities in this city, huh? If you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, you should be jumping up and down and thanking your library. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Hey, hey, another idea. So while Hiller's gonna go work for the main branch or the downtown branch with all the uh DAs and the public defenders, what about our East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Library? Ooh, we have a prison branch?

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Prison branch run by the is it run by the East Baton Rouge Library System?

unknown 13:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Or is it run by East Batman?

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Oh absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

They can learn valuable skills in the library while they're serving their time or being held and incarcerated. Uh they can look up books on education and and rehab and whatever else they've got going on. Um, this could be a good meshing of services.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

I didn't realize uh the library system ran the one in the prison. I figured East Battenroute Sheriff had control of that. How about that? No, no, no. The most productive branch uh that branch probably has less felons in it.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

You think about it. If they opened up the parish prison branch, they could count all the prisoners as as libraries as patrons. Yeah. And that'd make their library count go even higher. They probably do that.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Crazy. So that's a brilliant idea. Anybody in the prison is theoretically also in the library. Patron, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yes. So whenever um So I'm gonna tell you, I want to apologize to the library. I've been looking at this all wrong the entire time. It should have been right sizing the library and reallocating funds to services I feel like are in dire straits that need to be funded. It should have been how do I make everyone else a library? That's true. I went the wrong direction. So from now on, that's my mission is to put every government entity in the library under the library umbrella. They got the room, they got plenty of room.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Downtown is tremendous, plenty of money. Yeah, they got the cash, they could they could double the size of it and never even feel it. Yep, they make six million a year in interest on the money they're sitting on. I mean, we have missed an interest.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

We've missed an opportunity. I I welcome my library overlords.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Man, crazy times.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Yep, so there you go.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

Um, so let's do a little news. Oh, excellent. We got a little news. We got uh a couple of articles this um this week.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Speak speaking of public agencies, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

Um four people arrested in a connection to uh the cats corruption plea not guilty. Um two, I don't remember what their names were, but four of the people that were indicted, I think it was five, pleaded up pleaded not guilty. I think it was yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

I believe one of those worked for Sharon Broom.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Uh I believe one of those works, uh one of those indictments works for cats.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

And I think we've got one of them was a spouse of one of the yeah, one of those is a spouse, and one of those is a Metro Council member, Cleve Dunn.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Yes, yeah, and he and and unfortunately he was supposed to appear yesterday, but um by no fault of his own, he didn't appear. Apparently, uh the subpoena or what would it be called for subpoena directing you do the city. Yeah, for the accident so the clerk of court's office accidentally didn't send him a subpoena to appear. I mean, come on for the third time in a row. I mean, come on. First time, okay, it happens. Second time, damn, that happened again. Third time, there's a story.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

I mean, is Cleve Dunn the third like in charge of the subpoenas? Don't you don't you don't you want to go, hey, wait a second.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

I heard the clerk, uh Steve Dunn, the assistant. But I mean, the third, third time. Third time's a charm. I gotta go with Cleve on this. I wouldn't show up either if I didn't have, you know. But but yeah, I feel like they had to know the date. But we never got served. You never got served. We never got served.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

There's a the process is there for a reason. It's it's uh But why drag this out?

SPEAKER_03 16:57

You definitely want to get into court and get this behind you.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

No, get behind. You may you may think there may be another place you're going. You may not want to be excited to go there.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Maybe, but yeah, so to visit that place. So the cats, uh the cats, pigeons are coming home to roost. This is moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Got some of the things that the beauty of and look, God love them, what a great job they have done. And I'm not talking about the bus service, which is atrocious. I'm not talking about all the indictments, which is horrifying. I mean, to continuously get away with the level of criminal activity, incompetence, ineptitude, no one's writing the damn thing. And still 30 million a year.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

30 million. Boom. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of one of the library dreams of the DA's office. A third of that would fund the DA. Oh no, the library doesn't dream of 30 million a year. Well, I mean in interest payments, you know. They they throw that away. 30 million. It's like Mary Slan's got that in her coin purse right now. What's the 30 million?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Spent more than that building an atrium on the roof. That's right. Uh so yeah, 30 million. To fund cats. When is that when is that election come on? I don't know. It's not it doesn't matter. It's a Baton Rouge city-only election. Only people paying property tax on that one are residing within the city limits.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Lord.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Congrats. Hey, hey, I get that that's gonna pass.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Dixon McMacon is severely trying to dismantle that operation. That's one of his pet peeves, his cats. He loves when they're in the news. He's always he's always posting about it when they're news. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

But you know, we need to um again, Uber program is a different look at public transportation on a different scale, admittedly.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

I tell you what, if St. George has good luck with that, that'd be something to bring to uh send it over to the city, Baton Rouge administration, go, hey, per rider, here's what we spent, per rider, here's what you spent.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Well, and and some of that could be eliminating, being serious about it, eliminating some of these routes that truly are unused, sure, focusing on a handful of really highly trafficked routes, and then using something like the Uber program, it's called microtransit, where they will get you to the bus stop to take the big route, but they may not necessarily go down the big route. Yep. Uh and and that could be something that could help them. The problem is, and this is the government silo problem, they don't really want help. They don't really want to fix it. No, no. This is working great. Are you kidding me? Cleve loves it. Cleve loves it. Less now than he used to. He loved it more last year.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

Didn't they have two CEOs at one point? I feel like we joked about them having two CEOs.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

I feel like they've had a couple of CEOs featured.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Like overlapping CEOs, like two CEOs.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

The drug test. It's like medieval times, and like, I'm the king.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

No, I'm the king.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Two CEOs jumped to the meeting and they've got I guess, I guess it's a 50-50 split vote. So one of them maybe they take a call this meeting to order.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

I call this meeting to order.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Yeah, I'm about to looked it up. I feel like there was there was a CEO that was under contract but took a leave, so they hired another CEO, and they're paying two CEOs. But I mean, if you have the money, what's two CEOs? Cats is like college football. They're paying four CEOs now. You might have a buyout clause. That's why you haven't resolutely had a buyout clause. Good stuff from cats. Yeah, we always uh no short no shortage of um content from cats. And we look forward to these trials and the final outcomes because that will be a good day for Savagate content.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Always a good time. Indictments are fun.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Yeah, we got some more uh public service in the news. Uh apparently um the Louisiana DOTD has brought on board an AI engine of some sort to help with interstate traffic flow at the Denim Springs entrance and exit. Well, probably just the entrance.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

So don't so AI is gonna first say don't build walls where water needs to flow.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

That's that that's the first thing it would probably tell them. But this is regarding traffic. So from what I read, there's gonna be a camera that faces the interstate and um determines how bad the traffic is, and it's going to send a message further up the interstate saying heavy traffic. Or you know, that's it. Way to really use the AI. You know, build a data center. Yeah, you know, it's either you know, do your taxes and save you thousands of dollars, you know, build a new data center, uh, you know, make the government more efficient, or let everybody know two miles back that there's traffic ahead.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Pure cancer? No. Have heavy traffic back there. So my problem with DOTD using the problem? Is that a singular? I'm gonna say problem because I'm just doing one. Uh the problem with with DOTD and any engineering group using AI, I'm gonna stereotype for a second. As soon as the AI makes a suggestion, what are engineers gonna do? Oh, that can't be right. That's not right. I'm an engineer, I know better. I mean, I've never had a conversation uh with an engineer. Uh law. It doesn't matter. Law, medicine, finances.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

No, they're right.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Playing a sport.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

No.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

There is nothing engineers don't know about everything.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Right. Right. Yeah. They're they're not gonna they're not gonna take any crap from no computer.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Oh god, no.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

No computers.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

It's yeah, they know everything about everything all the time, and we know nothing.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

Yeah. So I don't think it's gonna be. I wonder if they fought, I wonder if they fought the administration bringing this thing online. Maybe the AI is one of them sitting downtown with a camera and a computer, and every time he sees he goes and types something in, he's the AI. Oh, it'd be so great. That's what it is. DOTD AI is a guy with a laptop.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Albert, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Yeah, Albert, he's down and he's down. Albert's in the can.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Slow down, traffic is heavy ahead. That's right. Put a new graphic on the sign. But that is really a bad area. If you if you come, which you don't, if you come from Livingston Parish into Baton Rouge, and you are between the hours of probably 6 45, 7 o'clock, maybe 6 30 to probably 9, you can absolutely forget getting anywhere to the 1012 split from that way. Absolutely anywhere. It is a travesty. Travesty.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Well, this is gonna solve all those problems.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

This should do it. AI. Nailed it. Yeah, yeah. And it was bad when they had two lanes years ago. When they put the third lane, it instantly was backed up just as far with three lanes.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Well, that uh research, traffic research will tell you you add a lane. You're adding traffic.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

No, people are finally three lanes. Now we can start using interstate again. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Exactly right. There's no solution. Uh get off the roads. Well, how about this, Andrew?

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Tell me more. Uh the good Pastor Tony Spell is back in the news. We almost need Wade here to go back over it.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

What I took away from this was good on Pastor Spell from mowing his own lawn. Four o'clock in the morning. I mean, we got some time. It is hot. It is hot. That's fair. It's summertime. Very hot. Probably a little earlier than you know, even then. But yeah, there's laws about that.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

With his whole yard crew out there, if you saw him. Yeah, like five or six teenage kids with rakes and leaf blowers and weed eaters. He's ready. He's ready. Yeah, but apparently his neighbor woke up and called the sheriff's office at four o'clock in the morning on him. Didn't see that coming. Yeah. Didn't see that coming. He had some uh not some uh not so nice things to say about the neighbor, which is the reason that made the news. Not it wasn't a grass cut, but he he called his neighbor a slur as the the news used to slur. Yeah. Um so yeah, but so many people came to his defense yet again.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

I'm telling you, uh what I've learned out in this whole process is is, you know, my entire life I've thought, you know, maybe I could be a preacher, and I go, you know, I just want to talk in front of people. That's the problem. Yeah. I don't necessarily have the other comp preacher comp I don't have the other stuff it takes to be a preacher, I don't think. And then all of a sudden I wake up in a world and apparently I do.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

That's true. You're right. I should have I should have started a cult years ago. When's the last time you cut your grass before sun up?

SPEAKER_02 25:10

When's the last time I cut my grass? That's what I'm really impressed by.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

White people problems. When is the last time you walked across the street and pummeled your neighbor?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

It's been a while.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

You may not qualify. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

You may not qualify as much as you think. Hey, I had St. George, so I had a lot. I had some neighbors that that, you know, we had issues. That's true. That's true. Back in the day. And uh no, I never pummeled one.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Well, maybe you could go uh you could be an intern for the good Pastor Spell over here, and he could get you in a couple of fights.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

I mean, can you imagine? Uh when what happened at church today, honey? You're bleeding and you've got a black eye and your clothes are torn up. Pastor Spell directed me to fight. I had to go beat up a uh a non-believer.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Yeah, so uh he's back in the news, and you know, but I'm surprised he didn't see the maybe he did see the body cam. It's like, we're going for broke, baby. We're going, never mind the fight video. I'm fixing the I'm fixing the unload on this kid. I realize we're not at double down, we're at triple. Triple down. Yeah. We just keep going. Yeah. It's amazing. I think he's looking, I think he's looking to go to national. I think he's looking for blow that church up.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yeah, he's looking at Blue Bonnet Boulevard going, I can do that. That's what's that? Pocket change. You've only got one ATM in the lobby, what losers. He needs to start doing a show so he can tell us more about he needs to come on the Savicate and tell us all about it. I'm gonna see if Woody can get him on here. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

Woody loves him from Savicate. Does he? Yes. It's all up to spell, though.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

12 to 20 spell. We would be so nice and complimentary. Yeah. Incredible. We'd have to be.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Get our asses cut. Can't say it's because we wanted to be. I'm afraid of him. Yeah, we're gonna put up a piece of plexiglass for glass in the past.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Please, Pastor Spell, you're gonna have to sit over there behind the wall. We're gonna close this door and lock it. Yeah, we uh yeah. If you can if you can go out a different door and just wait, we're gonna wait. Uh, I'm a little concerned.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Yeah, so uh old Spell back at it. I can't wait to see where this goes. I love him. I think it's great. That trial's gonna be good.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

I mean, we got some good stuff coming between Kat's indictments and preacher indictments and heck, we got we got um a couple of other councilmen who've lawyered up, didn't we?

SPEAKER_03 27:27

Or just just the ex-mayor has lawyered up, but a couple other councilmen are.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

It's gonna be weird when uh people have to justify uh it what's baffling to me in the world we live in is you go online, so and so gets indicted for whatever they're alleged to have done. The number of people who will defend it all the way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Well, they didn't they didn't indict Trump. Okay. It's always back to Trump.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

They didn't indict so-and-so. Okay. I understand. We're talking about this case, this scenario. So you're telling me you think they did wrong and they need to be in got it.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Yeah, yeah. And the news reports on um when the news reported this, uh Cleve Dunn with the other Katz indictments, like half the comments were well, what about the other Metro Councilman and her husband who are under investigation? Like, okay, fair enough. When they get indicted, they deserve their spotlight in the news, but until now, they're just under investigation. You know what Cleve's mistake was, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

You gotta have somebody more famous than you indicted with you. Yes. Because you know what we're fighting off of. You know what you and I cannot do currently? Name the other people.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

That's right. That's right. He's the top dog.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Yeah. Was it is the girl that got indicted that worked for Broom the same one that beat up the other guy at the club? Yes. So great.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Yes. So great. Yep, she did. But with a chair. I believe a chair was involved. I know who that is. And I heard I don't disagree on all everything. Yeah, Cleve should have laid low until uh maybe uh Broom's potential indictment comes around, then it'd be like, who's Cleve who's this done guy? That's what happens.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

He should have rolled on her early, got her in the spotlight early, and said, Hey, you know, I ain't the only one. Sharon's got a pocket full of uh Benjamins laying around. Something.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

Well, you know, if something were to prolong his uh testifying, maybe like the clerk of court's office, accidentally not notify him, the longer this drags out, the more his chance to make a deal.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

You know the problem with that is is that comes out that the clerk's office missed some subpoenas on, you know, one, two, three occasions. Everybody going to court. I didn't get that.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

They have now they have uh I didn't get that.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Prove it. Prove I got it.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

Yeah. How are they sending that out?

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

Is it delivered by the uh delivered by the sheriff? The sheriff?

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah, 19th is sheriff.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Yeah. Uh yeah. It's a good excuse to. What about Cleve? I really didn't know about it. Cleve didn't show up. Why'd I got to show up? Exactly right. You treating him special? He gets a special privilege. Exactly right. Elected officials privilege, huh? Exactly right. It's also odd is that there are three people in government um dealing with Baton Rouge who are under recall right now, and one of those individuals is not Cleve Dunn. Nope. Crazy how that works. Nope. That is that is uh I mean if they're if they're out there trying to recall everyone who they feel like has wronged the taxpayers, it seems like the guy alleged to have stolen from the taxpayers will be the first one. But they didn't even bring him up.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

I think the recall effort's now taking donations so those uh recall supervisors can uh afford to live.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Yeah. Can't wait to see those numbers.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Cannot wait. Wait, wait, maybe we maybe we should have one of them on the show.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

One of the officials? Yeah, one of the one of the recall organizers. Both.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Not at the same time. At the same time? Not at the same time. No, that's that's frowned upon.

SPEAKER_03 30:56

I'm in touch with uh Mayor Sid Edwards' scheduler, and um, she's trying to get us a date to have uh the mayor come on the show. She said he's interested, and she's trying to get us a uh a date to have him on the show. The mayor? Yeah, that would be exciting. Yep, he wants to come on, so we'll definitely have him on. I would take that. We had a lot to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

I would just like to uh talk of football. Everything we reference is going to have a football terminology with it, and we'll open him up.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Maybe you should wait till football season starts so he'll feel maybe we can go to an astruma game and do it at an astruma game. He could be right there in the middle of his element. Yeah, and he definitely wants to come on, so so yeah, um not much news. But we do have a special guest coming on. What is coming next? Friday, man. What is coming next? We got a guest coming Friday. It's gonna be a fun show. Mr. Mark Belgard from Ascension Parish Department of Memes.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Now, that is a uh more aggressive meme site than the Savicate.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Yeah, The Savicate's less a meme site, more of a satirical news. We do throw a couple of memes when um when they basically write themselves. Um but yeah, um I think he does a whole lot more than memes too now. He's a celebrity. He is. Well, I gotta Central Paris Persons of the Year for four years. He just posted yesterday, please don't vote for me again this year. But he's got a he's got a pretty good following, and uh he's a big Savvycate fan, pretty good friend, good guy. Yeah. Um yeah, so he wants to come back. We get to expand our horizons and learn.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Sometimes it feels like I live in a bubble, very insulated bubble. Yeah, yeah. Uh as I get older, I don't go as far as I used to. So venturing into Ascension Parish, that'll be exciting.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

Yeah, he's looking forward to it. We're supposed to have him on last week. We had a scheduling conflict.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

We could learn about a whole different group of corrupt officials.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Oh, yeah. Oh, he's got those. They got those over there.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

But they got some agencies over there that get too much money.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Very exciting.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

Boy, I think they don't want him, they don't want him to be on them over there.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

You know what he can't pick on over there? Public school system.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Good point.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yep, top five.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

Solid point.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

He could pick on ours, though. Because that's the reason they're growing so much. That's right. He's just coming on the Savvy to go, thank you, Baton Rouge. Y'all have done such a wonderful job at being terrible. Look at us grow. Watch us grow. Our entire economic development plan is we're not Baton Rouge.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

Just watch Airline Highway. They're coming, the U-Hauls are coming across. That's exactly right. Look at all that traffic. That's right. We got a couple texts this weekend. If you want to text the show, how do you text the show? You can text us at 225-255-2480, and we will read them on the air. Hey, if you want to email the show, how do you do that? Why would you do that when we only take text? Don't. We used to take emails, but everyone was using the text um method. So we want to. It's more fun in the world we live in. Yeah, people were sending emails. Sometimes it was a paragraph. Oh. I don't want to address that. I want to address a text. For instance.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

There's always that guy who's going to send you like a 15, 20. You know, lots a lot of ex-spouses can attest. Tons to get lots of long emails from their exes. Too much detail. Like if you get past one paragraph, I'm not reading anymore.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Yeah, you know, texts are shorter, uh, you know, statements that we can that we can uh talk about. For instance, we got one uh this week that says Central Mayor came on twice before the Baker mayor even came on once.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Now, I don't know what direction that was going, but I want to clarify. We have repeatedly requested that Mayor Darnell Waits come on the Savvy podcast. Complete the the old may all mayors in East Pattern. Complete the mayor loop. The whole loop. Share all the wonderful things that are going on in Baker right now. Yeah. Share his vision. State Fair might be going there. Whatever. He got a zoo.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

Got a golf course. Yep. Yeah. Got a car wash. Two new uh neighborhoods planned in the news last week. A lot of great stuff going on in Baker. We just got to drive to the city of Baker and just knock on his door.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

We should just do the show outside of. Just pull up in the parking lot and call him.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

And call him out and go, Mayor, can you step outside? And when he steps outside, he's on the show. We're just recording. Yeah. When he steps in, just he's on the show. Welcome to the show, May. Every other sense. Hey, Darnell! Go to the door. We could also do it from one of the many barbershops in Baker if you wanted a different setting. I mean, that group's gotta be thrilled. Their turf is protected. Protected. But there's like 816 of them in Baker's.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

I would tell you now, regardless, regardless of mayor weights, I would I would like to do a show from a barber shop. I think it would be fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot going on in there.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

Yeah. No. Sounds like a good setting. I haven't been in one in years, so um. Yeah, clearly. So you'll have to set that up.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yeah, tell you all about it. What is he doing right now? He's uh he's he's gonna thin out my hair. It's great.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

Yeah. Um we had another text. When is the AP meme guy coming to the show? And that'd be Ascension Parish, not Associated Press. Yeah. There's a yeah, there's probably not Associate Press meme guy. No. Um, we're gonna have him uh record Friday unless Drew has something come up again. I'll be here. Okay. Yeah, the A uh AP Ascension Parish meme guy is coming on Friday. Very witty guy, very, very good stuff. Funny guy, good guy. Um Latest Tony Spell News question mark. We went over that. I mean He was cutting his grass at four o'clock in the morning, his neighbor across the street, who he pummeled relentlessly, allegedly called the sheriff. The sheriff came out and he told the sheriff, that guy called the law on me because I pummeled him relentlessly, through in a slur. Not because he was mowing the lawn at four in the morning. Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Right, yeah. But again, again, Reverend Spell mowing his own lawn.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

Mowing his own lawn. Man of the people. With a nice shirt on. He had a nice shirt on than I wear to nice events. He was cutting the grass. You're you're correct on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

But that was the problem with the story. I never got to the slur part. I was too busy taking in the. Really dress nice. Huh.

unknown 37:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Mowing his own lawn. Yeah. It looks dark outside. Yeah. There's a lot going on in there. And they're like, oh, oh, he said something.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Yeah. No, he was. I said he must be maybe he's just using the lawnmower to come out of the church and go get the mail on Hooper. But no, he was he was cutting the grass at 4 50 a.m.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Who did they call to show up? East Bethner's Sheriff. Okay, so so Central's police chief was not involved in that. Not involved, no. I'm sure he said no one ever called. He's going on entertainment tonight to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

He's going on the View next week to talk about Reverend Spell. He did get a national uh what'd he say it was? Access Hollywood. He's going on TMZ next week.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Yeah. I'm sure he'll mention he's rerunning for office today.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

The list of news sources I'm gonna participate in.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Access Hollywood was not on the bingo cards.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

What the hell? Central. Central. This is gonna make in the middle of something, right? It's gotta be. This is gonna make for a fun, because I think he's got at least he has at least one challenger for his position. No. But I hear that another one might be popping up. So the central police uh elections can be hot this year. Could be hot. We we should uh have those folks on the show. Yeah, man. At the same time?

unknown 38:19

No.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

Wouldn't that be like a uh panel? I'd be oh god debate?

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Should we moderate debates?

SPEAKER_03 38:25

Oh, baby.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

The best. Should we offer our services? Oh my God, it'd be so much more interesting than what they currently do. Central mayor debate moderated by Dave and Drew. That'll be so great.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

We can sell it out. I thought you were gonna ask us a question. No, we're just we're just visiting. We're going through news.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

Um, last text message. This one was actually from the Absentier Parish meme guy. Not only is he a guest, he's also a permission. This is this is an absolute Ascension Parish meme guy type post, fruity pebbles or cocoa pebbles.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

In the current world I live in with children under I'm taking the question seriously. Um with the current environment that I live in, with have children under the eighteen under the age of eighteen and a wife that has paid attention to all the dyes that are currently in the food, you have to go further now than fruity pebbles or cocoa pebbles. Is it the Aldi version that doesn't have the dye in it? Knockoff. Is it the somebody uh Trader Joe's got a non-dye version? Um so I would say cocoa pebbles, but not the pebbles version.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Don't want my kids having so that's a don't want my kids having all the delicious dyes that I ate growing up.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Because look what can happen. I mean they could turn in, they could be an attorney or a politician. Clearly stunted my growth as well. Uh I would have been, I was supposed to be six, too, but between the Coca-Cola and the dye, the full number five, the the red dye 40 and the sugar, I want to be in short and fat instead. It's great. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

So yeah, that's it for text. That's it for news. Uh Friday, we'll have uh Mark Belgaard on from Accenture Parish Department of Means.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

That's excellent. If you want to text the show in the meantime, how do you do it?

SPEAKER_03 40:11

225-255-2480, and we will read them on the show, even if you insult Drew or myself.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

That would be the best. Go ahead, knock that out. And by the way, no more emails, just text comments.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

You can send them. We ain't reading them.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

There's an inbox somewhere. Yes. It's got a bunch of wonderfully long-worded emails that don't fit a podcast format. Yep. Delicious. Wonderful. If you want to find us, uh you can get us anywhere. Uh podcasts are at Apple, Spotify, uh, anywhere. Anywhere you can find them. And so you can also get it at the Savicate Podcast Facebook page as well. We are Dave and Drew. We're a weekly show. And you can also find us at thesavicate.com. If you want to really do us a solid, can you leave us a nice review? Yeah. Can you leave a nice comment? Even if you don't mean it. Like, link, subscribe, all the things that help us grow the show. Yeah, I don't care if you mean it. I don't care if you listen to the show.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

We're trying to get our fifth uh listener, hopefully, by the end of July. So we need your help.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

That's right. We want to have as many listeners as we have episodes.

SPEAKER_03 41:13

Yeah. Which we're behind. Strong. Strong. Well, I listen and you listen, so that's two. Wait, you listen to our show? Like right now. I mean, I don't mean I'm not going to go listen to it afterwards.

unknown 41:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

Who listens to this crap? But uh, but yeah, so if you listen on Spotify or Apple, just click on uh click on subscribe or follow, whichever it is. That way when Drew uploads the show, you get a notification you have to go searching for it.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

That's right. So when I don't do it on Wednesdays like I'm supposed to, usually.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Or if he loses, if he loses the SD card.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Don't don't don't bring bad karma. Don't bring it back into the world. Wait till after I stop this episode and I tell you the bad news. That's it for episode thirty-three, it's the Savagan Podcast. We are Dave Andrew.