Rocklin Mayor Dave Bass | A Life of Public Service Ep. 9

Most people know Dave Bass as the Mayor of Rocklin. Others know him as a prosecutor, veteran, or recent candidate for Placer County Judge.

In this episode, we go beyond the titles and talk about the journey that got him there. From growing up in the East Bay and serving in the Coast Guard to prosecuting complex fraud cases and leading one of California's fastest-growing cities, Dave shares lessons on leadership, accountability, public service, and the realities of the justice system.

We also dive into crime, mental health diversion, housing mandates, local government, and what the public often doesn't see behind the scenes.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Broken Perspective Podcast, where we challenge beliefs, learn from others, and aim to be better people. I'm Colby.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

And I'm Jeff, and on today's episode, we have a very special guest, so stick around.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Most people know Dave Bass as the mayor of Rockland. Others know him as a prosecutor, a veteran, or most recently, a candidate for Placer County judge. But before those titles is a guy who has spent decades serving his community, chasing tough challenges, and putting himself in the arena. Today, less than 24 hours after a hard-fought election, we're cracking open a beer and talking about the journey from the Coast Guard to the courtroom, City Hall, and everything in between. Dave Bass, my friend, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Appreciate it. What are you drinking, guys? Oh, today we got the uh the Moxa no context beer. Pre-poured.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Pre-pourred this time. Um, shout out Moxa for uh cheers. Being a great local brew. Let me give you guys a cheers here.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

Uh thanks for coming. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

For those of you uh that are just watching this for the first time, we had some technical difficulties a little bit ago. Normally we crack open the beer in front of you guys, we make you listen to it and watch us usually screw up the pours. But I have to give it to uh our friend Dave Bass here. He actually had the best pour so far of any guest that we've had.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Expert level crushed it. That's the uh the the bartending years coming in coming out in me. Yeah, knocked it out of the park. Great job on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

All right. So, first and foremost, thank you so much for coming on the show today and taking the time to you know spend a little time with us. Yeah um I know after the last six months of what you've gone through with this whole campaign and everything, like this beer is probably gonna taste extra good.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

It absolutely does. I could use a couple of them, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

So obviously, top of mind for everybody right now is gonna be focused on you with the election and this big push you've had to, you know, run for judge in Placer County. But before we do any talking about that, I really want to just kind of give an opportunity for people to get to know Dave, who Dave is, and maybe talk a little bit about your background and what led up to you know your years of public service. So maybe you can share a little bit about um, you know, where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? Uh what did that look like?

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

So I grew up in the East Bay. I'm uh basically on the border of Oakland and San Leandro off of East 14th. Uh grew up there, it was you know, back when San Leandro was still a little safe. And uh, you know, public school kid got into a little bit of trouble. So mom sent me to uh Catholic school, which was a little bit rough um to acclimate to. So I still was kind of a not great kid for a while, uh, but they eventually straightened me out.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

How old were you when you went to Catholic school?

SPEAKER_04 2:59

So I I think I started at 13. So in like the San Lorenzo Hayward area, there was uh I was supposed to go to Arroyo and uh again, little known fact, but uh there was somebody who was, I guess, kind of doing a almost like a gang initiation type of thing, and I ended up on somebody's shit list. So mom said, sorry if I can't say that on the podcast. Uh so I ended up actually going to Catholic school from then, you know. And uh uh it was it was it was great because eventually, you know, you definitely get a better education, you know, but it was you could see the struggle of uh going from the public school public school education to what this very structured um high school. So uh I I started learn learning how to enjoy learning.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Excellent. So outside of school, what kind of a kid were you? What kind of things were you involved in?

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Yeah. Um in the you know, when I was younger it was it was baseball. And then uh we we did a lot of traveling up to Willetz, which is just the m northernmost part of California. We had a cabin with was decent acreage. And uh you know, my summers were spent just going out with the dog and a gun and maybe in the mornings hunt, but for the most part it was just roaming, you know. So I'm I was a free-range child. Uh and then uh you know, I was a latchkey kid, so I had to find my way to school and back. And uh just you grow up quick like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Any sports?

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Baseball is the main one. Yeah. I uh I loved loved playing baseball. First base and outfield was pretty much what I was uh mostly playing. Wasn't a great hitter. So never quite got it. The ones that the times that I did hit, though, I can rem I can recall them like the back of my head.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

First baseman they can't hit? Yeah, I know. So I didn't play first base that much either, but I really wanted to. Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

So how would uh the kids that you grew up with or the kids you went to school with, uh how would they describe you back then?

SPEAKER_04 5:12

Yeah. Um, well, I think you know, loyal is is one. I I think I kept my friends from high school to this day, right? One's a two of them are godfathers of my my children. Uh so I I always just treated people the way that I think everyone would want to be treated. Um every once in a while I'd have to be the one that would put myself out there and stick up for people when they're getting bullied. And so they everyone just knew me as somebody who's in front. You know what I mean? And uh I just learned to uh always kind of be the one that I was always the one that got my the license first.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

So I was driving everyone around and um making sure the uh the front runner, the uh the person that set the set the tone. Yeah. And everybody kind of guided people behind you and how to do it.

SPEAKER_04 6:05

Yeah. Unless they were much older than I had a couple friends that are a lot older than me. So I also ended up hanging out with them too much and getting into trouble with them. Right. You know, as uh especially at that when you're 18 and your friends are 21, that's that's where things get a little scary. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

So speaking of your friends, what would uh what would your high school friends say about you if we were to talk to them?

SPEAKER_04 6:29

Well, I mean, you'd be you'd be able to talk to them now. Um I think most people would say, you know, that uh I I didn't really care what people thought. I uh and so maybe I I spoke my mind a little too much, a little too argumentative. Uh but I always was um like I said, you know, gotta be kind to people, right? I just really liked mixing it up and and getting into it. But uh and then uh, you know, I I'll admit, uh I was actually in high school a theater kid. So yeah, nice not really into theater anymore, although I you know support the arts, but it was uh yeah, it was an interesting time. What was the uh signature performance? Uh have you ever seen Little Shop of Horrors? Yes. I was the dentist. That was probably that was the peak of high school for me was being the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors and then uh Seymour. Huh? No, Seymour's the guy that's actually has feeds the the plant. He feeds me to the plant eventually. Oh, okay. He chops me up and feeds me to the plant. But it's the it's the best gig in the entire uh show because you only are on stage for two or three scenes, and then you have this great song, and then he kills you. And uh then I don't have to work for the rest of the evening. I just get to sit in the back and you know, play pranks on all the other actors.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Too funny. My my expectations learning that you were a theater kid have definitely completely changed from what they were prior to this uh this episode.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

So after high school, uh you found your way to the Coast Guard. Tell us how that kind of ensued.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

Yeah. So I I once I left high school, it was just kind of a surf couching expedition or couch surfing expedition, and uh lived all over the place, just kind of roamed, then I ended up bartending, and that lifestyle can can wear on you. Um Catherine, my wife moved up to Northern California. We had met in San Diego where I started bartending, moved up here. And uh I actually my the my boss was a Navy SEAL, a former Navy SEAL, and and I was telling him I'm thinking about going into the military. And uh he said, Well, what are you looking at? You know, I named them all off, and he said, Have you thought about the Coast Guard? And so I said, Oh, well, I'll check it out. And you know, you start looking at everything that they do, and I was like, This is this is cool, you know, and you have they have some of the best bases, so I figured wherever I'd land would be a a good spot. And so yeah, I went into you know, I took my tests and went to boot. Uh how old were you then? Uh 24. Okay. Yeah. So um, you know, the day that I graduated, I made sure my mom had a um heirloom wedding ring and I proposed my wife on the the beach of lovely Cape May, New Jersey. Uh I think only one of the only good things that's come out of New Jersey. Uh damn, shots fired. I know. I know I know. I there's there's a lot of lovely things over there. Um, but uh yeah, it was it was a wonderful experience, you know. Boot camp is definitely an interesting experience. But I was it was winter, so I was thin as a rail and white as a sheet when I when I got out and Catherine was like, who is this guy? You know, and I was interested in boot, because you know, I've got the scruff, but I've always had a lot of scruff. I'd have to shave twice in boot, um just to because if I didn't by the the end of the day, they were looking at me, yeah. Did you shave it all the day? So I had I was very clean shaven, which is not something most people are used to.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

What were some of the biggest uh uh takeaways or lessons learned from that experience?

SPEAKER_04 10:26

From the well, from boot and through the Coast Guard, uh I'd say how much you can accomplish in a small team, you know, and and what uh you definitely push your limits just just getting through boot camp, right? But then uh being deployed, we we ended up going to Panama. Uh we were constantly underway because of the type of boat I was on. We were up and down the west coast all the time. So being away from family and you know, uh having to just adapt to the you know small quarters with everybody, and then you're constantly learning. Obviously, I was doing a lot of engineering at the time when I was there. And so uh you just get exposed to so much. Uh you know, I got pepper sprayed, that was amazing. And they they video they back then, I don't know if they still do it, but they they tape it.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

And they gotta see the snar running all down your face so everybody can relive that memory.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Oh my and you know, I and then they have these big gigantic water, you know, um basins, and you think you could you think you could breathe underwater because it feels so good to put your whole face in there and you never want to come back up. But and then you're sitting there in front of a fan as it's blowing on you. So that was that whole experience is something everyone should enjoy at some point in their life.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I think so. It teaches you um, I don't know, how to get through something that is just really terrible.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

I think getting pepper sprayed was by far the wor like the worst experience I had going through the police academy. You can tase me like ten times before you pepper spray me in the eyes. Did you have to get tased in your academy? Oh yeah. Yeah, we had to do both. That was nothing. It's it's literally five seconds of you know. Yeah, but what do you learn from that? Honestly, I don't know. You learn to be locked up. It's like getting jumped in, I guess. I don't know. It's a it's a rite of passage. No, I mean it it helps you understand what people are going through when you use it. Yeah. And maybe the limitations when you have the discussions about it and how some people react or are more sensitive to being shocked than others. Same with OC spray, right? For example, like I had a really bad reaction to it. Like I had a headache, I had, I just I had a terrible reaction. I fought through it, did my thing, no big deal, but I had a terrible reaction. Or some people, they were a couple hours later, they were pretty like all right.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah, I ate it. It wasn't me. So yeah, like so. I went when I was in the uh when I worked for probation, we had to do that and got sprayed, did it, and I did it so I recovered so well that they didn't think I got a a good contamination. So they did it, they made me do it again. And then when I was going through the police academy, same thing, I was like, I even told probably worst mistake ever. I told them I was like, hey, you know, I actually handle this stuff really well. So they doused me, went through it, and they're like, I was because I think I was in the water and in the fan for like less than five minutes and I was done.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Like, what the hell's wrong?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

No, he must have not got contaminated enough. Let's do it again. So both times for both agencies had to do it twice.

SPEAKER_04 13:33

I think they also, if if you've got really heavy eyebrows, they really like to get it in there so you get the reflash afterwards. I remember you know, going back home. There's still plenty up in these caterpillars right here. So uh I you know try and get it all out, but I got reflashed pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, well, I watch videos online, and like some people don't do it the same. I've seen some academies where they go across the forehead or they do it like just like in one eye. Like we we got I think we got like an S pattern. It was just like the whole thing. And maybe that was just us, but it was it was not a fun experience.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Yeah. Well, and when you when you do it, then do they the somebody in the lobster suit come after you? Yeah, you had to be fighting.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah, you had to be able to fight through it, give commands, get proper radio traffic, give them your location. What you you had to identify what weapon the opponent had in front of you. So you would see guys randomly being like, drop the knife, and it's like a baseball bat. Keep guessing, keep guessing, drop the knife. So you just like keep some of the people were literally like, I remember I was holding my eye open because it wouldn't it just shut, you know. Like you can't you can't spicy power just in there. Yeah, your physiological response. So I had to like pry my eyes open to freaking identify what it was and then deliver several strikes, and they have to be sufficient strikes before you he'll go to the ground.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Then you have to cuff them.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Then you gotta cuff them properly, so you're fiddling around with that. Like you have to kind of force yourself to see. So that's I think the other thing with the OC spray is it forces you be able to fight through that because the reality is when you use it in the field, you might get some wind or backlash or yeah, you can get contaminated.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

That's why it's like that makes sense to me more than the taser. Yeah. Because I mean, I've almost been tased before too, yeah, by a partner. So it could have happened. But I mean, I sure I could have learned from it, I would just collapse and lock up. So yeah. But anyways.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

So Coast Guard, any um any particular standout stories or memories that you can think of?

SPEAKER_04 15:23

You know, they're they're the stupid embarrassing ones. Um we love those. Yeah, yeah. So um we being kind of the lower guy on the totem pole, you know, and I was working in engineering, but we and we were a what's called A-gang, so auxiliary, we did everything but the main engine, right? And so hydraulics, uh, and then occasionally a little plumbing. And so when you're underway, obviously, you know, you've got 40 people on the boat, and you know, the cooks are pr shoving things down into the uh disposal, and we had a a a blocked pipe, and we didn't know where the block was. And so I'm uh trying to you know to open something up to be able to just see where we could get a uh un un unlodge, dislodge. And I hit the jackpot. In fact, I was on because I was on a a ladder on the very top piece of it, I couldn't go anywhere. And so I finally get it open. I did not un I underestimated the weight when it dislodged, and I swear it was the exact spot where everything was lodged, and it shoots down, but it only goes this far. And it's all this gray water, yeah. We call it gray water, and it's just everybody's dinners from like the entire night. It's just and I've got three guys standing there, they they're on the floor, they're not helping because they're just laughing their asses off. And I just got it straight in the face, and there I couldn't do anything other than just take it. And uh so yeah, when I think of military stories that uh are interesting that I can I think tell in public, that's probably the one that I like to tell people about. And from that point on, I I don't I didn't live that down.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

I was gonna say any nicknames come from that.

SPEAKER_04 17:28

So or any other maybe? Uh yeah, I mean this is this isn't a kid-friendly show, right? No, it is absolutely not. So uh my my nickname, well ultimately my nickname was Balls, but uh whenever there was a shitty job to do, I was always balls in into it. Yeah, yeah. So which I didn't mind because I didn't care doing all the the you know the crazy stuff. And uh so it just became you know, there was something that needed to get done that was what nobody else wanted to do. It was just like go get balls. Well, you don't care what other people think.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

You get put into those situations a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

So you finish up uh at the Coast Guard, you propose to your now wife. And then when does becoming uh a lawyer attorney uh kind of when does that come to the forefront?

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Yeah, uh so nearing the end when I was get getting out of the Coast Guard, I was actually working a lot with um just contracts and purchasing. And one of the things I found really interesting is this field of law called a quitam. Uh and it's basically whistleblower law that uh if you represent a whistleblower, you can actually recover some of the funds. So it's kind of like a you know, a personal injury attorney gets funds from whatever they they get. What I really liked is you know, you're catching fraud and you're getting paid to do it because you get a portion of what's returned. Nice. And is that still around? It is still around and it's sounds fun. You know like a lucrative profession. It it actually is. There's there's some really big firms that do it, and uh, but the all those people went to much better, much higher end uh law schools than me. Maybe I maybe I could get a job there, I don't know. Uh but so I started really looking into that. I wanted to do that. And so when I got out, I finished I finished my degree actually in the military. And so I used my GI bill to go to school, but I had to go to school at night so I could work during the day. And so I decided, okay, I'm gonna go into law, and then I was gonna do that route, you know, and I worked at a couple of different places and while in in law school, because I wanted to build up my you know legal resume even before I could become a lawyer. And I remember working for a PI firm, personal injury firm, and they said, Well, if you want to get trial experience, you're not gonna get it here. You wanna, if you want courtroom experience, go to the DA's office. And they were right. I went, I I would intern some some hours over at the Placer County DA's office while I was still in law school, and that's when I got bit by the criminal law bug. And I just loved being in the courtroom, loved just the constant back and forth with the judge and um other other lawyers and defense counsel, and said, okay, this is I think this is what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

So what year was that that you were doing that internship?

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Uh probably I I started, I think, in 13 or maybe even 2000 maybe 12. And uh I would I'd come and go, you know, whenever they had stuff for me, and then obviously I had to still work during the day. So I was I was you know cutting into some of my work hours to be able to go and do that. Um but yeah, I think that was about the time period that I was there.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Okay. And you where did you go to your uh law school? That was McGeorge.

SPEAKER_04 21:03

Yeah. So I uh I needed to go to a place that I had a had a a night program and there was two in the Sacramento area. Um because I'd already when I got out of the Coast Guard, I got a job at PCWA working in their finance department. So that's I needed something local. And we had always wanted to we we just had our first child, um, and he was about one or two years old when we moved up here. So it was all about school safety, you know, where where do you want to raise a kid? And this is the number one spot.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Placer County is uh it's an awesome place to be. Oh yeah. I mean, I uh I'm not from here originally. I moved out here in twenty seventeen and uh yeah, our family kind of fell in love with it. We didn't know a single person here, and now we've got a a whole uh crew of amazing friends and people on our circle, and yeah, it's such a I don't know, Placid County is a great place to be. Yeah. For sure. So law school. You graduate. What was the first, I guess your first big hire from law school? Did you work in a private practice or no?

SPEAKER_04 22:08

I st I started at the uh um the DA's office here. Okay. So it what's interesting is I when I uh went to law school because I was going at night, it's a four-year program, but I graduated actually in three and a half years. No big deal. And so yeah. And so I I actually took the bar in February, which is actually a little uh nerve-wracking because most people that take it in February, it's their second time taking it because they failed the first time. So I'm around a bunch of people that have already failed it, and you know, their nerves are way up here. And uh, but thankfully I passed the first try. And uh there were people that got hired in the hiring cycle at Placer County, and one of them just abruptly left. So I just swooped right in and was able to get a job, which I was really worried I was gonna have to wait. I was gonna be, you know, doing freelance work or whatever. And he's like, nope, somebody just literally walked out. Timing is amazing sometimes. Absolutely. So, and I had, you know, I had a good reputation there. So I ended up being there for about two years. Um, I really liked doing or like the more complex stuff. And there wasn't really a lot of white collar, and I had somebody that I knew at the AG's office, and so I I headed over there and and ended up working as a deputy attorney general in their special crimes uh you know, financial fraud unit.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Nice. Yeah. What were um what was a a case, if you don't mind me asking, that you can kind of divulge some information that you were most proud of?

SPEAKER_04 23:40

Or that yeah, that's I think the the one I was m most proud of, especially at the uh AG's office, is um there was a case of a one of my favorite groups of people to go after are lawyers. So uh I love going after gertie lawyers. And uh we had an immigration lawyer. She was a Kansas lawyer, but because it was immigration, it's all federal, she can she doesn't have to be a California attorney. So she was a federal, you know, uh immigration lawyer, and she was not finishing any of the work. She had some people in the front office that were basically keeping all of these people trying to get their um do the things the right way and uh just either not filling out the paperwork or or just you know spending all of the money on her own things. And it was interesting because no one really wanted to take the case, you know, and um it was just bouncing all over the AG's office. Was it this consumer fraud? Was it this or that? And uh thankfully my boss at the time, who's now an assembly member, uh, she said, on like I think it was my first day, she said, I got the case for you. She handed it to me, and it was, you know, 20 plus uh victims. Um, some of them eventually didn't want to come forward, but we ended up filing a big old complaint on on the attorney for basically just you know grand theft. Um and uh we filed it. I mean, it you know, these things take forever. Uh the white collar cases can drag on, but ended up getting it to a spot where we, you know, she ended up, I think, getting six years. Uh, but you know, when we did the search warrant on the house, yeah, we they open up the the garage and there's all these client files everywhere. And there's, you know, birth certificates and everything and all that. And at the at the bar, the state bar, they didn't have a process, or at least they didn't want to use that process to step in for this attorney that had defrauded all these people to help get all these client files back. And uh one of the great things about that case was I was able to find kind of the law that supported them taking it over as, you know, as a receiver almost. And now my understanding is they do that that whole process. And it usually happens with these notorios, you know, and and uh these immigration lawyers that come in and and defraud immigrants.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Now, federal cases, they they seem to take a lot longer to investigate. Is that just the nature of it's like a spider web of multiple connections versus simple local criminal cases? It just there's usually far less people involved in these things. Aaron Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:29

And I one of the things is you know, at the state level, you're usually holding it not that we don't do big cases. I've got some pretty big ones now, but you're usually handling a case that's maybe 100,000 or whatnot. And you know, the joke is that the U.S. Attorney's Office doesn't get out of bed for less than a million, right? So when you get to the point where it's uh over a million in losses, usually the fraud has kind of metastasized into this huge web uh and it's complicated. And so you you're dealing with the FBI. I mean, if it's a drug case, then you're probably looking at, you know, uh you just a hierarchy of people. So you're it's gonna take longer, it's gonna rely on different investigative tools. You know, you probably have informants, you probably have to flip somebody. Whereas at this, at the like at the county level where I'm at now, it's not that often in a fraud case that we're gonna be, you know, giving somebody immunity or anything like that. It just doesn't happen as often as as there. And the other thing is that you want the feds to take it because they've got a bigger hammer than we do. Right. Uh, you know, and we don't really have a lot. We've got a white collar enhancement that can make it a prison case, but uh for the most part, uh these these bigger cases, we just don't have the resources for them. I have one securities fraud case right now, and that that thing's such a beast, I don't think anybody would ever want to take it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

unknown 27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Now when you when you say lack of resources, is that just personnel in general or expertise, or what what does that look like?

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Aaron Powell You nailed the two that are the biggest issues. You know, we don't have a forensic accountant right now at at uh Sacramento. We will we hire experts if we want, but uh you know, even that comes with a price tag, and you know, everyone knows there's budget cuts uh everywhere. Uh so we don't have you know a forensic accountant like maybe the FBI does. Uh we don't have, you know, we have SAC high-tech, you know, if we we get into a bunch of uh cell phones, but we're at the back of the queue for fraud because they're you know busy doing some really serious cases, most of it, you know, you know, child stuff, you know, um, and obviously that should come first. So we don't have a lot of the resources to take on every single fraud case that's out there. So we have to pick and choose which ones we're gonna do, and then it we monitor it, or we try and figure out maybe it's a consumer fraud thing that we can put off to another, you know, area, or we find a, you know, the a Fed organization that wants to take it. But for the most part, it's absolutely its expertise and resources. And the other piece is, you know, they hired me at at the SAC DA specifically to do white collar. And it's really not easy to find uh DAs, you know, deputy DAs that want to do this kind of work. They want to do, you know, the blood in the street stuff. Plus, most of these places, you know, most DA's offices they promote based on the number of trials you do. Well, I I don't do very many trials anymore because it's so hard to get them to trial. And then by the time you get to that point, right, it resolves.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

So, how would you say that shaped kind of your experience working through those sort of crimes versus some of the more local, smaller cases that we see handled a lot? Like you know, like how do how has that kind of shaped your experience? Yeah, you mentioned a lot of guys don't like to take on those cases. Is it because of the timeline that is involved, the extra networking that goes into it? I would imagine it's it's a real test of your your own patience.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

I it it's a lot of that, yeah. I think part of it is that you know, when you start out as a DA, everyone goes starts to misdemeanors, and then you go to DUIs, and that's where you get all your you know, real quick trials. You're just doing them left and right. And then you start getting used to, you know, and dealing with cross-examining experts or direct examination, and then you move up to felonies. And in that whole timeline, you're really dealing with a set group of crimes and you're dealing with sentencing, and it's all complex in its own right. But then once you get to white collar, especially, you're now you're dealing with maybe corporate law. You know, you're dealing with shell organizations. Now you're talking about money laundering and following money and trying to build a case based on perhaps somebody's spending patterns and how do you prove an omission, you know, that is a lie that ends up turning into fraud. All of that is a lot different. And a lot of it's paper heavy. So you know you're you're introducing bank records and you know, voluminous amounts of data. And the I think a lot of lawyers then start thinking, well, I don't, I don't know corporate law, or I don't know, I don't know if this is a false flag or not, you know, and because I spent half my time in civil, I know how a corporation operates. I know how you know why people form LLCs, I know why people use LLCs for nefarious purposes, because you know, even in civil, you're there's still civil fraud, and I had experience with that. So now I'm able to use all of that, and I can tell when somebody is using a corporation or uh an LLC as just a front because there's these telltale signs.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Gotcha. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

What case um I guess maybe do you have regrets about or that you learn the most from, or something something a case that bothered you?

SPEAKER_04 31:59

Yeah. Um I think first of all, the cases that really get you are the ones where uh you aren't able to secure restitution, especially in these financial elder abuse cases, because our elders can't earn that money back. Right. You know, and so part of it is just the frustration with the system and how difficult it is to, you know, freeze things, um, freeze assets. Uh, but the I think the the most frustrating thing right now, easily hands down, is mental health diversion and the fact that it's being applied even to cases like mine where somebody is claiming to have anxiety and depression, and that's why over a period of three years they embezzled $300,000 and completely destroyed a small business because there she was the bookkeeper. And having to, you know, fight that it it sounds so ridiculous to most people. I literally had one case um where the person initially was claiming to have a I I can't say what she claimed to have, but it was so far afield from what would cause someone to commit you know, embezzlement that I it felt like the Twilight Zone. That and I'm I'm sitting there having to argue against this. And I I feel bad for the judge because there the way the statute's written, he it it's almost forcing him to give mental health diversion to this person, even though everybody around knows that this person's mental health issue, which was diagnosed about six years from the beginning of the embezzlement, somehow retroactively applies to it.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

And and so those are the the worst. Right. So like because it doesn't exempt you from crime. Like, you know, oftentimes we'll have like a battery or something like that, and the person's, you know, deemed um not sane, but you're like, well, you still go to jail because just because you're having mental health issues doesn't give you uh the ability to just go ahead and beat somebody up. Now with uh like some of the white collar crimes, they're basically saying, like, oh, because I'm having all these issues, uh, I made mistakes, and that I can't be held accountable for the mistakes that I made, even though I I profited from those mistakes.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

And the way the law is written for mental health diversion under 1001.36 is that as long as they can show they have a um basically a mental health diagnosis from what's called the DSM five within five years actually of when we file it. So the crime could have come been committed actually, you know, for fraud, you know, it's we have a discovery statute, so it could be a really long time ago. Uh, but if they get a diagnosis within five years of when we filed it, and all they have to show is they got a diagnosis, then the judge has to presume that that diagnosis is the the cause, the substantial factor in why they committed the crime. Now keep in mind there's 296 diagnosis in the DSM five.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

How do all of those like relieve you of the culpability of like committing these crimes? Right. So how does narcolepsy?

SPEAKER_04 35:34

You can be diagnosed with narcolepsy, and the judge has to find, because of the way the statute is written, if you have narcolepsy, you are it is presumed that it caused their for their, for example, their fraud.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

And that's never been challenged, like oh, it gets challenged.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

I mean, we we have to then prove by clear and convincing evidence that the you know the narcolepsy or um you know, usually it's anxiety, depression was not a substantial factor, was not a contributing, motivating or causal factor in why they committed the crime. Now, in other areas of the law, it you can maybe see that there's this nexus. It's really hard to find a nexus in in my area where you're talking about sophisticated planning and financially motivated behavior. But the way that the courts of appeal have written their opinions, it's becoming harder and harder to prove, even by simple logic, that it clearly their depression or their anxiety is not why they embezzled from an elder that they were caretaking over, you know, their entire retirement.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Right. Or maybe it is why they did it, but that doesn't mean it's okay. It doesn't exempt them from like, okay, you're depressed, and so you do bad things, but you're still strong from people. Like you're still embezzled from people.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

And so the way that the law is written is once they are granted diversion, they go into the diversion program, and if they uh finish within, and it usually it's a year for misdemeanor, it's two years for felony, though they can finish early, they their entire record is wiped for that for that crime. So it didn't exist.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

It's a huge it's a it's a massive get out of jail. Right. It's like a big loophole that it's that any reasonable defense attorney is just gonna go to. If they if they have any similar, that's what they're gonna go to immediately because it's gonna cost more money for and more time, more energy, and all the things, and winning doesn't take that much for them.

SPEAKER_04 37:59

Right. And actually, they make the argument, defense counsel makes the argument that it would be ineffective assistance of counsel if they didn't suggest it and then try and get them into mental health treatment. And whether that's true or not, I don't I don't think it is, but it's the arguments that I hear when they look at me and they say, I know this is a long shot, or I I know this doesn't pass the smell test, but I've got to do it. And I I don't hold it against them. They're they're kind of doing their job, but the problem is that the way the legislature has set it up, it's especially with the backdrop of Prop 36, is that the the courts have created these now we have two courtrooms at least full-time. That means deputies, you know, bailiffs, uh court reporters, judges, uh all these attorneys doing this mental health diversion statute, and yet we don't have any funding, or they don't want to find funding for Prop 36. And so it's it it kind of gets to me that we're we're doing this. And then of course we have these these people now that are in a in diversion and it's two years, and there are a lot of them that should probably get kicked out of diversion, but they never do, you know. So they just keep re-offending a little bit, they get the little flash incarceration or whatever, they get thrown in for a day, but then they still don't get kicked out. And the other piece, especially in my world, is restitution is a huge deal. And if I can't get a restitution order, or if somebody forgets to get a restitution order, once they graduate, they're they're off the hook. Because it doesn't exist. The actual they can say, like in an interview, I never committed that crime. I was never, you know, held to account for any of that. It's gone. The only time you'll see it, you'll see it on a wrap sheet, but you won't be able to use it.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

So maybe that's maybe you've answered it, but um I'll be forthright. Like there's there's a lot of issues with the justice system. If you could change one thing about the justice system, what would from your experiences, what would be one of the things that you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 40:10

It's gonna be a hard one to answer.

SPEAKER_04 40:13

Um for it to work effectively, we need the legislature to either stop writing laws that they're they don't plan to fund or fund the ones they've already written to at least let the justice system work the way it they say it's supposed to. And the problem is that we have too many courtrooms dedicated to too many of these, you know, different diversion programs that they've created. We've we've we're not getting people through the system. And that's not just criminal, it's civil too. The the everything is backed up. It's the the judiciary is supposed to be the third co-equal branch. But, you know, when uh you know, I think as Hamilton said that it's the the least dangerous branch, that's because it doesn't have an army and it doesn't have the power of the purse. You know, the legislature has the power of the purse, yet they almost starve the judiciary. They they create it as a less-than um branch of the government. And if we actually funded it the way that it was supposed to be funded, I know this is the issue with everything, right? Uh is oh, throw more money at it. I do believe if we actually put money into some of these programs that they love to create, or we actually put money towards um having enough courtrooms and having enough DAs and enough bailiffs and and whatnot, that we would have the system work as intended. But until that happens, that every time they create a new diversion program or every time they make crime easier to commit and hold people less accountable, it's just gonna be this jam-packed, you know, uh courtroom. And especially like in Sacramento, where we've got three jail courtrooms and those things are filled to the brim. And people are just constantly just trying to, you know, get their case continued and and uh never resolve anything. Right. And that we need we need to have these cases resolved, we need to hold people accountable, and then we need victims, crime victims, to be able to have some peace of mind that the system's working for them. Because the a lot of crime victims just think that the system is entirely built to give the defendant an excuse for why they committed the crime other than hold them accountable.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Aaron Powell It's almost like it's intentionally overly complicated to make things go on forever.

SPEAKER_04 42:37

It's very Kafka-esque a lot of times. And it's hard to even if as a somebody who's lived in it, you know, try and figure out every single little thing in order to push a case all the way forward and be able to do everything that you need to do. And then, you know, I because I have some oddball stuff that I do in in special investigations, you know, sometimes judges are looking at me like, what are you giving me now? What is this? You know, and so now I'm complicating it even more.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

So it's it's weird to me that we have to be on the law enforcement or prosecution side. We have to be almost creative to solve cases that should really be no-brainers. Like anybody in the anybody in the general public can look at it most cases and say, right or wrong, guilty, not guilty, but it's all the it's all those extra things that are behind the scenes, the way the laws are written, the regulations that people don't know about that create so much frustration and make it really difficult to, like you said, just hold people accountable and get them get the cases closed.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

Right. And I it's not no one's trying to rush it, but there's you know, I've got cases that have been around for five years. And, you know, if if a defendant wants to kick around like a white collar, you know, difficult, complex case, they easily can because they could just keep getting it pushed out.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

And it makes it Easier to do for white collar crime because usually these are people that have the money to to pay for it, right? Because legal fees aren't cheap.

SPEAKER_04 44:07

And they're usually it's their somebody's their first time. Yeah. So the last place they ever want to go is prison or jail.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

And they're not deemed a flight risk, so they get to continue on living their life. Yep. Right? Yeah. Uninterrupted.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

Uninterrupted. And the you know, the one day maybe they spent in is uh what they feel is enough. You know, most of the white-collar defendants that I deal with, they're they have obviously some psychopathy where uh they definitely are the smartest people in the room. They in jail is below them. Uh any kind of incarceration is below them, and so they'll do anything they can to stay out. But at the same time, you know, that doesn't bring any peace of mind to the company that they cratered, you know, financially, or the elder who now is living in almost squalor because their entire retirement's gone.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Right. Yeah. I'm getting a sense of like as we discuss the frustration and the things that we see on this side of the criminal justice system. I kind of have a feeling I know why maybe it's led into the other part of your journey and your career. But um, maybe tell us kind of what was there a specific catalyst that caused you to go from the lawyer side of things to wanting to take a bigger role in um like local politics and getting more involved in the in some of that. Like how did you pivot from one to to where you are now?

SPEAKER_04 45:35

So I had always been really involved with volunteering. So Rotary and Chamber of Commerce, and during COVID, I was really active in the chamber, just helping, you know, businesses understand all the regulations that were being thrown at them. I represented a lot of restaurants, you know, against the government. Uh and I knew there's a lot that can be done locally. You can affect people the people that you love and and want to protect. And when it came to city council, it just so happened that at the time there was uh a race that opened up suddenly, and there was concerns about one of the other candidates. And nobody really wanted to jump in to the to the fight because of the amount of money that was raised and and just the personalities involved, and most of that's just in the past. But I I got the sense no one else was gonna do it. And so even though I wanted to eventually maybe be on city council, I thought it was gonna be when I retired or something, you know, uh, not when I'm raising a family and working full-time. Uh, but lo and behold, I I got talked into it. Uh Rula at Primos is is pretty persuasive, as are a couple other people that that uh convinced me it was a good idea. Uh and so yeah, we we we fought it out, got through that whole process, won by I think 399 votes. It was a it was brutal.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

And what position specifically was that for you guys?

SPEAKER_04 47:13

That was for city council, Brooklyn City Council, and and that started this whole you know journey of of being on city council and uh making decisions for the entire community, also seeing how you know the sausage is made, so to speak, locally, and and you know, whether it's labor negotiations or housing and state mandates, uh got a really good idea of the the complexity of just having a well-run city. And I I do believe Rockland is one of the best run cities, and it takes a lot of work to keep it that way.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Yeah. I wanted to ask, like, so going from not having any local political experience to whatever your perspective looked like prior to that, to being a part of city council and seeing kind of behind the curtain how things are done, how things are approached, what would you say your experience has been with that? Like what are some things you learned that maybe surprised you that people wouldn't really think are the way they are?

SPEAKER_04 48:13

I think the amount of local control that's being taken away by the state is what surprised me the most. So the state will at will will create a a law, but we're the ones that have to enforce it, right? So I feel bad for like the fire department because they go into a building and they see all of these violations. Well, it's not Rockland that wrote the ordinance, it's a state fire code yet they have to enforce it. Well, as these codes balloon, it's more and more pressure on a business and it becomes harder and harder to do business because you're constantly having to change your building or tenant improvements. And you take that and and amplify it by a hundred because it's everywhere. For example, housing. People keep telling us stop building housing. And it's not that simple. We are being told if we don't build housing, they they have a laundry list of things that they can do and have have done to to Rockland that make it even less give us even less local control. So people think that we can control a lot that we actually can't in in like the housing arena, and then we're being asked to well go sue the developer or something like that. Well, if that's not something covered by insurance. So if if people want us to get involved in lawsuits, we're gonna have to find that money somewhere else. Given that 60% of our budget is public safety, I always ask people, is that where you want the money to come out of? Because that we have a budget, it's about $100 million. It's a really easy pie to see, you know, where the money goes and it's all transparent. So we don't have the opportunities to kind of chart our own path as I think people believe. And so it's education as part of the process, but I did not know I was going to be doing as much education after I had to educate myself because I had always thought you get in there, oh yeah, if I don't, you know, if we don't want any more housing, we can just say no. No, the the legislature has given uh the Department of Housing and Community Development a lot of tools to enforce the the mandates in terms of how many affordable units we have to put out, which I'm okay with workforce housing, but that's been the the biggest shocker to me is just the number of laws that are written specifically to take away local control.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Yeah. Do you think go ahead?

SPEAKER_02 50:52

I was gonna say it kind of reminds me, so I worked in Sacramento, um, and it always felt like you know, the department had its stuff together, and then the city wanted to approach with their insanity and change all the things. Yeah. And so you go into a community or a city like Rockland, and it's like, okay, we have our stuff together, and then the insane city or this insane state puts all these things in place and basically hamstrings you, and you're like, so now we have to do we have to and we have to make bad decisions based on your BS.

SPEAKER_04 51:29

Is that yeah, yeah, and and not only that, but it's getting to the point where it's micromanaging every aspect of how the city's run, including law enforcement, including um, you know, even how a business can actually operate. And we we're since we're the front line, the city is the kind of what everybody sees as the place to go and uh you know, rightfully complain. I don't I don't mean that pejoratively at all. Uh everybody should be should be heard, but you know, they're gonna be they'll they'll blame the city for something that that we didn't necessarily do. And and it's extremely frustrating, you know, in law enforcement specifically, when you it it seems innocuous to create a a law that forces law enforcement to, you know, file a report every annually as to how many ex crimes are committed. The problem is that they forget that they've done that 20 other times. So we've got 20 other reports that we're giving annually, and all of those cost money. And the interesting thing is uh a year ago I asked that there's a called a commission on the st on state mandates. Uh what ends up happening is a jurisdiction will say, Hey, you need to compensate us for this. You wrote this law. You want me to take out 20 hours for an officer to sit down and go through the database and find all of the, for example, hate crimes, which I I get it why we need that data, but you're taking time away from something else. Compensate us. And I got a sheet back from them of all of the uh years worth of unfunded mandates that the state has not paid us. And it was a million dollars almost exactly. And I'd say 80% of it because there's some other stuff involving, you know, the court or the um the county clerk or city clerk, about 80% of it was law enforcement. It was, you know, reports filed on, you know, officer bill of rights or um mandated reporting uh reports for uh you know child abuse, all stuff that we would want to do, but they keep throwing extra stuff without funding. Without funding it. And then we're just supposed to figure out where we're gonna get this extra body to do all of this work, and some would call it busy work, instead of being out, you know, on on the street.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

Right. And it's funny you say that because I, you know, you're in kind of the conundrum of that, and I also feel that same thing with the court system, right? Like um in my time in detectives, it was amazing how much time I had to spend proving the things didn't happen that I knew I know didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

For the for the case, and you're like, oh, make sure you prove that this thing that you know didn't happen didn't happen. And you're like, man, I'm spending a lot of time and energy showing something that I know not to be true is not true. And it's just, yeah, I like we kind of bypassed the question, but it I've I've sometimes I I wish it was just like a reset on some of our um, some of the things that we do.

SPEAKER_05 54:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

Because I think we keep adding layers and layers and and you know, I think laws have been written so complicated that like like really only lawyers can understand them. And what are your thoughts on having laws like that versus something as simple as like commandments? What you know, where it was like everybody should know what the law is, it shouldn't read complicated. Yeah. Everybody should know that you should not steal, you should not murder, you should not. But I feel like we've just keep adding and adding. And the state sounds like they keep just adding and adding more red tape to where nothing can be as efficient as it should be. And we need we when there's not an abundance of money, we spend our money to do things just to check boxes instead of operating through common sense.

SPEAKER_04 55:38

Yeah. I know that was like 18 questions in one, but I I think that the the biggest problem is, you know, like you said, it's written by they're written by lawyers or people that want to be lawyers in the in the legislature. Um, and then they are the way that these this stuff is written, they either they're trying to anticipate all the exceptions or there's something that they want to carve out. And then you end up with this, you know, kind of unworkable statute, and it's it becomes not thou shalt not steal. It's well, if you if you steal, and it's under nine, well, now we have you know the nine fifty. Um but and this is where the diversion stuff comes in, even if you are clearly guilty, we're gonna give you this chance and this chance and this chance. And the the problem is that it it's the it's not that they get one bite at the apple, they think down to the core by the time there's a conviction, you know? Uh and then on on top of that, it's just, yeah, these things, some of these laws are just really complicated. And there's the the problem is if they make it too simple, then the argument is, well, it's quote, vote for vo void for vagueness, because we need to know exactly what we are what crime we're committing. But I'm pretty sure that most people don't open up the penal code and figure out, okay, this is this is I'm gonna make sure I do all of these things to commit to the city.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

Yeah, well, the thing is most crimes out there are they are pretty simple to explain, though. Like I was laughed when I so I started my law enforcement career in Arizona and later rolled out here. So you know, most most crimes are the same. A robbery in Arizona looks the same as a robbery here, a theft in Arizona or burglary looks the same as it does here, but the way it's written in California penal code is vastly different. Yeah. And I thought it was wild, like why the book in California was about triple the size of the criminal penal code book in Arizona. Then I started looking at the penal codes when I was like studying to transition to California, and I saw like three, four, five different versions of misdemeanor theft. You have like, what is it, penal code 484, then you have like 459.whatever.

SPEAKER_05 57:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:56

It's like it's all just misdemeanor theft. Why do we have four? And you could literally charge any one of those, and it's good for like a basic misdemeanor theft. And I it just blew my mind. I'm like, why do we have multiple codes that mean the same thing? It's it's theft. Like in Arizona, you had one. It's either misdemeanor theft or felony theft. Here you have like four different versions of misdemeanor.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

Like agricultural products and right. Yeah. It's just it's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 58:25

What are we talking about? As long as it's over you know, 950, most of the time we just charge 47. Right. Call it a day. You know, it's a it is interesting because in in fraud, obviously, there's different ways you can charge it, whether it's embezzlement or you know, theft by trick or device. We got all these. It's still dealing.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Yeah, just stealing from another person or a company or stealing things that aren't yours.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Because like in Arizona, like you had that too. Like, okay, there's different levels of these things, but those are just enhancements on the back end, though. But law enforcement never worried about that when writing it on the ticket book or booking somebody. Yeah, it was just misdemeanor, felony theft. And then the lawyers will figure out if there's enhancements and you know, mitigating circumstances and prior history, then they'll do all that.

SPEAKER_04 59:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

They'll make it apply appropriately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:11

And I and a good example of this is uh the EDD theft that occurred during COVID. All of ours we charge both because there's the unemployment code, uh, unemployment insurance code, that's that's a felony. And then there's just, you know, grand theft. Right. And so we're charging the same thing just to make it, I guess, easy. If one falls out, then we can just keep the grand theft. I don't like to charge things that way, uh, but it it's again, it's we have two different ways to charge your basic theft. I think for me, the one thing that stands out that I want to make sure is I'm communicating on a wrap sheet or I'm communicating when somebody does get eventually convicted, that it it adheres as close to the actual thing that they did. Right. So I don't like to charge just a grand theft. I'll I I'll just charge them with embezzlement if that's what they did. Um, because I want them, especially if you know you've got multiple victims and they decide to eat the sheep, right? And just go ahead and take all of it because they want the judge to give them an offer. I want it to reflect everything that they did. And so I spend a little extra time on it, but then I don't also add the grand thefts. You know, so if it's a if it's like financial fraud of an elder, then I'm charging the elder fraud statute. If it's securities fraud, then I'll charge securities fraud, which I think I'm the only one that ever really did that at the DA's office. So that was a that's a fun one. But uh and I think it's it's valuable as well because the one, when the jury does get the the charges read or they have to see the the the jury instructions, they have an idea of what they're what kind of case they're they're dealing with. And then on top of that, you know, I I want if the the defendant's gonna accept accountability, I want them to have to go the extra step to admit that they committed embezzlement. Because grand theft could mean a lot of things, you know. Um and when somebody comes to me and says, Well, can I just can they just plead to a you know receipt of stolen property? No. They embezzled.

unknown 1:01:21

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:22

It was no one no one dropped it off on their front porch, it didn't fall off a truck, you know. So I I'm a big believer that you gotta admit to what you did.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Yeah, that ownership component is so important. We had a whole episode on you know responsibility and taking ownership and how that really leads to you being a better person. Yeah. And until you are willing to take ownership for the things that you do, like can you really rehabilitate? Can you get better? Can you move on? Can you become a better person? If you're not willing to take ownership of even some of these smaller things, like the small crimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Like not all these crimes are talking about murder, we're talking about some really pretty basic crimes here locally, but people will not take ownership of those things.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:02

Yeah, and I think we're again with this, like the mental health diversion, but one of my biggest problems with it is that some of these people don't actually have the diagnosis at the time that they committed the crime. Right. We are we are telling people it's okay to commit crime as long as you can get this diagnosis. And we're also re because then they go for, you know, however many times they go back to court and we're reaffirming for them, well, you have depression, therefore, that's why you committed this crime. You know that's not why. You know that. But we're giving them that that out to never take accountability. And and I think that there are some defendants that then walk out of it thinking, yeah, I'm not I didn't commit that crime. I never committed that crime. I was I was under, you know, depression. True. Well, I mean, depression is everybody has gets depressed. Everybody I a massive amount of people in uh in America have depression. The fact that somebody's now convinced that it their depression is why they you know chose to steal or chose to steal or fraud and righteously justifies it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:16

Yeah, righteously justifies it exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Um, how does something like that get changed? Like how like where they're they're allowed to do this, this has become the way. Yeah. Like how does that get taken as like we're no longer accepting this because it's become too prevalent and we know it's studies have shown or whatever, it's a scapegoat.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:41

But we have a couple of there's a couple of bills right now. Uh I don't know what their exact titles are. I know our office, the SACTA, is has been pushing one forward. And it will I think change the mental health diversion statute for the better. It will take away um some of what we've been talking about, the presumption that basically forces uh the judge to make a finding that in no circumstances would they ever make but for the statute telling them to. And if we take that away, you know, of course, you know, the defense bar is saying, well, if you take these things away, no one's gonna apply for mental health aversion and it's gonna be a dead statute. I don't believe that's true because it's mostly geared towards taking the presumption away uh for certain, you know, other crimes. Uh it if it were up to me, I think we we would just go back to the way the statute was originally written where there wasn't this presumption that the person is mentally um unable to stop themselves from committing a crime just because they have anxiety disorder. But until then uh we're we're not gonna see anything until the legislature changes it, or it gets so bad that we have to go to the ballot, which is a very real possibility. I mean, just last well, I think it was this week maybe that the DA's office uh it was, I think it was on Monday, they did a press release, they just got a murder conviction on a guy that was out on mental health diversion in another case involving violence. And he mur he killed somebody, and so they just got a conviction on him. So he he was uh apparently being rehabilitated the at the exact moment that he killed somebody. I think that's uh Yeah. So I I'd have to look at the case to see uh more of the facts, but it just blows my mind that these there's people that are out on mental health diversion allegedly getting these services and then they kill somebody.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

So from a local politics perspective or institutional perspective, how do we educate the public more so they can be m more informed about these things that are going on? The courtrooms and why these decisions are being made the way they are. Because a lot of the frustration that I think the average citizen has comes from just a lack of understanding and not really having the information. So, like, what are some things we can do locally to give the people here this information and knowledge and help them better understand the process and how they can implement change and have an impact?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:22

Yeah, I think that the number one way is look at Prop 36. That got passed because people on every single social media feed and on the news were seeing smash and grabs. It was no longer theoretical. It wasn't that just happens in San Francisco or that just happens in LA. It's happening in everybody's malls. It's happening, you know, there's they're going into a store and seeing something, you know, uh locked up, or toothpaste being locked up. Right. And so they have to feel it a little bit, or they have to see it enough. And so when you have uh, you know, at least some of the law enforcement that is getting stuff out on social media, and then that's getting picked up by local news and that is very powerful because people see it. You don't want people to think that, you know, obviously Rockland is all of a sudden this is the most dangerous place to live, right? You do want to be able to highlight and say, This happened, this was a smash and grab that happened at Ulta or you know, wherever, and we caught them and they are from, usually they're from Sacramento or some other, you know, Valle or something. Um and constantly let people know that this stuff is happening. And so when it's it becomes a little more nuanced when you're talking about mental health diversion because you have to explain to them this person was supposed to be getting services and on mental health diversion when they killed this person. And but we need it, it needs to be nonstop. And I think that DA's offices have started to pick up on that, but every DA's office has to have uh be as active as our DA is here, who obviously he's you know pioneering a lot on the fentanyl. And you know, I think they just won a like an Emmy or something for a commercial they did on Fenton.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

The one pill can kill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:19

I mean, that whole thing that's insane. It that's wonderful. But that is the type of activity that we need from law enforcement, whether it's the DA's office, the sheriff's office. They and if if they can go out and and get that expertise or hire somebody to get that expertise to do that work, that is one of the most valuable things so that it's constantly in people's feeds and it's being done in a way that they'll they'll stay tuned, right? Because you don't want to you don't want to bore them.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:48

Right. Well, you talked about the smash and grabs, and that's like we see that that people are witness to that, and you get security cameras that capture that. And then if the officers do the investigation, arrest the people, they take them to jail. But I think the thing that becomes kind of behind the blind curtain is how many people then just get uh released on their own recognizant, and then, or they're like, okay, we're gonna be out on bail, whatever. And then, or they get it gets dismissed for whatever the reason. And those things kind of don't I don't think I don't know what the effective way of communicating that would be. It's like, okay, you have these things written by the state that says we're obligated to do X, Y, and Z. It's gross, and that's why it is the way it is. I mean, one of the prime examples is you arrest somebody who's for whatever, let's say it's a armed robbery, and they're on probation times five. Right. It's like the first thing on probation is you're not gonna commit any more crimes. So not only have they committed a crime and got convicted of it, they've done it four separate times, and instead of being in jail, they get released on probation and they're still committing crimes, and you're like, well, how like they probably shouldn't be released. But then there's obviously state issues that go into all those things. And that's the wildest part. And I think when people people learn that, they go, This doesn't make any fucking sense. And you're like, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:22

Yeah, the the way bail is handled now, and there was just recently another um Supreme Court case, California Supreme Court case that came out that uh even further makes it difficult to put bail on an individual because it has to be based on their own economic means. Which uh obviously if somebody's indigent and how are you gonna how are you gonna you know give them any bail, right? So then it becomes a no-bail situation. You can slap GPS on everybody if you you wanted, and I mean uh there's there's so much that goes into how you can even maintain keeping somebody in custody if it if it's warranted. And to your point, it's extremely frustrating when you have somebody who's FTA'd multiple times, you know, they failed to appear, uh, they've committed crimes elsewhere, they've got court cases in three different counties, and you know, they you just you want to be able to just hold them in one spot so that they can start getting their cases heard. I mean, it it's like this kind of thing happens a lot like on the identity theft cases that I have where they they break into a mailbox in Sacramento and then they break into a mailbox in YOLO, eventually they get caught, but they're continuing to do that exact thing over and over again, identity theft while they're out on their own recognizance, or they've gotten probation in one case. And you'll have somebody who's got all these 530.5s, and it's just year after year. You're like, what? How and they're so hard to catch.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:52

Yeah. Like they're really hard to catch. And they don't stay at a at one address like most people do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:58

Yeah. And then you, you know, you eventually find them in a motel room with a hundred you know, IDs. Uh I love those cases.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:07

Our favorite. Yeah. Let's call it like we have to contact every single person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:13

So it it's really both the bail side of things and the fact that people just don't show up, especially misdemeanors, right? Why even bother?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:22

So that was the th that was the thing in Sack County. And you could probably speak more intelligently to it, but it was like when Prop 47, the uh Safe Schools Act, um, when that was labeled that, and it basically just legalized theft, which we saw, like it was like, okay, you're gonna arrest a person, and they're like, give them a ticket, and then they don't show up to court, so they issue a misdemeanor warrant. Well, the jail doesn't accept anybody who on misdemeanor warrants. You can't book them.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:49

And so you're like, okay, so you just legalize theft. And then they come to Placer County and we take them to jail, and they they're like, wait a minute, you're not giving me a ticket? Like, no, no, not at all. We're taking you to jail, and uh, your car's been towed and all these things, and you're like, oh, maybe I should just stick to doing crimes in Sacramento County. And you're like, that's the beauty of working and and living in in Placer County, but it's like you still see it's not a distance where we share the same boundary, and one mile can separate going to uh go into jail for a while and getting a ticket. And you can see why the crimes are the way they are in different counties.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So true. All right. Just switching gears back to um local politics and your experience here in Rockland. I just wanted to ask, like, we talk a lot about what should be done, what could be done better. Like, what are some things that you can recognize currently that maybe do frustrate you here locally in Rock and Rockland specifically, that maybe we can do a little bit better? Is there anything on your radar that you've been looking at that you're kind of like, I've got a solution for that that I think can maybe improve some things?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:04

I think there's a constant frustration with the city from a business perspective. Uh we are revamping all of our codes so that it's a little easier to understand. But I think the human element we can always improve. And I we have. Um there I know that there's been some personalities that we've had in the past that just haven't really jived with the business community. I think um recently, in the past couple of years, we've we've changed that and start to work a little bit more hand in glove with the chamber to assist small businesses that are coming in or um trying to get tenant improvements and understand all the codes that are going on. I think that's you know, we don't have these major issues. We don't have, oh, we need to fix the homeless, you know, issue in our downtown. We'll we need a downtown. That'd be nice. We're we're working on that. Instead of uh what is it, the cheaper housing that's getting built? Yeah. It's a little bit of a controversy. What's interesting is to in order to get the downtown and to have businesses that are going to flourish, sometimes what they're looking at is what's the proximity to housing. So sometimes they they feed off of each other, and you can have some housing and some commercial. Unfortunately, the state or some commercial isn't part of their calculus. They want just housing. We obviously one of the things people don't understand is housing doesn't bring in revenue for the city. People think, oh, you just want more housing because you want more revenue. Actually, what brings in revenue is tax dollars being spent at commercial establishments. Uh so we're trying to find that that blend. And so for example, the downtown that we're trying to build out, we have a where the what we call the big gun property, which is right next to the quarry park, that's being developed into an outdoor um market similar to Oxbow and Napa. And so getting those things moving forward and so that we have actually a a downtown for people to go to. Um, but back to your original question, I think one of the frustrations is is on the the business side of things because we have really great uh uh feedback from citizens about public safety, uh response times from law enforcement, all that stuff we're we we're doing great in. We got to start working on the quality of life stuff to continue to to work on. And some of this stuff is is even there are actually tougher problems to solve, for example. It I mean, it's a minor thing, but everyone seems to have a problem with e-bikes. Yeah, yeah. And uh that's the thing. It is, and it is, it it's a huge problem, especially I mean, man, West Rockland and and the Whitney uh area hope that it's nonstop. It's blown up. But the state, again, here's another issue. The state has told us we can't regulate those e-bikes. The only way we can is if we regulate them at the school, because then we have some type of hammer, which is to speak. Yeah, which is which has been done.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:17

So it's like the the things you're allowed to do, you've done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:20

But now what? Now yeah. So I mean we are trying to get you know some legislation passed that'll allow us to at least do a little bit more regulation because obviously the the main concern is you know these kids' safety, and you know, and there are times where these e-bike riders have actually injured or killed a pedestrian.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:39

So Right, which is ultimately the concern. It's not that people want to take away the kids' fun and anything like that. It's genuinely we want people to be safe on the roads, the kids, the drivers, everything else.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:50

But what does a 12-year-old know about being safe? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:59

Exactly, which is kind of why it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, the whole educational component. And because really it's the parents that need to have the either they're lacking the education or they're I guess for a lack of better child like just being dismissive about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:13

My child would never do anything bad like that as they're going through intersections on red lights, flipping people off.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:18

Well, you know, and and we had this this is uh another great example. We were having issues, you know, kids coming out of Granite Oaks Middle School and going to all the local businesses and just creating havoc, right? Well, if we just have Rockland PD go down there and, you know, bust a kid and have the parent come down, the parents upset. You know, he or she is like, don't you have anything better to do? You know, and you know, now all of a sudden you're getting, you know, the the parents thinking that you're gonna give their kid a criminal record. And so we kind of we we started looking at it again, just like with the e-bikes, uh, you know, Chief, myself, and a couple others organized all the local uh businesses to come down to the PD and say, what are the issues that are that are you're facing, and then implemented it so that because these kids are just leaving school, we still have jurisdiction over them at the school level. And it's interesting, parents respond better when there's an issue with the kid in school and that might affect their academic record, they become more responsive than if it's law enforcement playing mom and dad. I could see that. And we we had a lot more success in communicating and educating and and getting behavior to change, so much so that by the second year, um almost everybody uniformly said, hey, the only issues we have now is litter, trash, things like that. Our dollar store, the Dollar Tree, they're the only Dollar Tree that actually reduced their uh theft by I think they said something like 80%. Just because we went about it in a different, a different fashion. So there's those types of things that we we kind of always have to be vigilant to find the right solution that's right size, so we're not, you know, we're not hurting a kid's chances in the future, but they they get the they get the message. With e-bikes, it's a little bit more difficult for for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:16

There's still a lack of accountability, and that's I think where the the youth have it, where it's they're not held accountable oftentimes by law enforcement, by the school, or by their parents. And so you start seeing that more and more.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:30

And you can definitely tell, you know, my daughter's fourteen, so she's been brought up in the e-bike era, you know, a lot of her friends are the ones or f former friends, or some of these the the multiple offender, repeat offenders. Um and you know, let's just say that there's definitely that lack of accountability at home, and it plays out uh, you know, on the streets.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:59

Right, and you see it, it's like you see e-bikers all the time, and it's it's really you only like for law enforcement, you only engage them when they're doing absolutely reckless stuff. And they do and they're so it's like you see hundreds of them going and they're right in the bike lane with the helmet doing the right thing, but it's the ones that are doing wheelies towards oncoming traffic. I saw that. And when they get when then they go through red lights, and then again, like they flip the people off that are honking at them, like, and then all of a sudden those people call into the PD, they call into the city and they're like, what are we doing about this? It's like it's a few that just ruin it, and then they get in packs of 50 and they take over the road. But we also have like bicyclists that ride in packs of like 30 and take up the road too. It's not just e-bike. I get equally mad at them too.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

100%.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:52

Yeah, I think you know, the the part that really aside from just the the sheer dangerousness of it is you they're you know, when they're chirping non-stop and then they're almost goading other drivers, that that's what worries me because you don't know who you're messing with. And I I worry that these kids have a false sense of security, that everyone's just gonna take it, they're just gonna be, you know, a soccer mom that had a bad day. There's gonna come a time when they're gonna chirp at the wrong person and they're gonna end up on a grill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:21

Which is yeah, which is been called several times. Yeah. All right. I think um maybe we should get to the elephant in the room and address uh probably what's on a lot of people's minds if anybody's made it thus far in the episode. Um talk a little bit about your most recent campaign running for Placer County Superior Court judge. Yeah. This is um I don't know. It's interesting. What are your uh I mean I just I'm genuinely interested in hearing kind of your your experience, kind of what you thought going into it, what your motivations were and ultimately like what you took away from this this exp experience.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:59

Yeah, I mean I I found the whole process fascinating from the beginning, and I I remember talking to a consultant and they were asking me, and I said, Well, some of this is just interesting. Nobody ever does this, and uh I don't mind being on the leading bleeding edge, you know, uh old ball score. Uh so why not? Uh but also, you know, yeah, I had I did have a discussion with uh some DAs that had issues with this particular judge, and um the issues were not something that seemed to be getting fixed. And so uh in particular, just the way the search warrants were being handled and and just an overall experience level. And I said no originally because it it's it's difficult, as has proved out, uh, to to run against a sitting judge, and there's a lot of things you have to overcome. Uh, but eventually I I heard some more stories and I kind of did my homework and I said, you know, this one might be worth it. This this should be it it's possible that in Placer County we we have a pretty smart electorate that they might be able to um get enough signal through the noise. And so I I kind of made a tentative decision to put my name in the hat, which by the way, jud to run for judge is much different than any other seat. And so you actually have to put up about $2,400 just to be considered, and then I got to seeing how many endorsements I could get. Because I realized very quickly that if I can't get certain endorsements, there's there's just no point in going forward. And to my surprise, uh I started getting those endorsements. But it was interesting from the very beginning, the number one uh common thread was fear of retaliation. Uh fear was the biggest thing that I was encountering over and over again. And thankfully, there's a lot of people that are brave and courageous and said, you know what, this is worth it, let's let's get in. And so then I started picking up the the endorsements. But in the in well, in the beginning and then throughout. Yeah, even fundraising, it was always fear. I don't I don't know if I should be giving money to you, you're not a sitting judge. And um they were also afraid of some level of retribution from the judges.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:25

And so your your motivation was primarily from the experiences that you've heard DA's having with this particular judge. Or was it did you ever consider prior to that, you know, taking on a role as being a judge?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:37

I had. I definitely did, but the way that you most people become judges, about ninety ninety-five percent of judges are actually appointed originally by the governor. Um and I have no problem with the appointment process. Um I'm not I don't think that it would be disqualifying to me from the that aspect. The problem is that it ultimately is a political process. Anybody that tells you otherwise is lying because they want it to make it sound like it's this completely objective process. It's not, and it's it's run by a lot of insiders. People do put their name in the hat, but to be selected and to be chosen if you have, for example, an R next to your name, if you're a Republican or you've you you have conservative beliefs, I don't know many people what they're honestly telling you, you know, their opinion, will say that you're going to be selected. Now there are there is every once in a while a Republican that'll be selected, um, but usually you wouldn't have known it. Right. And I'm not saying that I'm a hardliner at all, but during COVID I took stances um on the day's and in Rockland City Council. I've made multiple comments about my problems with certain things and and legislation that's been written, and it's clearly been written by one party, because we we have, you know, a dominant party for decades. I don't see myself going very far in that process. And so the only way would be through an election. And I figured this was the one that I would, you know, I would try for.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:17

Yeah. And I think I mean, I have a limited scope of, you know, what I've witnessed with your campaign and things, you know, from just kind of knowing you from our inner circle. But like I feel like you had a really good run. Like you guys did really well. You had a tremendous amount of support. And I don't think people realize how hard that is to get. You know, even just discussing the topic of judges, I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong, but like I feel like if I were to talk to just the average person out there that has nothing to do with like, you know, law enforcement or politics or whatever, it's your average citizen, they probably know very little about the judges that are currently on the bench. And like, why would they, unless they have had a personal experience. So like you said, I don't think people understand how difficult it is to actually uproot a sitting judge through an election when they're already there.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:08

Yeah. And I mean, even even now, you know, I'm getting phone calls and people are saying I've never seen somebody get this much support or you know, this many votes. Usually it's in the 20s or the tens, um, which is is nice and it's it's encouraging, but uh to your point of the level of support going into it, to have not just, you know, obviously Rockland and Roseville Police Officers Associations, Placer County and Sacramento Deputy Sheriff's Associations, and then to have, you know, the the elect sheriff Wayne Wu, the elected DA, uh Morgan Geyer, those were all huge. And then to have the court clerks and reporters stick their necks out and say, hey, there's issues that need to be addressed, and we're going to back this candidate. And they had they had their own, some of them had their own issues with the the actual judge that I ran against, but there's also other things that people needed to have a voice. And that was one of the things that was attractive to me is let's get this out into the open. Let's have people talking about the the third branch of government from a constitutional perspective, from an educational perspective, but also so that people would see. So when we're talking about decisions that this judge has made, people need to understand the level of discretion that a judge has. So almost, I'd say 30% of any of the time that I was spending talking to people was pure education.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:36

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:36

And so many people during the campaign would say to me, Wait, you know, a lot what you just said, which is I had no idea that we did all these things, and now I'm actually thinking about them in a different way.

unknown 1:29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:49

Well, it kind of talks about what we were talking about earlier about, you know, with some of the crimes. Like there's not, it's not so transparent about all the things. Like people just don't know. So how did you decide you were going to attack the campaign um to try to do something that was not often done?

SPEAKER_04 1:30:08

Yeah. So, you know, I I interviewed a bunch of consultants because I knew I was going to need at least some help on that front. I didn't have a campaign manager. I just had consultants. I didn't really know there was a difference until this time around. Uh and my last, and you know, this was my third rodeo. Right. So I'd done two other campaigns. They were they were hard fought. Um, and so I I wasn't afraid on that aspect of it. And I knew a lot of the things that I needed to do, which I think one of the reasons that running against a judge is so difficult is usually it's a first-time candidate who is putting this political machinery together for the very first time. And there's a lot of ways you can you can mess up. And I had already gone through that pressure cooker twice, so I knew what was gonna take roughly, except for instead of it just being Rockland, I had the all of Placer County, which is intimidating.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:03

Uh well, and then people from outside the county supporting the opposition.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:09

And I'll tell you, that was one thing I didn't it's not that I didn't think he'd get support elsewhere. I did not anticipate the sheer flood of money that came in to the point where he's able to spend it on things that normally you wouldn't spend on a campaign. Like a digital billboard is not that that's kind of a waste of money. It's known as a waste of money because you could be using it in other places. But to have so much money that you're like, you know what? I'm gonna do uh I'm gonna do some YouTube commercials, it just blows me away. I was gonna say, I started seeing a ton of YouTube commercials for and good on him, you know, for being able to, but you know, $45,000 dropped on you from a pack, uh, a judicial pack. It was crazy. Uh that just something so we were outspent, I think, three to one or something like that. And and money can buy races, but I think it's also that we just did not have enough voter contact. And of course, that's what we wanted. I mean, there were points in the during the campaign. I think I did after a full day's work, I hit four at different events. I think I hit two opening ceremonies, uh, uh an employee appreciation dinner and an SPCA dinner in the same time. And had, and I had like two costume changes. So uh you we were trying to just be everywhere. I went I drove to Forest Hill, I dropped, drove to Tahoe. I wanted to make sure that all Placer County knew that I was gonna be everywhere. Because I don't think it's I I think that we unfairly uh put too much of our political time and effort into Southern Placer. And, you know, I I love the rest of Placer County. It's the most beautiful country in the country, in my opinion. And so to give time to Colfax and and Tahoe and Forest Hill are important, Auburn. And so, you know, you you spread yourself thin and you, you know, but that was my attack was gonna be to try and be everywhere uh and get the message out, you know, use the social media if we can. And then the the the big place where we fell short was in the fundraising, um, primarily. We just did not have enough voter contact. And, you know, it is what it is. It was very difficult. I had been able to raise over $100,000 for a small Rockland City Council race, and it was three times as hard, if not harder, to raise money for a judicial race. Um, and to do it in the way that is ethical and to not go completely negative. And even then, we were always trying to measure our communications to as it being informative. This is the law, this is how the law was applied, etc. Um and you know, the all the ins and outs of what happened uh, you know, subsequent it, you know, whether it had an effect. I think the overall reason that we saw the the numbers come in the way they did is just because people who I think believe that our judges are a bigger part of why Placer County is safe than they are. I think they just equate safety and they think, well, the judges are doing their part. I'm not saying that they're not all doing their part, but this particular judge, specifically when it came to search warrants and decisions with misdemeanor defendants, and I don't I don't think they've ever let him do too many uh felony um cases. He has never done a a trial, but the concern was if this is how he's making decisions on these misdemeanor cases, what's gonna happen when he gets a major felony? And that was a that was a huge concern. And I I just don't think that the population gets that. The reason mostly that we're safe in Plaza County is because law enforcement's on the job, you know, here.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:03

Well, I think it's also you know, and again, you've you work in Sacramento County. It when you the law enforcement works out there, they book them, but it's just different. The judicial process uh is different out there. And so they also have different juries. Different juries. I love our plastic county jury.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:28

Yeah, that's a still fair different group.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:30

Right. So was he and again, pardon my ignorance, was he did he operate more like a like a Sacramento County judge? And again, I I'm very uh fond of couple like Ransom and White, who are amazing judges. Yeah. Um but then some were Yeah, they they they would I've lost a case because I didn't say that I was in the the county of Sacramento when I made my traffic stop. Yeah. And I was like, of course I'm in the city of Sacramento. Like, but they were like, up, dismissed. And you're like, jud like, why do I have to say that? Like I will tell you if I'm not. Like it's weird.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:12

Yeah, and I so a lot of the stuff that I was getting was the sheer number of divert judicial diversions that were being granted. You know, you you ask for judicial diversion, it's just the judge making a decision to, you know, find a way to dismiss the case when you when you've added a couple of conditions and then they follow those conditions, and then you get rid of it. And it it was just happening nonstop. And that was one of the main concerns is that so many people were getting it. Um, and interestingly, then when I filed those grants of diversion plummeted to the chagrin of, you know, many defense counsel. And I'm I was volunteering once and uh a public defender came up and he's like, We're blaming you because all these are being denied now. Um but that was part of it. And then the other the one of the things that really got me, because obviously in White Collar, we have just a ton of search warrants, and we get into cell phones and everything, and there were stories that were coming back about the decisions of you know, like altering search warrants uh by interlineation and you know, taking out like a they not getting a year's worth of uh data and only two months. And this is a fentanyl sales case, and if you've ever tried a case or whether defense or you know, there's a lot that you could use from that, and that information can be valuable, it doesn't have to be admissible. There's no reason to cross out uh uh saying this you shouldn't be able to go back a year, only two months. That's not your decision as a neutral and detached magistrate, as it is understood under the United States and California Constitution when it comes to search warrant law. And so to become an advocate for essentially the the suspect, they're not even a defendant yet, but we're uh law enforcement is investigating something to uh assume that you are going to uh put your own judgment in there to cross something out in a search warrant is not your job. And when I was hearing things like that, I'm thinking you don't even understand the the basics of search warrant law, and now you're gonna advocate for something that doesn't exist, you know, or shouldn't exist. So as those stories uh rinse, repeat over and over again, and I that I started thinking, okay, there's there's a lot going on here that needs to be highlighted and needs to be brought out, and at the very least, at least people will understand that. I hope that that's the case, you know, and I hope that there's not the wrong lessons learned here. Yeah. But uh that and that's always a possibility, you know. Uh but what I will say was great about this whole experience is, and I I've gotten some really great texts from people that were supporters, is the coalitions that were built, the the people that came forward and realized what it what it's like to get involved in the political process, because some of these groups, this is their first foray into it, and what works, what doesn't, so that in the event that there's something that comes up again, they can then get involved. Because not every election for judge involves a sitting judge. Sometimes there'll be multiple people. And now, if there is that situation, who knows, maybe, maybe, no, I'm not gonna run again. But if there was a situation like that, because of the way that the um when a judge retires, it could just goes to an election, and then you have two, maybe two lawyers going after it, these coalitions that have been built can then now apply all that knowledge. And so that's been, I think, one of the the best things that's come out of this.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:56

Yeah. And this this election's a little different. It was even more challenging, right? Because there wasn't any other contenders alongside you.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:04

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:05

Because normally if there was say two or three of you guys running for that seat, you would only have to get a certain percentage of the votes, correct? Right, the top two. And you so you it would have been easier for you to at least move on to the general election, correct?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:19

Right. And then then, you know, but I I would say that given his ability to raise money on the drop of a hat, and by the way, there was other people involved in this, not going to put their names out there, but retired judges that were very involved in what I I I perceive to be a lot of the fundraising aspect. Um, I I don't doubt that he would have been able to continue to, and I think we would we would have probably had a a you know more difficult time being able to do that. And that's that's a difficult part about uh you know, you're you're entitled to a fair fight, you're not entitled to an equal one. And that's true in the courtroom, it's true in in politics. So I'm not crying over spilt milk. I mean, yeah his ability to get mu money from all over the state would have probably just kept amplifying. So who knows what that would have looked like. You know, maybe he would have done it.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:16

The optimist in me is like, well, but you would have had more time to just continue building your grassroots.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:21

I think that's true. I think that's true. And I will say that when the people haven't been confronted with this type of race, that throwing all everything at them, you know, is in in a in a month is just over. It it overloads. And so we were kind of hoping that there was gonna be a lot more reading of the the the statements and people would see the endorsements and and realize that.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:48

But um it's tough to get it out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:51

So looking back, just kind of from a bird's eye view now at your campaign and everything that was accomplished, what would you say you were most proud of with this campaign?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:01

I again it's the the coalitions, it's getting people involved in the process that didn't know their own ability and their value as advocates in the political process. Now they know. And I think that's gonna be the most rewarding part. And then right next to that is the sheer amount of people that we were able to talk to and get them aware of the issues and understand this, you know, understand that the you know, judges are political actors too. They don't want to be and they don't, they act like they're not. But the minute that you invest in a candidate, the minute you donate, the minute you jump out there, you are clearly a political actor and you will be held accountable the same way as anyone else. And if if we have enough people wanting to hold our judges accountable, the same way they hold politicians accountable, the same way they hold law enforcement accountable, then we will have a better system.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:01

No, agreed. So what's next for uh Mr.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:04

Dave Bass? What's the future hold? I'm going to a softball tournament. Go, I'm gonna go watch my daughter play softball. No, um that that is gonna be my future for the rest of the summer. Um, but uh you know she played first base? No, she plays she's at middle infield, and now they got her at third. So they'll put her all over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:24

Um you know, I got a couple of things that are are going right now that I I kind of want to focus on and um a couple of big cases that I gotta get through through the system uh at at work. Uh I don't I I didn't this campaign took a lot out of me. So I don't know if I've ever got another dog uh to fight in you know, another campaign. But I certainly do want to uh help some people, maybe encourage people to kind of jump in the fight a little more.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:00

So we may or may not be seeing balls again.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:04

I'm gonna regret Tom.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:05

I do I only said that story as like this is this is gonna go horrible. Oh gosh. Horrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:11

I had to throw it out there. So oh man. Okay, so back to work, business as usual. Yeah. I'm sure it's gotta be a huge relief though, just like you said, it was so much over the last several months.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:25

Yeah, I mean, when you throw in the fact that, you know, this year I'm mayor, I was mayor, which adds you you go to a lot more events, you do a lot more stuff, um, all of that together, it just I I could definitely use some time to just time off. That's good. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

Yeah. Well, cool. One more question. Yeah. This one, feel free to go as deep or as shallow as you want. But um when people look back on the life of Dave Bass and everything you've done, everything you've stood for, what are the most important things to you that you want people to remember?

SPEAKER_04 1:45:05

I'd say, you know, I want to I want more people to understand it going into the arena can be lonely, it can be tough, and you can get treated horribly for it. But it's worth it. I've found it to be worth it, even though uh the it drags you down sometimes. And I want people to understand that when I did it, I wanted other people to also feel like they could do it too. We need more people to be willing to go into the arena and to be willing to you know have the critics come after them. And that's always it's not just been about me being in the center of attention. I've always wanted people to to want to join in, to want to put their themselves out there. And so when looking back at kind of the challenges and everything that I I faced, it was worth it to put myself out there. It was worth it to to go through it because I have a blessed life with, you know, wonderful wife and children, and I was able to protect them in many ways because I stuck myself out there and I put myself out there. I was able to protect my community by getting getting out there. And I hope that people will see that if they look back and they say to themselves, if he can survive it, I can survive it. And maybe I'm the next one that runs for city council or for you know, whatever reason decides, yeah, I'm gonna run against a sitting judge. Um I hope that that's the effect of anyone looking back on my life.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:42

Amen. Sweet. So my message, get in the arena, don't have fear. Yeah, yeah. It's uh yeah, I have a lot of admiration and respect for those who will put themselves out there. It's not an easy thing to do in today's society.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:56

It's like way, way harder to do something than to not do something.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:00

Yeah, people are people are are mean, people are they'll attack your personal character. I've always felt like politics are one of those things, they're one of the most frustrating things that we have in America. The two-party system, the the battle. At the same time, though, it's so important. And I really genuinely believe our world, America is better for the system that we have. It's built to kind of have that, you know, it's like that pinch limit of the extreme sides, and then you fall in the middle for most things.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:28

Creates a better life for most people. But it takes a special kind of person to stand up and speak your ideas and try to propose solutions that people won't agree with.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:41

Especially when we know people will attack you personally, your character. It's it's not like people hear your ideas as a politician and they're like, you know, I just don't agree with that worldview or that approach. So, you know, for that reason, I'm not gonna vote. No, they go deep and personal and they start attacking your character, and they go all over the place to win their position. Yeah. And I think you, you know, people willing to open themselves up to that kind of scrutiny is at the very least deserving of like, you know, admiration. Some gratitude.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:11

And a thank you. Yeah. For trying to take on that role.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:14

Yeah. And I I think one final thing is that uh it was uh Dana from you know that runs the UFC. Um I like what he said about just being aggressive, like telling his kids, if you're if you're a dog out there, if you are a beast, you will own it. If you go out there and you just do your job and go hard, most people don't do that. Most people sit back, they they they want to be critics. And they uh I want my kids to have that same message. Get out there, put yourself out there, and you will see you're you're gonna be successful. You'll draw a lot of ire, but usually they're just faceless critics that don't amount to much.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:57

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:58

Totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:59

All right. Well, I think that was uh unless there's anything else you want to say.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:03

No, thank you. Appreciate the time, appreciate the beer.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:05

Yeah, good convo. Much appreciation for you coming in, and hopefully you gotta you know, have a good time chatting with us.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:11

Yeah, absolutely. This is great.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:14

This was uh yeah, this was another episode of Broken Perspective Podcast. Um, for those of you who made it thus far in the episode, we appreciate you as always. Um Dave Bass, thanks for coming. Thank you. Next time.