Growth vs. Quality of Life: Dr. Phil Dembowski Draws the Line

Overdevelopment is one of the biggest concerns facing Baldwin County right now, and it’s exactly where this conversation begins.

On this episode of The People’s Voice, Blair Castro and Thomas Jenkins sit down with Dr. Phil Dembowski, candidate for Baldwin County Commissioner, District 3. Dr. Phil is a healthcare provider, businessman, and longtime community leader bringing a different perspective to the table.  

He talks about pushing back on overdevelopment, improving access to mental health care, and why he believes our county needs a more balanced approach to growth.

We also dive into civic engagement, accountability, and his vision for a new era of respect and leadership at the commission level, one that empowers the community instead of shutting it out.

To learn more about Dr. Phil Dembowski and his campaign, visit:

https://phildembowski.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Good evening. Welcome to WFUZ TV, the People's Voice Podcast. I'm Blair Castro here with Thomas Jenkins. And we have Dr. Philip Dembowski in the studio with us today, who's running for Baldwin County Commissioner District 3. Dr. Dombowski, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you for having me. And we're gonna ask a little bit, I'll just start right in and ask about what motivated you to run for this seat.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Okay, so what motivated me was, you know, in the last couple of years, looking at all the crazy um out of control development of all the uh different uh subdivisions in my area. I I yeah, I ranched across the county honestly with with my going across the mobile and back and all that in the areas, and I have patients all over. And I'm doing sports and stuff, so I'm all around and also I'm just seeing this magnificent growth, which wasn't so magnificent. It was kind of like ad hoc on a settlement was coming up, and there was no control. It seems to be no control of it. And then I have friends that live in like nice rural areas, and all of a sudden they moved there because they're rural areas, and now they're being turned into you know 400 house subdivisions when they were next to a farmer, you know, two years ago. And it's not that I'm against people uh developing land or against farmers having the right to sell their land, but I don't think anything is an immediate thing to where just because you have land, you can just turn it into anything, no matter where you are, without having some sort of protocols in place to make sure that all the infrastructure, the the yard, I mean the um roads and the sewer and the water and all that is all in place before that happens instead of as it is right now because of the speedy nature of the overdevelopment that's happened. Then now we have to be after the development's built, we're now coming back behind it and trying to fix the roads and the sewer and and the water systems and all the other uh infrastructure that has to come back afterward. And so I saw this this, I guess I'll just say a horrible situation that developed over time and said, someone's got to do something about this because obviously the people that were in there, you know, and I started watching some of the County Commission meetings, and I said there was only one person, in my opinion, in there that was uh advocate for the citizens of Bowen County, and it was like Matt McKenzie. And the other team just seemed like they're cooperating with whatever powers would be. How and why, I don't know. But it's awful suspicious to me that my committee that I'm running against Billy Joe was forced stopping development at first. Kentucky Dorksley was in there, who was an abusive, an abusive of uh County Commission. The workers, the staff, everybody that knew him, and that's why he was drummed out of there. Then Billy Joe comes in under this idea that she's gonna be different, and the first turn she pretty much was. Then something's happened since then. And it's like she's just going along with it, along with the rest of them, um, down in in um in district one, and then, I mean, so district four, and then Jeb up in District One, they just seem to be going along with anything that happens. And and we see that, you know, I understand there's the agrarian versus, you know, um residential stuff that sometimes you can't control. You got the home room problems, home world problems, and all that. But when you there is a place you control, why don't we just stop it? And why just say, okay, where's the studies for before you develop anything? Where's the studies for the environment uh in that area of land? Is there wetlands? Um, is there is there proper roads going to is there uh first responder access to that area? There's one going on Mosley Road right now in the town uh Loxy Town Planning Commission on Mosley Road on the edge of Stableton and Loxy, just this is four weeks ago. They wanted to put 400 houses in 400 acres. It was all farmland. And then the town committed town planning zoning board said no, obviously. Thanks to Lord. But then they came back the next Monday to the town meeting with a lawyer and said, well, it is agrarian and or or agriculture and or residential, and we can put some estate lots in there four to three acres per lot, and we can do septic systems and all that. We can do 80, which is a far cry from 400. But still, there's still no first responder access. There's the road is still a drail road. Um, we don't even know what the what the impact will be of that many houses in that area for the schooling andor roads that go through there now. But nothing's been done. And I'm thinking before any new thing goes in, I think all the studies should be done for the traffic, the future infrastructure traffic, and sewer and water, first response should all be in place beforehand before they even break ground. And that's my goal. That's my goal is to change each change like that. Um that's just one aspect. The other aspect I want to run on is the idea that we have so many other needs in our county that are just being ignored. We got a homeless problem in Baldwin County, no one is addressing it all. We have mental health issues involved, not addressed at all. I had people find out behind behind uh a business near me last year. Woman basically had nothing on but a t-shirt, all elderly woman, totally intoxicated out of her brain. And um find out that she'd been let go by the police in uh the town above me, or below us. And then they should she and then they researched a little longer that day, we're trying to figure out what to do with this poor woman. And uh she'd been in the hospital for three days before that. And three days before that, she was in the town below that. And they just see moving her at one time at a time. And then she's in the next to behind trash cans on a Saturday morning when my wife used to thing on the track up in the building next to us. And and he sees down out there, and there's no place. This is a horrible example, but it's one example. There's no place for mentally ill or people to have these side feet. She was an older lady, she was like 70. Yeah. And so we also have a fundamental problem. It's about homeless. You know, Oli has a homeless women's homeless problem, they said. There's like a supposedly uh 10 cities there was. I don't know if it's still there. I don't know if they got rid of it when there was some homeless middle-aged women with children. No, I don't know if that was a couple of years ago. But there's homeless up in Bay Manette, we know of. And there's nothing for that. It's I'm on the board of Salvation Army and Mobile. And the reason I'm on the board is to try to see because now if we have a homeless problem in Baldwin County, we have to send them over to Mobile. Okay, we need to have something. And you know, our wonderful Christian neighbors here, they're so wonderful. They all want to have help the homeless, but not in their town. So here's the big issue with the idea of coming up with the idea that we have that how we have these real problems. And when I talk about the homeless, I'm also talking about veterans, lots of veterans. And they're there. They're talking about the male population of the homeless, they're the greatest amount. And there's a lot of stuff, PTSD, real alcoholic drug problems, all kinds of problems. And we're losing veterans every day to suicide. And you can see why, you know, this kind of thing. So we need to address some of the homeless stuff like that. And you know, we got stuff all the way from Gulf Shores. We have the largest county in the state, and we have, you know, if we got a Cersei, there's no place for mentally ill, there's no place for homeless, there's no place for vets, and all that needs to be addressed in Bolling County somehow, at some point. Not enough for raising taxes, but there's tons of government funding. Just look at the government funding that's gone to waste up in Minnesota, how much national programs they did by taking abuse of the uh the molly state. Billions of dollars. You don't think we can find that funding down here and actually use it for the right thing? You know, that's that there's tons of stuff out there for us for homeless, mentally ill, all kinds of different deficits of uh of people. We're deaf, blind as far as mentally challenged, all kinds of stuff up there. And we can put together one big program to help all those folks in Ballion County. We need something like that. So, you know, and that's a little bit more on the Christian side of things, but that's where I think we need some help. Um, I'll obviously law enforcement. You know, I'm pro-law enforcement. I'm not pro- you know, overzealous law enforcement, but I am pro-law enforcement. I love to see uh I think we've done a pretty good job here in the county uh as far as our independent uh towns have done pretty well. Um, you know, Loxy, when I first moved to Loxley where I'm from, my town, you know, we had some issues, but now we've had the fantastic police department, fantastic. Uh these guys were all sent to these federal programs where they learned how to, you know, people they work with Big Little Langley and they learn to work with the FBI and they train and all that. And it's just the wonderful stuff has it made a more professional police force in a local town like Loxley. And now Loxley is the largest municipality in Baldwin County. You have no idea. By the way, it's the largest, it's huge. Smaller on population, but we are a big, big city. So we're now we went from being a town to a city. So a lot of that is there. You know, and I had experience on the uh at Loxby as a on the town variance board at Code of Enforcement. You know, I've been the chairman of that board for over 15 years. And so I've been dealing with the plan our local planning commission with all the different rules. But we based on Loxby rules, not actually counting snow. Most of them marry each other, but we're based on the county the town rules. But they're similar, and it's the same type of thing when people come to you for different uh easement restrictions or lack thereof, or what you have to do when a fence goes in, or or even land disputes. We we deal with them. Uh we have a board meeting we have really successful. And and so I think that gives me a lot of experience going into the county thing. A lot of stuff. I'm just talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

What uh what is your take on the state of uh rural health resources in the county?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Well, the the the rural health resources um are a significant problem because, like you said, there's not a lot of you know, we have tons of little like what do you call them out in the boxes, you know, yeah, the urging pairs of urging pairs, but we have no.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Well that's what we do with here on the island. We're we were just wondering today why do we not have a hospital down here, a real deal hospital.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

And you should. And the thing is, I think because what nine miles north are you doing, you have foley. Yeah. And it's it's it's gotten better. Foley regional hospital, the night first route here, which uh, you know, I don't want to put backwards or anything, but I they were not the most famous hospital. And now they've done they've made a really great turnaround and are doing a better, you know, they're doing a good job. So I think kind of that's good. But what they could do though, just like infirmary, is satellite hospital down there. Absolutely. You know, so and that's that's the infirmies, infirmies gone crazy. I mean, they're everywhere, which is good. But we also need some rural homicides. You know, we're back to the same thing we talked about with the homeless. I mean, I had a guy come into me today, and I'm a chiropractor, and he has no insurance. Now we have cash rates, we help people out, we try to give the best deal we can. You know, it's structured by insurance. We're not allowed to, whatever we charge for adjustment insurance, I have to charge to say the cash. But we can, you know, we do the best we can to help people. I can give something away if I need to to help them. And we do. We we, you know, we we try to be the best and generous if we can. But we need to have more like clinics that are that are, you know, like I said, these federally funded things uh programs that there's tons of money out there for to help. But and there's not just that, there's stuff for kids that have uh reading disabilities and stuff. You know, not only mental health clinics, but also clinics for grazer health, like you said, and then there's stuff for to assist uh kids in schooling. Because we have a you know, we have a large amount of new young um children coming up around here from uh foreign or immigrant population that lives in Baldwin's County, which are most of them are citizens or they're green card and their documents and they work how's the work in Spirewood and in uh Loxley, and there's a whole whole butt whole community around here of Hispanics that definitely don't have proper uh health to have health care because they come into my office all in payhouse because they don't have, you know, they come to my office. And then they're not they're not um they're not they're not undoctable. These are doctrine to people, but they just can't afford health care like that, but they can't afford Blue Cross Blue Shield. They don't work for a company to use that. Right. So there's there's a need for the for something in there. And you know, there's like my I found out, you know, teaching my wife's a teacher, and there's programs that teachers get out of college to help pay off their student loans. They can put them in um put them in schools and they and they and help and they have a change in their discount on the on how to get the student loan paid off and they do the service in that area. We they have programs like that uh for doctors, and they're they're maxable. And they're just like, you know, the old what was uh the show with uh uh up in Alaska, they had years ago uh about uh the man, the doctor that went to Alaska and took over the the uh healthcare clinic there and to pay off his student alone. They they have these programs and they're available. Now we just go have people to find them and and and install them in our area. I don't understand why we don't have some sort of a governmental county, state, and local government and whatever that looks into these programs and helps establish them. This is something the county should they should have a person that does rights grant. You know, they probably do. I don't know of them. But the rightsman also looks at these federal programs where there's a need and put them in place. That's in rural health. Yeah. You know, because the the health department's overworked and and is only one is only one little spot, it's in Robertsville, but I know of. You know, it's the only place for it. You know, you can go there in the health department. And it's fine, it does its job, but it there's there's need for more than our satellite health departments.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Yeah, you know. So yeah, because I've had to drive j for me to get a uh cottage food license, I had to drive all the way up there just to go do that. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a pain. So I definitely need satellite government facilities.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

No, and we're doing good with the satellite uh annexes with as far as the DMV thing. That's because it's great. You know, right now they're under a reconstruction with the Robersdale one, the annexed there. But I mean, other than that, they've been great. I mean, I remember when I first moved here, you had to go do back when I first moved here, you either go to Foley or Baymanette for everything. Then Fairhope came around once we asked that. And then ventured to the annex they have now in Robersdale. But, you know, the this this the center of the county is Robertsdale. You know, pretty much. It's not Baylonette. Yeah. And yet that's where everything is, the scene of the Cedar County, which is kind of interesting to hear. There's a great story about the Cedar County movie being stolen and Baylonette put in the bathroom and then restolen later. Yeah, I've heard that maybe I don't interesting. I've kind of read two different versions. It's an interesting, it's a great little story about the history of the county.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

So I wanted to follow up on the homeless issue that you brought up, which I'm glad you brought that up. You were the first person to really mention that because I feel like people in Baldwin County, you know, we are privileged and we may live under the assumption that we don't have a homeless population here. Um I am from Pensacola, where there's a really bad um unhoused problem. I was on the board of the homeless reduction task force that we had, and I worked for the city, and we helped um build, I did this actually myself, I built a data dashboard that showed every shelter, every food resource center for hot meals and for canned foods. And we had like the resources mapped out so people could go online live and see, okay, there's eight open beds at the waterfront mission. There's, you know, this women's shelter has three open beds tonight, and we had to get everybody on board to sort of work together to keep that updated. But it's a great idea. It made the access like a lot easier for people. Um, and we did a lot to sort of navigate that issue as a city. And you know, I I can't say it really improved. I I hope so. I moved away and came here, and I could definitely see that in terms of mental health, which a lot of the population there is people that struggle with mental health issues and addiction. Um they are here, they're dropped off here, you're in between Mobile and Pensacola, and you're plopped down here and you have nowhere to go. And if it's mental health related, there is, you were right, truly nothing here. They're going to send you to Pensacola, most likely, um, or refer you there or to Mobile. And that's a shame because, you know, we don't need a full-fledged asylum or anything, but we do need some sort of temporary like place for a 72-hour hold or like an initial evaluation, and then maybe if you need long-term care, they can refer you somewhere else. But there's nowhere for that immediate, you know, you're in a crisis, like a crisis intervention place. So that is something I think you're right. There's probably federal funding out there for our city. We use the ARPA funds, um, like the American Rescue, and that covered a whole like new place being built. So it'd like to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

If people if we just looked into the federal funding and it was it was navigated through correctly, there's so much out there. I mean, there's so much pork in all the crap they do at a national level. It's a shame because there's so much waste. And now, you know, after Trump's development there was a US VID stuff, and a lot of stuff's been cut, there's still out there. There's still tons of stuff. You just have to look for it. You have to have someone diligent that wants that in mind. I guess the biggest problem is you're gonna have to do it between towns and not in the in the in a city, any one of those municipalities, probably, you know, like in a little area. And along one of the major roads, like 59 or the Beach Express for 98, it's gonna have to be done. But it can be done, and and we need to be real Christians about it. And the problem or you know, real advocates for humanity about it, and then and stop saying, well, I don't want that near my place where I live, you know, by yeah, hear things things about what people say about people walking down the road, and and uh we don't want um the workers that come in from uh from what is it, uh Columbia and all that down on the beach to work, the workforce development people to come in and help out during the high, the high season of tourism. We got a county commissioner saying, well, we don't want Haitians walking down the middle of the street with with grocery bags and bare feet. You know, the things like things things like that. You know, you can be talking about then they're they're not homeless, they're not homeless, you know, but we need to have something for the people that are walking down the street with grocery bags that are that are from America and that are citizens, you know. And the thing is, that I said this in almost everything we've done, is we are citizens first. And in any political realm, the closest thing you get to citizenry working with government is your local government. Absolutely. And it's the most important thing to be a citizen. I mean, being a citizen, if you're serious, is tough stuff. It's it's you gotta want it back. The problem in this country is you look into the thing, the biggest part of the citizenship is voting. Well, no, that's the most important aspect of the end of the day. But being a citizen is someone who wants to do when there's bad things happening, will stand up and do something about it. Nobody says, let the other guy do it. Well, I'm I've let the other guy and the other girl do it. And I they haven't done a very good job at it. So I as I say to myself, if if I see something bad and I don't stand up and do something about it, but I'm just like the rest of the 90% who sit back and say, uh, you know, let the X guy do it. I want to make some, we gotta take action for the citizen in this country. And I believe in, you know, citizen is I always say a little saying it's kind of corny, but we give back to some corny stuff. I call it citizen. You know, it's your citizen the sense of being a citizen. You know, it's like common sense. You know, common sense citizen.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Old-fashioned civics, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Yeah, it's old-fashioned civics. I taught high school for uh five years back to mid when I first got out of college, uh, first got out of university, I went to Harvard, and I graduated history education, went down to Miami and taught school. And I taught civics. And the biggest thing I did to teach civics, what to help people, I think, was I had a I was in a Catholic school and I had a senior class, and I gave them their final first hand class, but the only finalist, and they're all groping and moaning and they're like it's it's it's really easy. You have a whole year of study, it's the Constitution of the United States. You think about the Constitution, it's not that long, it's not that big. It's it's it's a good draft of information, but I gave them a whole year, and then I basically said, give me article one. And they had to give it to me with every every you know, uh, comma, dot, whatever, uh, period, cross T's and all, and I and dotted I's. But at the end of the day, I didn't have one kid fail. They all failed. Almost like almost everyone got like a A or a B. And I had one C out of a class of 24. So I had these kids come up to me years later, I'd meet them out in the bat when I'm down in Miami visiting my family, missing coach. That was the best thing you ever did, was make me, and they're all human, they're all human Americans. Came to this country from the school I taught him. Almost every 99% human American kids. Some of them born there, some born here, but all immigrant families. And and they're the best, they're the strongest, most Asiatic Americans there. And they come to me and saying, that's the best thing you ever taught me, or that I've learned when you were there, was running that constitution. He says the sad thing is most Americans don't even know it. They don't know one part of it. You know, so that that these are things that is about citizenship that people have to know. Our schools today. Our education system today is horrible. I mean, it's horrible. We're not teaching basics in school anymore. I talk to kids all the time. I I coach rugby on college level. And I get these kids in school. I mean, on the field. And I'll talk to them about stuff like politics or something, I'll bring it up. And they don't have any history. They don't know anything. All they know is the they know this, they know a little bit of the Civil War. And then of course, for them it's all about slavery. And, you know, that was something that came out of the end of it. The thing that was the instant the beginning of it, you know, was still it was never really a civil war. It was war in state uh between states. You know, the uh the South putting station in the Capitol at all the time. They didn't really want to. They just wanted to be left alone. And and I come from Yankee parents, so it's not like a Southern stuff. You know, this is just kind of plain shoe history. The problem is, they're not learning anything. They're not learning anything about that. You know, they complain about the the my favorite one is they complain about the rebel flags. That was the war battle flag. But the United States Sergeant's press stood over slavery for 100 years. No one says a word about that. Pretty much.

unknown 23:06

You know.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

That's what kills me about these No Kings protests, is it seems like people think that civic engagement is going out on the weekends with a sign and screaming at other people, and that's that's just not it. They don't go to the meetings, they don't uh show up to the uh campaign events and listen to the candidates speak their platforms or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Yeah, the the campaign events I go to, it's it's it's terror. And it's more candidates than the other citizens. I mean, you know, but Blair and you all put on that wonderful uh showcase down in Gulf Shores, and I was really hoping for the best. And we you had more than most, you know, as far as people there, you know, about a hundred or so, and then they had the candidates. But you know, I went to one breakfast down in or up in the county uh near Stockton, and uh I think we had ten people there that were citizens. Now some of the recommen women ones have been pretty active, but now once you do one, they all belong to the same roots, like the same way. God love them, they're wonderful. But just it's just so many of the same people, they come to the same things, and we have no cynic response from the public to uh campaign organizations. And I'm and I've been going to a lot of them, and it's like they're like meet and greet, but you know, like I said, I've met all the candidates like 10 times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

So that's been our big frustration is that we try to get people to care and we try to branch out and get um different people like I we really believe, and that's why we kind of started this, everybody deserves a voice from the lowest candidate on the totem pole to the highest candidate. Like I feel like everybody should have that chance to come and ask questions and tell their side and what motivates them and why they're running. And I wish more people would physically go to things and learn it, but I do hope that with the internet we can at least reach a few that aren't able to for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Uh well, I wish more people would argue with us online in the comment section, really.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah. It's like I saw someone yesterday on the No Cleans thing, and someone a little style said something about um, I want to hit Nazis. And someone said, Oh, isn't that cute? And I'm like, I'm like, or you know, Trump's the Nazi, and then I want to hit hit Nazis, I want to physically harm Nazis. And I was saying, sure, Nazis are terrible people. But what are we this was a child that was being encouraged to do violence, and that's where we didn't even begin is violence involved in politics. It's it's a horrible thing. We this country's always had wonderful ability to have discussion and and and have civic uh argument without having physical, you know, uh hatred and and the the what do you call derision that exists today is horrible. You know, that you see the divide between right and left so and and it's like they go home and they preach on one side love and Christianity, on the other side, whatever else, you know, secularism and atheism and and and and atheism has some sort of moral values on their own. But in the end of the day, no one is no one's preaching like and be able to disagree and do it do it with uh you know a bit of respect for each other. You know, and if we go back in history, I mean the stuff that if you go all the way back to to Jefferson against uh Adams, there are horrible things said in newspapers about these guys. I don't even know these old newspapers were they haunting, I think the Jefferson paper called Adams or Mac Red and horrible stuff. I mean, just as bad as far as in in the in in the in the wording and also very uh what do you call it, anger issue. But there wasn't a physical uh cross of the line of violence at that time. They they you didn't do that because back then, if you it ends up being a Hamilton versus Verton, and you cross the line, that's a duel. Yeah, and that means you're death, you know? So they knew where to stop. There was a thing, you know, there was a way of honor the way you only went so far. And um, and you usually didn't directly call your candidate a name, but you had to you had to make minions and third parties, you know, stir up the job. But and that's fine. And that and that actually makes it entertaining kind of fun to do it. I mean, what what made Trump so interesting when he ran the first time was because no one had ever seen personally a campaign like that where he just called out his enemies and said, Oh, you you know, why Joe Smo, you know, and and and and and that it it just made more it was like dudes with a camera. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

And I think that's the problem, especially with uh everybody's just hyper-focused on federal and wants to be part of the big conversation going on with the president and the everything going on in Washington, and that and that takes attention away from local governance, and you almost wonder if that's by design.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Well, yeah, I mean it's it's it's it's always, you know, look at the old the the old adage of uh you know dividado conquering, you know, the dividing concrete by, you know, it's mixed out with a little bit of uh uh magician stuff, you know. So what I'm doing every year to step some here, you know? And that's basically what I think happens a lot with with the federal stuff, is you know, if I yell loud enough over here, I might you might not see that, you know, I'm sealing millions of dollars in the budget over there. You know, it takes to focus uh purposely off that and tries to create an argument, make that more important than what is important, which is the finances of our country and where we're going these days. So I definitely agree with that. But what's been good about our campaigning is it's been very civil. And I mean not that people haven't stepped out a little bit, which is the obvious thing. You know, when someone accuses another candidate of something, the NFT has thumbs up and says, well, that's just not true. And that's why it's not glory is true. So I think that's fine. People have the right to counter when people say things against them. But that's where I'm at. I mean, I love I love the idea of debating, I love talking, I love discussing the problems. You know, that's what that's where it comes from the word discussion, you know, see and it comes from that's the cratic and that's what you learn from it. You may not agree with your partner, the person you're against, but you go back and try to ring fundamentally and look at things and say, you know what, you have a point there. And you might change. And that's where it comes down to compromise. Is I know government teacher at Harland in Miami, he was my chairperson over my over the history department, and he said, he said, government is based on three things compromised, compromise, and more compromise. You know, it's almost like being a chef, butter, butter, and more butter. You need to compromise at the point because you're never gonna get everything you want. Yeah, and you're never gonna be able to please everybody. So if you find a way to nail the middle ground and uh and try to get rid of the crazies on both sides, then usually you can accomplish what's needed for the for the most, the utilitarian thing, you know? Yeah. What's needed for the best for the most. And that's where, you know, that's where that's where we are, and that's why we have the majority rule thing. That's what's great about democracy or republic. You know, we have a democratic republic, which is fundamentally misunderstood by 90% of our population. Yeah. But they don't understand that we re have representatives who represent the the population, and that's why the democratic republic versus just a democracy. But like I said, we're going back to civics. But need more people need it.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

I like what you said too about um sort of the unity, especially between parties. And people got I got called a fascist today because we interviewed Barry Moore. They're like, no, he's a fascist, you're a fascist, and I was that one. Yeah, it was by a candidate running in Daphne, um, a left leaning candidate. And I I was like, okay, but then we've also interviewed uh Chig Martin, who's a Democrat running for governor, and you know, we really liked him. I want to hear from everybody to me, like, you know, I am a Republican, but I don't think that because someone is not my party that we have zero in common, we can't find any common ground, we can't sit down and have a civil conversation, and I can like want to stifle their views. Like, I don't think so. I think that's how we grow is by talking to people that might think differently than us and finding the common ground and kind of like discussing things. So it's you know, I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Oh, absolutely. I think you we got to come to a place where we can find a common ground. And then, like I said, compromise it's there. You just have to look at it, and that's when you see that on a federal level where you've got the people just loggerheaded at this point, where I just no matter what. It was like seeing Fetterman kind of cross the lines of the national thing. It's been almost pleasing to see one guy say, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna base, I'm gonna go on common sense. You know, I may not like what this guy's doing all the time, but when he does something right, I'm gonna at least say that was right. Okay, and you know, and you can call it call it out if it's not right. Point is, is not everything that uh Trump does is wrong, you know, but according to the you know, the the vast majority of Democrats, everything the man he breathes is wrong. You know, it's kind of like he said I can cure cancer, and I still say he was a terrible person. He's absolutely right, and it's terrible that we're in that part of this country. Nothing he does is okay. And you know, he is our commander-in-chief, but he gets no respect. You know, Obama was not my favorite guy in the world, but he was the president of the United States and he gave an inspector to the president. It's the officer inspect, not the person. You know? They can have disagreements with the person. But some people just don't understand that anymore. Or they don't, they don't, they choose not to understand. So we're constantly carrying now in our in our political system in this country. And what's the bad part about it is the the national level stuff is is moving down into the local in the state and and somewhat in the local, because they say, if they can behave bad like that, I'll behave bad like that. And and it's gotta be checked that someone's gonna say, you know, there's gotta be decorum. There's gotta be a place where you can call down and say, you you don't that's bad behavior. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

I saw a candidate, uh, his name's Case Dixon, he's running for Congress in District 6, which I think is Birmingham, um, call out the White House because the White House's social media kind of post some strange things sometimes. They're kind of like taking it a little too far. And he was, you know, he's a Republican and he generally agrees with Trump, but he was just kind of like, um he was one of the first candidates I saw kind of openly be like, well, should we really be making jokes about uh, you know, only farms or like whatever the White House like comes up with? And he kind of was like, maybe we should be a little more professional. And I think it's okay to criticize our government in ways like that, and we don't have to agree with everything going on, but we certainly don't have to dismiss everything going on either just because they're not our people. I think we really have to take actions case by case and evaluate people on a whole, like the totality of the circumstances. You can't just assume someone's good or bad based on one or two actions. You only have to look at their pattern of behavior over time.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Oh, yeah, definitely. I'm thinking people out of context, that's been the biggest problem. Uh, you know, one person back of this this good thing that Trump has done uh good thing I'll say about that, Tom Stud is that he is not shown that he's not been punished for one con or one bad D. And he's been the person who is, I don't know what word you want to do, but has rode that where it doesn't happen to him. You know, they can tell, he can tell, he can say anything pretty much, and he doesn't care what anybody says he goes on and he doesn't resign. Back in the day, I remember when Biden ran for the first time as a high school teacher, and he had laserized Sean F. Kennedy and a labor, uh Welsh labor leader into his speeches, it was hot. And he had he was driven out of the campaign because the glacier rubber. I forgot about that. Yeah, and they never wouldn't they wouldn't let even Trump bring it up to him. The point being is, you know, that was the Gary Hart time, you know, Gary Hart had we, you know, Michael Caucus at home period then. But I was teaching the high school at the time, and I'm like, and I was a Democrat. I graduated my parents from, you know, their union Democrat teachers in my South Florida. And I grew up by voted for Jimmy Carter. Who knew? You know, but you grow up and you learn and you develop and and you you evolve. And that's the thing. You take a person out of context, they're one real part of their career in their life, and then they're ruined, and that's what's been what's the old, that was the old thing. But now since federal trunks come, the good thing is that doesn't happen. Hopefully that won't happen anymore. We one thing out of one kind of out of off color, uh, could be on a what do you call it, a hot mic or something, doesn't ruin someone's career. Because he's shown you can you can rise above that. And that's you know, for the right good or bad, it's a good thing because too many people are taken out of contact and their careers a lot of times you are ruined.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

I my first campaign I worked on was John Kerry, it was 2004, and I was 17 years old and I volunteered, and that was the election where Howard Dean got canceled for his little and I was thinking about how funny that was that we now have a president that can do all kinds of crazy stuff. At one point, the Howard Dean thing was so controversial. I was just like, okay, we'll just do it.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Yeah, it's crazy against another. I guess, yeah. He's now and he was a doctor. So now he's unfit because he went, yeah, he got back, you know. That was to me that was disturbing that he was bummed up because of that.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah, you know, and that's can't be excited about something.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

No. And he wasn't a bad fella, either. You know, he had some good ideas.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Yeah, that uh it reminds me, that era of time was when I first like got into politics and stuff, and that was like when the Al Franken thing went on. Al Franken got canceled for his photos, too. And I was always like, man, that really like you're right. One thing can like end a career or it could back then, and now it it probably uh looking at Trump probably won't happen as much for different people.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, as long as as long as you can kind of show the rest, like you said, the consistency that, you know, in between before and after, you know, since the Osvald sentence of mistakes. People shouldn't be measured on one one thing they say in life. We say we make we make lots of make lots of uh mistakes and we sin a lot.

unknown 37:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

We shouldn't be measured by just the one thing we do. Thank God that's a God, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Um, did you have anything else you wanted the people to know about your platform or your experience that you think distinguishes you from the other opponents in this race? Because you have two opponents, um, you know, Billy Joe and Kevin. What do you think makes you stand out and should earn the vote over those two candidates?

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Well, so the biggest thing is um I think I'm a down-to-earth person and I I I deal with people on a daily basis through because of my healthcare career, and I'm kind of like used to dealing with people, and I don't I and I'm also become a listener because as a doctor, you gotta listen. You know, and I'm a chiropractor, and I also do a lot of VLT visuals and things like what they call industrial medicine, where I gotta listen a lot. Uh, and listening is the most important part of being a politician and or servant of the citizens. It's the most important part. And what I've seen in a few different times by one of her candidates, uh Billy Jill, is that she seems to be very dismissive, um, almost to the point of disrespectful to a lot of candidates, a lot of people that ask her questions. She doesn't like to be told to ask questions, and she doesn't like to she she she seems to be a bit, I don't know, above it. And I said that in the one candidate, I think, and there that I'll be there to listen to your questions to come call you back. I'll come out and look at your problem. And because I had a I have a good friend that was involved with asking about road work and all that, and Billy Joe didn't know anything about the road work, so she brings the Aldot people on and then county infrastructure people into the road stuff. And she does she just like she's like, I'll hold a meeting with these two people and this other person, and then can explain to him and and basically just like hands off, whereas she should kind of dig in and find out, well, what's going on? I want to be part of the meeting, and so she just turns it over to the other people to explain to him what's good and can't be done. And then that's just that's just wrong. You know, it's one thing to get him together, that's a great thing that they got the people together to help the the uh plainer talk about the problem. But if in the end of the day, nothing happened. You know, we got nothing to hear about, say, some flooding over a road or whatever the what you know exactly was, I don't remember. But I remember him telling me she brought the Al Dot people in, and she brought the county uh Al Dot people in, or what do you call the county uh transfer um road people in, instead, and then she just kind of walked out of the room and dismissed it. Like, okay, I I got you together, you figure it out. But I just think that's that's wrong. He should be there. When Matt McKenzie, he had a problem, he went on just being odds. He went right there and helped, you know, figure it out with the person and then went to the board, uh, to another uh agency and things said, Can you make this happen? type of thing. He he went out of his way to make things happen. Same with Skip Kruger. I mean, I'm I'm Skip did a lot of things since this friend, this friend of mine is really into the roads. He's really into road safety and mental lining and all that. And so when he goes to he has something significant wrong on a road that goes right by an elementary school where it's not lined right, or there's or there's there needs to be uh refurbacing and all that, and goes in and you set up a meeting with you know two basically people that come from two other organizations in the government, and you're not there to kind of make sure that it's at the end of the day, nothing was done. So it was information, but then there was no follow-through. So I want to be the person who wants to follow through, but get information, and not and be reliable to address or listen to the addresses of the citizens and not be snooty about you know, the being uh available and and and not think that uh I'm among them. And uh this is something that has that so many people have told me about that candidate, and and including farmers, which he's supposed to be from the farming family. I'm including farmers. And farmers are not happy with Billy Joe. And they've endorsed Kevin. Um I I wasn't in the rain shot, so I didn't get a chance to get the endorsement, but I'm hoping I'll earn it because I believe in the farmers. I love Baldwin County. I love the uniqueness of Baldwin County, one of the farmers. Kevin's uh Kevin's someone that uh is running from a different point of view than me, he's a little bit more rural, he's from the area. Um, I don't know. You know, I know he's a police policeman's background. He did insurance sales. Hey, Kevin was one of my patients a long time ago, so I know him. I might have just put a camp for all. Sorry, Kev. But anyway, I've known him for a long time now. Him and his wife both sweet people. Um I have nothing, nothing negative to say. We're just seem to be all the same race. So, but you know, he's he's down there with fella. And uh, I look forward to debating him on the on all the issues. He might not be on the same ground with me and the health issues and the and the homeless, and also the, you know, I'm sure he's called law enforcement, sure. You know, good and but I'm not thinking for the agrarian farmer. I want to bring back and, you know, at least slow down and keep the uniqueness of the our our Baldwin County's community because we gotta slow it down. Something's gotta go.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah, where's the set-aside land that's untouchable that that will always be farmland? Is there anything like that? Well, just can't be rezolved?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Well, I think, you know, I think well there there is there's gotta be lands out there. But here's the thing, we need to look be looking at some of these foreigner families that want to do put land into trust and you know, so that even that that they you know that there'll be land preserved, maybe even far apart. You know, we need to be looking at that thing too. That's no one's doing that. You know, there's there's plenty, there's a lot of people there that are farms out there where they're they don't have any children's life. And they say, No, who's we gonna go to? You know, the the fifth relative down the road from the losing Tennessee who just wants to sell to put a subdivision up. Yeah, yeah. We need to get we need to find those people and say, hey, uh let's you know, we want to keep Bollywood beautiful. You know, would you think about uh you know, maybe donating this land when you go? That kind of thing, survive survivorship of some sort, you know, for the landless that's gotta be some real things we can do and a to these people, like I said, that are in their you know their general year and sort of age is said someone want a legacy, you know, they would like a legacy. Or the land to be continually farm. You know, or go to this go to the state extension system with like Auburn has the farming um extensions out here, you know, which help us develop how how we do agrari uh agrarian development and science and and and and the future of uh of uh agriculture and bottom and all that so there's there's tons of room for for finding a way to survive land our heap land as a survivorship and keep it in our town keep it beautiful unique it's not said it's like somebody used the word I think it was uh crazy jamble that you know we got to get back to the ambience of our town you know it had a certain little alert to it and it's fast and uh whenever anyone's quickly running away. Yeah um but I don't know how to answer I guess yeah absolutely um can you tell people where they can go to learn more how to contact you yeah um you contact me at um I have uh Phildabowski um dot com website I'm also I think you get me through I think Facebook we have a link as well and um my my phone number is 251 2138969 you're welcome to call me and discuss anything I'm available to you or just leave a mess that's it would be the text message me because I'm like yeah you mostly you you have a number you don't know a name you don't call until you they leave a message or they text you but text me first if you have a real issue that you want to talk about. And um I'll gladly call you back when you have coffee. I'm easy going that way. I also have my practices on Iway 59 in the middle of watching called Almochirophy. You're welcome to stop by and leave a leave a message a note or even get you know I'm we I'm busy working so but if you come in to leave a card or something and I can get you a hold of you there. You basically wanted to come visit me. I'm not gonna be able to stop right then probably in the middle of seeing patients and so I'm not available at the head walking in. The point is if you needed to get a hold of me you could do it there. And my um my I don't I don't know if the mailing I should give mailing address but I don't think it's P.O. Box374 Loxby Alabama and uh you can mail to me by the the old uh of PO uh PO Smith mail mail email is email as easy it's Dr. Alamo is my credit still alamo can ready it's dralamo stelldown at yahoo.com for very simple dralamo at yahoo.com you can definitely um email me there and ask me questions or or yell at me and tell me I'm wrong. Whatever you want. So it's been such a a good time doing this.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

Yeah thank you so much for coming out I learned a lot we talked about issues that other people hadn't hit on so we appreciate that.