The Cost of Demanding Accountability

Blair Castro and Thomas Jenkins talk Orange Beach/Gulf Shores politics, the high personal risks of demanding government accountability and transparency, scrutinizing truth at every level of government, and welcome over 400 new followers since our last post!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. I hope your day is going smoother than an Orange Beach politician. I'm Thomas Jenkins. This is WFUZ TV's the People's Voice podcast. I'm in the studio with Blair. Blair, what's going on today?

SPEAKER_00 0:15

So we haven't made a video in a little bit, but I know we have a lot of new followers. Thank you if you're following us.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

You may have followed us because you are concerned about corruption in your local government. If so, welcome. You're in the correct place. Um geez, there's so many topics we could dive into. But first of all, let's talk a little bit about where we live in Gulf Shores. Um there's a lot going on here, and people have asked us repeatedly, are you gonna cover Gulf Shores? Are you gonna cover Gulf Shores? Well, yes, I cover Gulf Shores a lot for almost a year ago when I ran for city council. I have been reaching out to them, I've been in communication with them, I've met with almost everybody there, and behind the scenes, there's just so much going on that you people have no idea what I'm actively doing with each entity around here, including the cities, the counties, the state, the congressmen. Like there's constant communication and things happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yes, some of you have been with us since the traffic cone video.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yes. If if uh you know anything about where we started, you'll know that it has been my whole goal to really focus on better relationships between our city and the county and the state and everybody getting them on the same page because it is just a lot of infighting and a lot of mess going on there.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

How's that going?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Well, I don't even know. But starting out, um, we are gonna focus on golf shores a little bit more, and we plan to go to their future council meetings to be very upfront. We have not gotten approval to go in and film, where Orange Beach has given us that, and the county has given us that, and other municipalities we have permission to do that when appropriate. So I'm really just waiting on not that we need permission, and is your First Amendment right as freedom of the press to come in and film things. Like that's not really what it is, but it's just a matter of respect and keeping lines of communication open. When we post these videos, by the way, we don't edit them unless it's just a really long video, which we'll always put the long video up on our YouTube and most of the time it's on our Facebook. But we do take out highlights just like any other news source would. So I'm just putting that out there for people that think, oh, you're editing this, you're chopping it up. Like we do capture highlights, but we don't rearrange it or edit for the most part unless we're making like a funny video about Josh McKee or somebody that totally deserves it.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

So let's circle back around to the time that you're in for office. Let's uh we were going to talk a little bit about that and what we went through as a family uh dealing with things.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah. So for people that say Golf Shores needs a CC Moreno, or you know, we need to have people calling out Golf Shores, okay, I did that. And let me tell you a little bit about what I experienced and what became of all that. There were so many negative things that were aimed particularly towards me, getting cyberbullied, getting doxxed, getting people pulling my background check, making weird vague threats, fake accounts. These people were, and we have proof, were connected to people in the Gulf Shores law enforcement. Um they weren't law enforcement officers, but they were connected to former law enforcement officers and in with a certain little click of administrative people. So, yes, it is true that you are targeted by, you know, political elites or insider type families and people. That is a total thing when you run for office and when you come out there.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Um did I almost get into a fist fight and uh outside of a popular local pub? Yes. Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

That almost happened. Um and even despite that, I still continuously popped up with the person who's doing this to me and tried to make peace with them. I sat down and had a beer with them. I have continuously like tried to be positive and reach out to people in the administration, in you know, opposing sides, and I've come a long way, I think, for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Go a little into more detail, talk about the hole in the fence and the dog getting out and the lady at the threshold and the HOA and all that shit.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I basically got ran out of my neighborhood for what I was doing. I had people filming my house, and at the time I had my own house. Now we live together. At the time I had my own house I was renting, and they would film it to see how many hours I was there and make the argument I didn't really live in golf shores because I wasn't at my house enough hours or days to appease them.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Aaron Powell Because she was with me also in golf shores. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yeah, like it was the stupidest thing ever. And then I had people break my fence and let my dog out so they could call and complain about the dog. The fence was broken. I should have had a camera recording all this, but at that point I was just ready to get out of the house and leave. Like I was not investing into security in a place that I was renting when I could just go elsewhere and be safe.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Aaron Powell And remember when the lady said that the dog bit her husband and I said, well, ask her for a picture of the wound?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yes. I was consistently getting complaints about my animal. Uh first they called like animal control and said that the dog was like close to death, which isn't true. And the dog is still alive, by the way, and she's 15 years old, and she's completely fat and healthy and totally fine for her age. It's actually a miracle she's still alive because she's just old. She's lived a very long life and she's still healthy and going. So it was always looking for an excuse to call the cops on me. Then she came to the door. This is the HOA president where I lived, who was a former city employee as well. And in with all the same people who had been kind of like weirdly stalking me, harassing me. Uh, you know, those are big words. I don't have proof they were doing that, but the the things that were happening were very strange. It's enough to make anyone paranoid and not want to run or stick their neck out there again after what I experienced. So these people, this lady came to the threshold of my house, demanded entrance. When I told her no, she was just appalled that I wouldn't let her enter my home and give her permission to do that. And I was like, well, why would I? Like it was so weird. There were so many weird things that happened, weird interactions with people, and they continue to this day. The last time I had a weird interaction with this city employee was on election day. Um, for those of you that don't remember, we called out some election potential interference and pressures, I guess. Um, and that has consistently brought us difficulties in other ways, but we still need to do it because it's right. So the point of all this is it really greatly affected the mental health, the you know, ability to have peace of mind, to live peacefully in paradise. Yes. Like you you will get targeted for doing what we do. What we do comes with a lot of great personal risk. So as I've pivoted after the election to try to stay involved, to try to call out people to be accountable. I don't have the luxuries that some other people do to just be, you know, pissing people off and calling out things left and right. I wish I could, but you know, I've got to play the game a little bit. I've got to try to be what I was actually legally trained to be, which is a mediator, a conflict resolution specialist. For those that don't know, I trained in the Middle East and I did Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So I try to resolve conflicts the most I can. I try not to be too hasty. I try not to jump down people's throats, but sometimes you have to defend yourself. And if for anyone that thinks we're just doing this and we're not going hard enough or whatever, like every time you push, you are gonna get slapped back down, you are gonna get attacked in some way, and it makes for a very stressful way to live.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

And lied to and people dangling money in our face, acting like they're gonna help us with something, but it it it's met with certain conditions, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Right. And even in our personal lives and our jobs that we have, we have full-time jobs and careers people. Um people say we don't want to be involved with political types for some of the work we do that's not even political. Um and I think, okay, so you like you get punished for standing up for your beliefs a lot of times, which we're still gonna do. We're still gonna say what we're gonna say and do what we're gonna do. But just be aware this all comes with great personal sacrifice. It comes with sticking your neck out a little bit. And I'm sure for every other truth seeker out there and person who is calling things out can relate because it is not, you don't just do it for for the views or for the likes. Like you do it because you feel compelled for what is right, and you will get attacked for it, you will get stressed out, you will end up in tears a lot, and you will like you will suffer. But with that suffering is the responsibility that we feel entrusted to do sometimes. So we will continue to do what we do. Like we got a tag just for putting a video out where we didn't edit it at all or give any commentary, just putting a video out. And threatened. Called drama seekers, said we were gonna get sued, said we're gonna pay the price.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Like, yeah, we're gonna pay for that, we're gonna answer for it.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

For literally just filming a public meeting and putting it online. I don't understand that, but okay, like, and it's not just us people at Lanyap, you know, friends at other media outlets, the same thing. They get weird, like kind of threats as well for just trying to make information public, which brings me to my next you know, topic of discussion here. Speaking of public information, um, let's talk about let's talk about body cameras, if you would. Um I guess why wouldn't you want to release them?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

That's that's the question that I'm asking. Why was there a woman that I get will we name the woman?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

You all know who it was. She came to the Mindy Bickering. She came to the name of the city.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Mindy Bickering at the uh meeting there asking to not release body cam footage. Why? Why were you asking that?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yes, I don't understand her her reasoning really. Um she made an argument there's privacy concerns, it's someone's worst day. Like, okay, I get that. But also, I'm from a state where we had sunshine laws. Uh, Alabama is supposed to have a similar thing, you know, Open Meetings Act, whatever. But in Florida, like the sunshine laws are broad. And anybody, anybody that's a citizen can request body camera footage from any agency and get it. That's just the way it is. And for me to move to a state where that's not the norm is kind of strange. And I I don't really understand the public good of that because it helps protect the police officers, it helps protect the people who are being arrested, it helps protect everybody. I understand like editing it for like, you know, nudity or like whatever private situations may come up or for minors, but generally police interactions need to be looked at. It it should be public record. I don't really see an argument against that as a broad overarching premise.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah. And then she had the call to write us and say, You ruined my reputation. You you did that to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So um that's that's just interesting to me. But regardless, um if there is a law in Orange Beach, which from what I understand there isn't, it's public policy to not release this. I believe that is counterintuitive to what all the other states and many other municipalities do. I believe we should be on board with transparency and accountability and body camera footage. Mostly like from a law enforcement side, you know, I worked for the sheriff in another county. He advocated for body cameras. We didn't have them there in Escambia County either until he brought them, you know, why? Because they're quite pricey. If you have them and you're paying that high cost for them, they are expensive from the taxpayer. Why not make that information widely available? That's why we're paying for them, I think. So, I mean, other topic I guess to touch on is right now there are some elderly politicians who tend to be reaching their end of days and passing away, perhaps. Um I my thought on that is that I feel like ever since the Charlie Kirk assassination, actually, no, I feel like the Epstein files, like ever since that happened, the government is not being truthful to us. The federal government, the state government, I mean, look at the Tommy Tupperville thing, our local government, at every level of government, I think we are being gaslit a little, and we're all like, at first it was like, oh, those people are fringe conspiracy theorists that believe this stuff. Now I feel like after the Epstein files, how can you not be a fringe conspiracy theorist? How can you just blindly believe everything they feed you? We're being lied to at all levels, and I think the we have to poke and prod and scrutinize everything placed in front of us by a media outlet or by government officials, these these spokespeople, these statements, like it doesn't add up. It hasn't added up really in the past several, you know, presidential administrations. There's a lot being hidden from us. Even Trump came out about UFOs, like there's just so much going on that we need to look carefully at all levels for the truth.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, and for those people that were in our comment section, oh, this is tacky, social media is the worst, y'all need to stop. We were requested to be at that meeting and cover it because there's certain videos that have gone missing, and we were allowed access to go tape that meeting. And so basically, we are becoming a bona fide media outlet, and we love that, and we're gonna continue to do it. Argue in the comments below. It's not gonna stop us, though.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Also, we are not drama seekers or anything like that just because we want to cover things and make them public. I don't understand how that's wishing for drama. Like, we're not the people going up there speaking this time. Sometimes we will, though, if we really feel go back and watch our old videos to learn about that. But you know, we're just really going there to make these things public. People have complained that live streams don't work, that they vanish, that they don't have access to the Facebook page. Some people are even blocked from their local municipality's Facebook page.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

I'm just doing technical production, man. You just point the camera.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

We also literally offer an alternative viewpoint, a vantage point in the room that's different than the typical city view.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

You see my little pans and zooms.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, we zoom in, we do things that aren't it looks different. It appeals to some people, as the last several forums and videos have been viewed, you know, thousands and thousands of times. We get asked to do that and we do it, and we do it for free. If you'd love to donate, that'd be great. But most of it we do it for free. So we feel like we're providing a service that people are asking for, and we're happy to do it in that respect because information should be free and readily available to the public. Yes. So yeah, I guess that's what's on my mind tonight, those few topics. Um, I also just wanted to say I'm not I'm I might get flagged for this. We have a lot of elderly people in office. I really think we need some younger people in office.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

And we need younger people to vote.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

We really need younger people involved and young people be under 50. Like the fact that all of our senators, the average is like what, 70 something years old, and people in their 80s and 70s, and like that's great. They have a life of service, but also like with all these health things happening, and that's just a reality of life. Like the average American life span is in its 70s, like we really need that to match the average age of the person, like the average adult. It just we have a jerry, jeri on I don't know the word, geriatric, like I don't know. That's it. It's a very older age population in office, and I feel like that's not healthy because we're constantly getting special elections and things put at risks, and we don't really know the status of their mental state and their physical state, and that brings a lot of risk involved. So I really feel like young people should be involved and should be voting. And I'm sorry if that offends the elderly people. You guys are great, and we need you, and thanks for watching. We appreciate your wisdom, but I really feel like we need younger people in office.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

We need everybody. I mean, it's the United States, lest we forget.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yes. So yeah, that's all. I hope you guys have a good night. Enjoy um your July 10th or whatever today is, July 12th.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

It is the 12th.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah. Anyway, we are WFUZ TV. We are the news. Y'all have a bluebell country day. We will see you next time.