From Boeings to Blueberries

From boeings to blueberries, this is the Elevate Polk Podcast, and I'm your host, Chrissanne Long. And with me as always is Rob Arturi.

Hello.

And we're excited to be joined today with, uh, by Commissioner Bill Braswell, Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners in Polk County. So welcome to the show. Bill.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Have you, um, have you ever been on a podcast before?

Nope.

This is the first one.

All right. Well, it's a lot more fun when we're in the studio, but, uh, because we can't do that yet, we're just gonna make it work.

All right.

Well, we will make it as painless as possible. Um, okay.

It's pretty up to this point.

It's pretty painless.

We're only getting started. That's why.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we're going to start by just asking you to, uh, to just tell us a little bit about yourself. Um, Give us some context to our title, Boeing's to Blueberries, and just tell us how you ended up where you are today.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I'm a Polk County native, born and raised in Bartow, went to high school there and went on to the University of Florida. I actually got a degree in agriculture there, and for whatever reason, I went in the Air Force and became a pilot and stayed there for about 8 years on active duty. Got off active duty and went to work for Delta Airlines. And about that time, Desert Shield was kicking off, so I went back in the Air Force Reserves. And so I did both of those jobs for another, uh, well, to retirement at both of them. And, uh, during that, uh, my wife and I moved to Auburndale and got some land, and we started farming blueberries. And, and we've been doing that now for almost 20 years. And it's worked out really well. My son takes care of the blueberry farm now, which gives me time to do the county commission thing.

Is your blueberry farm one of those you-pick blueberries, or is it something else?

No, it's just all commercial.

It's organic. It's about 60 acres of organic blueberries. And we market locally through Clear Springs, And, uh, we, we don't do the you pick, uh, we probably should, but, uh, we just don't.

That's okay. I just, I've never been and I thought, well, maybe this would be the time to go, but I know that there are some other blueberry farms that I could go, uh, pick from.

Yeah. And, and, and there's going to be more.

And the problem there is farming, uh, blueberries, uh, is really going away in Polk County and all of Florida. Uh, the, the, uh, competition with Mexico is, uh, just, uh, unbearable. And, uh, our saving grace is that we're organic and that keeps us competitive, but the conventional farms are dropping by the wayside pretty fast.

Hmm. So why blueberries? What was— did you do some research and decide this is what I want to do? Or is there a—

delicious?

Yeah, they are delicious.

No, it was, it was purely a money thing. Uh, I looked at what I didn't own a lot of land and what could make the most money on the least amount of land.

And back in 1990, blueberries were really just starting to get hot. And I looked at it from a financial standpoint and it worked. And that's what we did. And we've stayed in it since then.

Awesome. Well, I don't know if you know this about me. I'm from Auburndale. And I don't know if you know the Myers family, Jody, Jack, Dick Myers. Oh yeah, yeah, Dick is my stepdad, so Jody and Jack are my stepbrothers. So I just thought I'd make that Auburndale connection, give them a shout out.

Yeah, that's cool.

I am not from Auburndale, but I've been there.

Just keep moving, stranger.

I've heard that a lot in the past, I don't know, 17 years.

I'm just— I, I just love the growth that Auburndale has had, you know, in the last 20 years. It's just It's incredible to see things that have, have just popped up and where it seems Auburndale is going is good places.

Well, I tell you, not even the last 5 or 10 years, just the last 18 months, it is crazy. We live over here off of Old Brookly Road, right there where Gapway crosses over, and they're just—

I mean, it's, it's growing in every direction.

Amazon's building the big warehouse at the end of our road.

And it's— yeah, it's going crazy.

It really is. So you're not too far away from my parents. They're on area— in area off of Arietta. So Arietta Shores. So you're neighbors. Yep.

Yep.

We are.

We are.

Very cool.

It's a small world in Auburn.

It is getting smaller every day.

Absolutely. So tell us, I mean, some cool stories about being a captain with Delta Airlines. I mean, you talked about the Air Force, but You didn't spend any time talking about the captaining in Delta.

Well, I mean, you know, it's, it's a great job.

I mean, it's, it's— I never considered being a pilot work, you know? I mean, you go get on an airplane, you take off, you go somewhere cool, you go to the hotel, you have fun, you go sightseeing, you do whatever you do, you get back on the next day and you go home. And it's like being on vacation all the time. And it was, it was great when I was in the Air Force. I, you know, got to see the world many times over.

And then I go to Delta and get to continue doing that.

And I spent the last 10 years going to Europe once a week, you know, different cities every time.

Moscow, Bombay, India, or Mumbai, India. Places like that. And, uh, it's, it's, it's just a fantastic job.

Did you fly Boeings?

I did.

I, I flew. I, I, I've had a fairly unique, uh, uh, career in that right when I got out of the Air Force, I didn't actually go to work for Delta. I wanted to work for a company called Piedmont Airlines. They were, they were the, the fun, cool place to work before Southwest came along. and I, I, I was fortunate in that, you know, what I was doing in the Air Force made me, uh, uh, uh, hireable by any airline, and I could pick and choose who I wanted to work for.

So I went to work there, and about a week after I went to work there, they were bought out by US Air, and that was like my last choice.

So, uh, you know, things changed real fast, but I got to fly, uh, Boeings there.

I got to fly—

Piedmont still had Fokkers. Which nobody's flown. We flew Airbuses, we flew, uh, McDonnell Douglas.

I mean, uh, got to kind of fly everything.

Awesome.

Do you still fly? Do you have a plane and, and fly out of the Lakeland Linder Airport anymore?

No, I've got a Mooney, but I keep it at Bartow.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Well, and I hear this week you are also celebrating a milestone, uh, a 20-something anniversary.

What was 27.

How long have you been married to your wife?

27 years yesterday.

Yeah.

Awesome. Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. Uh, it, it is pretty cool. Uh, uh, she has to be pretty unique to put up with me, and, and that's all worked out really well.

And, uh, my son—

what's really cool is, and I, if you saw the Facebook post, I put it on there, but, you know, we've got, we've got our place here and we've got the farm, and on the other side of the farm, uh my son and his family live. And, and so like right now, as I'm talking, my granddaughter's over here visiting and, you know, we get to see her every day and we got another one on the way.

So, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of an ideal life.

I'm really happy.

Sounds like it. I wanted to comment on your, on your social media prowess because I think you and I have something in common. We talked about in one of our episodes earlier that, you know, I think you have 5,000 friends on Facebook.

Yeah, I, I, yeah, it's interesting you say that. I, I, I do, and I, I get lots and lots of friends requests. And I, I just found out you can— I've got a political page because I'm running for reelection, and I found out that you can have, I guess it's unlimited followers on, uh, on a political page like that. So I'm, I'm moving all my comments about the county over to that. So more people, because, because I really do think a lot of people get— I don't know if it's good information for me or what, but I think it is. I like to— I've always thought communicating is just so important and I see it every day, everywhere I go. It's just not done.

And I know we're going to talk about the CARES Act and and all that.

But it's, it's a great example of how people either hear what they want to hear or don't hear what they don't want to hear, or just can't, you know, get the facts right. And, and the opportunity to get on social media, uh, after discussing with the staff the things that they're seeing that are going wrong with people applying or why they're not getting, uh, approved, uh, you can get on social media and get it all straightened out. So I think a lot of people look at that information and use that information. And it's good information.

Yeah, I think it's, it's something that I've been a long time an advocate for some of our leaders being more involved and more connected through social media. And so you're the one that kind of has lead— is leading the charge. You're the most active, most connected through social. And so I just thought that was, that's something to applaud and celebrate. And I hope that more of our commissioners, either county level or city level, start to see the value that you're bringing through those conversations and not be so afraid of the pushback or the lash— I don't know what the word is.

Beat up. Beat up.

You have to have thick skin.

Yeah. And people, because of the— they're not face to face with you, the anonymity of social media, they're a little more vocal, they're a little more obnoxious. They, uh, they like to, you know, I think, I think a lot of them who get in my face on social media, uh, see it as an opportunity that they'll, they won't get in person. Uh, but you know what I enjoy about it is, you know, they'll, they'll, they'll post some of these really stupid stuff and, and I'll call them out on it. And, uh, and I'll call them, I'll, I'll track their phone number down and I'll call them. And, and it's a whole different conversation then. It's like, oh, I just meant, you know, whatever, you know, blah blah blah.

Funny how that works.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but now social media I think is, is, it's here to stay. It's a great way to communicate. It's quick, you know. I do those, um, Monday conference calls with the health department, and as we're on the conference call, I'm updating the weekly update that I do on that. So it's, it's, it's literally almost live, so you can't get any, any, uh, more current than that.

Well, I want to shift gears a little bit, Rob, if that's okay with you.

Sure, of course.

Um, so let's, let's get into the CARES Act, and I kind of wanted to, to, to set it up a little bit from my perspective. So, um, it was really a blessing to me. I'm grateful for Commissioner Santiago, who I had shared that Rob and I Rob was really a helpful part of putting the survey together, and that, that survey was getting some traction. And I've been kind of from the position for many years saying that we really don't have significant information about the needs of small businesses because we haven't been doing any data collection on any level that was, you know, really focused on specifically Polk County. We make a lot of assumptions about the data that we're given from outside, but we don't have any internal push towards gathering that data. So then when Commissioner Santiago gave me the opportunity to present that to you guys, I was very grateful for you to give me that platform and to allow me to share. And then that brought me into a little bit more of a closer experience to how this, the PULSE Cares Act process rolled out. And so I'm just, I'm impressed with how well you were able to roll that out. So if you want to talk to the audience a little bit about, you know, your perception on how all of that took place and and kind of give them a bird's eye view.

Sure.

Yeah. I mean, you're right. It has gone smooth. Knock on wood. It's incredible. I mean, when you think about the fact that, you know, a month ago, if you walked up to me and said the county is going to get $126 million to spend on citizens to help them out, you know, I'd have said there's no way. And, and so it happened, um, unlike some of our surrounding counties that designated a small portion to go to, uh, the citizens, uh, you know, we, we, we've designated $70 million right up front, uh, which is, is more than half. And we'll, we'll move more money into those accounts as, uh, as needed. But, you know, what we saw it as, this is not money to help our county manager balance the budget. This is not to sink into a fire station or find some way to use it for other government reasons. This is money that needs to go from one pocket to the other as quickly as possible because, you know, people are— people are desperate. People have landed in a situation no one saw coming 3 months ago. It's mind-boggling when you sit back and look at the timeline of how fast we went from wide open, great economy to an absolute depression. And, um, that being said, we— when we found out we were getting it, we said we got to get rid of it. We told the county manager that. One thing I found out being in politics: government and government bureaucrats will find a way to do things as slowly and painfully as possible. They want everything vetted and re-vetted, and, and the lawyers want to have this checked paycheck. And we said enough, you know. Yes, there will be people who are going to cheat us and steal this money. But at the same time, we're more about speed and not precision as far as getting the money out. Because ultimately it gets down to what we want is this money circulating in the county. Because you know how it works. I mean, you know, you pay me to do a service, I pay this guy for the restaurant bill, he pays this guy for the food, food food. And it just, it goes in a circle. And that's, that's what we've gotta, that's what we've got to get going. The other thing is, you know, when people have a little bit of money, uh, you know, they, they have a little more confidence in, in spending it and what, you know, what they can and can't do. And, and, you know, we've got to get that, that motion of money going so people will feel confident about the economy because Really, everything when it comes to the economy is about perception, because ultimately, you know, not until people feel good about getting out, spending money, are we ever going to get out of this thing. So, so we, we, like I said, we've set aside the, uh, the, the $70 million. We're, as you know, we're partnering with United Way to, to, to get some of the money out through them. We're starting there with $15 million, and they're, they're they're ideally situated to do what we're doing. They're in the community, they deal with all these other charities and nonprofits, they know who needs the money, they know where the profits are— our profits— where the, where the problems are. And, and, and they were just— they were ideal. So, so, so that all fell into place. The, uh, the small business grants are, are moving along, uh, I think. And you might have saw my post from last night I'm somewhat disappointed in the amount of applications we're getting from small businesses. I don't know whether people are intimidated. I think a lot of people look at the requirements that we, that we put out there and they didn't read it as this or that or this or that. They read it as this and that and that and that. And we're not looking— we're not looking for a dozen documents. We're looking for one or two documents. All we want to know is, are you legitimate? You know, and if you're a legit business, what you're going to say is, I need the money. And if you'll tell us you need the money and you're a legit business, we're going to give it to you. There's a lot of— there's a lot of sole proprietorships and single-member LLCs, that sort of stuff that I don't think have gone through the process. And maybe they look at it and say it's just not enough money to bother with. But that tells me that they really don't need it. So that's okay. But I think there's a lot of them out there, you know, like hairdressers and salons. I mean, those guys went 6 weeks without earning a dime. You know, $1,000 can help. I mean, it's not going to save a business. It's not going to— it's not going to change your life. But if it'll— it'll give us another month or so gap filled so you can recover, you know, that's what it's all about.

I agree. And, you know, two things on that. Number one, I think that the decision to partner with the United Way was really, really smart because getting these things out efficiently is really important. And they're already, like you said, set up with that distribution channel. So that's a clever way, a judicious way of using not bureaucracy, but existing channels and making that decision rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. That's a level of intuition that you see at the government that's closer to the people. And I always say that the government closer to the people is the best. And I think if you look at this relief situation, that's really a good example. I mean, when you look at, you go from the local level, the county got this money, they decided what to do with it, they implemented it, and people are starting to get help. At the state level and the federal level, it gets a little more complicated. Another thing is when I pointed out on a call with Commissioner Santiago, my concern was more than just financial. I've said for a long time that giving people money is great, but if they can't spend it, it doesn't help the economy.

Right, right.

And I was really emphatic with her about, when we first talked about the need to do it safely, properly, but reopen. At the same time, she communicated that that was kind of where she was at as well, and you all as a commission, and that's kind of what we saw, so I just wanted to thank you as well for taking that lead. I think that the governor did a great job with respect to nursing homes, but I think the county did a great job being cautious, but at the same time recognizing the need for commerce because people's lives are going to be affected significantly, and I think we'll probably end up faring better than many others as a result of that action.

You know, right before all this happened, and I don't remember who published it, but the Florida Chamber of Commerce came out and they showed Polk County as the number one most diverse business community, business county, whatever you want to call it, in the state of Florida. Meaning we've got ag, we've got manufacturing, we got a little bit of everything that, that's going to really work in our favor during all this. You know, you go to Osceola or Orange County where everybody's in the service industry. Yep. And there's nothing else. You know, they're going to, they're going to hurt mostly. You know, a lot of the people that live in the northeast part of Polk County work in the service industries up there for Disney, Universal, whatever. And, you know, we're seeing a lot of, a lot of hurt go on up there. But, but a lot of the counties not hurting. And that's because we're very diverse. And, you know, you look at it, you know, all these warehouse jobs that everybody poo-pooed forever, those guys are hiring like crazy and they're all working overtime and they're going as fast and hard as they can. So, so, yeah, it's, it's It's money that I think is going to be well spent and it's going to come and go. And just like this whole economic downturn, I think it's going to come and go. I think we're going to, because of our diverse economy, I think we're going to probably recover a little quicker or maybe a lot quicker than some of the other counties.

Absolutely. I want to go back to kind of the United Way part of this discussion just for a quick second, because I'm With Bridge Local, I volunteered to take calls for those that need assistance with the application or just are needing some help getting, gathering the documents or whatever. So I've had several phone calls and experienced this kind of firsthand. And one of the people that called me, and this is one of those things that I really appreciated being a part of the discussion that you guys had as the commission, because I think originally there was this discussion about businesses who had had felonies or a record in their history and that we were gonna make them ineligible. And the commission said, no, I think we want to, you know, give people opportunities and second chances. So I thought that was great. And then I had a gentleman that had called and said, you know, at the turn of the century, early 2000, I got into trouble. I'm still trying to put my life back together. I have a business, but here are some of the challenges that I have. And so from a legitimacy standpoint, he didn't check off the boxes.

Right.

And so I was able to circle him back over and he wasn't gonna check off the boxes for the individual household funds either.

Right.

So then I was able to say, okay, well there are social services available to you. Here's what I need you to do. And directed him back to 2-1-1. And so it wasn't like, you know, sorry, eh, big red X, you don't get any support. We have it set up in a way that is not going to let people slip through the cracks just because you know, they've made mistakes in their lives or they don't have all of the things that they need to have. My hope though is that this experience for them will help them to raise their bar, to elevate their, their businesses and start to realize that there are some things that you have to do in order to be— you use the word legit— to be a legit business. And some businesses are operating without some of those checks on their boxes that they can check. So can we talk a little bit about what your thoughts are as we're learning through this process about what weaknesses there are in the business community that might— we might be able to shore up after we have some data about what challenges businesses are having.

Sure. Yeah. You know, the legitimacy, my definition of that is, are you a taxpaying business? In other words, I know there's a lot of small businesses out there that are run by people who don't want to pay taxes, they don't want to file paperwork and all that. And they need to realize that, that, you know, that's not a good idea. Uh, you know, first of all, you'll never be able to borrow money if your business ever really takes off because, you know, you have no track record, you have no history. Um, and, and, and I think this has been a wake-up call for some of those guys. I, you know, My experiences in farming, and I know a lot of farmers— not a lot, but I know some farmers that do that— and, uh, you know, they're unable to get, uh, USDA money, uh, they can't, uh, they can't get bank loans, and, and, and, and it's, it's, it just makes it tough. You got to be, you got to be in the game and playing with everybody else if you expect to be treated like, like a real business. So Exactly. You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's going to be a hard lesson for some of them. And, and, and, you know, they're going to want to resist it or whatever. And again, you know, we're not talking about big loans or big money here. We're talking about small amounts of money. And if they, and if they need that to stay in business, you know, I hate to hear, I hate to see it, but, you know, they may just drop by the wayside.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, definitely. And I wanted to now talk a little bit about this number of applications for the businesses so far as of what, you know, we're 5 days in, 4 days in, and what we expected.

We started Tuesday. Yeah, we started Tuesday morning and I've got the numbers in front of me. And this was as of 6 o'clock yesterday. And you may have this in front of you too, but we basically cut checks for about $1.5 million. $250,000 to small businesses and $1.25 million to individuals. And I want to point something out here that I think is important. These are not mutually exclusive pots of money.

Exactly.

If you are a sole— if you're, you're a single member business, well, even if you're, you know, if you're up to 25, you can apply for both of these pots. And, and, you know, you can apply as a, as an individual, you can apply as a business, because if you're a single-member business, you know, your bills are your bills. You know, you probably work out of your home, your electric bill needs to be paid so you can have your internet and do your business. So they're all kind of tied together. So I see, and maybe you see it, people are applying for one or the other. And, and one of my posts last night on Facebook, I tried to explain this, is No, you can apply for both. And, you know, the people who have these 1 or 2 member businesses are probably the ones that are most hurt. You know, the ones that have 25 or less employees certainly have a lot of issues trying to get capital, you know, bank loans, that sort of stuff. And that's why we limited it to 25, because if you've got a business and you've got 50 employees, you've got access to capital. The smaller ones don't. So we're trying to make that available. We're trying to get the word out that it's not an exclusive one or the other deal. And I hope that kind of, kind of helps because right now we've had— this is as of yesterday— in the individual category, 3,700 people have submitted applications. 740 of those have been approved. And in the business category, We've had 1,000 applications submitted, only 193 have been approved. And again, uh, it's, it's, it's paperwork. Uh, they haven't been denied, it's just we're waiting for, you know, a lot of people, uh, uh, all we needed was a copy of their driver's license to show that they were a resident, and that wasn't included in the application. So it's simple stuff like that that's standing between them and us getting them a check. So, so, you know, it's— and the other thing is a lot of people are, I guess they're expecting us to call them. They upload their application and then they, they sit back and it's missing something. Now they're expecting us to call them. Now that, that's kind of unrealistic.

I mean, we're talking a lot of, a lot of applications here.

But what we are doing is you have to set up a login to do this. Well, if you log back in a few hours later, uh, you'll see there that you're missing documents. It'll say we need your license, or we need this, or we need that. So people, once they apply, they need to check back a few hours later to see the status of their application. But, you know, like I said, $1.5 million have gone out. There's a lot of money left. And, and, and, and like I said, we want to get it to the people as quickly as possible.

If we're sluggish as we go forward with the business applications, do you think we might be able to relook at some of the exclusions that we put in? Specifically, I'm thinking about a lot of people who've spoken to me about the EIDL grant. They got $1,000 from the EIDL grant, so that excluded them from being able to apply, and so therefore they've only received $1,000 and they're able— they're not able to get this additional $1,000. I'm just thinking maybe if we're still sluggish a couple of weeks from now, maybe we relook at that. Is that possible?

Oh, we looked at that yesterday. We're talking about that already.

Oh, cool.

Because we've got a couple of moving parts here that we have to pay attention to. Number one, we've got a call center with about 40 or 50 people working there right now. Those people mostly work in the court system, and, you know, the courts are shut down, so we have the call center because they needed to move those employees into doing something else. So So the timing on that works out really well. As time goes by, we're gonna start losing people in the call center that can help. So that's happening. Another point I wanna make is if you applied for PPP and you have not been approved, but you've just applied, you're still eligible for this. You have to have received the money or told that you're gonna receive the money to not be eligible. But back to your point, yes, um, what we discussed yesterday was, so right now the people who didn't get that $1,000 here and $1,000 there are the ones that are eligible. We would like to get them that first $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 or $4,000 right away. And then yes, we're going to come back in a couple of weeks and see where we're at on how much money is left. And how much, uh, you know, how much, uh, we can continue to, to, to give out. And, and probably we'll have to change the, uh, the application standards. But, you know, right now we just want the people who really, really need it to get it as quickly as possible.

Amen. Absolutely.

But, you know, but, and, and who knows, you know, we may get a rush on this. Uh, I'm sure millions of people listen to this podcast every day, and, and, and, oh yeah, probably be We'll probably be buried with applications by the end of the day. But, but no, it's, it's, it's— and we'll keep looking at it constantly. And it's really cool, this Neighborly app that is managing it. You know, we looked around to see how to administer it and we knew the county probably didn't have the bandwidth to handle 20,000 people calling in all at once or logging on all at once. So we looked at Pinellas County and they had been working with this company called Neighborly, and they can provide us real-time feedback on what's happening with the system. Did we see a spike in applications for individuals? Have we seen a spike or a drop-off in businesses? What are the issues? You know, is it paperwork? Is it driver's licenses? Is it, you know, they just won't acknowledge by clicking on button X. So it's really a good program and it's really worked well for what we're trying to do. And the instant feedback is really critical to making adjustments about like what you're talking about.

And if you're listening to the podcast and you want a little bit more information about the Poulk Cares Act, we'll have that in the show notes. As well as a video that I did with SCORE kind of walking through the application process and step by step and some of the technical challenges that they found out in the first week and how you can avoid having your application get hung up. I know one of the things they discovered was the file size. It doesn't send an error to the person submitting, "Hey, your file is too large." It just doesn't go through. A person taking a picture of their driver's license, it might be a large file and then it gets snagged in the system. But they don't know that until, like you said, they log back in and find out that they need to resubmit. So there's a video that I put out and that'll be in the show notes as well.

Yeah, and that's good information. I'm looking at some numbers right here. Yesterday, the Pope Cares 2020 website was looked at by right at 10,000 people. So that tells me, you know, there's, there's just a lot out there looking, but they're not applying. So, so, you know, intimidation, whatever it is, uh, hopefully we can get the word out and get them, get them on board.

The other story I wanted to tell, um, the other, uh, family that I was able to help, um, I got a call Tuesday morning when the program launched and it was an elderly woman kind of struggling with trying to wrap her head around who to call and how to get help. And I was set up to really help the business side of things. But it ended up that this lady needed help with the individual side. And so I said, well, you'll have to call the call center. I did that. You could see that there was, you could hear that there was just this frustration in her voice. Like, and she didn't have a lot of faith in the government to begin with. So this was an uncomfortable thing to get her. So she and her housemate came into my office this week and we sat down and talked and it was just this process of understanding that we're helping these people on the ground level and making a difference. And, and they're so grateful, so grateful that I just was delivered a, um, a broccoli casserole, um, for, for helping out. So I just thought that was just a really special time for me to be able to help somebody that needed help.

Well, I think if somebody delivered me a broccoli casserole, I'd probably let somebody else eat it. I, I, I, I don't know if I would trust that. Trust that, uh, looking at some of the, uh, some of the remarks I get back on a daily basis. But that's great, and, and it is there to— the, the, uh, distrust of government, I, I totally get that. And, and the fact a lot of people doubt this can help or doubt they can get it, and they're just not used to having a quick response from government. It's— I think it's unique and they don't know what to make of it in a lot of cases. So it's good to— it feels good to be part of something that's working, you know?

Yeah, I agree with that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's unusual. And when I look at county government and, you know, back to my bio, I had no interest in government until the day I filed to run. You know, I couldn't have told you who my county commissioner was at that time. I mean, I just didn't pay attention. And I think most people are like that. You know, you're too busy with your day-to-day life to deal with government. And so you come into the whole deal jaded. You know, you expect nothing other than people dragging their feet and not doing a good job. And, and, and it's nice to surprise people and do a good job for them.

Well, we, we appreciate it for sure.

Rob, did you want— you had sounded like you had something to add, and then I talked right over you, as I want to do.

Well, it's harder because we're on this, uh, remote thing right now, and you don't have those visual cues, so it's, it's hard not to step over one, uh, one another. But I Now that's really about it. I think the county has done a fantastic job, and I think that we are all better off with the— I've been really, really impressed with the county commission. And I think, Bill, I think your comment earlier about the economy being really focused on, really dependent upon opinion and optimism is absolutely spot on.

Right.

If we collectively believe that things will get better, they will get better. And I think that starts with our elected officials who are taking that, taking that, that risk and putting themselves out there and being optimistic. And I think everybody will follow. And I think we'll all, we'll all emerge from this much better off. So I appreciate your, your leadership, your contribution. I've worked with you on a few things through this process. You've been extremely responsive. And to be quite honest with you, I hadn't really— I've been kind of Lakeland-focused for about the past couple of years. I hadn't really focused much with the county, and I forced you to.

You did.

You did.

Well, it's funny how interesting the county gets when they get $126 million.

I can only imagine that probably got you more friends than having a plane and a blueberry farm.

I had 1900 friends requests in about 48 hours. It was hilarious. But, but yeah, one thing I want to say that to what I was saying before, not being involved in government, not being interested in seeing what was going on. I am— the 3 and a half years I've been here, I am blown away at how well Polk County is functioning, how well they can get things done, how professional the employees are. Um, it, it is, it's a well-oiled machine right now. And, uh, you know, I, I, I want to go to one example. You know, we just refinanced some bonds here a few months right before the, the COVID thing happened. And, and, you know, we're looking at that kind of stuff, and, you know, you got business people on the board, and, and that's the way our minds work. And we found we could save almost, well, $9 million we were able to pocket by refinancing some bonds. And, you know, it takes a well-oiled machine to be able to pull that off. And so, so, you know, Polk County is, I think, doing well right now.

Well, and that's the mission of this podcast, generally speaking, because as a, as a kid growing up in Polk County and then going, you know, off to school and coming back and never really wanting to live anywhere else, I'm not immune to hearing the comments about ourselves. You know, sometimes we make them about ourselves. We poke fun at Polk and we, we say we, you know, we're our own worst enemies in some cases. And I remember, you know, going to college and, and telling someone I was from Polk County and they said, wait a minute, but you're in college and you have all your teeth. And I'm like, wait a minute, you have no idea what Polk County really is if that's your perception. And so Elevate Polk is really about trying to help us drive that message of look how, look how many great, intelligent, incredibly gifted, talented, generous philanthropic people we have. And the city staff, the county staff, all of these people who do such incredible things behind the scenes to kind of make all of these well-oiled machines run is a, is a thing that we just can't tout enough. I mean, it's incredible the things that happen and nobody really talks about them because they're just, they're just part of the everyday for them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, what, what you said there, uh, strikes a note with me. Is back when, uh, I started to run for office, people were asking me, why do you want to do this? And I go, really, just one reason. I go, I got a granddaughter and I want her to have everything she could ever want here in Polk County. Never, never have to leave. She could get a great education, she could get a great job, she could have her kids here, be happy as can be, and never leave Polk County. Because You know, when, when we make the, the future good for our grandchildren like that, you know, we're making a good place. And, and more people want to come here. And after this, I'm afraid way too many more people are going to want to come here. But, uh, but, you know, Polk is a great place. We've all seen it change dramatically, especially the northeast section of the county, uh, but it's, but it's still great. It's, it's, you know, I've had the opportunity to travel all over the planet. There's no No place I'd rather be than here.

Amen.

We feel the same way. And I think that's a perfect time for wrapping up unless you had any final thoughts you wanted to add, Rob, or, you know, no, I'm good.

I just appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

Well, you're welcome back anytime. We enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you so much. We appreciate everything that you're doing. And I'm glad that the county commission shares the same vision that we have, which is that I think we can keep this county growing. Improving and, uh, and it'll be a better place for everybody and our kids.

We can't iterate elevating Polk enough. So thank you. And thanks for listening. And remember, we have a new episode each week, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And remember to leave us a review. We promise to read every one. You can always find all of our episodes at elevatepolk.com. And if there's something you want to hear about specifically on an upcoming episode, Reach out to us on Facebook at Elevate Polk.

And you didn't say, "By golly." I didn't say, "By golly." Oh no. I might just leave that in at the end.

That's perfect.