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In this engaging episode of the Kim Monson Show, guest host Bradley Beck takes us on a journey through the depths of political analysis and community concerns in Colorado. Bradley introduces us to themes like the socialization of essential services and the perennial battle between freedom and government control. Delving deep into local issues, Bradley discusses the pressing topics such as RTD’s proposed fare changes and the broader implications of governmental decisions on people’s daily lives.
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It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
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The socialization of transportation, education, energy, housing, and water. What it means is that government controls it through rules and regulations.
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The latest in politics and world affairs.
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Under the guise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, it’s actually tapping down the truth.
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Today’s current opinions and ideas.
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On an equal field in the battle of ideas, mistruths and misconceptions is getting us into a world of hurt.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
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Indeed, let’s have a conversation. Hello, Colorado. Welcome to the Kim Monson Show. I’m Bradley Beck, and I have the great honor of guest hosting again two times this week. So let’s have a conversation. Thank you for listening. Each of you are treasured and valued. You have purpose. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. You were made for this moment in history. And there’s a great staff that works with Kim. And I’m always greeted at the door by producer Joe. Joe, how’s your morning going?
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Going pretty well, Brad. How about yours?
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I’m doing unbelievable. It’s always good to see you. And it’s comforting to know you’re behind the glass there and taking care of all my little mistakes. So thank you for doing that. And it’s going to be a great day today. Great show. We’ve got some wonderful guests.
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I’m excited to hear who you have to speak with today.
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Well, we’ll reveal that shortly. But, you know, folks, you can always go to Kim’s website and sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter to see who’s going to be on the show. You’ll get the first look at all her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. And I just submitted one, so I’m looking forward to that being published. Kim’s email is kim at kimmonson.com. And this show could not be put together without the great and gracious support of so many folks. Thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. It’s greatly appreciated. And thank you to Hooters restaurants for their sponsorship. There are three locations in Colorado, Aurora, Westminster, Loveland, and they have great lunch specials Monday through Friday, dine-in or to-go. Wednesdays are Wings Day, and I think that’s today, Joe, so that might be a great place to go have lunch. Buy 20 wings and get additionally 10 for free. The offer is good for to-go or dine-in. Hooters Restaurant’s a great place to get together with friends and to watch your favorite teams. So check them out, Hooters Restaurant. Today we have a word of the day that is a little bit longer than most of them. Usually Kim makes simple words or words that you can use in everyday speech and language, but I decided to do something a little different. So the word of the day today is epistemology. And that’s spelled E-P-I-S-T-E-M-O-L-O-G-Y. And epistemology is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. It’s also called the theory of knowledge. And the term epistemology comes from the Greek word episteme and logos. And used in a sentence… Epistemology helps us understand the different ways we acquire knowledge through perception, reason, and testimony. So the word of the day, if you can use it, is epistemology. And then the quote of the day is from a economist. Many of you have known him as F.A. His real name is Frederick August Non-Hayek. He was born May 8th, 1899, same day my mother was born on. And he died March 23rd, 1992. He was an Austrian-born British economist and a philosopher. He is known for his contributions to political economy, political philosophy, and intellectual history. His account of how prices communicate information is widely regarded as an important contribution to economics that led to him receiving the Nobel Prize. He’s a major contributor to the Austrian School of Economics. And his book, The Road to Serfdom, warned against the dangers of state control over the means of production. And the quote he gave us was, quote, liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice. It also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable, end of quote. So that’s from F.A. Hayek, quote of the day. And by the way, Joe, did you know this day in history, October 1st, 1876, does that ring a bell at all? I have no idea. Most people in Colorado don’t. It’s Colorado Day. It’s a state holiday. And today, October 1st, 1876, we celebrate it. And I bet most of the federal offices are closed despite the government shutdown. That’s an event that’s happening, of course, many miles away in Washington, D.C. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next day or two, see what the debate and arguments are. But basically, the government is shut down for the next short period of time. It may open up today. We don’t know, but we’ll have to see. In 1908, the state’s oldest continually operated movie theater closed. The ISIS Theater opened its doors in Colorado Springs on October 1st, and it’s still in operation today, over 100 years later. And also on October 1st, 1942, the world’s first atomic energy plant, known as Atomic City, began operations here in Colorado. The plant was used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons during World War II. So those are some of the things that happen here in Colorado. Things happening in the state also, even though our illustrious representatives are, as I like to call them, those animals down under the Golden Dome. before they start taking more of our money and adding another 600 or so laws to our already thousands and thousands of laws and over-regulation, there’s still business that goes on, and there’s also organizations that still function. And one of those organizations is RTD, and RTD voted on… major cuts, and there’s a program that they use basically for those that are less able, the Disability Ride Program, and I believe they had a meeting the other day, and the big picture is the proposal they came up with was, and they had been debating this for over a year, they would add a $6.50 fare up from zero, and and lower the maximum subsidy per ride from $25 to $20 and end service 24-7. And so this is an impact on those that are impaired or aren’t able to get around, and this is a lifeline for a lot of people to use the transportation system that’s there provided, although it’s grown incredibly. It went from 6,200 riders a month now up to 73,000, as the latest records show us. And so it’s an essential component. thing for a lot of people and yet we have this deficit in the city and we have a lot of money going towards programs for people that aren’t citizens and so you have to ask yourself one program is essential for a lot of people and another program is using other people’s money it’s amazing how government does that frequently And you have to ask yourself, which program would you rather invest in? Something that’s going to help people that by no fault of their own, if they’re blind or indigent, they’re not able to get from point A to point B, worthy cause. I can still make a case that the free market could probably come up with something even better. But the program’s there to help those less fortunate. And yet we spend in this city an amazing amount of money on things that don’t belong to any citizen. They’re not a right. And so people can support those if they want to out of their own free will. benevolence, not altruism. Altruism, I’ve always had a problem with, Joe. It’s a word a lot of people use, but it comes from Auguste Comte, the philosopher. And the problem with that word is it’s the use of force. And I’ve never liked the idea of force. Kim talks about freedom versus force all the time. And what happens is when people think they’re entitled, like The entitlements that FDR put into place of home and health care and all these different entities, then people come to believe that they have a right to them. And they have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but they don’t have the right to other people’s money. And that’s something that we always have to remind folks of that. Sometimes out of the graciousness out of our heart, we’ll support something, but we shouldn’t be forced to participate in things that aren’t part of our American system. We believe in a defense. We believe in the police protecting us to have the courts. And this is all at a federal level. And then at the state level, we have a variety of things that the states take care of. but it could be limited even further. And I think that’s important for us as citizens to make sure that we’re constantly talking to our friends and neighbors and reminding them that a lot of the programs that are instilled in our local municipalities and down here at the State House are things that are nice to have, but we don’t need them. I think people need to figure out a way to provide for themselves, to have some personal responsibility. and get away from being on the dole from the government. And that’s something I think that a lot of people don’t think that on their day-to-day, they don’t think about. They just go about their day and think, oh, there’s a program I can participate in. It’s free money. Well, nothing’s free, folks. Somebody’s got to pay for it one way or another. And so it’s interesting. Well, I haven’t heard from what has happened with that vote at RTD, but I’m sure we’ll hear about it in the near future. And there’s many other things going on in Colorado, and I know you’re interested in those things. A lot of times we talk about the big national items, but today we’ve got a variety of folks coming up and talking about local issues. And we’ll have in the third and fourth segment a discussion. Let’s see, Mike Rolick. Mike’s a concerned citizen for Citizen Watchdog. And later on in the show, in the second hour, we have Trent Luce and what’s happening up in Wyoming, still with the situation up there with the wind farm, and looking forward to talking to Trent. Wendy, who’s Wendy Volk, a realtor up in Cheyenne. So we’ve got a lot of talk about both locally and here in the state of Colorado. Lots of things are happening. And, you know, what’s amazing is we still live in the greatest country in the greatest state. And with all the problems that Colorado faces, we’re lucky to get up every morning, salute our flag, talk to our neighbors, go to work. raise our children and our grandchildren and still have the freedoms that our founders gave us so I think we should be thankful for that every day and I am for sure I wanted to also let you know that we have Roger Mangan at State Farm Insurance The team will create a personalized insurance plan to cover all your needs for protection of your cars, your home, condo, boat, motorcycle, business, and renter’s coverage. Contact Roger Mangan’s team right now at 303-795-8855 for a complimentary appointment. Like a good neighbor, Roger Mangan’s team is there for you.
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There’s so much noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Monson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. Tune in to the Kim Monson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at KimMonson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
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And welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. I’m Bradley Beck, and I’m fortunate to fill in the big shoes of Kim Monson, who is here Monday through Friday, and she has her veteran story on the weekends. But she’s still out of town and asked if I would fill in, and I’m always happy to do so. Check out Kim’s website at kimmonson.com, and her email is kim at kimmonson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Thank you for contributing to support of Kim’s independent voice and the exercise of the right to freedom of speech. It’s so important today, and especially with what happened with Charlie Kirk and so many others that are out there on the front lines speaking truth to power. Through all Kim’s work with veterans, she’s honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all the work that they’re doing to raise money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located in Golden, Colorado at 6th and Colfax. Paula Saris is the president of the foundation. She’s a Marine veteran, a Gold Star wife, and Paula and her team are working diligently to make the remodel a reality. And you can help by donating to the USMCMemorialFoundation.org. That’s USMCMemorialFoundation.org. Well, on the line with us, we have somebody who I’ve known for a few years, and she’s decided to throw her hat in the ring for candidate for Centennial City Council. Please welcome Patty McKernan. Patty, good morning.
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Good morning, Brad. How are you?
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I’m doing unbelievable, and it’s always great to hear your voice, and I hope things are going well with you. In fact, I commend you for running for Centennial City Council, and tell us a little bit about why you’re running and why you want to represent the citizens in that jurisdiction.
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Well, I’ll tell you what brought me into the race. I had been asked for months by a person who’s been in It’s an influential and centennial for many years. And I just had so much on my plate. I said, I can’t think about it right now. I said, talk to me in August. Well, in August, I had a friend who’s on the Englewood City Council tell me that they had a city council meeting where I think it’s called like a provider, producer provider organization came in and they were pitching single trash hauling contracts for all the cities. And I also get on Kevin Lundberg’s call on Mondays, and I’ve been hearing about that up in the Loveland, Fort Collins area. And Kim’s talked about it on her show, too. But when I listened in to the city council meeting where they were pitching this idea, it’s just like… you know what we need to have people in in um City Council that that understand what this means and I’m not saying that the council people didn’t because they did a good job with the hearing but uh what they wanted to do is tell all the citizens citizens of Centennial that they will go with one single trash hauler because it’s good for the roads and I said okay so Instead of three trash companies coming down my street on Wednesday, it’ll be just one. Well, what happens on Friday when I see the lawn service companies come through? Should we start regulating the lawn service companies? Hmm. What about Amazon? Maybe we do them on Monday and UPS can only come on Thursday and the federal government with the U.S. Post Office can come on Wednesday. Are we going to regulate that too? And that’s how I think about how we should, what government’s role is, uh, what are the consequences? And I, that’s what really made me say, I’ve got to jump in. There wasn’t a, um, it’s a nonpartisan race, but you know that there are letters behind the candidate and the only candidate that was in the race for district three, which is my, my area that goes from say Colorado Boulevard and dry Creek all the way up toward, um, just west of South lanes. And, uh, there wasn’t a conservative person on the ballot. And I said, I can’t tell other people to do this and not do it myself. So I jumped in the race, and here I am. Well, good for you.
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That’s commendable. And we need good people like you, citizens, who see a problem and are looking for ways to solutions that will help their neighbors, but also to protect their rights. And I know that you’ll be doing that. What should people know about your campaign versus an opponent that might be in the race?
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Well, I guess the biggest issue is that… When Chris Kolker won the SD 16, which is right here in my Senate district and Robin Carnes ran against him, she got pretty close. And his victory claim was, okay, now that we have locked up the state, we’re going to start going after the city councils and the municipal races. So there are Democrats that are running against us in all of the races. And their desire is to take what’s at the Capitol and bring it down to our local races. And Centennial has been an amazing city. It’s almost 25 years old in February. And we have had balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility since day one. And it was founded on Home Rule Charter. And so we need to keep it that way. and my understanding is that in about four years the the savings and you know the coffers are going to start to get stretched and we’re going to have to make some decisions on how are we going to stay fiscally responsible we’re like the number one city in colorado to live in people love centennial so we want to keep it that way so the city council is really an important place to hold on to The proper role of government to have local control and make really good decisions and don’t let the influences of Denver creep into our city. And that’s where I think single trash dollar concept was starting and and and that’s really what I’m here to to protect
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You know, you bring up a good point, especially with the single trash hauler. I know up in Boulder County and in Broomfield County, they’ve been trying to do that for years. And it seems like they go from one municipality to another and they bring in these ideas, whether it’s single trash hauler or some broadband project or something. And they went in one jurisdiction and then they go to the next one. And it’s usually the same people spreading the same information. How do we address that, Patty? And how do we make our fellow citizens aware that this is going on within our counties and in our state?
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Well, I think one way you do it is run for office. So when I knock on doors and talk to people, I tell them about these special interests. It’s like the St. Michael prayer. They prowl about the world seeking the ruin of men. And they’re going throughout. You’re right. They’re cherry picking. They’re going to different municipalities. So we just have to stay strong and the citizens have to know about it. When I explain that to them, they get it and they say, wow, I’m really glad you’re running. And I’ve even had fellow Republicans think, oh, this isn’t such a bad idea. This will help our roads. And I’m like, stop. Think about the consequences. Yesterday, Barbara Kirkmeyer was on the radio talking about the consequences of the incompetency law that they passed unanimously at the statehouse where people can’t stand trial if they’re judged incompetent. And there are judges out there that are going to let every criminal be incompetent for some reason or another. Well, they didn’t think about the consequences, but we have to do that. That is, that is probably the, the, the best thing that I can bring to the table is think about the consequences. If you pass what’s in front of you, if you accept the pitch of somebody that’s in front of you, there’s another one. I don’t know if we have time, but there’s another one that, uh, I heard at city council and it was a Littleton Metro South Metro housing organization asking for bond money or bond municipal bond approval. For centennial bonds money that year because we weren’t spending it and they wanted us to spend it on a senior housing project in littleton well I don’t mind a senior housing project, but what are the consequences if we allow our bond money to go to littleton somebody has to explore that you can’t just rubber stamp things and that’s. That’s what is most important about holding on to a good city are people that are aware, they look at consequences, and they’re looking for decisions that are made that protect and make all citizens flourish, not just a tiny pocket.
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You’re so right, and the citizens of Centennial are fortunate to have you running. Where can people get more information and contact you about getting involved?
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My website is patty4centennial.com. And I have all the information about how to get a hold of me and what my positions are and my background. And I’d love for you to visit it. And there’s a donate opportunity as well. So thank you.
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Well, Patty McKernan, thank you for running. Appreciate you getting on the radio early this morning and sharing with folks why you’re running, and we’re glad you’re doing so. So thank you so much.
SPEAKER 14 :
All right, Brad. Thanks so much.
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Yep. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back with more of The Kim Monson Show.
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All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s kimmonson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
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And welcome back. I’m Bradley Beck filling in for Kim Monson, who’s away still for, I believe, the rest of the day. She’ll be back tomorrow. So sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. And you can always go to our website at Kim Monson, K-I-M-M-O-N-S-O-N dot com or email Kim at Kim at Kim Monson dot com. And thank you to all those folks who contribute to support Kim’s independent voice and our exercise of the organization. Freedom of speech. It’s so important to be able to say what you want unimpeded as long as you’re talking about liberty and freedom and protecting rights. I think it’s an incredible opportunity for us as Americans. And talking about freedom, are you ready for financial freedom? You can call our friends at Mint Financial Strategies. As an independent firm and an accredited investment fiduciary, they always put their customers’ interests first. Mint means more than money. It stands for meaningful relationship, information sharing, a network of smart strategies, and a thoughtful advisor who puts you in control. There’s no cookie cutter plans. Everything’s tailored to you, the customer. Call Mint Financial Strategies today at 303-285-3080. That’s 303-285-3080. Jody would love to talk with you. Our next guest is somebody who you’ve heard before on Kim’s program. He’s a concerned citizen. He has a citizen watchdog. He’s into all kinds of issues, and I really enjoyed talking to him yesterday, doing a little pre-show investigation with him. And so, Mike Rolick, good morning. How are you, sir? Good morning, Brad. How are you doing? I’m doing unbelievable. It’s always great to be in the seat and love to get your take on what’s going on in the city of Arvada. You attended recently a Arvada City Council Forum. Tell us a little bit about what happened there and your reaction to it.
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Well, yes, I did. My group, the Ralston Valley Coalition, had set up a forum for the city council candidates, one incumbent and five contenders for three different races. And we asked a number of land use dedicated questions and also some questions that kind of dovetail into something Kim Monson herself might have been talking about. Recently, the online option… for testifying and providing commentary for the planning commission and the city council meetings were taken away because of cost. Um, we actually did a core request to see exactly how much cost is involved in the zoom meetings. And while it’s more expensive than a normal subscription for you or I because of privacy things that they have to do over at zoom it’s about uh about 12 to 14 000 a month uh which you know it’s a fair bit of money but when it comes to the expansion of the first amendment and for folks to be able to show up remotely testified maybe there’s people who have a second job swing shift a single parent folks who just can’t get out of the house due to mobility issues um We’re actually kind of shocked, and our group had mentioned for the past year that this should come back, and cost was cited as a prohibitive factor. And before we get into the rest of our bad stuff, we did a lightning round, and one of the questions was, would the candidates support bringing back the online option? All six unequivocally said yes. I would hope that they stick to their word, because… A lot of times we’ll see governments spending millions here, millions there, and these projects seem to go nowhere, and all of a sudden you’ve got something that would enhance everyone’s ability to be involved, the transparency, and just expansion of First Amendment for $12,000 to $14,000 a month. Maybe there’s a cheaper service, but… Why I bring this up is, first of all, everyone said yes. And second of all, I just saw this letter that Kim Monson herself signed, as well as a fair bit of Kim Monson’s guests, including Natalie Menton. And they’re trying to do this at the state level, too. Apparently the I’m not sure if you’re aware of the Colorado Freedom Information Coalition.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
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They wrote a letter and had a bunch of co-signers. Apparently, the Legislative Council is looking at taking the online live streaming and video coverage away from the legislative committee meetings during 2026 and beyond.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Mike, before you go on, so what they are always screaming at, whether it’s a local municipality or it’s down at the Capitol, is the pollution, the traffic, the cost of turning the lights on on a facility, the heating, the cooling. And yet here is a more effective, efficient way that people can get information and they’re saying they don’t want to participate in it.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, citing cost, but I think that the other side of it is, dare I say that sometimes people would like less participation and more opaqueness. I remember during the Senate bill. uh 25003 and that was the huge firearm bill where now you have to take a test for certain firearms and to assert your second amendment right um and i know that comes uh into fruition next august i think it is but during that i’ve sat on the zoom meeting portion for eight hours and they just ran out of time which i was happy about to see that much participation all kinds of folks all different sides of the issue some i don’t agree with but everyone’s there and and and that’s the point of this participation i sat for eight hours at my house doing other things walking around with the ipad you know i could wash dishes you know what have you walk a dog if i needed to right and then i could still and be involved when my three minutes shows up it would be virtually impossible for me to be able to take a day off of work spend eight hours and then realize there are so many people there i couldn’t even talk So the investment of time is a little less when you’re doing other things, tasks around the house, what have you, being productive. Maybe you work from home. Maybe you work from the office and you can have this going on, you know, like behind the scenes. And when your time shows up, you can spend your three minutes, participate and then move on with your life and hope your senators or, you know, representatives do the right thing. But now it’s gone. it’s gone. And you would literally have to take days off of work or rely on lobbyists who are there at all times. That’s the frightening part.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is. And, you know, these are civil forums that allow the citizens to give input and to find out what the heck is going on. And like you mentioned, most of us have real jobs and we’re out there trying to earn money for our family, trying to provide for them. And this is a way that people can get involved without having to take the extra time and all the parking and travel time and expense that sometimes you think, boy, they just want to keep you like mushrooms. They want to keep you in the dark and not know much.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, unfortunately, it does feel like that sometimes. And you brought up an interesting point when it comes to traffic, when it comes to emissions, clogging up highways. It doesn’t make sense with this amount of technology right now. Like, If they’re trying to save whatever $1,000 per month in one way, they’re literally incurring infrastructure costs through the degradation of the roads in another way. And it’s always like this short-term gain, long-term pain philosophy where they’re trying to save a few dollars now at the expense of many later. So it just doesn’t make sense in any sense of the word. I got to sit in on so many different bills last season just from having time off, you know, could be at the house and then listen in. There was a bill trying to keep bug agriculture from expanding in Colorado. And I wouldn’t have known about that unless I wasn’t on the meeting for something else. And then all of a sudden I’m like, my gosh, you know, I was rep Scott Bottoms, and he was trying to keep bug agriculture, big bug, from expanding in Colorado. I got to listen in to doctors talk about the lack of benefit from eating chitin, you know, the shells of insects and things like this. And just hearing this stuff and then reaching out to one of the doctors and learning more on my own time was a great experience. Unfortunately, that bill failed, but the point was because of Zoom, I was right there. I could take advantage of the time to listen to a bill I didn’t even know existed. I think last year, what, CUT said there was over 500 pieces of legislation. How can you keep track?
SPEAKER 05 :
You can’t. No, and there’s too much. But you bring up an excellent point. So often you see on a consent agenda a variety of topics. But when you get there, either physically or you’re online, sometimes, oftentimes, it’s a totally different direction that they’re going in. And It’s a benefit to be able to listen in, hear what’s going on, and understand how they’re using your hard-earned tax dollars for programs that you may have read one thing, and they’re talking about something totally different.
SPEAKER 18 :
And as you bring that up, Brad, you know what I’ve noticed is if I’m on Zoom, and if it’s something I’m trying to testify about, and I’m hearing people’s comments back and forth and back and forth, I know I’m maybe 18th or 20th in the queue, I can actually listen to commentary, try to understand something that maybe I’ve never thought of before, do some quick research on the iPad without offending anybody because I’m not in the room, and then have a more pertinent commentary myself, where I’ve been in live situations where you might bring printed out papers, And when you get to the point, you’re like, well, gosh, this is actually, you know, it doesn’t apply at all. And if I’m going to pick up my phone or whatever in the live room, it’s actually kind of offensive. It’s kind of against manners and protocol. but now I’ve just wasted all my time because I wasn’t truly grasping what the authors of a bill were trying to go for. And now my plan testimony is quite inadequate. That’s a, that’s actually another thing, you know, being in a setting where you can be a little more nimble helps as well. And I was really impressed with how many people signed on. Um, Natalie Minton’s on here, Kim Monson’s on here, Brad Brandon work. Um, and CUT, Tabor Foundation. You know, there’s a lot of folks that I think everyone would recognize on here. I did talk to Jeff Roberts at the Freedom of Information Coalition about this. And if anybody wants to check it out, please go to their website. And there’s also an email to the Legislative Council that he’s urging people to write to individually, if you want that, Brad.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure, you can share it with our listeners.
SPEAKER 18 :
Sure. So if you want to support this effort that Kim Monson is working on, it’s LIS.GA at LIS. C-O-L-E-G for coloradolegislator.gov. Again, L-I-S dot G-A at college.gov. And you can write in and just say, you know, please keep this online option going through a 2026 and beyond.
SPEAKER 05 :
So let’s talk a little bit about that meeting, that forum that you listened in on. And what were your impressions? What did you find that was going on and ways that you think people need to get involved with?
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, as far as the city council forum itself, yeah, it’s something that we do. It’s our third annual one. This time I was actually one of the moderators, and, you know, obviously we write our questions. The questions that we write are from a lot of what we go through and our membership goes through during some of these land use issues. And one thing that really kind of came up to me was the – And land use planning, you know, after we listened to the candidates discuss different kinds of land use planning or what have you, it’s mostly based on residents. And as we’re sitting there thinking about it, you know, and asking the questions and listening to them, I thought, well, my gosh, you know, land use planning for businesses is is so critical to think about what kind of businesses are going to survive as AI starts replacing humans. How does a city, how does a county survive this next tremendous wave of technology and basically human replacement? So we threw that question in at the last minute because business land use planning, I think, is going to be critical going forward. And I think some of the answers are actually pretty savvy. And The crux seems to be making sure that, A, you’re diversified in your types of businesses, making sure you have one-off small businesses, and making sure that there’s a uniqueness. And I think in land planning in general right now, there’s a trend towards diversity. cookie cutter stuff where it’s like okay you’ll have your target shopping center nothing against target but you know just in general you have nice target shopping center and you have the same stores and you can go to any city and see that same thing um or or anytime you’re driving you can see the The same like Ross Dress for Less and some other stores like that. And it’s just it’s basically it works. It’s a good plan. People like it. They go. However, when you go to certain small towns, you’ll see like the one off mom and pop shop. And that’s so interesting as well, because that’s kind of the American dream. Right. You can take a small shop or a small roll up building or whatever and try something. And that was one thing that they consistently were talking about in their answer for this resilience against AI is to make sure that small businesses are not overburdened, that you’re encouraging a unique perspective on things, and then if AI can enhance the small business owner through possibly marketing or whatever. Now, that might put marketers out of jobs as well, but then the marketers, I think the onus would be on them to learn more about the AI. And I’ll give a corollary. I’ve been a musician for most of my life, and we saw the big studios kind of go away because of the advancements in home recording. However, there’s still people that are excelling at home recording in studios because they have pushed their art so far to be using the tools like from the Crystal or Algae boards and from Pro Tools or Logic or what have you. They have pushed that art so far that they’re still in business because they’re still staying ahead of the curve on the basic things that a person can do at home with a minimal education. So I think that through personal excellence, we can probably stay ahead of the AI curve But we are starting to see it with engineers. They’re starting to get laid off, and it’s kind of scary. So that was one of the huge questions there. I don’t know if you’ve run into that kind of thing as well.
SPEAKER 05 :
I have, and I’d like to talk a little bit more about it after we come back from this break. There’s so many things that this relates to, AI, land planning use, and the use of technology to move things forward in our local municipalities. So we’ll be right back after this message.
SPEAKER 19 :
That’s 303-880-8881. Call now.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome back. I’m Bradley Beck, and I’m filling in for Kim Monson today. Love that little intro, Joe. Thanks for that dum-da-da-dum-dum. Check out Kim’s website for all information on the Kim Monson Show at kimmonson.com. And Kim always likes to support the Center for American Values. It’s located down in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. The center is focused on the foundational values of America— honor, integrity, patriotism. And through their K-12 educational programs, they train educators. And you can also go through their portraits of valor. Over 160 Medal of Honor recipients. The Center is helping instill that idea of honor, integrity, and patriotism to our next generations. Check out their website. It’s AmericanValueCenter.com. That’s AmericanValueCenter.com. And I’ll put in a short little plug for Drew Dix and his podcast. If you haven’t listened to it, it’s excellent. I’d encourage you to go on wherever you listen to your podcast and listen to his program as well. We’re talking with Mike Rolick and Mike is a concerned citizen. He has many things in the fire. He’s part of the Ralston Valley Coalition. And we were talking about land planning use, especially with the AI technology really shooting up and the ability to plan things out more carefully. But that brings up a question, Mike. And one of the things I always liked about Houston, Texas, was the lack of planning in the sense that it grew up organically. It was spontaneous. And you would have a neighborhood that would be Maybe really well off in another neighborhood across the road that wasn’t so well off. And it created this, as the left likes to say, diversity. You had restaurants, shops, small, big, large. And people seemed to get along pretty well because of that uniqueness. And as cities continue to plan with their planning departments and having the perfect little parking lot and access, which usually is a mousetrap, things become cookie cutter. So how do we address that? How do you see that happening for the better rather than this planning that goes on all the time?
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, it’s interesting that you mention that. So Ralston Valley Coalition has become… kind of a hub for developers to come talk with us prior to dropping a lot of money into engineering diagrams just to get a basic idea. So Remington Homes is in some form of application phase. So their plans are public as it is right now. And they decided to take a look at what 5,000 of our members had said at the time when we were looking at the Amazon situation. And they said, well, gosh, instead of an Amazon going in this particular set of parcels along Indiana, we would love to see some form of mixed use retail along with homes of various price points. And I’m very careful never to say terms like missing middle, affordable housing, what have you, workforce housing. I think terms like that are kind of like a resurgence of a caste system. I’m never going to judge what someone should have as a house based on their job. I look at it as just straight math. Math is agnostic. So if a home is $500,000 and that’s what you can or decide to buy, that’s fine. If a condo is $300,000 or a million or a million and a half, whatever it is, Math is agnostic. So Remington Holmes came through and said, gosh, this is what you guys are looking at. And actually, we talked to another developer as well. And both had put together a really cool plan to say this is a unique community on 30-some-odd acres to have the restaurants, to have a little bit of retail, to have walkability in the evening. Say there’s a special event, they have plans to be able to move food trucks in and have like a section cut off of one of the main roads, kind of like a mini 16th Street Mall to enhance neighbors to come out, hang out. Kids can play. They’re using the floodplain for like a park. And it’s like, gosh, you’re really using everything on this land creatively to drive that marketability. And, you know, we’ve talked about this, I think, Kim and I before, the 15-minute city concept. If it’s an economic decision by a developer to say, hey, look, I would like to have all these different things on this parcel of land to keep people on property, spend money, enjoy themselves, everything’s nice and, you know, close. You don’t have to spend a lot of time in traffic. That’s one thing. to be forced is completely a different thing altogether. But we’re finding Remington is actually working through that process on their own, coming to their own conclusions and saying, this is a really cool and unique property. And it is. We’ve met with them several times, and it looks great. So that’s an interesting way to work with a community outside of planning, is to have groups like ours. And I know certain cities actually have a community planning group that you can talk to and say what do people really want what’s going to sell like hotcakes what wouldn’t sell like hotcakes because maybe the architects don’t quite get what this particular area wants and so that’s one way that we’re trying to achieve that
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, you also brought up to me yesterday when we were talking a little bit about the show and pre-planning the idea of drones and how that impacts on business. This delivery that people, businesses keep talking about, whether it’s Amazon or Walmart, and yet there are some consequences to that. Speak a little bit to that controversy.
SPEAKER 18 :
Oh, sure. We did ask about drones in so much as can… a city look at different zoning types and if drones can take off or land. And there is good cause for this in the first place because obviously counties and cities and the FAA will be involved in where airports are. And when I looked up the rules about airports in Colorado, it does include buildings as well. Obviously, if you’ve got a life flight helicopter taken off of the roof of a building, you have to make sure that Things are going to work well. You know, planning. There’s got to be some planning around it and understand if this helicopter can take off safely or not. So this kind of setup is here for the safety of others. You know, a lot of what we deal with in aviation is for the safety of others. If I want to take a small aerobatic plane up over the middle of just a barren landscape and, you know, do whatever I want. No one seems to care. But a lot of the altitude laws that we have and other laws that we have are for protection of A, passengers, if you’re taking passengers, and B, folks on the ground. Remember, I have my freedom until it affects you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 18 :
Exactly. Right. So drones, we’re looking at the Beyond Visual line of sight. It’d be part 108 in the regulations now for the FAA. And comments are due by next week. So if there’s any aviation enthusiasts out there, go check out the notice of proposed rulemaking on that. But drones. generally stay under 400 feet whereas if I was going to take a small plane over your neighborhood I generally have to stay above 1000 feet and if I’m in a single engine at an altitude that I don’t pose a risk to you if my engine fails I can glide to maybe an open field or something like that instead so drones are going to be operating obviously at a much lower altitude And I just was looking at one real quick where they’re actually designing a way that the drones can latch onto a high-tension power line and recharge themselves so they can stay in the field ad nauseum. So it is interesting because now your airport, so to speak, would be the power line possibly out in front of your house. And these drones can literally just latch on and grab on and charge themselves. Additionally, when I was looking at some patents that certain companies have, they’re looking at being able to have proprietary camera technology attached to some AI device. and take pictures of your house as they’re delivering to you and then give you targeted ads for possibly what you’re missing in quotes uh you know maybe i don’t know new roof materials or or a weed killer or something like this or you know maybe decorations that you don’t have for a specific holiday they show up and it’s like well we’re getting close to halloween we don’t see any pumpkins out you know that that kind of thing so i i think there’s a there’s a privacy aspect to it as well and what if they are going to deliver to my house and they still take pictures of your house and send you ads um through your favorite you know um internet apps uh you know for for shipping um my great great conversation there’s so much to talk about and we’re unfortunately running out of time how can people get a hold of you if they want more information um You know, I guess I need to put together a website. I haven’t really thought about that. But you can always check out the Ralston Valley Coalition website. And we do have an email there. But that’s our land use planning. And any groups out there who are working on land use or want to know more, we’re always available for you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Mike Rollick, thanks so much. It’s always good talking to you and hearing your ideas. So thank you for coming on the Kim Monson Show.
SPEAKER 18 :
Thank you, Brad. Have a great day.
SPEAKER 05 :
You, too. And our quote for the end of the show from F.A. Hayek, an Austrian-born economist. He said, So ladies and gentlemen, today be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music, communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideals, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. You are not alone. God bless you and God bless America. Stay with us.
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t want no one to cry, but tell them if I don’t survive.
SPEAKER 09 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show. Analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 01 :
The socialization of transportation, education, energy, housing, and water, what it means is that government controls it through rules and regulations.
SPEAKER 04 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 01 :
Under this guise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, it’s actually tapping down the truth.
SPEAKER 04 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 01 :
On an equal field in the battle of ideas, mistruths and misconceptions is getting us into a world of hurt.
SPEAKER 04 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 05 :
Indeed, let’s have a conversation. Welcome to the Kim Monson Show. I’m Bradley Beck, and I am fortunate to sit in for Kim. She’s away. She’ll hopefully be back tomorrow, and it’s always good to sit here looking at Producer Joe, who’s on the other side of the glass. Always happy to see you, and good morning, Joe. Good morning, Brian. Let’s have a conversation. As Kim always says, we always want to thank our listening public. And to each of you, you’re treasured, you’re valued, you have purpose. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, your body. We were made for this moment in history. And there’s so many people out there that Kim works with, all her great sponsors. And you can always find out who are the sponsors. Find out more information on our website at Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter to get the first look at all her upcoming guests. And we thank you for contributing and supporting her independent voice and the exercise of freedom of speech. And we’d like to thank some of those gold sponsors, the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show, longtime supporter. And from Parker to Golden. Little Richie’s Pizza and Pasta is your way for real New York-style hearty pastas, pizza, and that unbeatable local vibe. And I’m going to have to look at the vibe up in the dictionary, Joe. One of those newer terms. Little Richie’s is serving up daily specials, quick and tasty weekday lunch deals. and happy hours that locals actually build their plans around, whether you’re bringing the crew, catching up with friends, or flying solo for that hot slice. Little Richie’s is your neighborhood hangout. So sounds like we need to make a little field trip down there and get some good food. Well, today’s word of the day is epistemology. It’s a mouthful. It’s spelled E-P-I-S-T-E-M-O-L-O-G-Y. And it’s a branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called the theory of knowledge, the term epistemology comes from the Greek words combined episteme and logos and used in a sentence episteme. Epistemology helps us understand the different ways we acquire knowledge through perception, reason, and testimony. So if you can use that word epistemology, you get extra bonus points, impress your friends, and hopefully you’ll learn something about that term. Our quote of the day comes from an economist who I’ve read quite widely. His name is Frederick August von Hayek, known as F.A. Hayek. He was born on May 8, 1899, and he passed away March 23, 1992. He was a popular economist in Britain and a philosopher. He’s known for his contributions to political economy, political philosophy, and intellectual history. And his account of how prices communicate information was widely regarded, still is, as an important contribution to economics that led him to receive the Nobel Prize. He also was a major contributor to the Austrian School of Economics, and his book Road to Serfdom warned against the dangers of state control over the means of production, something that some of the legislators down at the Capitol could understand. Take some time to read. But his quote was, End of quote. So there are a lot of things going on today. And, of course, catching you up on the news, if you haven’t heard, the government is shut down, which sometimes I would say is a good thing because they can do less harm to us. But there are essential things for the government that will stay open. And some people are getting furloughed. Some people are going to be probably let go. We’ll see what happens. But one of the things that one of the Republicans is pushing is a constitutional amendment to dock lawmakers pay during government shutdowns. And I think that’s a brilliant idea to force. And I hate force. But if we’re going to elect our representatives, they have to suffer some of the consequences that the citizens do by not getting paid if they’re not working. Or if they’re working and working inefficiently. So I think that might be a good idea. What do you think, Joe? Should we put them in the same situation that some of our citizens are going to be in?
SPEAKER 10 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 05 :
It might be tough to pass, but I think there’s a little day of reckoning coming up. So we’ll see what happens with that and see how it pans out. But, you know, during the commercial break, we heard a little bit by Helen Grebel and Helen Grebel. I had the good fortune of working with her and. getting to know her a little bit, and I was in one of her videos that she did on citizenship with a group of friends of mine. And it was an incredible experience, and I always liked Helen’s perspective on how the citizens have the power to get involved and take back some of the local control that so many people just abdicate because somebody else has the position of being a representative. and we’ve got to take control of so many things in our lives. And one of the people that can help you take control is a gentleman on the line, Loren Levy from PolyFi Group, and he’s a mortgage specialist. And, Loren, what’s your take on the industry this week?
SPEAKER 16 :
Hi, Brad. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m doing unbelievable.
SPEAKER 16 :
My take is it’s an interesting time. Rates, as I’ve been explaining with Kim in the last few weeks, um came down before the last fed meeting when uh when they did a cut it came down right before them and then the reaction after that has been that they went up uh back up a little bit just because people were worried about inflation more than they were, you know, the cutting of the rates, helping mortgage rates go down. So the fear of inflation caused the 10-year U.S. Treasury to creep back up a little bit. It’s settled in around maybe around a 412 right now. So our rates are pretty good. There’s activity. There’s a lot of home listings right now, which is helping buyers. uh have more choice um and so you know rates are decent enough i think that people want to make a move uh i’m looking a little bit and uh so we’re seeing some decent activity so we’re having some uh conversations about pre-qualifications and people getting ready to buy so when they do go out and find that house that they really like they can be prepared to make an offer pretty quick um that’s one of those opportunities right now where we think There’s not as many buyers out there where you’re going to run into a multiple bid situation and drive a price up. You might be able to actually grab the house that you like at a good price that works for your family. We’re encouraging people, if you’re interested, to get pre-qualified and be ready to make a move when the time comes.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, it’s so important to do that. And it’s the old Boy Scout on your mark gets it, you know, go. You got to be ready to go. And if you’re not prepared, you’re going to be behind the eight ball and miss that opportunity. So what are one of the two things that people can do today to get prepared for that option?
SPEAKER 16 :
That’s what we always do. If you want to reach out to someone you can trust, in the example of home loans, it’s only a 10, 15-minute call to go over options to have an application in place, which doesn’t cost anything. That way, the person helping you, if you call us, we can help you know exactly what you can qualify for, what a payment would be on every type of home you might look at, so you can know going in confidently that you can afford it or it’s within your budget. and what it costs and what price range you need to stay in. One of the worst things people will do is think they can qualify for a certain home or go looking at a home, find out it’s a little too high of a price, and then have to settle for something and then have trouble finding something they like because they got spoiled at a higher price. So we always want people to be ready, know exactly where they should be looking, and we can certainly help them do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Where can people find out more information from you, Lauren?
SPEAKER 16 :
The best way is always to just call 303-880-8881. We’re here to call, or we’ll call right back, and we’ll spend the time it takes to make sure everyone’s educated before they go looking so they can be ready.
SPEAKER 05 :
Lauren Levy, you’re an expert and a resource, and we appreciate all that you do. Thanks for all your information, and we’ll look forward to hearing from you next week.
SPEAKER 16 :
You got it. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
And thank you to Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance, the team that will be a partner for you, and the Kim Monson Show. So check them out.
SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
When you’re looking for a premium quality painting experience or professional temporary outdoor lighting, call our friends at Radiant Painting and Lighting. The owner, Karen Gorday, spent over 20 years in the customer service industry. She and her experienced professionals will treat your home as if it were their own and take great pride in their work. They only deliver excellence. When giving your home a beautiful new paint job, they use premium caulk and paint and will always deliver what they say. They don’t just enhance your space, they transform it. When you want excellence, call Radiant Painting and Lighting at 720-940-3887.
SPEAKER 12 :
Do you strive for excellence as you work with your clients and customers? Does it make sense for you to add a unique and focused branding opportunity to your marketing portfolio? Would you like to access a broad customer base that loves our country and wants to make life better for ourselves, our neighbors, our colleagues, our children, and our grandchildren? Then you may be a perfect fit as a sponsor slash partner of The Kim Monson Show. To learn more, reach out to Teresa at 520-631-9243. Teresa would love to talk with you. Again, that number is 520-631-9243.
SPEAKER 05 :
And welcome back. I’m Bradley Beck. I’m filling in for the great Kim Monson, who hopefully will be back tomorrow. And you can always find out what’s happening on The Kim Monson Show by going to her website at kimmonson.com and sign up for her weekly email newsletter. Get the first look at our upcoming guest and the most recent essays. You can always email Kim at KimMonson.com. And thank you for all the folks that contribute and support the independent voice Kim has built up here for the exercise of freedom of speech. And through all Kim’s work, especially with veterans and her veteran story, she’s honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation. All the work that they’re doing to raise money to remodel that official USMC Memorial Foundation. which is located right in Golden, Colorado at 6th and Colfax. Paula Saris is the president of the foundation. She’s a Marine veteran and a Gold Star wife. And Paula and her team are working diligently to make that remodel a reality. And you can help by donating to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. That’s usmcmemorialfoundation.org. On the line with us, we have a sixth-generation farmer and rancher from Nebraska, somebody who’s on the Kim Monson Show quite frequently, and it’s always interesting to hear his perspectives. Trent Luce, welcome to the Kim Monson Show.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good morning, Bradley. Boy, you’re doing a fantastic job making almost Kim useless. Ha ha ha!
SPEAKER 05 :
She will never be useless. I have a face for radio, and I fill in once in a while when she asks me, and I’m happy to do so. But you’re always busy, and I’ve watched many of your videos, listened to you on Kim Monson’s show. But you have an interesting story that you’ve been working on, on this Canada’s mass extermination of 400 healthy ostriches. Why the heck would somebody from Nebraska worry about ostriches in Canada, and why is it important to our listeners?
SPEAKER 03 :
I think that’s a great question. And these ostriches, some of them are as old as 37 years. And I’ve been bringing Katie and her mother Karen’s plight to my audiences back in the spring. It’s probably been six months now. In December, there were a couple that had a PCR test positive to H5N1. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said that that’s a problem. We’re going to come in. We’re going to cull these ostriches. We’re going to euthanize them all. And they’ve been fighting it through the court system until, what was it now, a week ago Monday, CFIA showed up. They took over the place with court order. On the third day, they were going to begin euthanizing, exactly as you said, nearly 400 ostriches. And a series of events took place, and there was a stay at the request of the family. They did get another stay the morning that they were to begin euthanizing them, so it was like by the skin of their teeth. And then at the same time, even though Katie had been doing a tremendous job getting this word out, and I think this is the reason that’s really relevant to us today, is that this was an atrocity being committed to this family, and it wasn’t my ox being gored. So nobody really paid attention. There were some of us, and I’ve always paid attention, Bradley, to these situations because I understand that an attack on somebody animal ownership and property rights violations in Canada is going to affect all of us if we don’t engage. And if you wait until your back’s against the wall, there’s not going to be anybody there to help you. And that’s basically paraphrasing Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran minister from Nazi Germany, when he talked about nobody got involved until it was too late and there was nobody to help me when the time came. So that’s the history today. The stay that was put on by the government of Canada, it was actually a court system in Canada last week, was through Friday, October the 3rd. If you go on and you look at what is happening today, I happened to look this morning, it’s almost like a county fair scenario that has occurred because there’s been a tremendous amount of exposure in the past week. And finally, people say, hey, this is a bad deal. We’ve got to show up. It looks like hundreds of people. There are food trucks. There are people camping and living there. There are television cameras constantly monitoring the ostriches. And it is truly a case where when people finally show up and engage and don’t just let somebody who’s being wrong sit out there on an island by themselves, you can make a difference. And so there is not a complete resolve to the situation yet, but it certainly feels 180 degrees better than it did a week ago.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, that’s good to hear. And Trent, you bring up an excellent point. You know, every year when they have the rodeo here in Colorado and it’s always they call it down. The weather here always determines whether we’re having a rodeo. It seems like they call it rodeo weather usually gets cold in January. But there’s always the usual suspects who come out and say the animals are being harmed. They don’t like rodeo. They don’t like cows. They don’t like cowboys. It just seems. And they’re always complaining. And yet there’s people who stand up and say, no, we like this as a sport. It’s well regulated. People are looking out for the safety and the health of both the animal and the participants. So I think what you’re bringing up is it’s important to get involved, even though it’s not happening here in the United States. It may and most likely will.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is happening in the United States. We happen to be focused on one that is taking place in Canada, but we have… euthanized over 80 million head of poultry. In fact, in the last 60 days in the state of South Dakota, there’s been 437,000 turkeys that have been euthanized by H5N1. And nobody is raising the question to say, what is the real reason that we’re euthanizing 437,000 turkeys in a 60-day period in the state of South Dakota based upon an H5N1 test? And in Katie’s point, she has made a very clear point that they did have positive animals. They had some death in December of 2024. The animals that survive are the ones that we should really be focused on because those are the animals that have a natural immunity to whatever toxin they were exposed to. That’s how you improve the health of any species, whether it be plant, animal, or human beings. And we have not been forcing people, in this case it’s the USDA, to address why they have a process of if there’s a positive test, we automatically come in and euthanize them. Even the people who have this done to them are not questioning the system like I tell them they should.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s interesting because we all went through the, as I like to say, the Wuhan experience. And we don’t get rid of people because they have had the COVID virus. And yet it seems like it’s a natural reaction to any kind of virus that comes into our animal population. And it’s curious that it’s happening just prior to a certain holiday that there’s a lot of turkey consumed.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is kind of curious, isn’t it? But, you know, one other thing that I want people to think about, and this has been the argument that the Canadian government has had in place, and it is the argument that the USDA gives for euthanizing now upwards of 90 million head of poultry, and that includes ducks, turkeys, and chickens. Well, in order to maintain our trade status with other countries in the world, we must eliminate these animals. That’s the excuse that’s given. Okay, if you haven’t paid attention, we’re not trading agricultural products like we were. In fact, 2025, we’re looking at a $52 billion trade deficit. We’re importing $52 billion more in agricultural products than we’re exporting. So that excuse is not flying with me. There’s something else to the case, and I think that you just nailed it just before We have the day to celebrate the turkey like no other. We’re euthanizing turkeys so that they cannot be consumed.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Trent, you know, so many people don’t know where their food comes from. And wouldn’t it be a wonderful experiment to take people out to a farm or ranch and see the process? Because I think they just go to the grocery store and just like when you flip a switch to turn on your lights or turn on your faucet, it just happens. And people don’t have appreciation for ranchers and farmers. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Actually, I’ve done that. Years ago, I was speaking in Chester County, Pennsylvania. It was a cross-section of people. It was a great group. And I was speaking positively about concentrated animal feeding operations, otherwise known as CAFOs, which require a permit. And we go through manure management programs. And I had a guy stand up, and he said, you cannot tell me that confining these animals is a good thing. I said, I’m not only telling you that. Any day you want to take a tour, I will set it up because I’ve got many friends in Pennsylvania right here in your home state that are part of this process. And we’d be glad to give you a tour and say, hey, here’s what we’re doing. Well, lo and behold, about six months later, that gentleman called me, and he said, Hey, Trent, I’m in Omaha. You said you’d give me a tour. Where can we go? Oh, okay. Well, let’s make it happen. So I called an operation, a very sizable operation. It happened to be a pig farm in this case in Nebraska, and they spent about five hours touring this facility and the facilities that are in the system. And I have an interview that I could find where they said, This is nothing like we thought it was going to be. It’s absolutely the most sustainable farming operation we’ve ever seen. The problem is, Bradley, that it’s really tough to take 330 million Americans through a tour in that endeavor. So if we can create that opportunity with virtual, which has happened, you can accomplish a lot. But that, what you just said, is truly the answer. How do we make it happen?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Trent Luce, we’ve got more to talk about, and I’d like to explore a little bit more of what’s going on in the world of ranching and farming and your friend Wendy Volk. And we’ll do that right after these messages.
SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 15 :
There’s so much noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Monson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. Tune in to the Kim Monson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at kimmonson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
SPEAKER 05 :
And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. I’m Bradley Beck, and I have the good fortune of filling in for Kim, who’s away for a couple days. And she let me sit in the chair on Monday, and she said, would you come back on Wednesday? And it’s like, sure. Anytime I get to talk to some interesting people, I’m happy to do so. Thank you for having me. We’re talking to our sixth-generation farmer and rancher out in Nebraska, Trent Luce. Trent, welcome back.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks, Bradley. I’ve already texted Kim.
SPEAKER 05 :
Don’t let that guy come back on the radio. You have been an advocate for what goes on in not only your great state of Nebraska, but Colorado, Canada. We’re talking a little bit of what’s happening up there with the ostrich situation. And where can people get more information on what’s happening with that ostrich farm?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, if you search Universal Ostrich Farm, you’ll find a lot of good stuff. And Katie herself does a fantastic job, and her mother has gotten more involved now as well. All of my stuff about that, you can search Beck News, B-E-K. That’s B-E-K.news. And I do three TV shows, five radio shows every day that try to bring that gap, like you talked about before, between food producers and food consumers together.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, it’s interesting. I’d like to get your take on what’s happening in New York where they’re talking about, you know, having these government run grocery stores. And I can see nothing wrong happening there. Can you?
SPEAKER 03 :
There are phrases that I would use that would get folks at Cropper Broadcasting pretty nervous about what was going to happen in terms of government overreach of this radio station.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 03 :
I spoke for a group of dairymen and suppliers to the dairy industry in Albany, New York, last winter. I mean, I’ve been to California a lot. And I keep a pulse on what’s happening in California and Oregon. In fact, I’m going back to Oregon, which Oregon is just as liberal and messed up in terms of food production as any state. But what is taking place in the state of New York is unimaginable because they currently, unless something changes by 2030, are requiring all automobiles to use electric, including semis that deliver milk, semis that deliver feed. And you want to talk about an industry that’s like, I did not talk to one single person involved in the dairy industry at this meeting. Bradley, every single one of them said, if something doesn’t change, we will not be raising food in New York in 2031. Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, it’s amazing.
SPEAKER 03 :
They all see the day that they have to leave. And for those that may not know, people think of New York and they think of, you know, the Big Apple and Manhattan and all the city lights. New York is the fourth largest dairy-producing state in this nation. It’s a significant contributor to our food equation. Upstate New York is incredible.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is. Yeah, it’s beautiful. And there’s a lot of agriculture there. And when you have a concentrated area of people who think everything is just down the street at the bodega or the supermarket, they can pop in and get it, and they don’t realize and reflect on where… Their food comes from. And, you know, if all they have to do is the truckers don’t ship in from the agriculture producers into Long Island, that place is shut down.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is an island. Yeah. In fact, it doesn’t take much to shut it down. There’s like four points of pressure that if you had four bridges shut down, you’d paralyze the whole island.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow. That’s amazing. Well, you’re involved in so many things, and especially in agriculture, but also lifestyle and things that happen around the country. And you brought to Kim’s attention the plight of what’s going on up there in Wyoming with Wendy Volk. And I want to bring Wendy on. She’s a realtor up in Cheyenne. Wendy, welcome to the Kim Monson Show.
SPEAKER 13 :
Good morning. Nice to be on the show again.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you for being here. And Trent, you brought this to the forefront. And Wendy, talk a little bit about what is happening up there with this proposed wind farm.
SPEAKER 13 :
Sure. So in June, our family, and I’m married into a ranching family that goes back 154 years, and our daughters are the sixth generation of a ranching operation out in Horse Creek. It’s 26 miles northwest of Cheyenne. And we got notification from the company, and then a few weeks later, at the end of June, we got notification from our county that a permit had been submitted for a 56,000-acre wind turbine. uh project and on that 56 000 acres it was going to be predominantly on two of our neighbors private property so two different ranchers had signed lease wind lease agreements with this company repsol out of spain and um and then there was about 6 100 acres of state land and they were proposing to put 170 of these turbines And they said it was going to be open for public comment. There was going to be more information. I was waiting like, oh, everyone’s going to be really talking about this. And it was complete crickets. There wasn’t any public conversation or discourse about this. And so that’s when I just jumped in and I started gathering more information and realizing the company had provided information. um us with an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper map that shows a postage size stamp project when in fact 56 000 acres is uh over three times the size of cheyenne cheyenne’s largest city in the state of wyoming so it’s three times the size and they put it down and condense it to you know a postage size stamp project on this piece of paper And they didn’t properly disclose who were the neighbors surrounding the project, if we were even touching the project. And sure enough, the more I asked the company to provide more information to us, I realized that they didn’t even depict our property touching two sides of the project. We have 6,100 acres of the ranch, the Dreamer Ranch, touching the southern portion of the proposed project, and we have 1,600 acres on the eastern side. So with a series of kind of raising community awareness through getting on radio, submitting some letters to the editor, meeting with neighbors, I went and took the map the company gave me and I enlarged it to 11 by 17 so I could show everyone that was going to be potentially impacted by this project and the community really stood up and participated actively this past month on June 11th they came to the planning commission and I would say there were at least 30 40 people they gave very very you know detailed information about their concerns did it very diplomatically it was kind of a neat process to see and then the following and the county planning commission decided to postpone voting on this permit And then in the very next week, our county commissioners were looking at the same permit to either approve the permit, deny the permit, or postpone it until after more analysis was done at a state level. And we were… absolutely flabbergasted that three commissioners denied the permit and one commissioner voted for the permit and it was pretty unbelievable to see that our county commissioners listened to the overwhelming concerns from the residents and they affirmed that the local land use decisions needed to be guided by careful analysis um of what the public health and safety impacts and the long-term stewardship of this project could be on our community.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow, congratulations on at least getting that acknowledgement that they’re listening. I’m curious, Trent, your two cents on this, if you’re still there, on what you think about this green energy and how it affects not only the livestock, but the wildlife community.
SPEAKER 03 :
So, Bradley, I was going to say that I had to correct you on three points, but now I’ve got to correct you on four points.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
There’s nothing green about this energy project. Right. It is the farthest thing. The only green involved is the tax credits that go to a foreign-owned company. Why are we, through the United States government and taxpayers, giving tax credits to a company based in Spain? And it’s happening every day. The first point that you really got wrong, and it wasn’t your fault, Kim brought this awareness of Wendy to my attention. Wendy called in to this program, and that’s how we got together. I didn’t enlighten Kim on the situation. Two, you made the cardinal error. Wendy was wonderful, by the way, because she’s been scolded on the air. These are not farms. These are development centers. Farms are where you plant, you grow things that you can harvest. We are planting and growing things that there is ultimately no harvest on because you look at the impact that wind has on our reliability. The Secretary of Interior, this is a double-edged sword, Doug Burgum was in, Secretary of the Department of Interior, was in Wyoming yesterday with Mark Gordon, the governor. And they were talking about reopening more land for coal, which is absolutely vital. We’re now at below 16% of our nation’s electric supply coming from coal. We’re losing another 5% this year with two coal-fired power plants going down in Michigan. And the reason that we are in peril, we are in jeopardy for our electric supply, reliable electric supply, is that we have allowed too many of these wind development centers who are chasing nothing other than subsidies to come in and displace coal. Because what happens is government has given an incentive to the coal-fired power plant to use wind over coal which has broke financially disrupted the ability to continue to take coal from the soil which by the way we have a thousand years worth of coal left and generate an affordable supply of electricity from a resource that we have and i also issue a word of caution the work that’s been done And Laramie County and Wendy has been a champion like I’ve never seen. She’s been fantastic. But what will happen next, and this is part of this discussion yesterday, I guarantee you with Doug Burgum and Mark Gordon, is that they will try to circumvent local control and try to permit that project anyway through a state industrial commission. And that cannot happen.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it feels good to be corrected by the great Trent Luce. I always love learning new things. And terminology is so important in the way we approach these different subjects. And so thank you for that. I always like learning a little bit more. When we come back, I’d like to know a little bit more how this is going to impact Wendy’s family and the community there, the ranching and farming community up in Wyoming. We’ll be right back after this message.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 10 :
It’s a great day to be alive.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is a great day to be alive. And welcome back. I’m Bradley Beck. I am guest hosting for the great Kim Monson, who’s out today. Her website, you can always find out about what’s happening in Kim Monson land at Kim Monson dot com. Sign up for her weekly email newsletter and get the first look at all her upcoming guests, as well as the most recent essays. And you can always contact Kim at her email address, Kim at Kim Monson dot com. And something that we should all have on our bucket list is a visit to the Center for American Values. It’s located on the beautiful Riverwalk in Pueblo, Colorado. The Center for American Values was co-founded by Medal of Honor recipient Drew Dix and Emmy Award winning documentary maker Brad Padula. They’ve got a great podcast. I’d encourage you to Take a look on whatever platform that you get your podcasts on. And the center is focused on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients and teaching them and upholding the principles of America, which are honor, integrity, and patriotism. And you can find out more information on their website at AmericanValueCenter.org. We’re talking with Trent Luce and Wendy Volk. And Trent, thank you. Gave me a good little education. It’s wind development, not wind farm. So thank you for that. I’ll use that new terminology. And Wendy, I want to talk a little bit about what’s going on up in Wyoming with this wind development up in your area. And there’s so many concerns. There’s safety on the roads. There’s way of life. There’s construction workers that will be potentially impacting what goes on up there. How do you deal with that? And how do you activate your community so well?
SPEAKER 13 :
I’m a fourth-generation real estate agent, and so it’s almost like it’s required, I think, as a citizen. You have to be engaged in your community. You have to stay informed. So when I first heard about this, I didn’t know very much at all about wind and industrial projects of this scale. But what I did know is I know the geography. I know where people live. I know how to deploy social media in terms of engaging others to come explore this process of what this project could have been impacting both positively and negatively. In terms of the impact to the long-term stewardship of our communities, natural and cultural resources, the company was a bit vague on saying how big these things are. And they finally disclosed at the county commissioner meeting where we thought they were going to be 588 feet to 600 feet tall, they’re going to be 678 feet tall, which is four times the size of our tallest building in Wyoming. It’s even four times the size of our state capitol. And to see something that’s close to 70 stories high and have 170 of them surrounding your property, um Trent gave a whole lot of good information and I appreciate that it’s not just his opinion he gave me actual resources to educate myself and I think that that’s what I felt imperative that I needed to share with others in our community that didn’t know about the project number one number two where to get more information number three is to then say how do I civilly you know, begin a conversation, a discussion with elected officials. And I think that’s the important thing we’ve kind of gotten away from is having that engagement between the citizens and our elected officials. So our commissioners became very attentive. Our governor is also very attentive. I think he has now talked about in a recent interview about finding a balance between the industrial projects And then the citizens and what the stewardship impacts to land. Wyoming is, it’s a wonderful, you know, if there’s a reason we’re the least populated state and we have more, three times as many cattle as people, twice as many sheep as people, when you cut into that industry on this magnitude, it will be gone forever. We’re in the high plains. We’re 6,000 feet above sea level. You destroy the land forever. there won’t be the land to come back home to. I think for our young people, for visitors, it just has long-term ramifications that I don’t think had been fully vetted. We did not address the impacts fully to the land, the water, the wildlife, the quality of life. And so I hope that that becomes a much more robust conversation in our community and beyond.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, you know, the left always is talking about saving the planet and worrying about wildlife. And there are so many unanswered questions. If a development like this goes in, what’s going to happen to the migration of mule deer or pronghorn or any of the wildlife? And I know Trent’s well aware of this in his understanding of what happens on the land, whether it’s developed or not. Has there been any information brought to the forefront on how those populations are going to be probably decimated by having this development in the area?
SPEAKER 13 :
Yes. The company never shared their studies. They said they’ve been doing studies for the last seven years in our community, and we’ve not seen their studies. They shared their studies with our Wyoming Game and Fish, and they were very concerned about what the impact was to the migration patterns, to the raptor population, to the bat population. I’m very concerned. And I just didn’t realize that something like an industrial wind project, it will bring all sides together to have a conversation. That is for sure. Because there are so many… moving parts but there is a love for wildlife there is the love of land and we need to protect it it won’t it will not protect us if we don’t protect the resources around us and we had i can’t tell you how many hours people sat to wait to publicly speak during our planning commission meeting and our county commissioner meeting people that had never spoken in public in terms of a governing body to tell their concerns. And wildlife was at the top of almost all the discussion points. Traffic impact, road safety, Climate change in terms of how this is going to be drying out the land and forever changing it. We had a gentleman who got up and told us, you know, the impact of earthworms on, you know, what impacts wind projects have to earthworms. I didn’t even give any credit to this guy. It really opened my eyes about earthworms, that they are part of the whole composition of our soil and decomposition of soil. Earthworms don’t like the vibration of wind turbines.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow. I didn’t even know about that.
SPEAKER 13 :
Who knew? So I’m going to get a T-shirt saying, I heart Wyoming earthworms now. I have a soft spot in my heart for earthworms. But there have been significant studies done on what happens to below the ground underneath these turbines. And earthworms are part of that ecology that we need to pay attention to.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, when people come up to Wyoming not to see windmills, they come up there for the beauty of the land and the wide open spaces. And I know when I drive through Kansas and I see all those windmills, I just say, boy, that’s a blight on the land. You know, the tourism industry would probably be impacted, which probably is not brought up at all.
SPEAKER 13 :
We had a guest, and this all came together because we had some guests come stay out at the Dreamer Ranch out at Horse Creek this summer, and they heard from our family talking about our concerns about this project, and they’re the ones that reached out to Kim Monson, and then Kim Monson and then to trent and we just raised awareness about the project not saying good bad or ugly it was really raising awareness that nobody in a county of a hundred thousand people 30 people attended a public meeting by the company and the company didn’t even make a presentation they just put up poster boards i don’t think that’s adequate for a 1.1 billion dollar project they did not ever provide any economic analysis they didn’t share their wildlife impact they only shared the comments that came from our game and fish department and those were pretty powerful the the things that were provided and the lack of things that were not provided were very powerful i think in for our community to say no we can’t we can’t approve a project like this without a lot more detail and analysis
SPEAKER 05 :
Wendy Volk, thank you for being aware of the project and bringing it to the attention of Kim and all the citizens around the state, both in Wyoming and Colorado. How would you like to wrap this up and where can people find more information?
SPEAKER 13 :
I would just like to say thank you guys for really this platform of an opportunity to share more information. I would say we’ve kind of created a Facebook page that one of my colleagues, this is another neighbor, prepared saying no to Laramie Range Wind Project, so you can find that on Facebook. But right now the project’s in a holding pattern. We’ll see what the company decides to do. They have They could come back and sue in district court or county commissioners over the decision. They could try to go to the state level and submit that permit. Right now, nothing is happening on that forefront. So we’re kind of in a wait and see. So I would say stay tuned. There’s more to follow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you very much. And Trent Luce, what are your final thoughts?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, a couple of things. We in the soil world all evaluate the amount of earthworms. That’s the determining factor on soil health. So we need more earthworms across this country. What I did to garner as much information as anything, Bradley, is I went to counties that years ago approved these projects. I found out where the pitfalls were that they were lied to about. And I try to assist people like Wendy to get that done. And I want to remind people that we’ve got a short-term success story in Laramie County, but the county north, Platt County, Chugwater, Wyoming, is still engaged in this fight. And so we can never let up. We must always be vigilant and help our friends and neighbors when we care about such things as creating the perfect habitat for an earthworm, which determines how good your food is when you get it on your plate.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s so true. Well, Trent Luce, Wendy Volk, thank you both for your time today, and keep up the good work, and like you say, be vigilant. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks, Bradley.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yep, my pleasure.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
And our quote for the end of the day comes from F.A. Hayek. Liberty not only means that individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice, it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are indispensable. So, ladies and gentlemen, today, be active, get involved. Be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music, and communicate well and listen to your neighbors, listen to your friends, listen to everybody, and live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideals, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. You are not alone. God bless you and God bless America. And write that letter that you’ve been meaning to write to your local town hall, your school board. Talk to a friend. Talk to a neighbor. We’ll all get through this together. God bless America and God bless the USA.
SPEAKER 11 :
And fast on a rough road, riding high through the mountains, climbing, twisting, turning further from my home. Young like a new moon, rising fierce through the rain, enlightening, wandering out into this great unknown. And I don’t want no one to cry But tell them if I don’t survive
SPEAKER 09 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
