Look, I'm not jealous at all, but last week, Val got to take the whole week to spend time with Family Tour New York, learn about how artificial intelligence can maybe be ethically used. Anyways, she got a week off of the news, but that doesn't mean that you're exempt from finding out all about it when you come back. So Erin Hedge and I sat Val down to run her through the biggest headlines that she, and maybe you missed last week. Oh man. I hate to interrupt a good song like that one, but alas, it is 3:00 PM and that means you get us. I'm Aaron. This is Free Range, a co-production of KYRS and Range Media. I'm here today with the other Erin and our good pal, Valerie, who is back from vacation, which means she missed a lot of news. It's not very good for a news editor to take a whole week off. Okay. For half of the week. I was technically working for a fellowship, but yeah, yeah, yeah. But she wasn't catching up on local news. I was not. And so today we're gonna do a fun news segment that I like to call. Here's what you missed last week on Glee, where. I think you can tell which generation I'm from but he and I who you know, all we do is read the news, write the news. You read a lot more than I do. Eat, sleep, breathe the news. We're gonna fill that in on the biggest thing she missed last week. And you know what, maybe you missed those same things too. I know not everybody spends a good hour of their day every day reading local news, so hopefully we can catch you up at the same time as we catch up. Val. Woo. All right, hedge. What was the biggest story from last week that Valerie missed? So, I don't know, I don't know if it would be considered the biggest story, but there was a story that that I was able to track down while Valerie was in New York and North Carolina. Right. Well, New York, then North Carolina, New York, then North Carolina. World's traveler. How was it by the way? Trip? It was great. Good trip. I I saw a Broadway show and possibly got scammed in Times Square, but we're not gonna talk about that. I am now very knowledgeable about being in the big city. Glad you have fun, but stuff happened while you were gone. Including so back in February mm-hmm. I wrote a piece about a man who is an immigrant to the United States from Ghana. Mm-hmm. Who, he came here and he's been here for 15 years. He got a couple of degrees at EWU. He's married to an American citizen who's a she's a Congolese refugee. And they, they found common a common environment at a church in Spokane Valley. And they, they met there, they got married and had two kids. And shortly after the Trump administration came into power, as we all know, like their federal agents have been like going through communities and detaining folks, and often in like pretty like brash and frightening circumstances. And so this guy was, it was on January 26th. He was, he went home from church and his wife and kids were gonna follow him. They were gonna show up a little later. They were gonna stop at the grocery store. And by the time they got home, he wasn't there. And come to find out ICE had detained him and taken him to. The Northwest Ice Processing Center in Tacoma. Mm-hmm. Which is their big facility in Washington. And yeah. They didn't know what was gonna happen to him. They thought they thought he was gonna be processed for deportation. Yeah. I think the last time I was on the show, what we talked about this story but yeah. Yeah. Or one of the last times. Yeah. And so, but I got, I got a text message earlier last week, I think it was like Tuesday from a friend of theirs saying that he'd been released and was back with his family in Spokane. That's amazing and surprising. Yeah. And, and it's I don't think it's a common experience. Mm-hmm. He, he thinks his name is Bismarck, ANU, and he's, um mm-hmm. He's a prominent member of his, his church in Spokane Valley. Mm-hmm. It's a, just it's an black evangelical church. It's Christian and he, he preaches a lot there. But he he believes that he was in he was in a room with about 80 other people. It depended on, on the day, obviously, 'cause people are being processed in and out. But he estimated to usually be about 80 people. And he thinks he's the only person who he encountered who was released on Bond. Wow. And he doesn't, this is just all, like, all, all the information that I know is from his personal experience. Mm-hmm. I couldn't talk to his lawyer. 'cause his lawyer is in the middle of proceedings that deal with his case. Yeah. But yeah, he, he was. So it was, it is, that is a surprising thing. Yeah. To happen. Okay. And it's, I think mostly it's because like his family is lucky enough to, have some resources, some community, and the rest of the people that he encountered and he encountered people from all over the world. Mm-hmm. Including a British migrants. A guy from Liberia, just like people from everywhere. I think he said mainly there were like folks were Hispanic people from everywhere. Most of 'em don't have those resources. They're immigrants. They don't have a lot of money. Don't have a lot of necessarily community roots. Mm-hmm. And. He and his wife Julie had had friends here and they were able to organize a fundraiser for them. Mm-hmm. That's not gonna pay for everything, but it was enough to raise the $5,000 bond that he was wow. That he was released on $5,000. Mm-hmm. I, I don't know. For some reason I thought it would be higher. Well, he, he's a little confused by this. Mm-hmm. He doesn't think that he should have had to pay a bond at all. Yeah. 'cause his his lawyer was able to reopen his Green card case. Okay. And his lawyer went to ICE and, and said that, she had this, this order from a judge saying that his case was reopened and they were like, we're not gonna release him without bond. So you had to pay us $5,000. I mean, pay the courts $5,000. But they, they did have those resources, otherwise he'd still be there. Wow. Do you have any idea of what i, I guess like what opened up the opportunity to pay bond? Does everybody get the opportunity to pay bond, it's just that nobody can afford it? Or is it that like, this lawyer got him the opportunity to pay the bond? I don't know how it would work in other cases. I do know that the judge, like ICE was trying to make a case mm-hmm. In, in a courtroom, and this is all from his descriptions of the mm-hmm. Of the scene in the courtroom. ICE was trying to make a case that that they wanted to keep, keep him in, in custody. They didn't wanna let him go. And the judge was like, well, you have to have a reason. And yeah, they were like, okay, well he represents a flight risk. And the judge was like, the judge looked at all of the filings in his case and. There is only the one filing for the one detention. He's doesn't have a criminal record. Yeah. He's, his family's here. No, he's never been pulled over by the cops. Like he's never had any contact. His Yeah. And his family, American citizens are here. Yeah. And the judge was like, no, like he doesn't represent a, a flight risk and you have to let him go. And so, Julie had to, had to post the bond, but they were able to get him out. And he's been out since I think he got out on March 12th. Okay. He was in, he was in custody for 45 days. Is there a chance that he can, that, that, that the courts can find that he was illegally detained and then he gets that bond money back? Or is that just gone? His, his lawyers are working that out. Okay. I don't know. I don't know a lot of the details of the legal parts of the case. I'm hoping to follow up with him. Mm-hmm. But it's likely that I won't know anything until October when he has, he has a, he has a final hearing for his case on October 12th, so it's gonna be months before we know what kind of a lot of that information for sure. Protections. Does this guy have to knock it just picked up by ice again? Mm, that's a good question. He, he seemed confident that that's not gonna happen because he's been released on this bond. Mm-hmm. Okay. Like they've paid $5,000 so that he can be free at least until his, his court date. But as we've seen, yeah, the rules aren't, like federal agents are not following the rules. Right. So I don't, I don't, I don't know, I don't know the answer to that question. It could, like he could still be in danger of being detained again. So he was sent to Tacoma, right? Yes. And were all of his hearings in Tacoma. And will he have to go back to Tacoma to do his further hearings? Yeah. So, so everything took place at this at the courts in this northwest. Ice Processing Center, which is the, the formal name of the facility. And yeah, he'll have to go back for his, his final hearing. Did he share with you any, any information about the conditions in that facility? I know we also ran a story last week about another thing you miss. Yes, I saw the headline though. I put it in our newsletter. And about that facility and, and how much it makes and how much little it pays. The, was he forced to work Yeah. While he was there? No, he didn't work while he was there. Okay. That's, that's the thing that, so, so we republished a piece mm-hmm. From ProPublica saying that, that this facility, it focused on, on the Northwest Ice Processing Center. Mm-hmm. But it was just basically about how the company that runs that facility, which is a private for-profit group called Geo Group. Mm-hmm. They don't want to pay. Incarcerated people there, the minimum wage that Washington requires them to pay, so they don't hire them at all. They so, so these, these folks who are detained there, they don't have an opportunity to make money for the commissary or, or anything like that. And so. Because before they were just paying them like $1 a day. It was, and then forcing them to do, geez, manual labor cleaning the facilities and serving food. And it was a, it was a dollar a week. A dollar a week. Oh my God. It was a dollar a week. And and, and they're, so they're in li the, that company Geo Group is in litigation with the state of Washington to try to now circumvent the, I know minimum wage law. So does Washington state's minimum wage law apply to prisoners as well? Because I thought that was like the one, like the thing about the like 14th Amendment was like, we can't slave people unless they're in prison. And then therefore now we have a prison slave labor system. This isn't prison, I think is the difference. Interesting. And nobody there has been found guilty of anything. They're just under detainment. Right. So. I guess I'm curious if you're forced to do a bunch of manual labor at this facility and then, it's found that you were actually here legally and you get to stay, like you can't pay back, I want back pay, would they then have to pay you? Yeah. And I think that, I think that's probably some of what's gonna get worked out in this lawsuit. They've been in litigation for the state of Washington for three years trying to, trying to sort this out. And they're hiring, they hire contractors to come in. Mm-hmm. And they pay them the minimum wage, but it's a lot, it's a much smaller workforce. Mm-hmm. And so, like a lot of the work just doesn't get done. And the conditions. So, conditions. And one of the interesting things that was different from the ProPublica story and what I heard from, from Bismarck was mm-hmm. He actually, he's, he said the one pleasant thing about, I mean, like he, it was an awful experience. Mm-hmm. Terrifying. Just like he didn't know what was gonna happen. Yeah. He wasn't free. He couldn't see his family. He could call his wife. I mean, they could, they could go visit him. Mm-hmm. But he just wasn't free to be with them. And he saw, he saw a lot of really, like troubling things, which we can get into. But mm-hmm. The one thing, there were descriptions in, in the ProPublica story about how the, the conditions were allowed to just get really dirty. Mm-hmm. The facility. And things weren't clean, the trash wasn't taken out, and that the food is awful. And he had a different experience. He said. He said it was actually like pretty clean. He said he got to see a doctor as much as he needed. Wow. And he has he has a he has a, he has a blood pressure condition. He was really bad. That's better than yeah. Spokane tell. Yes. Well, and better than, some of the national news around these detainments, I think there was like somebody here on vacation from Europe who had a bad health condition and Yep. Was unable to see a doctor in entertainment. We also, that's interesting that Bismarck's experience was better because we also just republished a story like two weeks or three weeks ago about I think it was a man in a Tacoma facility. Who I think it's the same person that Aaron. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, this person like had a, had a deadly condition, right? It was a, I can't remember exact the specifics of the, of the condition, but it was like something, if this person didn't receive treatment, they would die. So, and they didn't have access to it for, for months. So maybe either conditions are variable or there might be some like lawsuits or pressure that's causing them to let people see doctors. I'm wondering if the first guy Weber published about, his case has been publicized a bit and so now maybe conditions improved and they got doctors in, at least for now to try to avoid more lawsuits. Maybe. I mean, that would be, that would be interesting to know. And that's, that's, that's, that was the, I think that was one of the harder things about mm-hmm. Doing this story is like, all I had to go on was Bismarck's personal experience, and it's possible that, maybe, so, so he was in a part of the facility called B three. It's the, it's the cell blown the. It's not really a cell walk. It's like a like it's an open, it's an open like bed plan and there's, there's bunk beds and Oh, gotcha. And there's they're all sectioned off. Mm-hmm. And I think it, it it goes through it goes from like a, through one of the later letters in the alphabet. So there's there's 1500 beds in this facility. Wow. And there were, there were about 80 people in Bismarck's room. And it's po it's, I mean, I guess it's possible that like conditions in some of the rooms are better than mm-hmm. The conditions in some of the other rooms. But that's I think that's one of the mysteries that we have right now. 'cause we like, I felt really lucky to talk to him because like he's one of the few people who can like, speak to this from personal experience, right. One of the few people that's actually being able to speak about it from outside the facility. Yeah. Facility. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so that's one thing you missed, Val. Yeah, I have one last question. Do we have any did he mention anything about his, like fellow inmates or like detainees? I'm almost, I don't know, I'm like jumping to like conspiracies, but I'm almost wondering, like Bismarck had was a, like he, he wasn't a citizen, but he was like in the process, of becoming legal and, or like getting his green card and all that stuff. He wasn't here like illegally. And I wonder, and, and we know that ICE is picking up a lot of people who are in process and following the rules and all that stuff, and I'm, I'm almost wondering if they're like sectioning them off. I don't know, like by more likely to get out and therefore talk, I don't know. That's where yeah, that's a little, I mean, tinfoil hat. Yeah. I can't, I mean, I can't speak to that specifically. Yeah. But he, he did talk about, some of his, some of his the people that he was detained with. Mm-hmm. I'm looking at my story there. There's, there was a guy there, there was a British guy that he talked about who was like, in the middle of the night, was like, just nabbed by agents in the, in the middle of the night. And he, they were like, you're going to our facility in Miami. And he was like, why am I doing that? And his family didn't know and and, and so that was like a really frightening experience. That's, and this is just all from Bismarck's, like personal perspective, but I mean, things like that have happened nationally. Like ma kil getting moved to mm-hmm. Louisiana out of mm-hmm. Yeah. Just the way they move people around and like the difficulty that we had at the beginning of the Trump administration, even just figuring out mm-hmm Okay, somebody got picked up, where were they taken? Where are they at? Like having to scroll through Idaho jail records. Mm-hmm. The whole thing just is so chaotic and hard to track, and we are people whose jobs it is to be able to understand these systems. Mm-hmm. So I can't even imagine how family members feel trying to track this down. Yeah. And, and there, there are trackers, ICE has a, has a, has a tracking system mm-hmm. For people, but it doesn't update for two days. Right. And, and so you don't know, there was another guy his name was Emmanuel, ed Hanham who's from Eritrea. He didn't wanna go back to Eritrea. He had Swedish citizenship. Mm-hmm. He had dual citizenship in Eritrea and, and Sweden. Mm-hmm. And he was here, he was. Bismarck said he was here, un and he was undocumented, so he wasn't here legally, but so they were gonna deport him and he was like, can you deport me to Sweden? And they we're like, no, you're gonna, you're gonna Africa. And it's, yeah, it's just and and there were, there were a number of stories Yeah. That were like, that just like inexplicable, like refusals to, it's like the cruelty is a point, do what it seems like they could do. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Alright. Okay. So that was a little bit of good news. I mean, it's good that he's out. Mm-hmm. And with his family. Good. That, hi. The conditions he experienced weren't, as bad as they could have been, but, we're still gonna be following this case. We don't know where he'll end up. Some other wild news you missed this week. Yeah. And on our walk over, I was shocked to realize that this actually only happened a week ago. Like it feels like it's been a lifetime. We had Michael Congressman Michael Baumgartners. Mm-hmm. First couple of town halls since Trump's inauguration. One was in Ritzville, one was in Spokane. He is the representative of Congressional District number five in Washington. And, a lot of, republicans were on the record telling freshman legislators like, don't hold town halls just don't do them. They're, they're gonna be, they're gonna get outta control. They're gonna get wild. People are gonna use them to spin some kind of political narrative. Don't listen to your constituents. Yes. But to his credit, Baumgartner has been holding town halls. He said he wants to do one in every county in his congressional district. Mm-hmm. And I was able to get a press pass to the one in Spokane, which ended up being sexy. Yeah. I know. They set aside the balcony for us. We were up there with my little, my little pass and then we got to go to a press conference afterwards. It was actually the first time I've ever had to use my press pass for something. So that was cool. Gotta dust it off, but I talked to the Luke a little bit about this on the radio show last week, so I don't wanna rehash too much. Mm-hmm. But basically. Everybody in that room was furious with him. There was a lot of questions about immigration. Mm-hmm. There were questions about, Elon Musk's influence mm-hmm. About the proper role of Congress and whether or not Congress is currently letting President Donald Trump to overrule his authority mm-hmm. In the executive branch and cut things for which Congress has approved funding for. Mm-hmm. They're supposed to control the purse strings. Right. They're saying, here we have this money, spend it on this thing. And what we're seeing over and over and over again is Trump says, no, I'm not gonna do that thing. I'm not gonna spend that money. Mm-hmm. All of these things are tied up in core cases, so we're waiting to see how all of this is gonna shake out. Constituents were angry. Yeah. There was so much yelling. I think I heard liar. And the big thing was answer the question. Oh, and this is an opinion, but coming in it seemed to me like Baumgartner had prepared a couple of stock answers. Mm-hmm. He knew you know mm-hmm. The general issues that people are frustrated about. And so it seemed like he had these sort of general stock answers that he was trying to apply to specific questions that often were very politician. Mm-hmm. Very waffly, very oh, I need to give you 45 seconds of context. Or why what Joe Biden did was actually really bad four years ago and whether or not he was going to actually answer the questions. Mm-hmm. A lot of times he got shouted down while he was giving context, context, quote unquote, or, he gave his stock answer, people let him get it out, and then realized that he didn't actually answer the question they asked. So it just did kind of devolve. I think people. Had a lot of really just frustrations, a lot of big concerns is Medicaid going away? Mm-hmm. And are we following the rules, like the actual laws when it comes to detaining people? Because we've seen that maybe, probably we aren't, like they're just doing things and waiting for the courts to tell them to stop and sometimes they don't even stop when the courts tell them to. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so there was a lot of constituent frustration. And then right after Baumgartner goes on the Jason Rant Show, which is conservative talk radio based out of, I wanna say Seattle, but definitely West Side. Okay. And Baumgartner says the room had a bunch of unhinged lunatics. And which was the headline of the Jason piece Tell was Unhinged Lunatics and he implied that Whitworth's, so it was held at Whitworth. Okay. Which is like a private college. Mm-hmm. They held it in the big theater. The ticketing system was like, they had 500 tickets that could be reserved. They told people when tickets would go live. So you had like 48 hours notice before the tickets went live to know if you wanted to reserve a seat or not. And then Whitworth, the school set aside 200 tickets that were supposed to go to Whitworth students and folks at a retirement community that is right next to Whitworth. Okay. So kind of like, I think it literally touches the boundary of the school. So they'd given out 500 tickets. Those got snapped up within hours. Mm-hmm. Going live. And Baumgartner on this talk show like suggested that Whitworth had collaborated with, leftist radicals somehow to ensure that the room was full of people that he, that weren't Baumgartner supporters. Mm-hmm. At one point somebody asked him about immigration policies. Mm-hmm. And his response was, how many people in this room are Trump voters? And I would say maybe like a dozen people. Oh wow. Raised their hands. So he was, I mean, he was right. The room wasn't favorable to him. Mm-hmm. But he seemed to think it was some kind of conspiracy or like some kind of something with the ticketing system that allowed people who were not happy with him to claim the majority of those seats. You just gotta change your cookie preferences. Yeah. Yeah. And there was some reporting from the spokesman that came out afterwards, and I saw some of this conversation online. There were some local organizing groups that mm-hmm. I would say are more, I don't know that I would call them radical leftists or fringe, I think the words Baumgartner used to me or fringe leftists. Mm. I don't know that I would call them that as political as to Democrats, beliefs are a spectrum. I would say it's a. Group people who are unhappy with the way the administration is currently running things. And there was a lot of conversation like sharing of the ticket link mm-hmm. Of oh, these tickets go live, like reserve tickets. Mm-hmm. But it was more so just people who are frustrated and concerned with the way things are currently being ran, doing like grassroots, community power building. Unless I think it's, it's frustrating to hear an elected official who is supposed to represent everyone in their area regardless of a political party say that this room full of 500 people who didn't like me were not meant to be there. And it's no, those 500 people are your constituents and you're supposed to listen to them. And it doesn't matter how the room plays out, it's. It matters like what you're doing and what you're saying and like how you're actually treating people. Yeah. And he, in the press conference afterwards, he said something like, this room isn't like the rest of Eastern Washington. And I also think people who are frustrated with the way things are being ran are a lot more incentivized mm-hmm. To go to a two hour town hall Yeah. Than people who are happy with how things are being ran. So if there's, if there's somebody out there who is thrilled with the way things are going mm-hmm. They're gonna be much less likely to go to a town hall and be like, hello, Congressman Baumgartner, I am very happy. I have no questions. Keep on keeping on. That's something you can send in an email or a Facebook post. Well, and. You mentioned that he had one in Ritzville. Did you say you went to that one too, or No? I did not. Okay. The spokesman sent a reporter mm-hmm. Who went who, and I read the, the coverage of that. And it sounded like that room, even in rural Ritzville mm-hmm. Was pretty unfriendly mm-hmm. To Baumgartner. And to be fair, when I read that article, they, the spokesman reporter had quoted somebody that I know lives in Spokane. Oh, okay. So I do think there was people mm-hmm. Who maybe didn't get weren't able to get a ticket to the Spokane one. Those tickets did sell out really fast. Mm-hmm. And there's still his constituents. Yeah. They do live in his district. So I do think there was probably a few people who drove out to Ritzville. Mm-hmm. But I know there was also folks who said they were Ritzville residents. Okay. Quoted in the story that were also worried about the ways that the Trump administration mm-hmm. And. House Republicans mm-hmm. Baumgartner, rubber stamping things like Yeah. Cuts to VA access like what's going on with veteran funding mm-hmm. And social security questions. So I think that both rooms were unfriendly. I think probably also the Spokane room was more, more unfriendly. There was more people there. Mm-hmm. I don't think that it was some kind of grand conspiracy. I just think in general, people who are frustrated are much more likely to be politically active. Yeah. Well, and this has been happening across, like you mentioned, that uh mm-hmm. Freshmen Congress people are discouraged from holding their town halls, but some of them have done it. Some, some Republicans have done it. There's, there was a really good report in CNN and then in the AP too about representative Mike Flood, who's a Republican from Nebraska. Mm-hmm. Did a big town hall in, in Columbus. And, and the same thing happened there. Mm-hmm. People were just, I mean, these were people who voted him into office. But they, they, they were, they were very upset and there was a lot of, of the same, there were, there were a lot of the same concerns brought up at that event. I have a stupid question. Mm-hmm. For both of you, shoot. Do, are town halls normally discouraged and or do congress people normally not do town halls ever? Or is this just like a special Trump. Special. I mean. Okay, so the article that I'm specifically referencing is that Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Mm-hmm. Told, specifically told right Freshman Republicans Hey, I wouldn't. Right. I, I know locally people had been frustrated here for a while mm-hmm. With former representative Kathy McMorris Rogers. Mm-hmm. She didn't hold very many town halls, they said Oh yeah. And even the ones she did, it had been like, hard to get tickets, hard to speak at. There was a lot of complaints that I'd heard from people that felt like Mc Morris Rogers did not engage with her constituency Interesting. And didn't feel like she had to. Yeah. 'cause she was an incumbent with a lot of power. Mm-hmm. And I think where maybe things change for freshmen Congress people mm-hmm. Is that yeah. They, they're gonna be an incumbent in their next election, but they're pretty new. People haven't decided how they feel about them yet. Yeah. Or, whether or not they think they're doing a good job. And so they're still trying to build that relationship with their constituents. And, one of the things that Baumgartner kept repeating was like. I got a record 61% of the v or a near record, 61% of the vote, like he did pretty thoroughly trounce his opponent. Mm-hmm. And he was like, I've been in office, for three months now. Trump's been here since January 20th, question mark. Mm-hmm. And we're doing what we promised. We are holding to our campaign promises. This is what you voted for. I don't understand why people are upset because you voted me in. A large margin of people in eastern Washington voted me in. And by and large I'm holding to my promises. Mm-hmm. Now, I don't know if that's accurate. I think one of the things that he had always, he always has said that he's not gonna touch Medicaid. And I think there's some, he said it was Olympia math. When people say that there's cuts coming to Medicaid and what's actually happening is that there's going to be no expansion of Medicaid. But you know, when you look at the budget and the mm-hmm. Proposed cuts that are on their way to getting passed, that's not act. There is no way to reach, yeah. The level of the 880 billion that needs to get cut without cutting Medicaid, without passing more of that burden onto the states. And I think maybe the argument that they're gonna try to make is oh, we're gonna reimburse you for less and then the states are gonna have to cover it. So we're not cutting anything if stuff gets cut, it's the states. Oh, and this is just me, like hypothesizing how this is gonna get messaged, but you know, it, it wasn't one of his campaign promises to cut. Medicaid, at least I don't think so. And on that stage mm-hmm. You said Medicaid's not getting cut. Mm-hmm. But you look at the numbers and it seems like it's going to mm-hmm. I was in Wallace a few weeks ago. And is that in Idaho or? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's just like a tiny little town up there. It's kind a, it's kind a hippie town, but lot, lots of, lots of conservative folks are like hanging out up there and no, no. Speak into my, and they I, I talked to a woman, her name was Carol Lee, and she was, she had voted for Trump, didn't consider herself like a Trump voter, but was like but had supported him because basically because of the, the prize of eggs thing, like he's gonna, he's gonna reduce inflation or whatever. And she was, and this is anecdotal, but she said a lot, she knew a lot of people who felt the same way and, and she said people in in her camp are mm-hmm. Horrified about what's going on. Like they, they feel like they, they've been given a bait and switch. So I wonder, I wonder how representative that is. Yeah. And these, these town halls make it, I also know, to me that feels, and I get this is her experience, but this is so frustrating to me because before the election mm-hmm. We reported on Trump's promises to carry out mass deportations. Mm-hmm. We reported on Trump's promises to drastically cut Medicaid, cut the Department of Education. That's just, these are all things that he said, like he promised parents. No, that's the radical left media. What are you talking about? And this is what's so frustrating to me, is sometimes I feel like people don't, don't get informed before elections. Oh. And then they're like, I feel like I've been lied to. And it's were you lied to or were you just not paying attention? I, I have some sympathy for this 'cause like. I mean, I don't know, I don't remember what Carol does for a living. She's a working person. Mm-hmm. We're freaks and we like, we like our job is to like, know everything that's going on. And so, I, I just think that, I don't know. Mm-hmm. I, I think that people have a responsibility to be educated about these things and about what they're voting for. But I also get the idea that like, I work 40 hours a week. Mm-hmm. And when I'm not working, I don't want to be. I don't wanna be fixated on things that are awful. And so, yeah, it's it's a little bit of like head in the sand syndrome, but like it's both the Democratic party's absolute abject failure. True to message, true message to working people. Mm-hmm. And also extremely frustrating for me to see the Google analytics for Google searches for the word tariff, like the day after the election. I'm sorry, maybe you should have Googled this 24 hours earlier. That's better. Yeah, I mean it's funny 'cause like when I was, I was visiting North Carolina there are, it's, it's a purple state and I was talking to a friend of my sister's and she mentioned that her partner had voted for Trump. And I was like, what? 'cause I'm like shocked that. The phone's fly. Okay. I was just shocked that somebody in my sibling circle like would, would vote for Trump. And and then she said, yeah he had said that if the the other person, I don't know who the other person was, that's what she said. And I was like, Kamala Harris. And she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said if she won that we were gonna move to the Philippines. And I was like, what? And it, it was just like a whole I felt like I'm. I went into an alternative universe. Like I, I, because, and then that's it really set in that we're freaks because obviously we know who the two presidential candidates are and we're like, it's like our job to read the campaign promises and watch the press conferences and Right. See what people are actually saying and promising. But then, and then seeing that and being like, well, your partner voted for your friend to lose their health insurance. I hate to tell you girl, like I'm assuming she didn't vote. 'cause like I'm, I, I was just my socks were knocked off and, and I was just reminded that like a lot of people are just not asking questions. And I think that we as journalists. And maybe this is like the, the issue of media. I wonder if, is it we're just telling people a lot of things and I think we need to encourage people to just ask more questions. Yeah. And so I guess to put a capper on this, this Baumgartner town hall section mm-hmm. I guess I think about, Baumgartners, kind of indignation that, I'm just doing what I promised. Mm-hmm. So the only people in this, like his assumption that the only people in this room who could be mad at him are people who are, fringe leftists. Mm. So who are, politically motivated against him. Mm-hmm. And maybe he, maybe there are also people there though who were not informed, didn't know what his campaign promises were, and are now shocked and horrified mm-hmm. At what's actually going on. And I don't know if he would listen to those people, the people who voted for him, who may or may not be happy with how things are going. Or if they would just get written off as fringe leftists who don't represent his constituency as well. But I do think that there's, there is a question there of okay, which of these people voted for me and are unhappy, and which of these people didn't vote for me and are unhappy? And how much of that matters at all if I still have to represent all of them? Right. That's what I, that's, I think that's the key, is like he has to represent all of us and he can't just pretend that the quote unquote radical leftists don't exist. And even though they're showing up as 500 at one town hall, like I, it just seems like a cop out. Yeah. So we are going to go to our little break. Mm-hmm. And when we come back, we will have two or three more little stories to fill Val in on. Woo. I'm learning so much. All right, we are back. I'm Aaron from Free Range. I'm here with Val and Aaron Hedge, who's stealing my name. Val's went outta town for the last week. Hedge and I are little news freaks, so we spent a ton of time reading the news, figuring out the biggest stories Val missed. Mm-hmm. On the first half of our show, we told Val about a Ghanaian immigrant who was just released from a Tacoma detention facility and is waiting for trial. And the scoop from Michael Congressman Michael Baumgartners, town Hall Hedge. You had another big story you wanted to tell Val about. I am listening. Yeah. So this one this story it overlaps with a lot of our, coverage areas, and the biggest one is just like public records access. Mm-hmm. And it was a story that was published on Friday by Daniel Walters and investigate West about, formerly of the Inlander Yes. Fame friend of range and free range. I don't know the Daniel would say friend, you might say Strong acquaintance colleague, journalistic colleague. I'm gonna give him a hug next time I see him. But it's a, it follows the story. It, it's a really interesting angle on kind of a local scandal that's been just like percolating for a couple of years. Not, well, I guess it's been like a year and a half ish. Mm-hmm. Maybe a little less. Concerning freshman Spokane Valley City Council member Al Merkel, who I, I'm just gonna pause you right there. Yeah, go ahead. It was not until I started working at Range that I realized that we actually call, like first year council members and Congress people, freshmen and I, I. It just blows my mind that that's a thing we use anyways. Sorry. Just had to interrupt you there. I wonder if they're called sophomores in their second year. I think so. I just didn't realize it. Anyways, it's just like a journalistic lingo thing I feel. Anyways, keep going. So wait, before you keep doing, keep going. I have a little cut in. Ooh. Poor Val was getting blinded by our phone flasher and station manager Dana came over to take the call. And we just wanna thank Victor so much for his support of our show. Aw, thank you. So thanks for listening to KYRS. I was really worried it was an angry call. So mad at us. I think we're so, primed as journalists to get phone calls from people who are very angry. I've gotten a couple of those this week. So it's always nice when the call is not somebody who wants to yell. So, thank you, Victor. All right, back to you Hedge. Thanks Victor. Yeah, so, city council member Al Merkel has he, he built like a, a reputation for himself as mm-hmm. A, he sees himself as pushing back against what he sees a lot as a lot of waste in the, in the city budget. Mm-hmm. He, he has this, and I've spent a lot of time with with al a lot of time with him. My favorite Merkel fact is that he used to drive around in the Merck Mobile. Mm-hmm. Which is like a side by side painted bright orange, and he blasted vote for Al Merkel from the speakers while he was driving around. It's a very primitive ORV and he, he wears, he wears bright colors. He wears an orange dress shirt under his blazer. He says that is to, i, I can't remember if I'm quoting him exactly, but like he says, it's like a transparency thing. He wants to be visible. Hmm. And he's he frames himself as like a transparency in, in local government crusader mm-hmm. And he's always asking tough questions about of, of city staff, about why they're doing what they're doing and, and how they plan to spend money and asking for more spec specifics. His background isn't, he was a contract officer for U-S-A-I-D for a decade. Oh, wow. And so he's lived in countries all over the world executing contracts for this agency that's now being gutted by the Trump administration. Oh, ironically, I ta I spoke with Al recently and asked him about that, and he supports the, he supports a lot of the cuts. I don't know if he would get into the specifics. Fascinating. But but he thinks that that agency is bloated too. And he's he's the only person I've heard describe himself as a neoconservative. That's not something you hear in politics very often. That was my next, that was the next, oh, I'm so sorry. No, that's okay. I'm so sorry. No, it's okay. Yeah, nobody calls himself a neoconservative anymore except for Al Merkel. But he's is, he is not liked in his workplace. Mm-hmm. His, the entire city council cannot stand Al Merkel. And they, one, one of the more senior members, rod Higgins, describes him as a bull in the China shop. Mm-hmm. Because he's just coming in and he sees them as, as him as trying to, ruin the city's business or whatever. Mm-hmm. And so there's, there's there, there was a scandal that cropped up early in his tenure where he was accused of basically like just bullying and creating a hostile work environment for a lot of the city staffers. Mm-hmm. He's a big guy. He's, he's, I think he's taller than I am. I'm six foot one, and he's, he's real heavy set, and he's, he's got a big bushy beard. And I think he, he denies that he's tried to be intimidating. Mm-hmm. But a lot of people see him that way. Mm-hmm. And he's got, he's got a pretty like, intense supporter base. Mm-hmm. And so the city commissioned some investigations into, into the council member, and they, so far they've spent almost 300 grand on these investigations. Wow. And they've issued some reports and the reports have redacted the names of his accusers, and he sees that as going against the spirit of the fourth amendment of the, or maybe this is the sixth amendment of the cons constitution which everyone guarantees you the right to confront or face your accuser. Yeah. This is like obviously like a, like an internal workplace thing. Mm-hmm. It's not, it's not a criminal investigation. Mm-hmm. So it doesn't totally track, but but he, he he sees it that way. And so. When, when, when the city release these investigations, I, I'm just gonna read from Daniel's article. Sure. In February, Markle hit back at the investigation with an unorthodox t tactic publishing the entire thing online. It took eight months for the city's public records department to hand over the interview transcripts from the investigation. He said, well, once he had them, he uploaded the documents to his campaign website and posted rebuttals. And I'm sure they were itemized. Mm-hmm. I haven't, I haven't read his rebuttals, but so, so this, this whole kind of debacle that's happened with council member has bled into the state level mm-hmm. Where the. The representative from Spokane Valley, Rob Chase, has now introduced legislation that would allow records custodians to also redact the titles of people named in investigations. Mm. Rather than because in a small city, city government rather than, yeah. If you see oh, city manager, that's one person. Yeah. So you know exactly who that is. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And like there, there's ways to figure it out, like mm-hmm. Just and, and I think like even in a, in a government that small, even if you redact the, the titles mm-hmm. You can probably, if you're, if you're savvy enough, you can probably still figure it out. Yeah. The story mentioned like pieces of testimony from one of the other council members, Pam Haley mm-hmm. Who in her testimony, mentioned how long she'd been on council and that she owned a daycare. So even if you redact her name and council member, you now have a statement of her saying, this is how long I've been on council. In another statement that says I own a daycare. And that pretty much limits it to one person. Yep. So then do you start redacting details from testimony? Well, I think that's the, I think that's the that's where the tension is here. And I I have trouble with this 'cause I, I, I, I am concerned about privacy issues. Mm-hmm. And I think that there are ways to exploit public records, laws to really go after people. Mm-hmm. But I also really, I. Understand and agree with the notion that was articulated in the piece by some government accountability activists who were like, once, once you, once you start. Taking things outta public documents. Mm-hmm. Like where, where do you stop? And, and, and that's the way that transparency is eroded through mm-hmm. Through little allowances. Right? Yeah. Right. If it's a Title IX investigation and we start redacting job titles, and like you or I get a Title IX investigation from the city, I think it's a different story if you see that six different interns accused somebody of sexual harassment versus if it was, somebody in a higher job title mm-hmm. Or somebody in a lower job title. Like all of these power dynamics mm-hmm. Come into play. And also the redacting of job titles and some of the other stuff. I know Daniel Walters talked about how it could make it unclear if all of the accusations were coming from one person versus, three different people corroborated. Or one person files six complaints, and you can't tell real quick. The, the redacting, are we talking about redacting just when it's made public as a public record or are we talking about redacting just like in general? So the way that Mekel got these documents is that he submitted a public records request. Got it. Okay. For them. And the same way, which is wild that they didn't share the results of the investigation with him when he had to go through this process to get them Yeah. Given that it was an investigation concerning him. But that's neither here nor there. But I mean, you can share results of an investigation without sharing all of the details of the investigation. You could say the results are that we found you, you guilty or not. Well, they did do that. He wanted the details. He wanted to know exactly. You wanted the full report. Yeah. He was accused of. Got it. Okay. So we do only have four minutes left. Mm-hmm. So that is the gist of the Merkel story. Was there any other high level important details? No, I think that's, I think it's a, it's a. It's a, it's a, it's a spectacle if you're, if you're interested in city hall drama, this is really interesting. It's for news and, and the, and the, the thing that I, that I really liked that Daniel did was he he neutralized those politics a lot by just like focusing on the public records angle. Mm-hmm. This is what really this is how this is going to affect everybody in Washington. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which I thought was so, so smart, I think. Mm-hmm. Me too. To, yeah. To focus on, okay, we've got this one wild case, but here's how the ramifications of this might impact how you or I or other journalists across the state or other people who may be either filing a complaint or the person who the complaint is about can access information about their specific cases. One quick last question on this. How likely is this legislation to go through this session? It's making its way through and, and actually the story doesn't say exactly where it is. Mm-hmm. It made it seem like it's moving, but it didn't say likelihood of passage. Usually, I think most new legislation Yeah. Has to go through a couple rounds. Mm-hmm. But I, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Okay. Okay. So, we really only have three minutes, so I can give you a speed round of the last two headlines. I'm gonna be really quick. The other story I wanted to highlight was another kind of First Amendment concern story. A local police accountability advocate, Jim Lady, had cases against both the Spokane and Bonard County Sheriff's offices who had been hiding his comments or deleting his comments on their Facebook posts. Ooh, ladies', comments were usually, are typically very critical of these. Departments at the sheriff's offices asking questions about the, fatal mm-hmm. Police shootings maybe, critical of the department's use of force policies and they were deleting or hiding his comments. And I wanna say that ultimately one of them blocked him from commenting at all, although I would need to double check in the story. And his case just got heard by a judge who ruled that he was right. That is a First Amendment concern because these are public offices, they can turn off comments altogether, which is what the Spokane Police Department different than the Sheriff's Office has now done. Mm-hmm. They've just made it so that nobody can comment. But if you are deleting comments based off of like how favorable to you they are, that is violating freedom of speech if you're a government entity. So lady wants some money and also these two sheriff's offices got told, Hey, no, you can't do that anymore. You can't hide comments if they're critical, if the cops sweet. Interesting. So I thought that was some good news for First Amendment. Mm-hmm. And I'm gonna hold my last little piece. Whoa, sorry. We have one minute. So I gotta jump into our wrap up. I know you and I can go get coffee and we can talk about it. But that's our time. This week Free Range is a weekly news and public affairs program presented by Range Media and produced by Range Media and KYRS Community Radio. You're listening to KYRS, medical Lake Spokane, and we will catch you next week.