 Hi, this is Pat McDonald, your host for Vote for Vermont, where our tagline is listening beyond the sound bites. Ben Kinsley is joining us today, and Ben is, you have to tell them about Imperium. Yeah, so I have a consulting firm called Imperium Advisors, and we do a lot of public policy development, as well as a number of other things, little bit of government relations, little bit of media consulting, things like that. Lobbying? Lobbying, yeah. We've really jumped the broom or something because we are both lobbyists. It's a sad thing after all these years. Well, you follow the regular progression, right? Well, I do. That's true. I'm just an older lobbyist, but they all are. Anyway, and our guest today is Charlie Papillo, who's the host of Travel with Charlie. Charlie, welcome to the show. Nice to see you both again. Yes, absolutely. As guests on my radio program at one time. This is exactly. It was a couple of years ago. That's right, yeah. It couldn't have been too bad, right? I'm going to invite you back. Charlie retired last year after 20, 30 years. 20 years, 20 plus years doing the morning show. Yeah, he did a morning show on WVMT with Charlie, Ernie, and Lisa. And so Charlie, could you tell us a little bit about your background? We always ask people to do that. Sure. And the fun on Charlie. You didn't bring me any food, Charlie. Well, you know, and I apologize on your show. Right, you had to bring him big time stuff. That was a staunch rule, and it's funny how that whole thing started was basically like everyone that's in this business, in the radio business, anyone that tells you they're original, they're lying. We all stole from everybody else. So I mean, there's only a few originals. Steve Allen, Jack Parr, and I'm going wealth beyond. Yeah, we're going wealth beyond them. Johnny Carson, Jackie Gleason, those are the originals. We all copied from them. And I copied from the great Howie Carr on the WRKO. And of course, he was on my radio station, WVMT, and he still is. And Howie had this thing about graft. And you know, you always think about graft with politicians and stuff. And I said, yeah, what a great concept. If you want to be on the show, we'll be happy to have you on. Make sure you bring something, and that sort of determines how long the segment will go. And because I'm good friends with Senator Mazza, who owns a general store, 10 minutes from our radio station, it used to be people would stop in. And they'd get a pie, or they'd get scones or something. I mean, the day that I told Dick we were retiring, Dick was like, I'm going to have to lay a person off because people won't be coming by to get pies anymore. That's great. As far as my background, radio was my first love. I knew when I was 10 years old, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in radio. I wanted to play music. I wanted to be a disc jockey. And it took me a while to kind of get into that. I went away to Boston. I went to junior college, studied mass communications. I went to professional school for one year. And it took me a long time before I actually got into it. I think it was probably in my late 30s when I started working for a mobile DJ company here in Vermont. And from there, I got an afternoon drive job at WVMT when they were music. And that lasted for about two years. They ended the format and said, we're going to News Talk. And I said, that's the end of my radio career. Just got started, and it's going to end. And they said, well, we're going to do a live and local morning show. And that's all we're going to do local. So we need to look for somebody to co-host with Ernie. Ernie was the news guy. And Ernie's going to still do the news. We need somebody to work with Ernie. And thank God for Ernie. I mean, Ernie and I developed this relationship. I was on from 10 until 3 in the afternoon. And Ernie was on in the morning. Are you serious? 10 to 3 in the afternoon. I've been 12.2. That's four hours? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. But you're playing music. Well, all right. You're playing music, you know? You better still be awake. Well, you know, five or four hours a day. So this is back in the day before everything was on computer. You actually pulled carts. Again, Ben, you know, I can imagine. It looked like an eight track. And it was a cart. So you'd go and you'd pull the music for your show. And I'd go in an hour before to pull all my music. And while I was in there, of course, Ernie's doing the last hour of his show. And he would, like, come on the air and he'd start saying something. And he'd, well, Charlie Papillo's in with me now. And he'd open up the mic. And we'd start talking. And next thing you know, Ernie and I just, we get along. And we like to goof off. And that was the common bond. We just, we love making people laugh and goofing off. So when the owners said, well, we have to do a national search to find someone to work for Ernie, Ernie's always been one that he would get mad. Like when he finds out, you know, the chief of police isn't somebody that was a patrolman for 40 years. He said, why don't they hire from within? So he said, well, what are you looking for? You've got somebody right here. All right, we'll give him a shot. So they said, come in for the next two weeks and play as little music as possible. You can play some music and just talk and see how it works out. And 20 years later, it works out. That when Lisa joined you, Ernie was like two things. Well, you know, Ernie's, Ernie's like, he's, I don't know if you call it old school or whatever, but he doesn't like breaking. He doesn't like change that you've got it. So it was nothing about, you know, feminists or none of that, you know, it was simply about, he didn't like the change. It's like, well, what are we bringing the third person in? Well, it makes things easier. There's a third person there. If I want to take a day off, we don't have to do best off. There's somebody here, the two of you can still in vice versa. So, and it was a different viewpoint. You know, it was a female voice. You know, you're always looking. You want to get more listeners. You broaden your spectrum and it worked. And Lisa was with us for 10 years. She left just about seven or eight months before Ernie and I finally retired. So she, the last 10 years, she rode the wave with us. That's what we all met. You made us all feel very relaxed and joking around. So that's good. That's right up my alley. It's one of the top morning shows. Well, I have to say, when he announced, when you announced your retirement, I said to my husband, I give this man six months. He said, no, no, I'm going to continue my pizza business. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll talk about that. And the phone rings. Exactly. The phone rings. And here you are. So tell us a little bit about your new gig, as we say. Well, you know, it's funny because, you know, Mike Smith, who you know very well, former administration secretary, and he's had many jobs. Yes, he has. Other than that, and I was joked with Mike because he would retire from a job. And next thing you know, he's- He's popped up some more. He's interim miss, and he's a fixer. He goes in, he fixes it, and then he moves on, he does another thing. And we would joke about you retire and the phone will ring. Like, people want to hire you and want you to do things. And sure enough, you know, I hosted a debate for the city council candidates in Burlington. Somebody called me up and asked me if I would do that. Can't get away from it. So a friend of mine, I know a friend of yours, Brad Furlin, calls me up. You know, Brad and I have known each other for years. He would call me up or email me about getting guests on The Morning Show on WVMT. So when Brad calls me up, he says, ah, I got an idea for a video project. Are you up for it? He says, you're retired now. And I said, well, I'm open to hear about it. I kind of thought I'm not gonna work. I'm just gonna do my pizza business, and that's it. So we talked, and I'd always thought about, you know, doing something in TV at one point or another. So it's a little late in life, but it's not too late. It's never too late. It's never too late, right? Look at this. So I said, let's try it. And I'm having a blast with it. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It looks like a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. And Ensign Tebbets was on your last show. He came in here, and he was all talking about it and how excited he was, which is hard to do with Ensign, because he's kind of a laid-back kind of guy. Yeah, and he loved it. You know, I mean, 20 years as a news director for Channel 3, and you're able to have fun with him. Sometimes you think these people are very, they're all business. No, not at all. I mean, we had a blast. We had a blast. That's good. Well, and he can be a tough critic, too, coming from the news business. He worked there for quite a while. And I had to work with him. It's like, you know, I don't know anything about working in front of a camera. And all of a sudden, I've got a guy that's, you know, he cut his teeth on camera. Well, he set up this studio for me. When he came on the show, I didn't have anything. Oh, yeah. And I said, well, give me, you know, your criticism. Mr. Goodabay said, you were great, he said, but the studio needs to be somewhere. So he helped us a little bit. So I can't say anything. So when the fern comes from, is that? Well, that's the bird oil, the memorial fern. Oh, wonderful. That one stays on here. We had to have that in somewhere. Yeah, right, exactly. And then this is from my RV, all that stuff. So I kept sending him pictures, and I said, is this good? He goes, yes, that's good. Ensign, thank you, Ensign. Yeah. So anyway. All right, so I think we're going to talk a little bit about the show. And you have five episodes out now? Four or five? I think there's about four that are out. We've actually shot eight. Oh, I didn't know that. I've got a couple more. Well, this is something that, and you know, as well in doing this, that you don't just shoot it. It's added in. It takes a while to get it exactly the way they want it. They look at it. We look at it first. I think I'll just change this. Let's change that. So a lot of changes. I've got another one we're shooting next week. So we try to do two in a single day, which can be complicated because you've got guests in the morning and guests in the afternoon. And you try to call people up and have everyone, yeah, that works. I'll be there at nine. And then, OK, yours is at two. Well, that doesn't work. So then you try to switch things around. So it's a little different than what I was doing with the radio show. And you could always move people around. Or it was always before you had to be at work. Because it was like seven or eight o'clock in the morning, you're doing an interview. Or just keep talking, and nobody'd know the difference. Well, we had a show like that. We had no guests, so we just chatted. That happens. We had multiple times. We had a guest that either didn't show up, or you called. And they were West Coast, and they didn't answer. Three hours behind us. So you call this Vermont politics in real life. What's the? Yeah, travels with Charlie, Vermont politics in real life. And what we're trying to do is have an open conversation. It's a lot like what I did on my radio program. Have people talk with differing points of view, always in a respectful manner. I mean, I take pride in the fact that a lot of the guests that I had on my show, I didn't agree with politically. No, you have to do it. But I didn't mind it. It wasn't like, I mean, I got along with them. A lot of them, I liked personally. I didn't like their politics. Peter Shumlin, I got to say, I got along with him personally. It's like, you know, it's pretty hard to not get along with Peter Shumlin. There wasn't much I liked about his politics. But you know, Bob Kis, Pete Clavel, I consider Pete Clavel a friend. I had a great moment with Pete Clavel years ago. This is when instant runoff voted. The first time they voted, we could do a show just on that. And I still don't know how it really works. And we never really went for a guch of moments where you try to embarrass your guests. We never did. And with Peter, you couldn't embarrass him anyway, because he'd laugh it off. And Ernie and I still talk about it to this day. And I wish that we had a clip of it. Because we asked him, well, Peter, how exactly does an instant runoff voting work? It's like, no, I don't know. And he didn't. As long as he wins, what does he care? He didn't know. And I was like, and this was perfect. I mean, it just explained exactly what we're doing. And it wasn't meant to embarrass him. But he really couldn't explain it. I think that's why it failed, quite honestly, is because they couldn't explain it. I mean, it's not that crazy of a system. It's just that you have to understand how to explain it to people. Yeah. Oh, I could, you know, give him a whole conversation. Yeah, the one thing who you interviewed was here before the show started. We were talking about instant runoff. Yeah. I explained to her that I'm still out. Judges out haven't decided yet, because I don't understand that. Now, you vote once. I mean, you know, it's come on. Right. Yeah, it's an interesting concept. Well, we should do a show on that sometime. But you have to think. It's not you vote thinking that if your first vote doesn't come in, what's your second vote? It's like, people don't think that way. No. Well, it basically supports the period. I don't want anybody else. I want him or her. That's it. Right. Well, from a voter standpoint, you go in and just say, here is the order that I would prefer to have them in. So if this person doesn't win, here's the next person that I would really like to win. Maybe it makes you pay attention to the candidates more than just the one you like. Right. That's one thing that it does. That could actually be a benefit. Eventually, yeah. I think, oh, I can't remember if it's New Zealand or Australia is the only country that has national ranked choice. Oh, really? Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Well, we try to make our, we say this is your show. So we always try to make you look good, sound good, feel good. And I think we've had people here that I'm sure neither one of us agreed with. But it's their show. And that's what we do. Exactly. Right. And some people have watched them. I couldn't tell where I was. I mean, that's great. Just one of their two shows. I always had to consider that this wasn't the last show. I'm doing multiple shows. And you want to invite them back on. And you don't want somebody to see and say, I'm not going on that show. They treat their guests terrible. Right. So, oh, I'm sorry. We wanted to talk about the shows. And I'm going to just do the four that, because I'm sure instance will be. Oh, fifth show. Oh, Incense is the fifth show. Yes. We just taped that one. Because we're going to show a clip from each of these four shows, maybe five if Incense is up. But maybe you could take a second and talk about it. Our first show was a discussion on legalized marijuana. And I got Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman, who was a guest many times on my program. And I've known David from Farmer's Market and just being in the food business. David and I are friends. And again, we don't agree on very much. But he's OK with that. Yeah. And he is OK with that. He'll sit down. We've had him on the show a couple of times, I think. I mean, another one of the guys, you sit down and have a beer with him. And just politics aside, we can be friends. The whole issue of tax revenues. Sometimes I think we get kind of thinking that, oh, this is going to be great for Vermont, the economy, maple syrup, Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and cannabis. So I've worked on this issue since I first ran for office in 1994. It was not originally about tax revenue. It was really about why is cannabis illegal and alcohol legal? We've learned that a regulated system is a better way to go. And yet this was a way to potentially capitalize on our agricultural strength. But that is not the original reason to. You think you're going to get that shot, really? No. I don't think I'm going to get it. That's what I'm going to try to do. See, not going to happen. So does Vermont become sort of this destination? People come here. Our craft beer. We, as political leaders, go, hey, look at this great thing we have with craft beer. I think it's a bit hypocritical to say that's a great thing. Well, this is something I agree with you about. I mean, this whole thing about the craft beer, every day you turn on the TV, and there is another ad for this charming thing, beer. Yeah, but David, what you're saying, if you don't think so. No, no, well, I don't think so. But I think the promotion of beer is causing more eyewidess and other things. And the promotion of marijuana will do exactly the same thing. Well, no one's advocating for the promotion of marijuana. Well, sure you are. There's no proposal in the marijuana legalization laws that I've heard of that would prohibit advertising or promotion of this stuff. So would you support it if we added that into the bill? No, I don't think so. But I think you should. So we shot that episode at Rossie's Lakeshore Tavern in Colchester. And that was our first episode. We really wanted to make it look unique. The whole concept is, we're not in a studio. I did that for 20 years. The guests would come to the studio. We would get out. And we would shoot it in an area that sometimes it has something to do with the topic. Sometimes it doesn't. I guess alcohol, marijuana, maybe it does. So we're at Rossie's Lakeshore Tavern with Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman and retired judge Ben Joseph, who is against legalizing marijuana. Very much against it. Ben doesn't even think alcohol should be legal, which I'd found out during the show. I shouldn't have offered him that beer. I'm just setting him up. Alcohol is going nowhere. It's so embedded in our cultural restaurant. So you can't get rid of that. So the two of them played pool, shot darts, and played Pac-Man, all while we're having this conversation. And again, credit to Mondo Media, who are taping. When they edit it down, it's just beautiful. There's a lot of different camera shots. So it's constantly moving. And the whole concept is you keep it moving. You make it short, eight to 12 minutes, and people will watch. And they get educated. Joseph, and representative from Essex, Dylan Giambattista. And Dylan came in today and just asked for an off-the-wall cake. And I said, let Joseph show him how to make a real cake. But I also realized that not only do you disagree on how to make a cake and the right ingredients, but also on a couple of issues that Dylan's pretty passionate about. And that's raising the minimum wage in Vermont, as well as paid family leave. So he's all scrubbed up. He's ready to go. Why don't you show him how to decorate this cake? And in the meantime, let's get everyone's thoughts and views. The big discrepancy, I think, in our business is between the front of the house and the back of the house. The front of the house is making five-something an hour. I think when that goes up, we'll go to seven-something plus tip. So they're making around $30 an hour. And the back is not allowed to pull any of the tips from that. So I think that it would be a great idea if they would come up with some carbon equilibrium system where the front and the back of the house are user-friendly towards the income. Does that make sense? Yeah, so you're talking about the tip minimum wage and the discrepancy between what we currently have, which is 10.78 per hour in 2019, and then half of that for tipped workers. No, that's one of the many challenges with looking at how we set a floor for minimum wage. And the whole idea here is you set the floor, wages come up, there's more money in people's pockets. But it should be equal between front and back of the house and the restaurant. The whole thing is we're not just joking and laughing, although we had fun. Hopefully they learned something. You see, both sides presented, and you make up your own mind. We're not telling you what's right or wrong. You make up your own mind. That's the way it should be. We did a show the other day about freedom of the press with Mike Donahue and Steve. We really need to do two shows on that. Yeah, we should have kept on talking for another hour. But they were talking about how it used to be, exactly what you said, you present the facts, and you let the viewer or the listener make up. And now the newspaper people are kind of slipping in there, their ideas about things. Yeah, exactly. So with the second show. Then we did a segment on the $15 an hour minimum wage and paid family leave. And again, I thought, let's take it to a business that it would affect, and somebody that I know very well and was a good friend on my show multiple times, Chef Joseph from Chef's Corner in Williston and Representative Dylan Gianbatista from Essex who supported $15 an hour minimum wage and the Extended Family Leave Act. So again, we get into a restaurant and then we're not, I said, okay, here's the deal, we'll decorate a cake. So Joseph sets out this huge spread of cakes and pies, and he's got the pipette thing with the frosting in it. There's a trick, there's a trick to that. Yeah, and we have this discussion while we're decorating a cake. And Dylan, who presented his side very well, he's very articulate, and he was a great sport. You know, in the end, Joseph and I threw him in the cooler. I do, I do. Have you been to the new Chef's Corner? I have, it's gorgeous. Yeah, that's great. I would recommend that. Their food is fantastic, and they have a lot more seating now than they used to, it was a problem. Yeah, they've got the outside area, and I think they're opening a gelato. There's a plug for chefjosefchefscorner.com. Oh yeah, please do, you've got to go see the new place. Yeah, I think he's opening a gelato in the next block. Oh, yeah, yeah, great place for it. And a pizza there, you can just walk around the block. Yeah, yeah. And the third show. And then we did a segment on Act 250, and some of the barriers that are there, and then have been there for years, and I thought, who better than somebody that fought with all of that for years, and a developer, Jeff Davis, who brought Wal-Mart to St. Albans. And I got Senator Chris Pearson to participate. So we started that off in a graveyard, shot it in black and white, and they've got me dragging a shovel. Maybe they'll be showing this clip, but it's a great clip, you know, I'm dragging a shovel, and it looks like, you know, I'm heading up the graveyard. The shovel is all in slow-mo. Doesn't put a positive light on 46, does it? And you can hear the birds, you know, in the background and everything, and then the shovel goes into the ground, and I, you know, yell out. Here, this is the only place you can get a shovel on the ground in Vermont. Shovel, shovel ready, where did we hear that? And the show starts, and not to give the whole ending away, but it's great, we actually pitched a tent, and it looks like we're out in the wilderness somewhere with my buddies, Chris and Jeff, having a conversation about Act 250. I'm with my campin' buddies here, Chris Pearson, Senator from Chittenden County, Jeff Davis, wake up. Good morning. Everyone's got a smartphone with them today. Imagine how easy it would be. Get the phone out, click, boom. You know you got approval, wouldn't that be sweet? I don't think it's gonna be that easy, though, is it? It's a little more complicated. A little more complicated than pizza, I'd say, but yeah. How do you streamline it? So it's not gonna take you seven, 10 years to build. They used to have a process called Act 250 Club, where you would bring in a project that could be controversial or could be complicated to try to sort out issues and see what the true issues were, what studies should be done, those kinds of things. It was informal, but maybe it's something that the committee should look at going forward to make more predictability in the process. It was a time in the 80s and 90s, I think, when people would, just at the conceptual level, start talking to one another before anyone filed for any permits or any of that. And that's something we heard a lot in the year the legislature took going around the state, talking to people about how should we move forward. And it just seems practical. And I think a lot of us are trying to figure out how to do that. And it's sort of a pre-approval discussion, and you don't need lawyers. You just have people look and face-to-face and say, well, I want to put in a development here. You can say, well, our kids play ball there, you know. Okay, well, let's have that conversation. I have a lot of faith in Vermonters coming together and hashing things out. If you were responsible for bringing Wal-Mart to St. Albans, since Wal-Mart has opened, do you find that the people that live in St. Albans and the people that travel to St. Albans are happy that Wal-Mart is here? Are they happy with the project? We think so. Generally, the people are staying in the marketplace and not going to Williston or Plattsburg. So they'll do their basic shopping at Wal-Mart, then go downtown for a specialty and dining and that kind of thing. We partnered with the city. The project here in the Wal-Mart in St. Albans is in the town, but the city had concerns about the impact on their downtown. So we had negotiations, fruitful discussions, and ended up making an investment in the city and some buildings to make sure that our interests were down there as well as out in the town of St. Albans. And these are the kinds of things. These are negotiations, right? And the whole way through, you're trying to balance the citizen's voice and the developer's needs. It's a bit of a legal process, but because we're forcing people to the table, that's what comes out of it. And you got to hold on to that spirit and see if you can cast away some of the... I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting hungry. All right. TrueNorthReports.com, you got to see the ending. Yeah, the ending is really good. The ending is really good. Is it right or wrong or just end the show? No, the ending is just a surprise. It's not a surprise ending. Where we really are. What I love about that, and this is true, really all of your shows that you've done so far, is that you fill them in unique locations with some sort of hook. And it's hard to make something like Act 250 sexy, right? It's hard to get someone's attention with something about Act 250, because everyone kind of knows and they complain about it. Governor complained about it. He tried to start a motorcycle shop and couldn't get the permits. Exactly. And so everyone kind of complains about it, but to put it in context and make it fun and engaging, you start out shooting in a graveyard and end up with a TV show and a tent. And I'm just amazed sometimes, I pinch myself thinking that here I am doing this and I've got grownups and I'm asking them to lie down in a tent like we're sleeping and then we wake up. And it's like, I got a senator and I got a developer who's got important things to do. I got developing to do, you know? And I've known Jeff for years too. I've known Jeff too at the Berkshead bike. And just, you know, they were just great, great sports. So again, a credit to my guests for being great sports. We then went on and did a segment on Act 46 with Senator Cory Parrant and Esquire, our attorney, Dave Kelly. We spent $31 million so far saving money. I don't know how you call that savings, but and all we had to do was look at the state of Maine to see what the fiscal consequences of these consolidations are. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Cory, some of the towns that have already merged, they're not seeing any benefit, are they? Well, it depends on, you know, how the mergers worked out. We've seen a lot across the state, but you know, we saw those early tax incentives early on, which was the difference between what Maine did and what Vermont tried to do. One of the failures the lawmakers who wrote Act 46 felt was that there was no incentives in Maine. They just tried to shove everyone together too quickly and didn't relieve pressure. You know, we provided incentives for school districts to merge early. We then passed Act 49 that when things got a little tight and pressure, kind of a relief valve and to give some more time. And it depends who you talk to. Superintendents will tell you that it's the best thing that they've seen in a while and then they're very supportive of Act 46, but you know, sometimes we hear a different story on the streets and towns. Well, we used to call it the Superintendents Relief Act because essentially what it did was it said, you don't have to deal with school boards anymore. We're going to get rid of three quarters of your school boards and there's such a pain in the neck, you know, all that oversight. And instead of doing six budgets, you're only going to have to do one budget. So we're going to make your life a lot easier. And I think with the superintendent's lives being made so much easier, maybe we don't need so many superintendents. We know Dave very well, kind of several times. And we shot that at a school in Franklin. Some of it was in the school yard. A lot of it was on the school bus, wasn't it? Most of it was on the bus. We were in the playground and we, you know, we did something. So here's adults. I got them on these little things and they're rocking back and forth, you know, a senator and an attorney having a conversation. So Corey is a friend of mine. I got a little bit of a chuckle at him. Good. And yeah, most of it was shot on a bus. And yeah, I mean, it's just key because here we are, we're talking about putting kids on a bus and you're going to, you know, God knows how long you're going to be circling around before you get home or you go to school or whatever. And that was the point. We were on this bus for a long time. You could see everything moving in the background. It was all the back roads of Franklin. And again, entertaining and the information gets out there. We learned when we did act 46 that the bus transportation is going to be very expensive because as we said, we were talking before, there isn't a really big bus company that can take care of the whole supervisor union. They're still going to have to contract with smaller things, which could make the cost ridiculous. Well, in particular, a lot of the Northeast Kingdom supervisor unions, it's such so large territory-wise, they couldn't actually go out and get a contract. But no one would contract for that because it's so large. But yeah, that's one of them. Yeah, one of the issues is like, how long is a kid going to be on the bus if you start closing some of these smaller schools? Right, exactly. Or, you know, there's a lot of issues when you start getting down to the local level. That's not quite as... And you covered a lot of this, it's not quite as kind of dry. And it's forced. I mean, that's the other thing, which nobody likes being forced, but you're also, you know, upon that being forced, you're also being forced to take on some debt from- Oh, and more, lose the money you saved. Yeah, so- A catalyst had to give up the money they saved. Well, and Franklin, you filmed in Franklin, right? Yeah, yeah. Franklin voted unanimously against the... I mean, when have you ever heard of a unanimous public vote on anything? And they voted against unanimously merging. Well, they did that too. And they still got forced to merge by the state board. Barrie Town voted three times. Same thing every time, no. And then the state group said, look, too bad. Yeah. So I said, why did you even bother? No, why do you bother to vote right now? I mean, just say this is what we're doing. Don't embarrass people or fool them. Seems to me when you have a duly warned meeting, the vote should count, but what do I know? Just an American. So tell us about the fifth show. Well, and then we shot one with Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbets and a organic dairy farm owner. Oh, nice. Jen Lambert. Jen's about 33, 34 years old. I mean, just doesn't fit the mold. Here we go into a, we want to talk about the future of farming and dairy in Vermont. So you expect you got to go to this farm and this old guy comes out and this young girl who wants to farm, her and her husband. But she also talked about the struggles. And she talked about the possibility, yeah, that this is what she wants to do. Luckily, somebody helped her out, not a bank. You go to a bank and say, this is what you want to do. Oh, they won't give you a loan. They'll just laugh. Won't give you a loan. So if somebody lent her some money, she was able to open the farm. It's a beautiful farm. And it's a robotic dairy farm, which I've never seen. Yeah, those are pretty cool. That's the whole, that's the whole deal now. You got any, any of these farm shows and that's all there. It's amazing. So again, this whole, you know, you're learning about how this industry will continue, will survive in this state. And I mean, I learned a lot from that. I'm a Vermonter. I lived in Boston for about 15 years, but, and I didn't grow up on a farm. I grew up in Burlington. So I don't know a lot about dairy farming, but you know, what I do know is, you know, you go like this or you put the machine on and you milk the cows. The cows actually, they go on, cause I joke with Jen. I said, so what's it like, you know, getting up at three in the morning, she says, I don't do that. Yeah, no, they do electronic. They do it, the cows are trained. They do it on their own. When they want to hear the milking parlor and they go in and so there we are standing and I'm watching them and they're in line. And there's like a pecking order. They know like, you know, this one goes before this one and they're waiting and you get milked and the more milk you give, the more food you get. So it's somebody, are they doing it the old fashioned way with attaching anything to the teats? It's totally robotic. So the robot goes on, you've got to see it. Goes on, goes on, what, the teats or whatever the milksack or whatever they, so they pull into the stall and these things come up and wash it like a car wash. And then, and there's a little, like a laser camera underneath there and it goes up, it milks them. The more milk they give, the more food they get so they know, they come back for food. It's like a graft concept, you get. Well, because they get uncomfortable, they want to. No, they know when it's time to milk. And it's a real thing. Like you, for farms that have, my uncle's owned a farm so I kind of grew up doing this. But, you know, they have, if you have an open stall concept, right? Or a milking parlor and you have an open yard, the cows will bring themselves in when they know it's time. Exactly. And that's exactly what, if you have a robotic setup with a milking parlor, they know exactly where to go. We got to go to a farm, we have to see this. Yeah, we'll have to do this. So, you know, we saw that, but you also see a lot of the struggles that even with the robotics that dairy farms have, you know, all of the numbers of farms that have closed in this state in the last 10 and 20 years, it's just, it's unbelievable. And you're competing with the California's and the 10,000 dairy farms and I think we're around six or 700. Ensign told us very interestingly though, that even though we've lost numbers, which is very sad, production's up because of the technology. So we haven't fallen in production, we've just fallen. And we do have a niche market here. I mean, when you consider, you know, the Vermont brand, you know, Vermont milk, Vermont cheese, you know, yogurt, all of that. You got Cabot, you've got Ben & Jerry's, you've got Vermont Creamery, all those things here that are producing. So it doesn't have to travel that far. Exactly. So what else do you have for shows coming up or things that you're working on? Well, we've, we did a show on solar with, with Mary Powell. We're gonna be interested. Yeah, we've got, we did one on the closing schools, you know, like the colleges, yeah. Oh, that is just, that is terrible. Yeah, three colleges. What did you have on for that day? We had Ted Brady, who is the deputy secretary. Oh, we've had Ted on his group. Yeah, and then we had a, we had a person that actually worked for College of St. Joe's. She graduated, I believe, from College of St. Joe's and she was working there. So she was out of a job. Why did you pick Ted Brady from? I couldn't get Mike Shirling. Oh, no, no, don't let Mike, don't let Ted do that now. Well, I'm just wondering about the department rather than education. Because of the jobs, the impact of the laws. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Ted is very good, he's very active. Yeah, and I mean, actually they're doing a lot to work with these. Oh, really? To try to keep them? Yeah, I know, it was Green Mountain College. They're, I think Ted had a meeting there, you know, within days. Oh, I see, sure. When you consider the economic impact on the town, restaurants closed, ices pulled out. I haven't, I'm not really that familiar with any of those three schools, but I'm a Norwich grad and I can appreciate how much of an impact a school like that has on that community. I mean, Northfield would be nothing if it wasn't for the college. Like, there's just really nothing else. You got darn tough socks, but that's really about it going on in town. Yeah, but all the restaurants and places like that where students freak rent and, you know, graduation time when parents are in, all of that. You know, the bed and breakfast, all those, they all prosper. When that's something like that leaves a town, that's a big hole to fill. It's huge. It's a huge hole. Cool, so what else to see here? I've got a couple questions. So what do you plan on doing during the legislative session? Are you planning on doing anything kind of specific to that or are you just kind of keeping an eye on what's hot? You know, topics that are hot, that's, you know that. I mean, that's what moves, you know, the clicks. That's, you know, you want to hit on things that are interesting to people and obviously controversial. And I don't think it's going to be hard to get any controversial topics. Sadly not. When the legislature. Once it didn't pass last year. Oh, they'll be back. Right? Yeah, they're back. So you've had, I read an article, we've got some very specific things you want to touch in your show. You know, like property tax and the budget and that sort of stuff. I think it's probably similar to what we're trying to do. Well, it's all things, you know, something I learned, you know, in years of doing a morning show, you could sort of gauge what was popular by the phone ringing. If you were talking about something that wasn't popular, it's like, we're not getting any calls. And when you're doing that kind of a show, it's like, we're not playing music. You want them to call? Yeah, the records that you play are actually the phone calls. So it's like, keep the calls coming and money issues always, the minute you start talking about your pocketbook. Man, the lines light up and taxes, any of that. You know, it kills me so I'm gonna, maybe we should cut the vid, you know, just kidding. One day, we had all the candidates in before the election. What did you hear from constituents? They listed them all. And this was everybody, no matter what party. They listed education, property tax, and blah, blah, blah. And what did they work on when they got down there? Yeah, I mean, really. Banning plastic bags. Exactly. Are you listening? That's what we were saying, we had them back and I'm like, hello. Yeah, but who keeps electing them back? Well, it's because they keep coming back and saying the same things, right? I'm working on this, this, and this. It happens the same thing at the national level, right? It's always the other guy. It's the other representative from the other town that's screwing everything up. It's not me, exactly. It's the same thing here, it's just a micro scale. It's like, they go back, they say all these things that are constituents, we're gonna work on this, this, and this, get to Montpelier and... And they don't. And they don't. That's really what happens, they don't. And nobody calls them on them. There are some legislators who I know, people don't even know how they vote, but they show up to the chicken pie suburbs and they shake hands so they think they're wonderful. Well, you always say remember in November. I mean, it's a great slogan, but I don't think people can remember it. I have a new one, are you ready to do this? You can't afford free. Yeah, there you go. Is that good? I'm gonna use that one of these days. Anyway, I've been doing my research for having you on. There was an article in Seven Days from 2017 that talked about you all, about your show and how you have big names and serious decision makers. Can you talk a little bit about memory going down? About the radio show. The radio show, I apologize. The radio show about any memories or things you'd like to forget. No, really nothing that I choose to forget. I mean, it was all just a blast, a lot of fun. I had an opportunity to talk with some really big names. I saw that in the article, you should mention some of those. Yeah, and I remember some of them vividly. Michael McDonald from the Doobie Brothers is one that just really hit me because here's Michael McDonald, Doobie and all that, all kinds of hits and everything. And he agrees to come on our show. He was promoting a new CD that he had. It was kind of a different kind of music or whatever. So he needed some exposure, obviously. But I did a ton of these interviews with people that their publicist would book them, they would come on and say, okay, I gotta do my 10 minutes and they'd come on with you. And then, thank you very much, they'd hang up. And Michael McDonald stayed on the line after he said, and we'll be right back after the news. Thanks for being with us, Mike. And he talks with me for like a minute and a half. That was a great interview. I enjoyed being with him. Thank you very much. And I'm like, wow. This guy didn't hang up. Yeah, I interviewed Bill Cosby before. Before, before. Before all of that. And Bill was another one. He's been to Burlington a number of times to do his show. Didn't his daughter go to UVM or something? Oh really? I don't know that. Something like that. Hit some tie. He did have some ties to Vermont. We brought it up in our interview and we thought it was gonna be one of these things. Again, we'll give you 10 minutes, no more than that. Bill stayed at Amethyst for about 20 minutes. Wow. He was funny as hell. Oh no. And just, and he wanted to stay at Amethyst. And we was telling stories about being in Vermont and everything, so it worked. But again, another one, I'm just amazed that some of these people I've been able to talk with, another one was Dom Della Wees. Oh my God. I loved Dom, the funny guy. And Dom had a place in Vermont. Oh no kidding. And I just hounded and tried to figure out a way to get him on and finally. You know who Dom Della Wees is? I know again, I know. I was watching his face, it was no clue. Just Google Dom Della Wees and we're randled together. In movies, Dom and Bert together, just hilarious. This funny guy, one of these guys just. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that, but don't come see from your face. No, I mean, this is some real talent there. Just a super funny, funny guy. And Dom, I don't know if I can tell the story, I suppose I can, but I asked Dom, I said, okay, before we sign off, Dom, I just want you to say, I listened to Charlie and Ernie on WVMT. All right, it's Dom Della Wees, I listened to Charlie and Ernie on WVMT. Oh yeah, sure, sure. And we did this on the air. So I said, so he says, okay, let me write it down. Charlie and Ernie on WVMT, W, William, V, Vermont, M, Mary, T, and I was gonna give the T and Dom yells out, can I say it? Oh no! He yelled out that! That's great. And it went out on the air. Oh my God. Yeah, cause you don't have a lag or anything. He's probably gonna hit him back. No, no, no, no. And he didn't apologize, we all laughed. We just laughed, but I mean, that's Dom. And he just, boom, he just threw it right in your lap. That's your assignment for the week. You gotta come back and report seriously. And I forget the name of the movie. You should all do it. Burt Reynolds and Dom Della Wees, and Burt thinks that he's going to die. He's got this sickness, this disease. So he hires Dom Della Wees and tells him that he wants him to kill him. I already like the way he's doing it. And then he finds out and he says, no matter what I say, I want to die, you need to kill me. And then he finds out he's not sick. He's trying to say to me, yeah. Dom's like, and Dom's just got this look in his eye like he's coming after me. You'll love it, let me know how you like it. I'll look that up, yeah, for sure. Gosh, so anything else that we should talk about? No, we should talk about the pizza. Oh, yeah. Pizza, where are you next? I had no idea about this, by the way, yeah. Well, this is our 10th year. My wife and I started PizzaPapillo, pizzapapillow.com on the web. Plug. Instagram and Facebook. And boy, I can tell you, the radio program was instrumental in boosting our company because we were able to talk about it. Even today, it's like I meet people that heard me on the radio and that's why they called me to do their wedding or their anniversary or whatever the party is. But I've always loved making pizza. And I always had a dream about someday maybe I don't want a pizza shop or something. And I always got cold feet when it came down to paying rent and having employees. Big investment. And just this huge bureaucracy. And it was our son who actually came up with the idea. He said, why don't you get a portable oven and you can do farmer's markets? And I said, that's not a bad idea. And that's what we'll do. So we did some research together and I found a company in Boulder, Colorado that imports ovens from Italy. They put them on a trailer. It's all custom made. And that was our first thought was that we would do farmer's markets. And thanks to my friends at Mazza's farm in Colchester, you know, Sam Mazza's farm. I was, when I was a mobile disc jockey, I used to do all the strawberry festivals and everything. I did the hokey pokey with the kids and all the fun things. And I said, you know, I'm not doing that anymore. I want to start this pizza business. And can you help me out? Can your baker make some dough for me? Yeah. And they said, why don't you bring your oven to our store on the weekends? You can park it out front. I said, really? Wow. And again, thanks to Mazza's because they really got us off. And unfortunately, I'm there for just their festivals and the like now because every weekend we're busy doing rehearsal dinners, weddings. Are you not out and about? It's, well, we're out and about but it's at different people's houses. Yeah, so, and it's only because of the exposure that we got at Mazza's where we would, you know, park out front and make pizzas. So where would us regular people Well, Thursday nights, we're at Snow Farm Winery I love Snow Farm. In South Hero. And that's a great venue. Yeah, that's great. You know, great music. Yeah, it's a great spot. We had the Phil A. Bear Band there a while back, July 4th, Quadra was there last week. One of my favorite bands, Young Guys and Girlcare. Shake the Band, they'll be there this coming Thursday. So, you know, you could have anywhere from 1500 to 2000 people out in the field. Just listening to great music and drinking wine and beer and pizza. And eating pizza. What a deal. Yeah. They have great wine there. They do, yeah. Whenever I go out of state to other people's houses, I always bring the Snow Farm, Snow Farm. And also here in our town, we have a winery Fresh Tracks. Fresh Tracks is good. I bring both of them. Nice. Well, Boyden Valley's good. Boyden Valley's very popular but it's a little too sweet for me. A little too sweet. I like the dry stuff that sort of sticks in your mouth. But that's what's great about Vermont is that we're just so diversified with craft beer and wine and foods and the like. Yes, we are good. Yeah. And cheeses. And cheese. And cheese. Craft spirits now. We've got Stone Cutter and what's the other one? There's one that's opening in Berry, I can't remember. It's open. Bar Hill. Bar Hill. Bar Hill. Bar Hill, it's open. Yeah, that jeans is amazing. It's very good. And where's the one up in Berry? It bends a pro. He's able to get all the mentions in here. Bar Hill. Every, keep going. Smuggler's Notch, number one vodka in the world. Yeah. And what's the one in Greensboro? It's the best brewery in the world. Yeah, Hellfarmstead. Who went to Greensboro to find the best brewery? No kidding. I mean, that's beating Germany in. I know, that's incredible. I mean, it's crazy. We've got so many of the Lawson's. I love the, there's a hotel in Burlington. They have a, they do a wine. They have a little small minivan. Yeah. They take you around. They do a beer tour. Yeah. And then they drop you off to get your car. Yeah. That's nice. No, they want you to stay at the hotel. That's what they want you to do. Yeah, I think that you're supposed to stay in the hotel. So what else would you like to tell our folks about your adventure or just a. Well, you should. I should announce we are going to have Charlie Papillo shows here on Orchid TV and we will let you know how that's going to work. Great. And thank you for doing that. Yeah, no problem. You can truenorthreports.com. You can check out that website. It's also on their Facebook page, True North Reports. You can see it there. You know, I always share it on my Facebook page as well. And we're also, you know, Pizza Papillo and. I was gonna say, next time you come to show me. On Facebook and on Instagram. And you have to go do that one. Yeah, we definitely do. Absolutely. So thank you all for tuning in. We really appreciate you being here, Charlie. Thank you so much for having a lot of fun. Absolutely. It's fun to be on the other side. See you next week and in the meantime, keep listening beyond the sound bites.