Farmer Brad Steps In: Why Bradley Wood Is Running for County Council on Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook

You can learn a lot about someone by what they choose to build when nobody’s asking them to.

On this episode of Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook, I sit down with Bradley Wood, also known as Farmer Brad. He’s a remote software builder, runs an eight-acre homestead, and is now stepping into the race for Wayne County Council District 2. What pushed him there wasn’t politics as usual. It was frustration. Important local decisions buried in hard-to-read documents, scattered meeting notes, and a lack of clear access for everyday people. So he started building tools to fix it… and then decided to be part of the change himself.

We get into the moment that flipped the switch for him, the wheel tax debate, and how numbers can tell a completely different story when you ignore inflation and real context. Bradley breaks down what county council actually does, why transparency shouldn’t be political, and how something as simple as searchable meeting minutes and clear voting records could change local engagement overnight.

We also dig into tax abatements, accountability, and why economic development deals should be simple enough for taxpayers to understand without needing a law degree. Then we zoom out into bigger conversations hitting Indiana right now. AI data centers, energy demand, water usage concerns, and the growing frustration when projects show up through shell companies instead of honest local conversations.

We also touch on I-70 improvements, toll road conversations, local taxes like the food and beverage tax, and the ripple effects of SB1. And throughout it all, you’ll hear how his life on the homestead, raising sheep, pasture chickens, and yes… chicken math, has shaped how he approaches problem-solving and leadership.

If you care about transparency, local budgets, and real accountability in Richmond and Wayne County, this is one you need to hear. Share it with someone who should be paying attention, and leave a review to help more people find the conversation.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Bradley

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Life inscripted with Kevin Ship.

From Indiana To Richmond

SPEAKER_01 0:05

What's up, Bradley? Hey, how are you doing? Good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. This is exciting. I don't think uh I don't think you've been up here, have you? No, this this was the first time today. Okay. So obviously it's kind of off the cuff. It's unscripted. Life unscripted. That's my life, as you know. So we've been uh cousins for how long? Look like cousins. That's it. That's I've heard that from multiple people. Yeah. Um, so I know a lot about you, but people listening or watching, they don't. So kind of tell me um where you're from, what brought you to Richmond? What you do, your fam.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah. So uh I originally grew up in North Manchester, Indiana, uh, which is about 40 minutes west of Fort Wayne. Uh and it's a small town of 6,000, at least when I was there, and uh graduated college, moved out to Southern California, um, working at an urban youth camp, doing their web and video stuff. And then later met my wife, uh, who was from Southern California, and I was working a remote job and decided, you know, um, I got some family back in Wayne County. Uh, my mom and stepdad lived in this area. So we went on vacation in uh, I think it was September of 2020, uh, 2014. And uh when we got back from vacation, uh, my stepdad was like, hey, our friends are selling their place. You might be interested. So uh through 12 counter offers, uh, we were moving to Wayne County um by that December. So loaded up uh our our uh Penske truck and um traveled with a dog, a cat, and three chickens uh from Southern California. That's wild. So 12 counter offers to get your house? Yeah, yeah. Um and I about made the mistake of uh including the cost of um a tractor in the sale. Um, but then I realized, you know, I don't want to be paying on the price of that tractor um in property taxes for the rest of my life. Uh so I just kept it a uh clean, straight deal.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

What did uh what the family how did they feel moving here from there?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Well, um at that time uh we had a nine-month-old daughter and uh my wife from Southern California, and uh it was it was a big transition. Um, but uh, and it was during the cold, snowy uh winter. So my wife really connected with uh other area moms through the Birth the Five program. And so that was really a way of being able to get out of the house um and uh and meet other people in the area. And so over time, uh we've just um uh dove into the community. Um I'm on the kick soccer board um in Centerville. And uh yeah, at that time I worked remotely. So I just down the street had an office at the Innovation Center and was uh involved in the local uh tech community. Wow.

Remote Work And Coding Mindset

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So with your work, um, what did you start with when you moved here? What type of work? So you're 100% remote?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Uh I'm I'm now back to 100% remote. Uh when I moved here, I was 100% remote uh doing some consulting work um for a company out of um Austin, Texas. Uh so it's pretty sweet deal. Had the big city salary, low cost of living here, working remotely. Um and then since then I'd gotten some other local jobs. Um, but now where I'm working, I'm uh 100% remote working for uh credit union and building cool stuff for their online and mobile banking platform.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

You say cool stuff, like that's how I would say it, what you do. Um, but you're like way super intelligent. Have you ever taken an IQ test? No, no, I haven't. I was I wanted to ask you that today. Um because you you say that and you say the words like vibe coding and stuff like that, but what you do is just um extremely um extremely out there from what from how I think and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So um with coding and I'd say the biggest thing I identify problems, and I've always been told, you know, you can't complain about something if you don't pr uh provide a solution or an option and stuff. Um, and so that's also how I came up with uh backyard uh chickenlaws.com. Uh so we we do some farming uh with uh pasture raised chickens, and then I offered uh chicken rental packages. Well, I found out that there's no central location for those chicken ordinances. So I was like, might as well create the rotten tomatoes of uh chicken ordinances so people can submit the information about their chicken ordinances and it automatically gives the city or the HOA or the community or the county a letter grade. F if you can't have chickens, A plus if you can have a lot of chickens, and uh you don't have to pay a permit fee and stuff. So um yeah, built that. And then uh people can also create their own ordinance and submit it to their uh local representatives.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Wow, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

So, like a proposed ordinance, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Say, hey, could you pass this?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, so just just mainly trying to utilize technology with the information that's out there, um, but being able to put it in an easy to digest uh fashion.

Sheep Grazing And Farm Routines

SPEAKER_01 5:52

So tell me more about the farm and the chickens and then what you uh the products that you've developed over time.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah, so uh we we live on an eight-acre homestead. Uh we don't have any tillable uh lands, so I don't have a big tractor um or a plow or different things like that. Um, but I really try to uh use the animals to manage our property. I found out that uh eight acres can uh be a lot of work. Um, and so I accidentally became a sheep farmer um because our um lawnmower was only rated for an acre and a half. And uh we had eight acres, and so um I ended up picking up some sheep, realized they're really good at mowing the grass. So uh three sheep ended up turning into 35 at one point. Um, and now I'm trying to work on uh developing a mobile grazing unit of my flocks so that way I can uh take them to off-farm location and help them graze and manage other land. And then uh the chickens, yeah, as I mentioned earlier, moved from Southern California with three chickens and um raise uh pasture poultry, uh, sell at the local farmers market, um, and then working on uh we have a farm stand that people can purchase the farm eggs uh from our farm stand as well. We got a comment on Facebook. Oh, hey Kevin. Uh thanks. Uh Kevin. Uh there's no S on my last name, but uh but thanks. Thanks for saying that I'm uh it auto-creates it probably autocorrects. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That's awesome. Um, yeah, so it's really about trying to utilize the animals to help manage the land. So I try to rotationally graze them uh so that they can move around and get more grass. And in previous years, uh we've probably overgrazed our property a little bit uh too much. And so that's why I want to try to um move them off farm so that then they can help manage and keep weeds down. Uh we've we've seen uh each other at Roscoe's um many times. Sometimes. And uh this last week I had a conversation with someone that is working on a project of uh getting rid of local invasives. So I end up Googling uh what uh Indiana invasives do sheep uh eat. And uh I showed it to him and he was like, that's pretty impressive. So uh we we might do some collaboration down the road with that. So the invasives aren't bad for the sheep, right? Uh there's there's some that that you have to be careful of, um, but but there's a good portion of them that uh that they can uh handle pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

I remember you asked me a while back um about doing solar fields.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah, yeah. Solar grazing. Uh the concept is a lot of times solar fields go on previously uh tillable farmland. Um and in some areas they have their sheep graze the grass below. Uh I I checked the local area and a lot of the companies that manage the solar fields, they've uh built their solar fields not with livestock in mind. So um it's not really adaptable. But um I think his name is Greg Gunthrope in northern Indiana. He uh he does uh solar grazing, and then I can also lease out my sheep if they want to go on a road trip to Texas. Uh there's some uh solar grazing units out there. Um and so I mean I Would they stay at the Hilton on the way down or anything? I don't know, but um, but like I I don't s uh speak sheep, but man, the stories that they'd come back with. But uh but the the sheep that I raise um are hair sheep, so they'd they uh they uh I think that was my glasses talking to the uh the sheep they shed their hair naturally uh so they they don't have the wool. Um because I found out early on that I'm really bad at shearing sheep and so uh made made less work for me.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

So do your kids do 4-H? Yeah, yeah, they do. Um, and you know the best way to win your breed is be the only one showing that breed at the county fair. Uh so the kids go out there. I I I always tell people the sheep that we show are working sheep. Um so we just basically wash them um and try to get them looking nice. We don't shear them, we don't dock their tails because that's not um how that breed's supposed to be. Um, but when we get them back from the fair, uh you can see which ones went to the fair because like they're really uh white compared to the other sheep that are out in the the pasture. But yeah, the the kids have uh a lot of fun showing the sheep. How old are they? Uh we got a 12-year-old and then uh nine and seven. And the seven-year-old, when she showed, she's in uh mini four-h, um she's she's um determined. She was like, I'm gonna go and show the sheep by myself. And so she was out there uh just uh showing the showing the ring and having a good time.

Wheel Tax Sparks A Campaign

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Rustling the sheep, yeah. So all of this, um, when did you decide you wanted to get into politics?

Tools For Transparency And Research

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Well, I think the seed was planted when it came around the wheel tax uh discussion. And part of it, I r I sat in those meetings and I realized, you know, um I felt like that the general voters and residents of Wayne County weren't getting all of the facts in place. Uh so for example, um there was a individual that presented some numbers of let's say in 1995, a grade all machine cost$300,000. And then they presented the numbers in 2024, um, that it'd be 300% increase. But I was looking at those numbers, and those numbers did not capture the buying power of that money from 1995. Typically, uh money back in the day is able to have a lot more purchase power than money today. And so when I factored in consumer price index, which is really the average amount that milk and eggs and bread increases over time, and uh it ended up only being 146,000 percent. Um, and so my goal with running for Wayne County Council is to be able to bubble up those facts and figures so that everyone is kind of on the same page. With the wheel tax, I felt like that the decision was being rushed and that we had more runway uh to be able to come up with a solution. And um, and I felt like that it was being rushed because so, so really when you boil down the issue, there was this extra pocket of money that the state was going to give to Wayne County for their roads and bridges. And we wouldn't be eligible for that money if we didn't implement a road tax or utilize the tool in our county for doing that. Um, but I personally felt like that the decision was being rushed. We have to hurry, we have to get this in before the deadline. Um, and we weren't able to have like a really well thought out um process. So um that's why I've been running on this campaign of building accountability and transparency. Um and and earlier you said that I'm a pretty smart guy. Um, and as I mentioned in the Western Way News uh QA section, I said, you know, I don't know everything, but I'm always willing to learn and and uh learn something new every day. And so I feel like I have the tools to be able to figure out situations coming down the road. And it's it's gonna be tricky. It's gonna be tricky to navigate, but I want to be able to make sure that everyone has the proper information so that they can get the lay of the land. And that that kind of delved into uh building some tools that are available on my website. So um I kept on looking up the meeting minutes for county council commissioners and then the workshops. And yeah, they upload them to the website, but there wasn't a way of looking up that information very easily. So I end up building a tool that parses those meeting minutes in about 15 seconds, and it allows people to see who voted for what, on what topics, to be able to identify uh those items by keyword or searching um by a topic in order to um really just add that transparency. You can also identify, let's say someone was presenting something at a meeting, you can see what meetings they attended. So it allows you to uh sort of have the breadcrumbs to be able to do your research, to be able to find out uh different things. And and I know that people can show up to meetings. Um, I saw that at the library uh proposal. That was a packed house, but there's so much information out there that it's hard for people to digest it. And so I'm trying to create a tool that makes it easy for people, everyday people, to be able to see the information, stay on top of the topics that are uh concerns and issues for them. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

See what's wild, you showed me a lot of this, and it's um it's so much better than these government websites. Because, like you said, you can search and find within 15 seconds, it populates. Yeah. Um, they need that. Every everywhere needs that, actually.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

But yeah, and and and um for a brief moment out when I lived out in Southern California, I did work for a uh a city and I worked in their data side of things. And with government, uh that experience taught me that there's a lot of waste in government. Uh, typically with most contracts, you have to get three bids on different things. And I had built a solution that would display the meeting minutes right next to the town council uh video and pretty much solved like 80% of the thing. Um, but then they ended up going with a vendor that was really expensive, accomplished about 50% of the issues that we were having, and created about 70% more work for the for the workers and stuff. So so yeah, um yeah, just trying to utilize technology to to make things more transparent um is is kind of my goal.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

So is that kind of like the platform that you're running on?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Or well, so I really want to have um people engage in civics. And if people don't show up, they can't have the opportunity to have their voice be heard. And so um I feel like you know bubbling up the information, transparency is not a party issue. It supersedes that. And at the end of the day, um when when I get when I get elected, um my constituents are gonna be from all different parties and stuff. And so that's why I'm kind of like highlighting on these things, if I can help fill in the gaps, make it easier for people uh to be more engaged, be able to have civil conversations. I mean, many times there's meetings where I feel like there's no discussion on the topic and the decision's already been made behind closed doors. And um so when I worked for a consultant, um that gave me a perspective. Um, so like in some of my jobs, I've had where vendors come in and they give the sales pitch. Well, many times in the sales pitch, from my consulting experience, I can identify the smokes, smoke, and mirrors in their sales pitch. And so then I end up asking thought-provoking questions of like, okay, we have this system behind the scenes. What you're pitching to us, how is that going to be able to connect with the system that we already have in place? And so I feel like some of those thought-provoking questions and ideas will be very relevant at the county level, at the county council level. Um, being able to ask those thought-provoking questions to bubble up the facts and figures to the surface.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Boom. Mic drop. Yeah, no, that's um these mics are expensive. I don't want to drop them. Uh I think these are the teamu version. Oh, okay. I'm sure they came off TikTok. It was a TikTok deal. They still sound pretty good. How do you feel about China?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Uh China? Yeah. TikTok. Oh, I um yeah, I haven't made any uh purchases uh with Timu and stuff, um, just because I uh I'm not comfortable with uh putting all of my information into that system with their terms of service.

What County Council Controls

SPEAKER_01 19:44

They already have it, they know your blood type. Yeah. So it's exciting. So talk about the position that you're running for, because a lot of people don't know the differences and and certain and I don't. So certain positions, yeah. How many people's on this council?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

And yeah, so so my my understanding is that um so there's there's township boards, there's township trustees, uh, and then it trickles up. There's commissioners. Commissioners currently there's uh three commissioners, and they go out to the communities, work on the inner local agreements, and they also help uh approve uh vendor contracts and claims uh for expenses. And then the next layer up is county council. County council works on uh balancing the budget and also approving um whether or not um positions are able to be uh put on the HR website and hired out. Um and so it's really about being fiscally conservative and and balancing um balancing the budget. Um but I feel like so many times one meeting you can see like Wayne County has no money, but then the next meeting through local um local tax abatements or at the county tax abatements that uh there's like six million dollars given for sorry, three million dollars given for six new jobs. And I mean, at the end of the day, that's really putting the burden on the taxpayer. And I feel like there needs to be a balanced approach. And so um on my website under the tools section, I also put uh a tax abatement uh worksheet on there. And what that did was it process or it parsed the information that the auditor sent in 2025 to the state, and that gives a lay of the land of the tax abatements that are currently on the books and how many years left there are. Uh, and so in that process of looking up that information, I was I don't know what meant. Mechanisms are in place in order to keep those companies accountable. Because they may make an agreement of, okay, we'll hire six new jobs, but what keeps them from moving six people from another department into those six new jobs? So on that worksheet, I propose implementing like tax abatement rebate programs. So the county gets the money first, then if they meet all of the agreements and requirements that they set forth in that agreement, then they're able to get it out. Another example is let's say a factory is kind of like in the in the backyard of a residential neighborhood. If they do a$21 million investment in that business, that's going to jack up the property taxes around there. So maybe there could be a property tax um assessment freeze for several years so that those residents can kind of uh uh cushion that increase that that would would occur. So um as as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot for me to learn. Um, but I feel like that um I'm data driven, I want to look at the details and um and figure it out. See the numbers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Make the numbers work for you. That's exciting. So you are district two. Yes, district two. And how many districts are there?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

There are four. So district two is the north northernmost part of the county. It goes to Hagerstown, Williamsburg, Economy, Fountain City, and uh Webster. And then it slivers down a little bit. Um, I think uh like my my grandmother lives at Friends Fellowship. Um, so she was really excited to be able to vote for her grandson in District Two. Um, and uh, but yeah, so it kind of comes down a little bit on 27, like spring grove area and stuff. But uh, if you go to my website, votebradleywood.com, there is a tool on there that you can put in your address and it will let you know if you're in district two or not. That's exciting. How many people are running against you? Uh just one.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Like a good race. Love a good race.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah. It's uh um, and last week or maybe it was two weeks ago, uh, there was a good QA in the Western Wayne News, and uh, and I put a link to that on my um Facebook page, and uh basically they asked all the candidates various questions, and then so it has some good information on there. That's exciting. You ever gonna run for president? Uh probably not. Come on, the White House needs chickens. Um, I I'm trying to think, I I feel like back in the day I did submit a proposal to like rent chickens to the White House. Um, but I uh I I never heard anything bad.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

You went down that rabbit hole? Yeah. I went down a rabbit hole one time where I DMed him on Instagram, like, y'all need a virtual tour? Because they do have a virtual tourism of the White House, and I'm like, um ours would look better. Yeah, it's that's hilarious. Hey, you you don't know if you don't ask. I know. Um, the rabbit holes, but that that would be funny. So when is uh election? When can people vote?

SPEAKER_00 25:31

So the primary is May 5th. Um, so that's election day voting period. Um, but then people can vote early. Um I think currently at the courthouse people can vote, and then there is early voting. Um, so actually I created another tool.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Uh I feel like every time I see you at Ross because you're like, hey, look what I created.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah. It's candidates.votebradleywood.com. And basically what I did was I took that tool of MIN District 2 and I expanded it bigger and bigger. So you can put in your address there and it will overlay all of the voting boundaries, all the way from US Congress down to township uh trustee and board. And then it overlays that. And then when you put in your address, you can click view polling places. Then it takes you to another page and shows you early voting places and day of voting places. Um, and currently if you Google uh Indiana Wayne County candidates, uh that page I think is coming up on uh the third search result. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

You kind of know what you're doing when it comes to websites. Uh well, just just trying to improve the the experience. Yeah. So no, that'd be exciting, especially to see if like something like that got implemented. Yeah. Um to where there is a lot friendlier dashboard for people to find the live streams, the minutes, everything all in one place.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, yeah. And if if you go to one of those meetings, it has the link to the actual raw minutes. It has an embedded video to WCTV's live stream. And then what's cool is um, and then and then it has all of the list of the items that were voted on. But what's cool is YouTube recently added an ask button to their thing. So now what you can do is you can view the video, but click the ask button and say, I'd like to see this, or uh basically search by keyword, and it will give you the time code of uh what where that comes up in the video. So it makes it a lot quicker to be able to dive in and find the information. So it like scrapes the script and finds it in the script. Yeah, I think I think it's partly with the automated um transcript that it has, and then it basically is like a chat GBT for YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Love some technology. Yeah. How do you feel about these AI data centers?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

So I I think I think um there are some exciting opportunities with the energy side of it. Uh, I know Indiana is working on prototyping some of these uh small nuclear reactors uh to be able to generate it. Um, but there's the other side of the coin is the cooling side. And um the biggest concern that I have is that uh these data centers are kind of popping up even when local communities are saying no. And a lot of that ends up happening through shell corporations and this or that. And um and yeah, so to me, that's not very transparent, but that's that's that's not a good process. No, you don't want to, but um yeah, so I think local communities are starting to have those conversations. I know over in Connorsville, there the local officials were um setting up an agreement ahead of time so that they kind of knew what their non-negotiables are. Um, but I think there's also other technology that's out there that might be more efficient, uh, that's kind of on the horizon. And so um, do we build a huge data center requiring all of these acres with potentially um older technology or do we wait until it can fit a lot smaller? Because tick technology typically gets smaller. Um but uh but yeah, so but yeah, as the uh Wayne County Council goes, um I think there's a lot of um discussions that have to happen before uh data center companies are knocking on the door. Right. But I personally, what I see now with the information that's out there, I don't think it's a good deal and it uses a lot of resources. And um, I mean, our area will even be impacted um regionally um because a lot of those electric utilities are regionally impacted, and so uh if data centers are using a whole bunch of energy, uh it has to come from somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Well, I've read some something somewhere where a lot of them are starting to be required to start their own energy sources. So when that wherever they're setting up shop, they have to set up their own power plant. So um that would and that's just and I know I know it's not directly impacting Wayne County Council right now. Uh you know, that I know of, I don't think any any data centers chase in Wayne County. Um, but I could be wrong. But um I like you know when when you hear because of the lack of transparency, like you said, uh when they come in, they're not really um as transparent, they're not really as accepted because they're not as transparent. Um they might not be bad, but because they're the way they're not pitching it, yeah. You know, what you don't know, like if if a building just popped up behind your subdivision and it makes a lot of noise and you don't know what it is, you're going to be you're going to go bonkers not knowing what just came in there. Yeah. And not have having your voice heard and considered when it comes to something like that.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

But yeah, yeah, and the the energy, they may provide their own energy, but what happens with the cooling side and that can impact the water and other things. So, like I've I've uh I've seen where in the meetings they say, oh, it's a closed loop system. Well, that's just to get the vote through the through the door, but then when you boil down into some of the details, it may not be closed loop and it may impact generations uh ongoing like there might be a loophole in that yeah contract.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Um, how do you feel about I-70 being a toll road?

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Uh so um that was the other thing when we moved here. Um, we didn't realize how loud uh a highway could be. Um, so we we we live really close to I-70. Um, I personally am having difficulty comprehending all of the improvements that they would have to make in order to make I-70 a toll road. Um, because at least in Wayne County, I-70 is the connection point to so much of Wayne County. And um, and I was uh talking with um an elected official and and he mentioned that you know if you have a toll road, you can't siphon off just local traffic exemption and stuff for that. Um, but there may be the possibility of just having the toll road um be for the semi-trucks that um end up causing some of the damage and other things. And and I know in Indiana um we have a really high gas tax. Well, from my understanding, a lot of the truckers fill up in Ohio and fill up in Illinois and bypass that uh that gas tax. So I'm not in favor of I-70 being uh a toll road. Um but yeah, it's I'm I'm hoping with uh I-70 being a little bit smoother, uh, that it should become quieter. Um, but over the years I've seen more and more semis going on it, and it it's uh so I I do think that that third lane is needed. So that's what's happening right now? Yeah, yeah. Um and I think probably in the next couple weeks, I think we're gonna get to drive on some of that new asphalt um in the median lane from I think US 27 to 227. I uh I get some of those alerts from N Dot. Of course you do.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Um now that'll be great when that gets put back together. I feel like it's been going on for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yeah, now now um I do get very fascinated with uh civic engineering and stuff. Um I I don't know if it was because of like Tonka trucks and other things like that, but um the area I think it's um past 27 and uh they're just like filling in that dirt stuff. There's so much work that has had to be done um because there's um two areas where the roads go underneath I-70, and so uh that's been kind of fascinating just seeing how they're doing all that work there.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

So backing up, um kind of more hyperlocal, um your the one percent food and beverage that passed in Richmond, yeah, was that Wayne County? Because that or was that just Richmond and then that was Richmond and then Centerville passed.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Yeah, so I don't I'm not sure if it's gonna see right here, but um the concern that I have is that taxes are kind of contagious. So once uh one municipality or one uh governing body hears about a tax that's available, then uh then that can spread. And the thing about uh the Centerville one that I was kind of uh frustrated about was that it was presented that they must pass it in order to hear about a grant coming down the road that they need to have the the tax in place in order to be eligible for that for that grant. To just hear about it, right? Uh I'm I'm not sure the details on that, but um it it appeared to me that it was kind of putting the cart before the horse. And uh someone on my uh my campaign Facebook page mentioned that you know, really a grant is a tax from somewhere. Like if if you trickle it up, whether it's coming from the state or the federal government or different things, somewhere that grant most likely was a tax. And so I I understand that you can't cut to prosperity, but I think there needs to be a balanced approach. We need to really analyze um what things government is involved with because I feel like there's so many community partners that if it's a choice between the government doing it and a community partner doing it, 90% of the time I feel like the community partner is gonna do a lot better job. They're more robust to be able to pivot and adjust to the needs of the community. Uh so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

So part of the 1% food and beverage getting uh passed um was kind of blamed on uh SB1. Snow one?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Well, so SB1, my understanding is that um that funding is going to get kind of constricted at the uh at the local level. And so um SB1 really kind of to me is like a rob Paul to pay Peter type of thing. It starts off with reduced property taxes, but then that ends up causing less funding opportunities for the various municipalities. And so then that gives them the tools down the road to be able to turn on a local income tax. Um, so from my understanding with the 1% in Richmond, it was mainly geared towards the new development of various programs and things uh that the parks department is working on. And so that's that's for for that portion. Um in Centerville, that 1% is really to try to build out the the items that were earmarked for Centerville with the Wayne County uh strategic plan. And on there they mentioned um adding sidewalks, maybe adding some lights, and then a park on the south side of town. And um so I could see the 1% being necessary if vital services for the government is um is at stake. But what they're proposing using the money for is for additional things that might not be necessary um or urgent. And I feel like that Centerville businesses and restaurants are uh just now kind of um recovering from the pandemic uh craziness. And I feel like that that kind of um makes it makes it more difficult uh for those businesses to thrive.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Well, I agree with everything you said. Um fast forward three months, people are gonna totally forget about that when they're stuffing their face at Pizza King. They're gonna it's it's crazy how the perception is. Um, but no, I I agree with that. Something that I thought would have been a better route versus SB1. Um, the state rep to the north, um, he came down here and he's talked to me about stuff before, and he actually had a proposal. Now it was a little more crazier. So um, whenever you're trying to make a lot of changes in one swoop, it people are gonna get scared. Um it nicks property tax altogether. Zero property tax, right? Zero, zero. And then it implemented a service tax, because we don't have a service tax on services. So, like if you went out here and get to get your oil changed at this automotive center, um, you're paying for you're paying for the staff to be there, you're paying a for the oil filter and the oil, and you're pay paying a sales tax on the oil, but then you would have a service tax in there. And that would capture travelers, that would capture people from out of state as well as in-state, that service tax. Um and I forget the numbers, but he was gonna have it at a certain point to take it up and then tear it back down to where it would be about the same amount coming in as it there would have been from property taxes. But obviously, that's a big change. Yeah. So, but it wouldn't be such a loss. Like with SB1, we're at a loss. We're at a loss. So then every community, every county is getting burdened with having to implement a tax if they want things to maintain or be better.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yeah. So so the the challenge with property taxes is that you know, everyone's trying to carve out their little bit of paradise um through homeownership, different things like that. And uh, and what's kind of crazy now is that with the price increase of everything with those um uh Trump um accounts for for kids, basically that means that someone has to have a 401k like investment in order to afford their down payment on a house someday.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Is that crazy?

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Yeah. And so, and so it's like when someone purchases their house, they never really own their house. No, you're paying rent. As long as they're paying their own. You're paying rent. Yeah, yeah. You're paying rent to the state. Yeah. So there's uh there's a lot of challenges um out there, but I think it's important to be able to listen to the people, make sure that that process is transparent, and navigate those uh those challenges.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

So I am feeling that you're probably really good at I mean, you're kind of like me in a way where you you have like five things going on at once and you're building some crazy technology, and here's a website, here's a website, but you're good at taking each um each little speed bump and compartmentalizing everything that goes with it, and then um figuring out the nuts and bolts behind it and how to deliver it to constituents in a transparency manner, right? Transparent manner.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Yeah. I I was also working um on a tool where I could basically um use it as like a grading system for things coming down the pipeline um to be able to explain why I voted um one way or another on upcoming uh topics if I get elected on May 5th um for Wayne County Council. Um that way I'm accountable for the decisions that I made. People are informed on why I made the decision I did. Um, and how I think that that can help Wayne County as at a whole as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

That's crazy, man. Good stuff. Real good stuff. You got a lot of notes written down over here. Did we cover everything?

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Uh I think I just want to highlight that in this process of running, I've learned that everything's connected. If you think about it, uh school boards, local communities, county, state, everything impacts everything else. Um, so I think the important part is to have those honest conversations and be able to have dialogue. Because if we shut down those lines of communication nothing good is going to uh end up as a result. So uh that's kind of my message um of what I've been learning in this campaign process. Um and uh yeah, I want to be able to serve Wayne County um at the Wayne County Council level.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

And you can find his automated chicken waterer at TSC?

SPEAKER_00 45:10

No, no, it's not at it's not at TSC. Um it's on uh farmerbrad.com.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

I thought you had it there.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

I had it at Rurking for a period of time. Oh and it was it was online and stuff. Uh and then uh it is available at uh agrarian in Indianapolis. Uh there they have a store that uh carries it as well. Oh, so it's in a brick and mortar out there? Yeah, and actually it's also at LNS Lumber off of 38. They have they have one there as well. How does it work? Uh so it's a two-gallon bucket. You hook it up to a garden hose and it has a float valve and then it refills automatically. Um, and basically that came out of you know, working 40 hours a week. If I could solve half of the problem of the time commitment for taking care of chickens, I can uh make it easier. So that's kind of how it came about. And then it's a great way of offsetting feed costs so I can get more chickens, and uh, as a result of chicken math, um 10 chickens can turn into 40 in no time.

Gary V Con Story And Goodbye

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Wow. That's awesome. Well, we've let's see, we met how long ago we met, we met um through the drone stuff.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

And then one day you were like, hey, you want to go to Gary V thing next week or next weekend?

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Yeah, I I had uh Gary V had uh said, you know, text him if you live within a hundred miles of Indianapolis for V con. And so I did. So I got um two free tickets, and I was like, Well, I I uh I think you didn't you'd enjoy it since you especially since you uh named your cat after him.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

That was a good experience, man. Cause let's see, you were I were I I say two days, or did I did I only do one day? I'd say two days because you came out for the first day. Yeah. Because I had that hotel. I stayed, I did a two-day thing. Yeah. Um and we met Drew Barrymore, we met Young Gravy, John Taffer.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Yeah, there was there was uh a lot of uh people that that showed up and it was it was pretty cool at the stadium. And we got to go down the slide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

On like a potato sack skin or whatever that's called.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Yeah, I think the I think the slide was like three levels up, and it was a actually a very efficient way of getting down to the first floor.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

The main the data guy over here, it was very highly efficient slide. The most efficient slide I've ever went down. Well, thanks for coming and doing this. Thanks for having me. If there's anything else, um now you're not gonna get one single vote since you're on my live stream. So but it was efficient, yeah. So all right. Well, until next time, brother. Good luck. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Life inscripted with Kevin Chuck.