Welcome back to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. We set off with our first conversation and first and only conversation by the way. And we're looking at the activities or the elections in a number of states. Now come the 6th of November 2021 Nigerians, the attention already is focused on that election. That's because it is going to reflect, it's going to be a reflection of what would happen in 2023. Several contenders, but we have about nine of them that are major. This is according to political observers. And this morning we will be looking at the strength and witnesses of this major political contenders. All of them are jostling for that position, who becomes the governor of Anambra state. Now we have Dr. Rav Umosu, who's a national chairman of the African Democratic Congress who's joining us. And this time goes on, would definitely introduce the remaining guests as we proceed. Okay. Good morning, Dr. Rav Umosu. Good morning. All right. Thank you for joining us this morning. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Just before we get straight to the crux of the matter this morning, what is the state of things? What is the atmosphere right now in Anambra state? The atmosphere is, how do I put it? It's unfortunate, but Anambra state looked like a place in a kind of a siege state. But then the people are good, except some of the political gladiators and also the federal might that they have come to plant on Anambra state. We've had a lot of incidents on daily basis, their killings, on daily basis, their attacks. And also this has affected the campaign for some people like our party that has planned the last minute strategy to get to the people because we were busy getting to different women and so on. But then what is happening seemed to have affected the entire situation. But at the same time, the people are a bit upbeat and everything being okay, they will come out to vote out the parties and government that have cost us this kind of stripe and the bloodletting across the state. Is there a possibility of either the seated home or the problem might just be a compromise before the 6th of November? Do you see a possibility of that? I think some stakeholders, traditional leaders, religious leaders have now taken over, they have taken over governance because the government in place, the governments in place both at the state level and at the national level and the other two parties that are at the national assembly level have failed. So now the church leaders, the traditional rulers have taken over, have they taken over, they begin to have dialogues and I believe that such dialogues will get us to where we should be, which is what the government, the different parties that control Nigeria as it were now should have done from the beginning. African Democratic Congress, the ADC, African Democratic Congress, you are the national chairman. Let's go by political campaigns, by the campaigns now. Do you think that surveillance actually stands a chance of, you know, winning the elections, measuring it by the campaigns that he has done? If people are allowed to come and vote, ADC candidates, Akatjibu, Sullivan, Mankbo, has won the election because instead of, we didn't bother about the public evaluation. We went from families to families from beginning. From beginning, we concentrated in meeting the homeowners because his whole team on this campaign and the governance was clear from beginning. We wanted to concentrate on the family and we wanted to get agreements with every family, every woman in Anambra state. And we concentrated in that. Some other people were showing power might, distributing money and so on and so forth. We don't belong in that class. Our cause is to touch the families of all the families in Anambra state. So our strategy has worked for us. Okay. You know that elections are not just one by just having an awesome personality. You also need to have structure. What structures do the African Democratic Congress, do they have enough structures in the grassroots? How many local government, what is the presence that they do have in Anambra state, the different local government, in terms of popularity, juxtaposing that with that of the APC, the PDP and ABGA? I can assure you that our structure, the structure of ADC goes down to the world and to the different families. I want you to get it right. Our strategy is to deal with all the homeowners in Anambra state because one of the criminal programs of our candidate is to create the ministry of homeowner affairs. Therefore, our strategy is clear. We are working with every homeowner. All data parties are structured down to local government and world. But we are structured from the state, local government, world and down to the different homeowners. So forget the people who are making the biggest noise or the biggest campaign on this paper and so on. But we are down to every homeowner. And if the election takes place, because the Anambra people are tired of the so-called two big missionaries and then in Anambra people are completely tired of Africa. You can see the confusion within their process and so on. And that shows you the frustration that the Anambrians have with them. Let's just have a free and fair election and you will see what the result will manifest. For the other parties, what do you call them? APDP and the APC. Nigerians are third of them. The ordinary Nigerians that constitute 95 percent of the voters are tired of them. The only people who have tolerated their excesses are our elites because our elites who rather sit in their comfort zone rather than taking the needed decision that we have to take to be able to position Nigeria and take it to the trajectory of moving towards that's what ADC has designed as a global super economy. All right. We're being joined by Honourable Tony Ezekuelu. He's a former member of the House of Assembly in Anambra State. Thank you so much Honourable Tony for joining us this morning. Honourable Tony, can you please hear us? Okay, so I'm coming back to you now Dr. Ravngosu. Hopefully he's able to join us again, but let's just do it this way now. I don't know if you're very conversant or you have the names of the nine major has been put out by political observers of contenders of this position come Saturday. You have Professor Chukuma of the ABGA. You also have Dr. Godwin of the Accot Party and you have the PDP Valentine. You have Senator Andy Uba of the All Progressive Congress, Senator Ifan Uba of the Young Progressive Party and Obyora Okonko of the Labour Party and Obyora as well of the Labour Party. You also have the Action Alliance, Ben Itiba and of course the Nguyen Po of the African Democratic Congress. Now, being very objective, what would you say? I am very much aware of all of this, but let me ask you something and it would be good for the audience to analyse and reflect. We have a government in place today, don't we? The government in place in Anambra State is the Apuga government. Apuga government, they are in this campaign. Meanwhile, the state is in a state of chaos. Anambra State today is in a state of chaos. Anambra State today is full of bloodletting. It appears as if we don't have any government. So if a government has so failed that they've lost complete control of the states, why do you think they are in this election? They are not in this election. Anambra people are aware. They are not in this election. They are in government, but they've lost control. The same thing with APC. APC is in the central government. They control the police. They control the military. And today, Anambra State is like a war zone because we are having a simple election. What does that tell you? The PDP and APC share the parliament. They've controlled our democracy for the last 23 years. And where are we? Where are we? Let everybody analyze it. That is why every Nigerian is saying, forget the bogosity of the bogosity and the noise making. Let's face reality. What does Nigeria need today? We need to flush this people out. We have governments in place and we are like almost like, you know, a place in war out of control, caught everywhere, bloodbath on daily basis. And they charge today. If they're in charge and we have almost anarchy instead of an army, that shows we don't have any government. They don't have the capacity. This is time for them to get away. And that's why democracy is good because on this Saturday, Indian Anambra are faced with under choice.  So this, as far as I am concerned, I'm most Anambrian, forget the big noise. As far as you're concerned, these three parties are not in this show. That's number one because they have lost the integrity and the capacity and everything you know of leadership to continue. Number two, they had flawed processes during their primaries. These three parties, because of their poor awesomeness, lost it completely during their primaries. So Indian Anambra are very much aware of this. Forget their noise trying to to make it appear as if all the other parties are not there because they have the commonwealth, the state ports, therefore they can draw money anyhow they like. Haven't said that. Then I wouldn't want us to discontent any of the other candidates. You mentioned about nine serious candidates. As far as I'm concerned, all the 18 persons enrolled in this, other than these three that have already removed, may have their own strategy. Just like ADC strategies go from the one good. I mean, everybody in Anambra, they are aware that ADC had the biggest and the best primaries that nominated Akatu Kumanko as the candidate. It was well attended, it was glamorous, and there was peace. Everybody in Anambra saw it. After that, we decided the public show is over. What must we do? We got into our core strategy, moving to the families because Akatu pointed it out from the beginning. We want to bring back the family to participate in government. Government by the Umun and the Anambra. Let's just take a break here now. Let's just take a call here and see how we can have Honorable Tony Izakuelu join us as well in this conversation. Good morning Honorable Tony Izakuelu. Can you please hear us? All right. It's good to have you join us. Now we're looking at the strength and weaknesses of the various candidates, major candidates, nine of them has been put together by political pundits and observers across the country. For the want of time, I want to presume that you actually know some of these candidates, not maybe for a first-hand experience, but probably the party is involved. You have the ABGA and you have Chukuma Soludo, you have the Accord party, Godwin Maduka, you also have the People's Democratic Party, Valentine, you have Andi Uba of the All-Progressive Congress, Anifan Uba of the Young Progressive Party, and you also have Ubyora Konko of the Zinnat Labor Party and Ubyora of the Labor Party, and Ben Etiba of the Action Alliance and Wang Po of the African Democratic Congress. Now all of these candidates, nine of them, what would you say their strengths are? In no other, what would you say their major strengths are? In no other? Thank you so very much. The first, I'm about to tell you that you have 17 candidates rather than nine, but maybe you have taken the nine, maybe that's the nine you see are the most prominent. Now let me take one after the other and give you the assessment. But before I start, I want to voice out the very serious and unfortunate development that to me, it will be very unfair if this election goes on November 6th without the participation of the Labor Party candidate who worked in that long ago, and then the state security, both the police, the DSS and others, the government of the state and federal government, who now have not given Nigerians and Anagrians an explanation on multiple traditional men, Mr. Ubyora, who are conducting under the Labor Party. He was also kidnapped, not only been kidnapped for a long time now, and we know very well that the electorate requires that all the candidates who have given a number of times, that they must have to cast in and meet the people before the election, before the voting. Now that these young men are about to narrow, have been kidnapped and held, and security agencies have done that, and others are not telling anything serious about it, I think an election without a fair and credible participation of the Labor Party candidate, Mr. Ubyora Abashimero, will be not only unjust and fair, but will let that election seem not uncredible. And I think that this should be the major thing every candidate, every party, I know that the future of the DSS and the government should not have ground, this has got out of hand, and people are not bothered that a candidate is a major party who is very, very popular among the grassroots, who have been kidnapped and held, until now we have not got the news that he had been released. I hope you are getting me.  Hello?  Okay, good. Now, I will say that I want to now do an analysis of the order that has been done so far, what it is unjust, unfair, and we must remember that the election is not credible, if the Labor Party candidate does not have the opportunity to participate in the election. Now, let me take you as a party to go through. Now, let me start with the ruling party that is Afghans. Afghans are, at that time, is doing so much with a group of source parties. Afghans are inscredible by such movements all over the world. We have to do a cover-up, popular among the people, with a popular party in the state, therefore, at the same time, the party, the party of Afghans, has the effect of serious coercion that have obstructed the party very negatively. We are most of the prominent members in the national assembly and state-run assembly, and the other people, even the youths, have become to either participate or to visit the Amiturana party. That should be a very negative, and we revolt negatively on the candidacy of the Afghans from the group of source parties in this common election. Therefore, before we can do it, Afghans have been the dominant party in a number of states. But with the development now, this election of November 5th to a very large extent, these developments can be protected in the party that has been in the election openly, ending 20%. If not, if Afghans are able to manage an internal affair very well, Afghans should have been clearly on top of winning this election. Now, coming back to the next party in line, the PGP. The PGP has a very vital, very valuable item, and it doesn't create bad acceptable testing in the name of a doctor valetized or jimbo, who has a trauma background, a businessman, and a world-class minister, who has a machine and statistics, and he's the chairman of the trans-tribal group of Montpardas. From Mr. Rudolph from his software, he's a very credible and acceptable person, and then he has everything in state, like from Mr. Rudolph to the governor of Anambarsie, and he's the most prejudiced, equally acceptable among the grassroots and the seconders of Anambarsie. The third question, let me take this part A and C. Before now, the PGP do not have any Anambarsie, but however, the recent developments within this election, you have your own witness, a great outreach, you can get from the PGP, the electorate, and the governor, with his team, have been able to coach in another party, and they're able to collapse a lot of their regular structures into a PGP. Bring the PGP into context in this election, which they were not informed of ago, with the fact that what's happened now, with about seven federal members, one senator, about 10,000 members, the people of Anambarsie in the PGP, they find it to be fun as Anambarsie and he was, so much like the PGP. All right, I think we lost connection with Honourable Tonya Zequelo, who would definitely connect with him as soon as possible, but we'll just get back to Dr. Raf, well, Dr. Raf and Wosu, are you still there? Yeah, I'm here. All right, so we'll just pick up from where he stopped. Do you agree with him that he's saying that the Apgar has a lot of popularity? He has been the fact that, first of all, he is contesting on that party that has been in dominance since 2006, and they have a lot of government support, the ruling party, and well, of course, we understand the dynamics and the politics of, you know, the ruling party. Do you agree that he has, if you begin to compare him with Valentine Oziobu or that of the People's Democratic Party, do you also agree that Valentine has the same popularity when compared to the candidate of Apgar? Now, the two persons contesting an election in Apgar and ADP, they have good personality and reasonable pedigree. But for the mere fact that they are contesting in those parties, it's like the toxicity within the party have rubbed on them. The toxicity within those parties have rubbed on them and so on. And one person does not make a government. The governor, one person as governor does not make a government. One person does not make an organization. One person does not constitute the leadership. A leadership is a more integrated process involving many hands. Therefore, you get into certain organizations, no matter the kind of person you are, what you can deliver is affected. So that's what I have. First, Valentine and the President are concerned. The toxicity within their organizations, within their parties have rubbed on them. This includes Senator Andy, our members of the party that are in government today. And where are we in? Where are we? We are in the most dastardly condition that this country has never been before. And that shows you that these organizations don't have the capacity to give Nigeria what they want at this time. And the elites may be feeling cool, may be analyzing these things wrongly.  They come to the market in the name of entirely generated revenue. They accept them. And internally generated revenue is not being used to develop the markets. Instead, they're going into their private pockets. And they are doing the big men, the society people, the icons, and so on. So people are very disenfranchised. They are very unhappy with TDP, with ATC, with APGA. And they want to show it in this poll. But in terms of the quality of individuals, yes, they are good. But you put any of them on the poll tomorrow. What happened in their primaries, where they fought and so on and so forth, will happen again. And I'm sure people will not vote for any of them. And I can tell you if they don't come into the system to cause problems, none of them, despite the fact that APGA is the party in government now, where we have no government, none of them will have 5% of the votes. Okay, let's get back to Honorable Tony Ezuelu. It's good to have you join us again. Okay, that's all right. Go ahead. Thank you very much for this big wave into the party. It still doesn't look like the marches of an umbrella like ATC. Because the students, ATC phenomena are very, very, very unfair and unjust to the youth both and the Anambra people. Just in some way, that the people, Anambra are feeling that they will leave government, have not done so, so, so, so, so well for Anambra in terms of infrastructure, the women, and all that. So the big men and men coming to ATC, if they have an immediate guarantee of a history in history and fair and simple regarding marches, are still going to be done and angry with the ATC government at the center. Now, we're not talking about the individual, so it is good. Now, we're talking about the percentage of people who are the party. Yes, so, equally, our people believe very strongly that this election that's coming up is for the marches to provide the Adidas and not any positions. Some of the party has the ATC of arranging to review elections. The last thing on acquisition, we know that if the election is holding on November 6th, our people are ready to bottle it out for a fair and fair election. Welcome to the ADC candidate. The ADC is maybe the fourth major party in Anambra that also has a grassroots appeal. We have a candidate that has qualified as any other person with long experience in public service and then also to the committees and others. The ADC is doing its own bit towards the grassroots, towards the families. They have their own, such as those from Mr. Bedet. You already said that I think they may have this issue that they do not have a kind of role check that Avgar immediately, they think they have. So they have a very good chance in the election, equally, like the address of the major parties. There is a letter. Andubar of YPP. Andubar is the household name in Anambra State. Very well known by every person as a family senator from Anambra South who have been doing very well for his own people. But this election unfortunately, the culture of the party in Asia may not be of so much help for him in winning the election. It may sound like more of a woman, a more strong man with a few people supporting him in this election. But also Avgar Yubar is very well known as the acceptable among our people. There are not. There is another party, Dr. Obira Okonkwa. Dr. Okonkwa is an intellect, a successful businessman, manager, and founder, industrial, social, and economic targets in Anambra State. You won the candidate for an affirmative UDB, but why he lost the primary? He moved into the Zenith level party, the culture creation. It's a very hard question. He has also the role check, but the problem he has is that there is more of a role big like that of Anduba. I'm sorry, like that of Ifan Yuba, but if I am not Anduba, but the role problem he has, which Ifan Yuba has some advantage for me is that right until he had a year to part a while, the noise of the party had never been in Anambra State in the context before. So it is very difficult for him to sell the party and the logo of the party. But Dr. Okonkwa used a sound by a cannibal person like around Anambra State as the government. We now go to the court party, Dr. Godwin Manuka. Dr. Godwin Manuka is a very well known on the popular division, if you are a philanthropist, a social developer, and somebody that has a very prominent and world class tradition who has been around for quite some time. He chose for the families and included a lot and caused a lot for the court party. He had always made it difficult for somebody no matter how strong on the rosaries you have a tradition. No, it's very difficult. Well, you caused a lot for this another party to be able to to get the party to understand your party logo and the vote for the party. That is the candidate. Let's talk about Dr. Chido of Worcester Group, a successful businessman, manager of women and material resources who can make a little government. The party is also a program that he may have in the nation. Then we have a host of what has left. Okay, we'll definitely get back to you. Let's get back to Dr. Raphael Mwosu, who's the national chairman, African Democratic Congress. Let's talk about, let's go by experience now amongst the candidates that we have mentioned, nine of them or about eight of them. Going by experience, who would you rate as the most experienced on the list? The most experienced in government, politics, and leadership. I will still say our candidate, I have my reasons. Since I've worked within the local government system, he's worked with the state systems, and he has worked as a consultant with the deputy governor of Bayer State, when Goodlock Jonathan was the deputy governor of Bayer State. He worked as a consultant with Goodlock Jonathan, as a deputy governor, as a governor, and worked with him as the vice president, as acting president, and as president for all the time he was in the villa. So in terms of structuring public policy, in terms of the technical work that is involved in leading a state, and the leading government, it's very, very experienced. The other question you might bring in as somebody like Chupman Soludo, but his experience has to do with the financial sector, and that's why he got involved in politics and he's been struggling. He's not been able to use his technical skills to form an organization to carry his campaign. He contested before in one of the biggest parties in Anambra State, the PDP, and lost because he lacked that or that is a technically sound person, but he's good in bureaucracy and planning the economy. I wish that people can know their niche and get involved there. Being the chief executive is not a job for everybody. You can do a great job being a manager in a particular area. So that's where you find a somebody like Chupman Soludo. He's good with human resources, but with the politics, he doesn't have the experience, and that's why he's gotten into himself by boxing. And he has been a good legislator. He was in the villa for eight years, but somehow he's not been able to build the popular support because his kind of politics has been coming down from Abuja and taking, you know, finding different ways to entice the populace and then possibly for him to get back to Abuja as the legislator and so on. But now the people are getting wiser. They want people to work with them. So in terms of governance, in terms of running government, in terms of dealing with the systems and public policy, in the Akatuku one, but it's number one, and it's so rated. All right. Let's also bring in Ben Wosu. Good morning, Mr. Ben Wosu. Thank you for joining us this morning on the discus. Good morning, Mr. Ben Wosu. Thank you for joining us this morning on the breakfast. All right. So we'll just move on. I'll just get back to you now, Dr. Raphael Wosu. Dr. Raphael Wosu, are you still there? Yes, I'm here. Okay. So let's also move away from that now. I was hoping that, you know, you would say that Anduba of the APC, you remember he was elected governor in 2007. Of course, he lasted for 17 days in the office because there was a case as regards, you know, that was contested in office. I mean, him being elected, moving away from that, his, you know, vibe for political office in 2010, 2011, and the list is ongoing. I would rather think that he is very experienced in terms of governance and in politics. Anduba has not shown any capacity to manage an organization, to bring together human beings. He lacked that experience. And that's why he's not done well in all his political, you know, positions. I mean, he was in the villa. He was in the villa for eight years. For somebody who was in the villa for eight years, getting their lips and the people to work with him, he wouldn't have been any problem. But each time, it's like there's this toxicity, you know, it was when I'm quite an unpredictable, remember him with today. They talk about him with the burning of the government house, setting the whole government house. When the government was there, you know, on fire, on rampage and so on. They associate the UBAS and then they would take him a government hostage. And these are just not rights. So I'm talking about experience from him being in the villa and also having the capacity they say he has, because I don't know.  You don't leave stone. You don't leave money. You leave people. You leave people. And all Nigerians who aspire to leadership position must know you leave people. You don't leave money. You don't leave machines to be a leader. You leave people. You have to develop your people still. And if your people still is right and you're able to bring the population to work together with you, you can achieve a great lot. All right. Thank you so much, Dr. Rath Moosu, for being part of the conversation this morning. We do appreciate your thoughts and your time as well. And we wish you and your entire team the very best. All right, let's get back to Dr. Abegha Pradhan, Honourable Tony Izewelu. I hope I've gotten him correctly. And please, let's quickly share your thoughts. Let's quickly share your thoughts as we move away because we're out of time. Now quickly, who do you think, can you hear me please? Yes, come again. I said, let's quickly share your thoughts now. A lot of persons have complained about the performance of the current government. Do you think that that would in any way affect the candidate, the flag bearer of the party talking about Charles Soludo? There are a lot of complaints from Annambara State as regards the performance of the current government. Do you think that that would affect, you know, the candidates? Do you think that it would affect the flag bearer of the party talking about Charles Soludo come the 6th of November? Sure, it's not only will affect him, it is affecting him the way Muhammad Buhari's APC government is affecting Senator Anduba. So the performance of the government of the party, I trust you because every government who works in line with a party collection and manifesto, and then they try to support the party. So if she's willing to now, have done as well as it would be done as a government, it should be the best way to ride for Charles Soludo and Abga. But because of the fact that there are a lot of the fundamentals of government and development, just the privilege, it is affecting the performance of Professor Charles Soludo very badly, both in the cabinet and in the election to come. Because the APC government's failure in Nigeria is affecting Senator Anduba very negatively in the election. That's all right, we'll have to let you go at this point in time. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. Honorable Tony, it's Zewelu. Thank you so much. Thank you so much and God bless you. And I wish all Annambara in free, fair, and credible, successful election on November 6th. But I feel crying for Obira Abatimeru of Labour Party. Okay, well we hope that that election would actually happen and everyone is encouraged to go out and cast their votes. We also hope that government will do the need for, and you know, the relevant stakeholders would also do the need for all of that for our democracy to move forward. This is where we anchor the conversation. We definitely, we hope that we have more of this conversation just before the elections come the 6th of November. Now, do not forget to catch up on all of the conversation if you miss out on any of them. We're on YouTube at Plus TV Africa and on Instagram is at Plus TV Africa, Facebook as well, Plus TV Africa. I am Merciable to have a great morning.


Aloha and welcome to another edition of Condo Insider. Our show is on Think Tech Hawaii every week Thursday at 3 o'clock to 3.30 and we discuss hot topics in our industry for our boards of directors and our homeowners so you understand more about association living. Today we're very privileged to have with us a guy I consider one of the gurus of association living in Hawaii, Attorney Richard Acomodo. Welcome to the show Richard and tell us about yourself. Well thank you Richard. I'm an attorney. We represent primarily homeowners associations, condo associations, co-ops. I've been doing this for over 30 years now and something I enjoy doing and I think we do a pretty good job of it. And how about your firm? Tell me about your firm. I mean lawyers you have. We have 10 attorneys. My law partner is John Morris, he was the first condominium specialist in the state of Hawaii so we have a lot of experience, a lot of attorneys involved in this. And weren't you on some special committee at CAI like the national legal committee or something that you represented for the entire United States? Weren't you on a special committee for CAI for a while? Yeah, I've been on several national committees for CAI. I've been on the board of trustees for CAI. And I've been vice president, I was chair of the government and public affairs council for CAI nationally. So a lot of different things, a lot of different hats with CAI. So since boards never make any mistakes and they're always right, you probably don't even have this show. We should just go get a glass of wine. But... Well that sounds pretty good actually. I know you and I are both aficionados of wine. I tell everybody I listen to whining all day so I do red whining all night. It's kind of my motto. That's a good motto. Anyway, obviously boards are volunteers. That's a tough job in a lot of ways because they come from all walks of life and I'm sure you've seen from your experience situations where, you know, boards kind of struggle. You gave a seminar a couple of years ago I attended that was entitled The Seven Biggest Mistakes That Board of Directors Make. I am announcing a show called The Seven Deadly Sins but you didn't like the word Deadly Sins. And why didn't you like my Deadly Sins? Well I just said it seemed kind of presumptuous of me to say that I'm going to condemn board members to internal damnation for mistakes that they might make during the course of their tenure on the board so I kind of just like a more low-key approach to that. I think Biggest Mistakes is probably sufficient. Yeah, I think that's the point. So you said The Seven and we have a short show of 28 minutes. Let's just go through The Seven and briefly discuss because these are recommendations to the board. Things to avoid, things to watch for to run a better association, run a better board meeting. What's mistake number one? Mistake number one is to make sure that they have the authority to act. When boards do a formal resolution, the first paragraph they're supposed to put in or the first thing they're supposed to put in the first paragraph of that resolution is the authority to act. The reason for that is to make sure that they've consciously gone through the process of deciding that yes they in fact do have the authority to act. So in essence you know they don't have unilateral rights to do whatever they feel like. They have to have some authority. Where does that authority come from? It's going to come from you know state statutes, it's going to come from the governing documents, the deck, the bylaws, articles of incorporation. Some document like that it could come under case law but those are the main areas where they're going to find their authority to act. And so presumptuously they have the authority to act and what they should need to do in a board meeting is pass a resolution approved by the majority of the board of directors to conclude and to publicize the fact that this is what they want to do. In fact that's kind of a problem that some directors have. They kind of think that because they've been elected to the board of directors they have this authority to do things and in point of fact you know directors have almost no authority as individuals. They have to be acting as a board, at a board meeting and a majority of those present have to make that decision. And there's some exceptions to that rule but they're kind of limited. You know officers will have certain powers because they're president or secretary or treasurer. But for the most part directors have no power except at a board meeting. So board members shouldn't be leaving the meeting and going out and doing their own things and giving direction and telling people what to do. Right unless they've been authorized by a vote of the board at a board meeting to do that. This is a little bit off our topic but I try to cement this in every one of our shows that I have that opportunity. At these board meetings do owners have the right to participate, discuss a resolution before it's approved? Well definitely they're allowed except for executive session type of things where they're discussing you know legal advice or potential legal litigation or personal matters. Owners are entitled to be there and they're entitled to participate in the discussion unless a majority of the board votes to close discussion to owners. Now I bring that up because one of the number top two complaints I've been told by RICO is that owners are told they can't speak at board meetings but they're told they only can speak in the forum which we both would probably agree that's not correct. They should be given an opportunity although the board could limit the amount of debate time and they could have forgotten necessarily because the agenda discontinued a participation but that shouldn't be the rule.  Fair enough? Fair enough. Okay so they have to have the authority to act. What is mistake number two? Well mistake number two is failing to follow the advice of their experts and you know because they're lay people the law doesn't expect them to know everything but if they don't know something they're expected to ask and find out and in fact in the non-profit corporation act there's a specific statute that's referenced in the condominium statute that that deals with the standard of care of directors and one of the provisions there deals with when or specifically deals with the situation of directors being able to rely on the advice of experts that they reasonably believe are qualified to talk about or provide advice about the subject matter and that's kind of I guess a subset of a mistake number two which is sometimes they don't go through the process of making sure that the expert that they're listening to is in fact an expert on the topic that they're opining on.  Yes there could be some I mean there's a lot of facts that go into liability but yes there could be a problem there assuming that the person who gave the advice was in fact an expert. Yeah well I'm thinking even further is another example that someone says your pipes are failing and you have an environmental disaster and you decide not to fix the pipes and now there's a 20 million dollar environmental disaster if those owners were upset the probability is they might sue because the cost is burned on end that I don't feel personally the boards have a free ride because we're a board member the statute that if they just ignore professional advice or common sense that they can get out this totally scot-free and not that all these facts don't affect this but the reality of it is there is some risk if you don't do the right thing. Yes definitely so that's why we tell them. Number one make sure you have the third act number two since you have to act and you're a layperson listen to experts make sure your experts are qualified when you listen to the experts what's number three. Number three is kind of what we talked about earlier allow owners to provide their views and say you want them you know they have a stake in the whole process and to just ignore what they say is not a good idea now you don't necessarily have to do what they want you to do but you definitely should let them have their say you should listen to what they have to say if what they have to say is relevant and important you should act on it. So in that particular case when you I'm really into transparency with the owners of being respectful and we all know that sometimes you have some that forgive me for saying it may have come to the meeting with a little bit too much adult beverage and who really just have their own personal agenda they want to get into an argument with the board and so there's an appropriate way you need to control the meeting get your business done so you want to be able to let them be heard have a chance to speak but it's not uncommon for the board to say well thank you for your your initial conversation or your initial recommendations we have to move on now and take the vote or move on to the next agenda item you can't let them hold the board hostage because they've got this particular thing but all my experience has been that when you tell the owner indirectly he's not important anymore you don't care what he has to say you're the elected board and almost always backsfires on you it creates more time more money more energy that you just listen to them and let them get it off their chest right and they might be right they might have a good point that you need to consider and so it's a good idea to listen to them okay so we've got a third act follow the expert make sure you're transparent that the owners have a chance to speak to view what's number four well some directors unfortunately undermine decisions of the board and I'm a big proponent of democracy and part of the reason why I like community associations it's very it's democratic at the lowest or one of the lowest levels and but the concept of democracy is first you know people have a right in order to make those decisions people have a right to comment on it but secondly it's a majority decision and once a majority you know of the board makes a decision that's the decision I mean you shouldn't take it personally you shouldn't try to use it to manipulate you know your personal goals it's just a decision and the fact that people don't agree with you a majority of people don't agree with you doesn't mean that they're necessarily wrong it just may be that they have a different approach or a different view of it and kind of have to accept that you know I think the democratic side of this because we see that in federal state every former government there is different agendas different points of view that the problem I see with boards is exactly what you're saying they'll have a vote it'll be five to two in favor of doing something and one or two of the board members then goes out to the rest of the community and starts saying how stupid the other five people were and they were right and everybody were wrong and and frankly I see it somewhat exaggerated at times I see it somewhat not factual at times because they're all worked up about that and frankly it's a total destruction of the community that common ground you need of leadership you can say certainly the truth which is I disagree with the board but we all we're all this is what we're gonna do and get behind the project to make it work is is is instrumental in making sure the association runs as a happy association because as soon as you get that infighting the politics of it all the goodwill of living there kind of seems to dissipate becomes the reason of days and the haves and they have not sort of the blues versus the whites or whatever it may be you know I mean there's a definite difference of letting people know that you might not have agreed with it and actually actively undermining the decision and I think that's like you said very destructive and it ends up costing the association a lot more money by doing that I think sure I can see that because what's gonna happen is that first of all you get people taking more of your time people file mediations that based on things that just aren't factual and accurate and but more importantly it makes undermines all the other decisions that may be made it's not just that one decision it undermines the whole connectivity of that board to the association that certainly right everybody has a right to disagree and not say I don't agree with this but I support it still you know and kind of an old military thing and he could disagree with your commander but at the end you better salute move forward and indirectly a little different it's still the same principle applies you know okay so what we're gonna do Richard we're gonna take a quick break for a minute let's just recover our senses and look for the bottle of wine and we'll be right back with Richard Aloha we invite you to join us on our keys to success show which is live on the thick tech live streaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. my name is Danilia D A N E L I a and I'm another half of the duo John Newman our goal for keys to success is to provide a platform for professional and personal development tools and profound insights on how to achieve success in life career and all business we have incredible guests from all walks of life including politicians successful business owners leaders entrepreneurs and authors as this is a live show there are live mess ups as well which are fun to watch Aloha and we'll see you on Thursday for a very healthy summer watch Viva Hawaii we are here live on Mondays at 3 p.m. and we bring guests like our best health coach Elena Maganto eat well and follow her tips Viva la comida saludable welcome back to condo insider we're sitting here today talking with Richard Ecomodo about the seven biggest mistakes in his opinion boards make I call them deadly sins but he prefers the seven biggest mistakes because we don't want to annoy anybody with such such persecution I guess for the seven deadly sins but Richard being a long-standing industry professional over 30 years and me also being an issue about that long we see regularly boards get too emotional about the things and look at basic rules and how to run their meeting successfully I do want to take a minute to remind everybody you're welcome to join our conversation by calling our hotline at<PHONE_NUMBER> if you have a question we'd be happy to answer it so back to Richard we are talking about the seven biggest mistakes we've gone through mistake number one which is basically does the board have the authority to act just because you're the board doesn't mean you can do anything you want law and your governing documents will narrow what authority you have as an association as a board of directors number two you want to follow your experts advice you know biggest mistakes can be if experts are telling you there's a problem and you choose to ignore it for financial or other reasons you could be exposed in the association to bigger costs in the future or even in some rare cases liability to the board members then you had most employee dear to my heart is allowing owners to speak their views of board meetings the statutes very clear they have a right to participate in the deliberations boards can't set meeting rules to say you can only talk the first five minutes of the meeting you want your constituents the people who elected you to be heard and have a right to be speak their opinion even though you may not agree with it you may choose to do something else by one of the most important foundations and fabrics to our industry is let our owners be heard and then the fourth we were on was undermining the decisions of the board were one or two board members may at the end of the meeting where seven voted one way and those two were against it they go out into their into the industry into the association and argue and undermine the board kind of reflecting they don't know what they're doing and they're wrong I didn't consider whatever this undermines the entire fabric of goodwill within a community democracy is a wonderful thing we have to respect the fact that the Democratic majority will make a decision when running an association and that kind of brings us up to circle full circle for the first half of our show and so there's seven big mistakes we're deadly send the level protocol so I'm gonna ask Richard now at number five what is number five number five is failing to make a decision you know sometimes boards get so caught up in in the the decision and all the sides that they're hearing and they just kind of punt and there's two problems with that one is they've been elected to make a decision and secondly by not making a decision they really are making a decision they're basically making a decision of no and so which is okay if they actually believe that's the decision they should make but they should go through that process and actually make a decision on things that are before them you know it's one thing to take some time to make sure you have all the information all the opinions of your members it's another thing to just you know just abandon your responsibilities by not making a decision and depending what the issue is I can understand and more fluffy stuff that they want to again discuss it the color of the building we're going to paint next week it doesn't have much impact but sometimes these decisions affect future costs it could be a bigger and more expensive repair if they delay it I see boards a lot of times focus their decisions only on the money not on whether the need exists to fix something and by delaying it you know that pushes them into even maybe more expensive down the road by not addressing things as it comes up you know that one might be number eight you know so I mean it's it's it's boards have to at some point in time take all the issues get all the facts listen to the appropriate people maybe an expert at some point in time they have to make a decision and the decision can be no but to just let it continue from meeting to meeting to meeting doesn't really make you a better association and I know your number seven will deal with why sometimes they do that but we will we will go through that so let's talk about the next one number six it's not understanding what contracts are and it's you know they're for the most part they're laypeople they don't necessarily need to understand all the nuances or the legal principles of contracts but they need to understand some basic things about contracts and the first one that we see a lot is you'll see a vendor provide a proposal to the board and then they say okay we like that proposal they go ahead and they sign the proposal accepting it and then later on they come to us and say can we get out of this and a lot of times board members lay people don't understand that by signing that proposal they probably bound themselves to a contract because the only or the major requirement or actually the only requirements of a contract is you have two parties you agree to either do something or refrain from doing something and if you promise to do that that's a contract and you know the same thing to me and I used to say this to boards and I'll give you wrong but I used to say to boards if you want to accept that proposal because you know there's going to be some other costs accept the proposal subject to the contract being executed and subject to the attorney associations attorneys approval so therefore you've given good faith to the vendor yeah I want to pay you twenty thousand dollars for this work subject to us having a written contract which is going to deal with all the warranty and hold harmless and indemnity issues and things like that and subject to that contract being approved by the association at the attorney so in some ways you've approved a proposal but you've put conditions on that approval to give you a chance to have the attorney look at these things and to ferret out some of the less consequential to the board anyway issues but to me warranties and and hold harmless these types of things and sometimes there's liquidated damages provisions where you know if you've canceled the proposal that you may have to pay them a hundred percent of the value of the contract in a poorly written proposal you know well I mean typically I mean not all vendors do this but I'll you know some vendors do it they put in all the terms that are beneficial to them in in the proposal in the fine print on the back of the proposal sheet and if you sign off on it without doing something like you suggested they can be bound by those provisions yeah because I find a lot of times vendors don't want to spend the money to write a contract and do things unless they have some of these good face statement that the boards want to proceed that the money is not the issue they're willing to pay but of course you know even when you agree to pay there's hidden conditions and things they have to be carefully addressed to I mean we see that most common and not misunderstanding the boards they'll sign a contract to do spalling repair and there's an estimate that the cost of $100,000 but if you really read that contract it's really time of material you know no spalling contractor can really give you a fixed bid contract unless you really narrowed that scope or where they're going to work they're a very specific item and or if you pay a lot a lot of money so that they know that there's enough money in there to cover yeah so I think certainly because one of the questions we had at the last week's show that Jane Sugimur was on the show and she gave a general answer but I may ask you the same question because we had a call in or a person asked about it and the question was does every bid the whose contract association board awards does every one of them have to have a contract well everyone has ultimately becomes a contract it may be a verbal contract if they don't sign it but they have an understanding we don't normally recommend verbal contracts because that's how you get into arguments over what was agreed upon if they just sign the proposal that's going to be a contract all a contract is is both sides promise to either do something or not do something so you can promise to pay $100 or a settlement is a contract it could be I promise I'm not going to sue you for this claim so those are that's all that you need to have a contract is promises to do something or not do something this particular case I believe was the owners questioning the board's judgment that when they approved a proposal for about $500 to fix the dry rot on a wood fence that leads to the pool and they just use the proposal and they didn't go to a formal contract with their lawyer that particular owner was questioning whether that was necessary and of course based on those limited facts it's really hard to hard to answer what all the issues are but to me I would say that it's fairly common industry that uncertain minor work that they accept proposals when there's not really much at stake and yeah I think as with a lot of things you're looking at what the risk is and one of the factors is if it's a really you know low contract amount the risk is going to be lower now that's not always the case because you could have you know a really low contract amount but it involves say window washing on a high rise so the risk is really high because of the nature of the work but what you're really looking at is what the risk is and depending on the risk you may decide that you don't need a big contract a long contract to deal with it one of the things I see related but not identical thing is that I've always told boards use license to contractors because and avoid what I'm going to call independent contractor relationships where all of a sudden you have that minor repair for seven or eight hundred dollars or a thousand dollars and you just pick some neighbor or owner or resident there and you put them under this quote he's an independent contractor even though he's doing the work every month for $500 a month you know and and I've warned them you know as soon as that person let's say falls off the ladder and he breaks his back he can never work again although I don't know I seriously doubted the attorney's gonna say we signed independent contractor agreement and so you don't have to pay anything yeah it's you know whether someone is an independent contractor or not is not determined by what you call them or what they agree to there's a whole bunch of factors that the courts look at to determine whether someone is an independent contractor you want to be very careful with that because okay we're down to our last minute of the show and we have the seventh the big seventh biggest mistake and that one is when you have a meeting and you hear people come in and talk to you don't assume that they're necessarily speaking for the majority of the owners don't tell them that you know that we don't think you're a majority of the owners because what they have to say you should evaluate on what they have to say not how many people that are involved with it but there's a chance that you know the other 80% of the owners out there who aren't in the room disagree with those people and so you need to make your independent judgment based on what you think is in the best interest of the association and a lot of people are very quiet they may not express it the board at the end needs to evaluate all the facts make a decision and and just be good stewards for their for their association that's what they were elected to do so so I want to thank you for being here today I always find it interesting and educational talking with you we look forward to all of you coming or watching condo insider next week we're going to talk about construction litigation but again thank you for watching condo insider and thanks Richard Ecomodo for being here aloha


Why is ignorance dangerous? Hear me out. Read me. Satan leverages ignorance as a strategic commenting tool.


People are people and welcome to figments, the power of imagination. It's my geez about 40 the show 40th show on think tech why and I'm really excited about having a good friend who's been a friend for 29 years, which makes both of us old. I first met him. I'll tell you that story now before bring him on the screen and he can repeat it. I first met him when he was an assignments officer for new kernels. And he told me when in Air War college, he said, think you're going to go be the ops group commander Langley Air Force Base Virginia and I said something starts with the be alright because I thought it was baloney I wasn't a, you know, one of those kind of guys who's going to get a great job like that. I did. He was one of those guys really a shining star of our Air Force a great friend for those 29 years. So, we'll get, we'll get to Jeff in a minute, and we'll get to doing 710 miles an hour and a 55 mile an hour zone, but I have to start with my opening rants, you know a little bit of a carry over from figments on reality. That's what people, the mask mandate ends Friday, Saturday, sometime whenever people really start taking off their coven mask. And I look forward to it, not because it was a bad idea necessarily we didn't know much about coven 19. But because it'll feel good, and it will stop some of the insanity. Let me give you the latest case of insanity I witnessed when Alejandra and I were on our way to Costco on Sunday okay that's insanity in its own right going to Costco on Sunday that we were driving along and both me and my guests are added motorcycle riders. But there's a motorcyclist next to us on a sport bike and he obviously had a self image that he was a bad ass, all black, kind of tough, looking in terms of dressing demeanor. And he had a coven mask, a black coven mask on his face, and no helmet. So the virus wasn't getting in but the pavement might have. So I look forward to the that being over and not having to look at some of the ludicrous approach to virus avoidance that approaches to virus avoidance that we've seen so that's ramp number one, ramp number two is the government settlement I've finally gotten my social security payments, all of them, as far as I can tell. Thank you government for giving me back what I gave you. And then finally, I'd like to talk a little bit about China strange place because I feel like China isn't a very strange place right now. My condolences to the really tragic aircraft accident that happened there an airliner in southern China. There's some video out there, really, a horrible situation. We'll see what the investigation shows but my, my condolences there. The strange places China is now, thanks to President Xi Jinping, aligned with Putin. It's not too surprising except that Vladimir Putin has become a pariah in the world community and that's a strange loyalty to hang tightly to and it seems that they are. Maybe that'll change. And secondly is the COVID pandemic in China where I think they're first in last out they were the first of course to experience the disease whatever circumstances, it might have been under. And because they had a zero case policy tightly restricting everything. Now it seems like they're going to be the last out and they're having some significant outbreaks, as other countries are on the way and losing their mask mandates and everything else so very interesting. I wonder what it means for Taiwan's ambitions, the economic pressure that they'll feel the lessons learned or not learned from Russian the Ukraine. So, those are my rants for today. Let me welcome Lieutenant General retired Jeff Remington one time friend golfing buddy great golfer better than me by the way. Hey Jeff Aloha. Hello, big nice to be here. Hey, it was great to see you back in Hawaii a couple weeks ago and place in golf. It was always a good time. Today I want to talk from the outset about your matriculation I think that's word to becoming an Air Force Thunderbird Thunderbird smoke on ready now. But it starts with kind of story that seems likely. But as we discussed it was kind of unlikely so you were. Everything I wasn't you were the class president. You were the captain of the baseball team. Right. Have I got there right. Yeah. Yeah, there, there you are and both as the baseball player and look at that I was voted most likely to do hard time in my high school class so we weren't alike. And so it would seem like you were a shoe in to get into the Air Force Academy and zoom, if you will not referring to this system we're on right now, zoomed to the top of the Air Force but it didn't happen that way. No. No, thank you. Go ahead. No, tell me about you're the guy that I was a group in California. I played a lot of baseball in California. About halfway through my sophomore year I moved to Oregon on the coast where it rains constantly, and was hoping that we could play baseball there and I could somehow get somebody to pay for my college education by playing baseball. Well I only play 12 games a year because the rest of them get rained out and you're in a little teeny league, you don't get noticed. And no scholarships were going to happen. And, like I said, I was just looking for somebody to pay for my college education period. You found you found that. I did, I did like my dad came home and said hey, you ever heard of the Air Force Academy and I said, no sir. I've heard of West Point. Perhaps I've heard of Annapolis. No internet. Who knows. But I definitely never heard of the Air Force Academy. And he said, well, you know, you got to give it a shot. I'm talking to this guy and, you know, at work and he knows that yeah, you're going to send my president the capital football team and all that stuff. And maybe you can get in. I said, sure, let's give it a shot. So you got in and the rest is history. No, didn't work that way. I was, I didn't get in. I mean I got nominated the first year that because my SAT scores were not high enough. And the senator freshman from Oregon, by the name of Packwood was a guy that nominated it. So his guy his chief of staff whatever called my dad after I didn't get accepted the first time and said, Hey, there's this opportunity to go to this place called Mallard prep school. He has 72 students, 72 students are on either a Skelly Foundation or Falcon Foundation scholarship. Your son would be student number 73. And he will be on the Rimmington scholarship. And my dad said, Okay. But wait a minute, Jeff, I got to ask you because I do know this your dad was a B 29 pilot, right. And he had an airplane, Piper Cub, I think he said, Piper. So why wasn't, why wasn't he steering you and why weren't you naturally inclined to pursue this Air Force thing anyway. That's a great question. It really is a good question that I don't really know the answer to because like I told you, I went to I probably got into the academy the next year, and had my first jet aircraft ride, which was in a T 33. Now you really know how old we are now but that beat it as we and a T 33 ride and I must admit, I was hair sick. I thought, Oh my God, this is awful. And really didn't have much of a desire to go fly airplanes after that. But between my freshman and sophomore year that summer I went into operation third lieutenant. And where the Air Force Academy cadets go out into the field to bases around the world really and experience what it's what it's like what jobs they might do, right. Yeah, exactly. And I went to Luke, and I had four rides in the backseat of an F four and five rides in the backseat of an F five of the aggressors. And when I left there after three weeks I said, I will be a fight. I had more fun and managed to be allowed to act. And that really got the bug going in me. Of course, graduating with pilot training at Williams Air Force Base, probably the most fun I've ever had in my entire life pilot training why because I remember pilot training for me. That's a great experience but not the most fun. Yeah, I don't know. I think just because I was learning something new. Yeah. And it was wasn't easy. It was a lot of hard work, but it was coming to me. And, you know, Friday night at the bar, how can you not have fun as a second lieutenant with no money. Jeff, I'm going to interrupt you right there to say to folks who imagine young pilots at the bar Friday night is some kind of scandalous watch this on the newsletter it really wasn't. It was just fun. I'm kind of getting back to your right pilot train. It's a lot of these, like you can't describe. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. I didn't arrive but it brought back. But that's, that's correct. That's how I got into the flying airplanes and, you know, but you didn't go right to fighters which is interesting and when I look at your career. You were an ATC air training command, T 38 instructor the fast jet, sexy fast jet for a few years and then got into fighters but I've known you for years and this will be my what would figure at the end of it. I've known you for years, and I learned something about new about you every time we talk. You're really well as pilot, but you also got drawn into staff jobs working headquarters and they weren't, they weren't just somebody needs to fill the bill they were. I know they were the kind of jobs, I would not have it been asked to do. It's it's just interesting to me that you went back and forth successful you got into the f 16 and you were. You are pretty darn good at 16 powder they wouldn't have made you the demo pilot right. Yeah, I was at tarot on Spain. And as a captain now because I became a captain, I was like people are Yates. So, a little more senior to the other guys. I had a whole lot more hours than the other guys did because I had 1200 hours in the t 38. Wow. And by the time, by the time, you know, in three years at Toronto, Spain, I got 1000 at 16 hours so I would say probably had 500 hours of that 16 time when they asked me to be a demo pilot. Demo pilot puts on a single ship air show basically for folks.  And, but it's a it's a very demanding profile, and only the very best get to do it I know it's an f 16 wing commander when I chose my demo pilot. It's going to be the best possible person do that. So now you're in sort of the hot pilot mode. Great. But then you're shipped off to the staff to be a staff officer in Germany.  But it's interesting and that's how you wound up on the Thunderbird so it's this ping pong back and forth tell me a bit about your applying to the Thunderbirds and getting selected for the team. I really, I was contemplating was trying out for a weapon school, but I had left the cockpit, and I was sitting on the staff in the US Air Forces era as a personnel person, working rated officer assignments. And I ran into a good friend of ours. He was Dana Atkins out of the parking lot. They have was working for the instructor, the IG, as a, you know, inspection guy, and data had applied to the Thunderbirds the year prior, and he was reapplying his second year, and he was still flying the A10 I was not an applying and he said, Hey, throw your hat and ready to be a Thunderbird.  And lo and behold, the two of us were selected to go to the team at the same time. And I remember the you safety commander was shocked. Why is this captain in person and all going to fly a Thunderbird. He was more surprised than anybody. Who was the commander. Oh, I think it was general rust. No, I don't think. Anyway, we'll look that up later because it's interesting dust, but I can imagine so to me you're still, you're still in my mind, the captain of the football team class president Academy graduate I was none of those. You're in the demo pilot. You're doing really well but when you found out you'd been selected for the Thunderbirds was that a moment. It was quite a surprise. Yeah, it was. How did you feel. Tell the audience how you felt. I was surprised.  Yeah, but we can get into that later. Because it's not necessarily how well you fly an airplane that's important. That's not your primary responsibility you actually are walking talking recruiting poster. Right. Jeff, I've been interrupted to say if Eric could bring back the picture ahead of there. All of us have that image on the left of on the ladder of a T 38. Very few of us have that image on the right with our Thunderbird jet, but you're an ambassador you're a recruiting tool so to speak. And it's a big responsibility not just to not screw up in the air but it's a big responsibility to represent your force well. So, it was a lot of fun I can tell you that it was much more challenging than I expected it to be the flying or the other part. The flying. Really. And I will tell you that there were times that you got put in the hot seat not not intentionally but some you have to answer some question that some of it that had just happened in the news that you might not even know anything about phones back then. You might land and all of a sudden some reporters that your face and you're trying to talk about the air show and they're asking you a question about what just happened in Russia or China or North Korea. Interesting. Man, I would not have expected that sometimes you got put on spot by law enforcement and I do want to talk about that next one by favorite parts of your Thunderbird experience is this speeding ticket right here. And if you can see that folks it says 710 miles an hour in a 55 zone, and even my Mustang will go that fast Jeff score bet won't go that fast. This is a great story about the camaraderie of the team, you your crew chief, and your local close so share that if you will now we'll take a quick break. We were doing an air show in Southern California. And the California Highway Patrol on their motorcycles has escort us from the hotel to the air show because of traffic. So we got to the air show and you know, do it all standard air show stuff. And the, my crew chief had actually talked to the California Highway Patrol men that were there and they brought them out to the, to the, what we call the way well they did the air show they recorded everything on film they play the music on that stuff. So they brought them out to the trailer, and they're talking and my crew chief turned around to the California Highway Patrol men and said hey, he's going to do the sneak past and he does the sneak past he's going to come from left to right from behind the crowd. And so, and it'd be going pretty fast. Great. I've got a radar detector here let's see how it's going. Now, I was going point nine for mock, which is all. Yeah, it's critical mock on the airplane parts of the airplane or supersonic but the whole airplane is not so you don't break windows and that kind of stuff. And, but I was going point nine for when I went by an afterburner the speed breaks up because we're at sea level. Nice. Yeah. And I didn't know anything about the guy puts the radar on me takes it. Nothing said I land air shows over, we go sign autographs and now we're going to go back to the hotel. And we have a public relations event at the hotel after we get there. And that community leaders and other interest folks come in. This is that these are the kind of things where you're really the ambassador you find a great show. Now you're being thunderbird lead solo Jeff Remington. So, we got there and, and I don't know we're 15 minutes into it you know all the introductions. Did you have a beer in your hand did you have a beer in my hand, and all of a sudden here comes this California Highway Patrol on his Harley running with the siren and the lights going into the ballroom. And he gets on his microphone, you know this bullhorn, and he says, I need to see Jeff or anything. And of course the crowds laughing and clapping and everything and sure enough, he has a ticket for me, because he got me doing 710 miles an hour with his radar gun is I did the sneak pass. And I thought now nobody else has a ticket for doing 710 miles. I'm keeping that. I might have some tickets but none for 710 and the 55. I wonder what the scale finds would have been. Hey, Jeff, a great story. Let me take a very quick break. I'm going to talk about my next show and tell you what's going to be on my next show, two weeks from today on April 4, I have no idea, because the world is just crazy, it is absolutely crazy. So something will come up and we'll talk about it with ideally with a friend of mine somebody I know or find who can eliminate it. 710 miles an hour. That's, that's awesome. That's might be a record. Jeff, you and I, we took different paths, but we're basically fighter pilots to like flying jets. And, and just kept trying to plug along and I think people might think it might find this to be self deprecating but neither of us, I don't think really expected to be three star generals in the Air Force and yet we were We did a thunk it. Look at us. I look taller than you and you know that I'm not. But, but so since we were both blessed with the opportunity to lead our Air Force and our military in some pretty challenging jobs your last job was as the commander of seventh Air Force in Korea and the deputy commander yes forces Korean my last job was as a deputy commander, we should know things right. We should know things. So let's talk about a couple of the areas we should know things about very quickly we've got a few minutes left. One obviously is North Korea. And while everything else has been swirling. Russia Ukraine the pandemic the environment, the economy. The North Koreans have embarked on a bunch of missile tests and I showed this slide last week but I created this slide and therefore I like it. It's something I put together back as the summits between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump were approaching that shows the progression of texts tests up to 2019. I was convinced that North Korea was specifically seeking military capability that it wasn't a provocation different at whatever sort of a thing. Now they've got a new very aggressive test program that included one failure recently. What do you think about what North Korea is doing are you concerned is it just more the same. Yeah, I'm concerned. It is more the same, in my opinion, and we've had these philosophical discussions over more than we have one one beverage. And I just, I don't think that any administration from 1992 forward has gotten it right. So I maintain that there is a way to monitor closely the official material that he has, and monitor closely the new weapons that he has. And to do that, with two basic assumptions that are going to be counterintuitive to counter it is probably not the right word but any administration want to agree. Nobody dies that's that's right. That's the number one assumption. Nobody dies on either side on either side. Okay, because we don't need loss of life. Number two, he will never ever give up his nuclear weapons. Now you think they spent too much national treasure. There's internally he spent too much. All his, you know, his grandfather his father and all Kim dynasty has put too much emphasis never going to get rid of. So can we accept that and say it's fine that you have notes or do we have to maintain a facade that that we still want you to denuclearize but in our hearts we know you won't. Well, let's say it out loud. Because I think it's more important that we have a international atomic energy agency inspectors, which is a world organization that's not just us. It's an international organization has us people on it. That are in North Korea, that can inspect have full access. They have to give us full access that could pro quo is you're going to keep your nukes. But we have to have full access. And we have to see physical material and inventory nuclear weapons. Go ahead why why no don't go ahead let me go ahead to what end. So if we're letting them have news but we're monitoring the daylight so then having news. What have we accomplished. We won't risk. Physical material and the hands of terrorist organizations, or nuclear weapons and the hands of terrorist organizations. We will. Counter proliferation issue and then I'm going to add to that because we're running out of time that will also ensure in the event of significant change in the North Korean government will have some accountability because I know one of the you and I both worry about our loose nukes nukes in the hands of a non governmental organization and and if a regime collapses or there's a big people in North Korea we don't want that to go crazy. Okay, we've got about 30 seconds for you to solve the Ukraine problem do it. You're on. Boy, let me let me give you a break and say what worries you about Russia Ukraine. Anything. escalation escalation beyond Ukraine into NATO countries which then draws us in and and yes we could face World War three. We could face no third World War three. We good. That's very, very possible. And I'm, I'm concerned about what put may do me if and when he's back into a corner where it be chemical biological. Yeah, who knows. So how do you and the question to myself is how do you avoid it appeasement and escalation simultaneously and I don't have an answer to that. Maybe that'll be another show. Jeff I wish we had more time. That's the goal of my shows is to get to the ending of dammit I wish we had more time. I appreciate you being on. We'll see you and Michelle sometime soon I hope I'm going to ask you first. Do you have a figment now do you have a dream a goal something you haven't done yet in your life that you really like to do. I'm good. You know, if I've had a, I've had a, I've had a great life I've had great friends I've been all over the world. And I just wish I could, you know, break par. If I break par on one hole. I'm happy. So yeah, shop. I played pretty well Saturday you would have been shocked. Hey Jeff thanks for thanks for joining me. It's always a pleasure. I'll close with what would fig do because that's something fingers gold being asked me and do. What would fig do so every time I talked to Jeff Remington. I learned something more about him so we all have great friends who make our life better, but we only know a bit about them. And so my what would fig do is I'll continue trying to learn more about my friends and appreciate their lives better. Everything I do is donate to Spirit of America I mentioned that last week and two weeks ago and talking about their work in Ukraine and elsewhere around the world. So take a look at them Google it. I'd like to say thanks to think tech but before I do I got to show you my qr code here so take a happy snap of that and look at the playlist or figments the power of imagination figments on reality, both of which I brought to you by think tech by a wonderful nonprofit corporation, and they deserve your support as well. So Mahalo for joining me thank you that's what that means. I will see you in two weeks on April 4, aloha.