It's Thursday, which is our Friday, which makes us happy. What, Lou? Lou's dancing all the way in here. These guys, Hoodie-O, you got a solo cup on the table. What? We got some flip cups going today. It's our Friday, y'all. It's time. They ate water. It's how we end the week. It is seven o'clock in the morning. What else would it be? All right. Stadium Insider. My name's Michelle. That's Chandler Parsons. Lou will come and do us from Atlanta. And guys, there was basketball last night. Can you even believe it? Look at this. Some West Coast fun. Clippers, Kings. Clippers? Clippers, Beatle. 131. 117. Kawhi Leonard had 34. Nine rebounds. James Harden finished with 26 points. De'Aaron Fox. And it's just becoming normal. He had 40. Ty Lou opened up the postgame presser saying that this, Chandler, is how this thing is supposed to look. That's the blueprint. Do you agree with him? Somewhat. I think the production of the main guys, sure, that's what they're looking for, right? Finally, Kawhi Leonard, he had a great, efficient game, as well as James Harden, as well as Paul George. Now, there's some issues with the other four-star that didn't get the productivity, didn't get the minutes that I'm sure he wants. But yeah, when you look at this team, they finally were efficient. They had a balanced attack. I think that, I don't think they want them all to play close to 40 minutes a game going forward. But I think getting this win, having a team that Sacramento, who's hot, obviously they're coming off an emotional win the night before, that was to their advantage. But yeah, this is, they all played efficient. They all played well together. They all picked their spots, and they got a win on the road, which is huge, no matter what happened the night before there, what's been going on with the Clippers. This is a big win, and everybody played well, except Russ, who I'm sure we're going to get to. Well, no, I'm glad you brought that up, because Russ only had 19 minutes in this game, and he had nine points and eight assists. Lou, if you're Russ, are you happy with this quote unquote blueprint? Yeah, you should be. I mean, remember, this is the guy that got ahead of the bullet. He knew somebody who had to sacrifice minutes. Somebody to get out of that starting lineup. And he was the guy that stepped up and he said it. And he's also a guy that's accomplished everything in this league that you can possibly imagine. He's made the money. He's been an MVP. He's made deep playoff runs. The only thing he hadn't had is a championship. And he know with this group, they have an opportunity to do that. And somebody needed to come off the bench. So he was the guy that stepped up and said, hey, I'm willing to be that guy to come off the bench and give us that balance. So, you know, nine and eight probably isn't an ideal stat line for him. But it's a 14 point win. He should be happy with that. Yeah. And again, I don't think they should have made the trade if this was going to be an issue. You know what I mean? Like I get it. The 98 I think is fine with him. 19 minutes, I'm sure he's, you know, a little bit termed by same with Norman Powell. He didn't get as many minutes as he used to be getting. But this is this is the reality now. This is the this is the deal they made. This is the new role that he has.  No way. There's going to be games where he's going to play 40 and he's going to have a hot night. This was a great start and they got the win. But I don't think I don't think Paul George, Coehler, Jay Turner, they're all going to play 40 something minutes and Rusty on play 19. It's all going to kind of even out. All right. Dynamic. What's going on? How does it look between Russ and Harden? Yes. So I think what we've been talking about as soon as they made the trade for James Harden was they were going to have to rip the band aid off. And James Harden, you went all in with him. He's making 36 million this year. You gave up two first round picks. You gave up second round picks. You gave up a draft swap. You gave up multiple rotation players to get James Harden. You didn't go make that James Harden trade to bring him off the bench and let Russell Westbrook start. They were going to have to choose one of them. And for all intents and purposes, intense and purposes, the Clippers made this decision to bring Russell Westbrook off the bench. And I think overall it was only going to be a matter of time in a lot of ways because you need the ball in James Harden's hand. This team is playing better. Like overall, when you look at the record, you look at the way they play, the way they look when James Harden is playing point guard. And last night we saw it. I mean, 26 points, six assists, three steals, season high and points and three point field goals made like he showed. And I think Tyler said after the game, this is who James Harden is as a player. But there's no question. Russell Westbrook, his points have gone. I mean, he's averaging four. He went from 14, seven and six as a starter with 31 minutes a game. So now he's at nine points, five and a half rebounds and five assists. And his minutes are down by nine per game. And so and his field goal percentage are down. He's not getting the ball as much as he did before. But this is going to be all about acceptance, sacrifice. That's all this team can can hang their hat on if they're going to get to where they want to get. He's the only one that's sacrificing. That doesn't seem right either. Here's what's interesting to be to as a player to you hear the word. It's a term. It's a business, right? It's a business. Then when it's when it doesn't go your way, then all of a sudden it's personal. And you know what I mean? So like, again, this is a business as a brand, as a player, you have that option to leave in free agency to go get more money, to go get more opportunity. Coaches, you know, they have the same option to trade you to not play as many minutes as you think you deserve. So it's it's it's got to be if there's a balance, right? There's got to be a fine line. But when it doesn't go your way, you still got to understand the business aspect of it, that they just traded for James Harden. They just did this deal. And this is now, you know, the process going forward. This is what it's going to be like. So again, I think this is going to change. I think Russ is still going to have these big games as soon as James Harden goes out with a, you know, for a game. Maybe he slides in the starting lineup. It's all going to change. And this team is deep and they're versatile. But I don't I look at this like a good win for them. But this isn't the, you know, the final solution. I will say, Russ Westbrook, he had like a few baskets down to search for that Mavericks game over the weekend that I was at. And he basically won them that game. He they pulled away when he came in in the fourth and he had a few baskets. James Harden didn't need to come back into the game. That's how good Russ Westbrook was. And last night, even though he didn't play as much as he wanted to, I think everybody had nine points, eight rebounds or whatever. Like he was still producing, I think, to a level, even though he played under 20 minutes last night. And the team, this good, sometimes it just takes one win like this to kind of get off the snide, right? And to kind of get going, they played good. They were efficient. They had four or five turnovers as a team. This is the recipe for them to win a lot of games. I guess I'm just not, I'm not happy with it right now the way it is. But we'll see if that changes. Yeah, you mentioned the the Kings coming off the emotional win the other night. That's just, I mean, look, that's a weird back to back. Two tough games. That's just all that is. I mean, we don't need to sit here and dissect them. I don't think so. Again, listen, they finally beat up their big brother the night before. It was an emotional win. It was the in season tournament game. The intensity was high. And as a player, honestly, when you're on a back to back, especially against the Clippers and the Warriors to get one of them as a win. So you kind of have that let down, especially when you get the first one. And that's what they did. There's just an emotional let down. They couldn't sustain it. And again, the Clippers, they found something and they played well. All right, Lou, Fox had 40 points, but only three assists. That's an interesting line at that point. What did you make of that? Does he need to do something differently? Yeah, I thought maybe he started the game and thought he was just cooking and decided to be in an offensive bag. You know, this is a guy, he's ever just seven assists on a season. You know, so the three is not really glaring to me. It might have stood out last night because of they had lost their game on a win. I don't think we really talk about getting his teammates involved as much. And look, this team is built on him to score. They are built for him to create pace for this group, built for him to have that basketball in his hand and to create a place where his teammates and so I thought last night was one of those games where he got it going early and he continued to shoot the ball. And so I don't I don't think this is an issue moving forward, but I think this is a one-off. Let him cook. Love that. Don't look now, but the Raptors were the ones that snapped the win streak. The Suns were on a seven game streak at that point. Raptors got him 1-12, 1-0-5, Pascal Siaka with 22 and nine. Scotty Barnes had 23.7 rebounds. And I say that because he had 12 of those 23 in the fourth quarter. And after the game, he was asked about his performance, said, I've got that dog in me, Chandler. I love that. How good can this kid be? Didn't Pat Bev say he didn't have the dog again? That's somebody's got the dog, nobody knows who. Listen, Scotty Barnes is great. I love his game from, you know, rookie of the year to look. These numbers are pretty impressive. Yeah. It's average in 19-9-5. He's one of these versatile players that can turn into that Kawhi Leonard type where he can lock up the other team's best player. He can post up a smaller guy. He can take a bigger guy off the dribble. I've seen him play point. I've seen him play the five position. So he is one of the more versatile players in the league. He's 22 years old. So the ceiling is, you know, who knows? He's going to continue to get better. I think their teams, and obviously a little bit of disarray, are they going to move some guys? Is Siakam going to be there? One thing for sure, this guy is going to be there. And he's definitely their building block for the future. Yeah. He was the untouchable in any sort of rumors that were about Shams. But the league, when they look at this Raptors, as far as positioning, how are they viewed? You have to give credit to Masai Jiri for the roster, at least in terms of talent. Pascal Siakam, Ojiwana Nubi, Yaka Pertle. You have Scotty Barnes. Scotty Barnes, no question. He's the untouchable. That's the guy that is not going to be available in trade. But teams are keeping a close eye, as this year goes on, on this roster. Because whether it's Siakam, Ojiwana Nubi, both guys are entering, these, they're not expiring contracts. So they're going to be free agents, expected to be free agents this summer. And so on paper, we've been waiting for this Raptors team to start gelling. It just hasn't happened this year. They're hovering again around 500. They were around 500 more last year as well. And then they make the trade for Pertle. When everyone thought they were going to start tanking and trading guys away, but they kept all their guys. And so I think as we get closer to the trade deadline, I think Masai Jiri likes to wait until closer to the trade deadline. He'll evaluate his team and we'll see if any of these guys finally do get traded. By the way, they have a lot of, if I'm a contending team, they have a lot of pieces that I want. Like Gary Trent is valuable. He can provide the outside of shooting. Boucher, is that how you say it? Boucher? Bouchard? Boucher? Chris Boucher. He's like, they have talented players that can take that next step. And like Tarana's kind of in that gray area. No, they're not tanking. They got talent. They kind of have pieces for the future, but they're probably not going to win in advance in the playoffs. So it's a weird situation there. Do they make the playoffs? And if they can only just make the play-in or the playoffs, is it worth keeping these? Here's the thing. Is the play in the playoffs? Kind of. If they make the nine or ten seed, sure, they win two games and they're in and anything can happen. They're better than Detroit, Chicago, Washington, and Charlotte, for sure. But then you get a little sticky with that. Lana's and, you know, there's other teams. So I think they can make the top 10 with just the talent alone. And they're going to win enough games, but then I don't see them surviving and advancing in the playoffs. Yeah, we should just establish it right now. Is the game? Are we counting the play-in as the play-off? Is there ten play-off teams? It's technically the playoffs. No. It's hard to not make the ten. You have to be pretty bad. So then it's like you make the playoffs or you are a play-in team. That's how we do it. So there's eight play-off teams. There's two play-ins. So if you lose, for the ten seed, you lose, you're not a play-off team. No, you're not. Absolutely not. But then if you win two, you are. You are, but yeah. Man, I'd hate it. This is weird math. Katie was back though. He had missed the two games with the foot injury, Lou. Still averaging about 37 a game. Can this continue? This for a 37? Yeah. I mean, that's 35-year-old Durant. He looks great. I'm not saying he looks like he should take a break. But how are we doing? Yeah. I mean, he scores. He scores so easy. You know, and I think at this point of his career, he's learned ways to be efficient, learned ways to not burn so much energy trying to score the basketball. If you look at these clips, he's under no pressure. He's under no duress. Backdoors, lobs, getting to his spots, pull-up jumpers. This is a guy that's going to score at a high clip for a very long time. Granted that he's 35, but if anybody can do it, it's going to be these superstar-level guys, the Kevin Durant, the LeBron James, the Steph Currys, the guys that hold the league up. And so, can he do it for a long time? I think he levels out at about 30-31 on average when this season is all said and done. But I think he can do it. Yeah. Can he? Sure. But does he want to? I don't know if he wants to put that in many minutes. But he's in a great situation where his team is so loaded and once they get Bradley Beal back and Devin Booker continues to play he doesn't have to. And no matter where they finish, they finish one through six, which even probably four at the worst, if they're fully healthy in the playoffs, I think they have a potential they could win it all easily with this fully loaded roster. So I don't think there's a reason to be playing him 40, 45 minutes at night when their goal should be to be healthy going into the postseason. I feel like it's hard to tell him, though, of a lot of guys, like, because he wants to be out there. Yeah. It's hard to tell anybody, especially him, that's just an absolute animal. Good luck with that. It's crazy how old, like, I guess how old, I mean, these guys are young in basketball terms. But how much him, LeBron and Steph will continue to play.  And they want, like, they love it. It's not like, oh. When is the drop-off coming for those three? Never. Some people just don't. That's just different. We're all built differently. Some of us can get out of bed in the morning without hurting. Some of us can't, Chandler. I don't know what to tell you. Lakers, remember Lakers lost big time the other night? Well, we're moving past that now because they blew out the Pistons. 133-107. D'Angelo Russell had 35 and nine assists. Highest scoring game of the Laker. Anthony Davis with 28 and 16. And Kate Cunningham threw in 15. But look, the blowout was a Kate Cunningham. It's very hard for me to speak today. That was a 44 point loss the other night. And we know what LeBron said afterwards. I don't know if you ever get rid of all of the stink of a game like that, but does this do anything for you? I mean, it's a team that is historically struggling. I don't know if it pays to be the worst team of all time. Like, they are bad. So does this eliminate the loss of the 44? No, but it sure does make you feel better. And now it's what do they do next? Do they grow from this? Do they get better? Do they, because the minute they go and throw out another stinker in their next game, then you start having that doubt. Then you got to kind of recircle back to what you did wrong. And you know what I mean? So this was a mature win.  I'm not impressed, but this is what they should do. Yeah, I mean, it's a tough one. Look, we don't really talk much about D'Angelo Russell unless it's somehow part of a trade talk, Lou. But he had himself a great night. Is he the third guy? Is he capable of being the third guy? Or is he just going to be trade talk fodder? I feel like he's always been. You know, now that Austin Reeves has gone to the bench, he's established himself as he's going to be the third best player on his team or the third best score. The only thing I would like to see from D'Lo is just consistency, absolutely being that guy, taking care of the basketball, not taking as many chances with trying to make plays and just being efficient on the offensive end. You know, he's still averaging 17 and a half, 0.6 and a half assistant for this basketball team. 35 was a great night. I wouldn't expect that from him very often. But if he can give you that 17 and six every night with a LeBron and 80 lead team, you got a good third piece. Yeah, I agree. I don't think there has to be necessarily a third person here. I think it's collective. What can they do? Can Austin Reeves put in 15? Can Christian Wood put in 15? Can they get Rui and Gabe Vincent back? So I think once they get their full bench back, they don't really need a third guy. Let LeBron continue to play how he's playing. Let Anthony Davis be the best player on the team. And then each night, it could be someone different throwing in a 20 piece. Can we do a little art of the flop? I mean, it's always up for interpretation. Is it, isn't it? There was a moment last night. What do we think? It's funny because it happened with Stewart, too. You know, their beef from last night. Yes, there was blood last night. I got a little piece. You can't flop when you have beef with someone. But so then... It was definitely a flop. Did he get fine for this or tea? Oh, I don't know. I don't think so. Of course not. No, it's a 21 point game. Like, what are you going to do? What are you doing? Yes. Trying to sell it. Trying to sell it. It's a flop. It's a flop. It's just a weird thing. But he doesn't flop. Remember you said that last year. No, he doesn't. Why would he? Look, the pistons are two and 16. 15 straight losses. That is really tough. I know the expectations are high, but my goodness, what do you do with your mentality through all this? I don't think they expect it to be this bad, obviously. I think when you hire Monty Williams, they gave him a massive contract, one of the richest contracts for a coach in NBA history. When you pay him that much money, this is not the type of start. Two and 16. We've lost 15 in a row. But at this point, all you can do is try and hope for growth day by day. And I think Monty Williams spoken about it. It's the habits day to day, the losing habits that have been building for the last several years in Detroit. Breaking them, losing them is hard. Like, it's not easy. And then you add in Boyan Bogdanovich, Monte Morse. They have not played yet this season. And those are two veteran players that you're relying on. Monte Morse was supposed to start for this team, potentially. Boyan Bogdanovich is a starter. He's the guy that can command a lot of value in the trade market. And Joe Harris, who they traded for from Brooklyn, he hasn't played that much this year as well. He's out in extended period of time. I will say help does seem to be on the way. Boyan Bogdanovich, I'm told now. He's been out with an injury the entire season. He is day to day. He could be back in the lineup as soon as tonight in New York, if not on Saturday at home against Cleveland. So I'm told he is on the cusp of getting in the lineup and then hopefully that energizes this group. But this is no doubt. They got to take some steps here as a franchise. And that's...  Who does he pass the ball to? Like, there's no shooting. There's no spacing.   They really need those Monte Morse, Bogdanovich, and Joe Harris. At least that can provide some outside shooting to give Cade Cunningham more lanes. Right now, they're just packing the paint and letting Killian Hayes get wide open shot. So it's kind of a disaster. And I almost feel bad for Cade Cunningham because he just has nothing around him. Well, he feels bad too. He told us. He was very honest about it. We're bad. We're bad. That's it. There's nothing else to say. It's hard in today's NBA when you're without three guys, three veteran players like this, and then you're asked to take the next step as a young team and you don't have your veteran players. And so Detroit's in a tough spot. And also, again, Monte Williams, you don't pay Monte Williams to go, you know, like this team is supposed to take a step here this season and you hope that they do. They're not firing Monte Williams with that bag. Absolutely not. I don't know if that's a good or bad for him. It's great for him. Yeah, it's great for him. But all right, we got some shums. Scoops time. The Warriors on Tuesday night, of course, that was that bizarre game where they were up so big, but they also had some injuries. So you've got updates. Two injuries. One is significant injury. Gary Payton, the second, he had a non-contact calf injury. I'm told it's a torn right calf. He's going to be out in definitely significant time. He's going to be missing. And this is a guy that's obviously been a key cog of this team. They traded for him back last season from Portland. He's been integral for this team. Chris Paul, he has a nerve issue in his left leg. I'm told this is going to be more of a day-to-day injury. He is out tonight against the Clippers. We'll see exactly how long he'll be out.  He's going to report to the training staff, medical staff today, and they're going to evaluate him and see how he feels. That's a... Yeah, that's not good timing. But they're eight and 10 now. And so when you're thinking about it, injuries are settling in. I mean, I'm curious from Lou's perspective, how much trouble are they in? Like, are they cooked? A torn calf is crazy. That sounds gross. They can meal prep right now. I don't know if they cook, but they... Magic City meal prep. They give them prep. Look, this is a team that's... They're still a half game out of the play-in spot. And when you guys are talking about the play-in, I like to think of that nine and 10 spot as like a wild card. I don't know if they're a playoff team, but they got an opportunity to get in. So I'll call them a wild card from nine to 10, not a playoff team. Because if you wanted to be a playoff team, you'd play better throughout the course of the season. But you know, this is a team that's a half game out of being in that 10 spot. And they also have the capabilities of running off seven to eight wins in a row. But it just feels weird with this group now.  The vibe is bad for a team who's kept a lot of adversity in the house. And now all of a sudden we have storylines and we got distractions with this group. So it just feels funny. I don't know if they still have that glow, but they're capable, but I just don't feel it right now. Yeah, I think cooked is a bit aggressive, but they're definitely showing signs of slowing down, which is scary as a Warriors fan. And when teams, when you used to go to Golden State, they feared them. Like I used to hate going to play them. You know they were cooking. You know they were moving there. They were moving without the ball. They were knocking out three. It's not like that this year.  You don't want to accept it, but they're not who they used to be. And that's a scary, scary, scary feeling. Just life though, isn't it? Yes, tell me about it. A cycle of life. Lou, you're cheating. Because now you get to leave us for the rest of the day. And I don't think that's fair at all, but here it is. For good reasons. Good luck today, Jada. And the Hebron Christian Academy Lions. I'll see y'all later. Okay, fine. That's a good reason. All right, Lou. We'll see you next week. When we come back, Kenny Beachham joins the show. We'll talk some more hoops. Running Back Returns. Running Back. Running Back. Running Up. Running Back. Yeah. Running Up. Running Back. Yeah. Running Up. Running Back. Running Up. Running Back. Running Up. Running Back. Running Up. Running Up. Running Back. Yeah. Running Up. All right. We now welcome one of the internet's top basketball minds. Also great background. Co-host of Through the Wire podcast and the Kenny Beachham podcast. And one of Fandals newest partners, Kenny Beachham joins us now. Welcome to the family, first and foremost. But we got to talk Chicago Bulls. I think all of us growing up, that was probably our favorite team, but it's yours. And they're 5 and 14. What do you do with this team? Blow it up? I think that's the only way to go at this point. You know, as a guy that has watched every single Bulls game for the last five years, this is the least amount of fun I've had. And we've had real tanking seasons in that five years. So I think when you put together a roster that with the idea of competing and your struggle and to compete every single night, the writing is on the wall that something needs to change. So I'm just, I'm waiting for the Shams update that something has changed. Just so we all are. Wait, can I ask one thing?  Or do you just want it done and over with and have your new team in place? I am always on the trade machine. Always on the trade machine, trying to figure out, does it make sense for this team? Does it make sense for us? I am prepared for whatever the trades are to not be very beneficial to us. So if it does end up being beneficial, then it's a win-win. But I'm always looking around the league, like, hold on, maybe he's unhappy. Unhappy, maybe we can get that guy. I'm always here. We need something. We just need something. Kenny, as a Bulls guy, I played for Billy Donovan for four years. Do you think he's the right fit for this either rebuild or process that you guys are going through? Well, I remember when he left, okay, see one of the main reasons was because they were going towards the rebuild. So I don't know if that's his priority. Like, I think he wants to coach a competing team. I enjoy Billy Donovan as a coach. I mean, you can speak to it, but it seems like he is a guy that can get the team behind him. Obviously, he's had his points of contention with, like, Zach Levine. But for the most part, with the younger guy specifically, I feel like they enjoy playing for him. And if we're doing a rebuild, I'm assuming that we're getting young guys back so he might be the fit. But I don't know if he'll want to be there. Yeah. And this end-season tournament, obviously, you know, there's multiple different opinions on it. The other night, the Celtics, they went to hack and drum. And obviously, that could be the new norm now at the point differential. What's your take on that? Do you think there should be any changes to that tournament? Do you like it? Do you hate it? I loved it. If there's one thing I would change, I would maybe open the pool to, like, 10 teams just so we can have another knockout game because I love, like, winter go-home scenarios. We see that with the off-season or the post-season tournament. We're like, man, this one game means we can make it or we go into the off-season, right? So I would extend that. I like the idea of teams playing hard for 82 minutes, even if that means they're up by 30 points because of the point differential. And I know there's a lot of conversation about the unspoken rule as someone that's never really played professional basketball. I don't really look at it like that. So when they went hack or drumming, I'm like, well, drumming, let's make some free throws, baby. You know, that's what my head was at, instead of being mad at Joe Mozzula. That's the thing. The civilians like us, we like the point differential because we're like merciless and you guys actually have respect for your opponents. I think that's what I noticed now. See, I said the other day, though, when the Warriors were playing the Kings, they were so worried about this 12-point differential that they played fast and they just lost the game instead of trying, you know what I mean? So you got to be careful. I love it. Kenny, so you say you've been messing around on the trade machine. So I want to know, what trade would you make? Well, what's on the hierarchy of your trade request list for your bulls? That's the thing, Shams. I think that because I'm a bulls fan, I'm a bit biased towards my bulls. So because of that, I may value Zach Levine a little bit higher than maybe consensus. So I'm not looking at a trade that's like, oh, we're going to get a Rudy Goldberg type trade package, Kevin DeRene trade package, because that's not what the value of Zach Levine is. At this point, I just think the locker room needs to be shaken up. So if that means we get a couple young role players and maybe a protective first-round pick, I'm not going to love it, but I'll be okay with it because everybody's walking around with their head down. I'm not seeing half-fives. Like Steve Nash gave out a lot of half-fives in his time. I'm not seeing a lot of those here in Chicago. So I just want something to change, Shams. And I think the city will be happier when it happens. So speaking of the bulls again, who's on your Mount Rushmore? Yes. All-time bulls history. Obviously, we know about Jordan, we know about Ben, we know about Dee Rose. Yeah. What's your Mount Rushmore? MJ, MJ, MJ, MJ. So there is a, I think, official Mount Rushmore Chicago Bulls fan, but I have my own personal one. Of course, we're going to have MJ, Scotty, Derek Rose, and I have Jamal Crawford there because my first memory as an NBA fan or as a kid is watching Jamal Crawford go against Allen Iverson in a game in April. And I think Jamal had 30, AI had 40. And here in Chicago, at that time, if you didn't have cable, the only thing you could watch is Bulls basketball. And that two-year span when he was in Chicago, I was watching Knightley. And at that point, I had to be like eight years old. So he helped me fall in love with the game. So even though his time in Chicago was just a few years, it mattered a bunch to me. Oh, I love this Mount Rushmore. Shoms, who's yours? Yeah, right? I got to have Joe Keem know at the five in there, right? I love that. Give me him, Robin, Pippin, MJ. He's got to be Dee Rose.  He's got to be. What about Wilford? He's my favorite.  Like, do you retire those guys? Without actually getting the jewelry, I think it's a little bit tougher. I mean, Chicago has been pretty stingy with retiring jerseys historically. If it was up to me, I would, because that era was the best I got to see as a Bulls fan. Born in 96, I didn't really get to experience the second three-peat. So that, the couple of years we were the one seed and we thought we had a chance against Miami. Like that was really, really fun years for me. And to see like the one year where Dee Rose was out and Joe Keem know stepped up, ends up fourth in MVP voting. He has my heart, you know, as a Bulls fan, but I don't know if it really makes sense long term. Kenny, I'm about to ask a question. I can honestly say I've never asked anyone in my entire life. Okay. Why do you have Chris Paul as one of your favorite players of all time? So, okay. So growing up, like everybody, I hope dreams, you know? Moms is like five, two pops is a five, 10. So I'm like, I know I'm not gonna get really tall. And I saw Chris Paul as a guy that was watering six foot, dominating the game. I'm like, this is the guy that I want to play like. I wasn't in the gym enough to have the handle or the vision or the leadership. So I was like, okay, I'm going to take a step back as trying to play ball, but just admire ball. And Chris Paul is the guy. Like when he was in with the Hornets, like that was prime fandom for me growing up. And I watched, obviously didn't have cable. So watch all the highlights I could.  It's still fun for me at least. That's great. Okay, so Lemma, I have a theory. Like there are some players across all of sports that are just, they have some sort of a jinx or a curse and they're never going to get a ring. I've always had Chris Paul in that category for myself. Do you think he's going to get one before he's done? He ain't getting it this year. He not getting it this year. And you know what? Going into the season, I thought there was a possibility. They started off pretty hot. The first time in Steph Curry's career where they have a positive point differential when he sat, a lot of that was Chris Paul running with the second unit. I'm like, this could be the year. But these last two weeks, these last two to three weeks, just like it's not happening. And now again, historically he struggled with injury. These later parts of his career, we're seeing that pop up again. I don't think it's going to happen unfortunately, but everyone doesn't get a ring. Nope. You can still be great without that jewelry in my opinion. Kenny, what's your take on the feud between right now Chris Paul and Scott Fossil? We've seen again flare up over the next week. I think it's, I think it's comedy, honestly. Like, I can't help but to tune into those games if I know that, like, this is the only time that I care about who's officiating the basketball game, you know, for better or for worse. You know, we're here for the basketball players, but if we see Fossil there and Chris Paul there, we know something is going to happen. It's going to be an ejection. It's going to be an argument. It's going to be a Chris Paul loss historically. It's fun, but I understand the frustrations from everybody that's actually rooting for the team that Chris Paul is on. To see him get ejected for some words, it's not great. But again, the NBA is also like a drama, and that's part of it. I know. It's like wrestling when those two are... I never thought about that. It could be the Warriors pistons on a Wednesday of Scott Foster's ref, and I'm tuning in because I want to see the fireworks. Like, I know everyone's like, he shouldn't ref CP games, but you just said it. Like, it's kind of this added bonus. And then you got Draymond Green in all of it. So there's more drama to talk about. He finally gets back from the five-game suspension and then turns around the fourth quarter and gets a technical... There are so many differing opinions on Draymond and that team, but for you, for your money, for your opinion, is he too much of a distraction? It's easier to say that now than previous years, right? You were willing to put up with Draymond's antics because at the end of the day, when Draymond, Steph, and Clay played together, they were virtually unstoppable. Now that we see them slow down collectively, everybody except for Steph. Steph is doing his thing. See the rest of them slow down. You're like, are the antics really, really worth it at the end of the day? And part of the reason why Draymond Green was worth it because of the defense, right? The defense was all the world. And so far this season, we haven't seen that version of Dray. So it's like, this is a team that can't afford to not be one of the top six teams. The last time they were a playing team back in 2020, 2021 season, they had the one game to win and they lost both and they were on the outside looking in. Now they followed that up in an NBA championship, but this version of this team is not the same as then. So Draymond Green, it's hard to tell a player after 10 years of antics that he has to tone it back a little bit, but it is time that we get more just production on court and not the other stuff. The tech that led to what, a 13 to six runs and then a game winner, it hasn't been great. No. Yeah. Kenny, last week, I saw something I've never seen before in that Spurs Clippers game where this man Pop grabs the mic. This man Pop? Like it's a high school basketball game and tells the crowd to stop booing Kauai Lee. Do you think he, he should be, he can do that? Do you agree with it? Do you think booing is part of the game? Because I think it's bogus. I agree with the idea that if I am a paying customer, I should be able to boo. Like I think that's the, that's the maximum, right? We're not calling Kauai out of his name. We're not doing anything extra, but booing is just a part of sports in general. It could have been anybody at that line. This is the opposing team. I'm rooting for the Spurs. I'm going to boo. It was, it was different, right? There's nobody in the game, as far as coaching goes, that I respect more than Greg Popovitz, but this was just one. I was like the few times in Popovitz's career that I say I don't agree with them. Like let the fans that pay the money do what they can do. Come to think about it, when I played in Memphis, my home crowd booed me and my own coach didn't even tell them to stop. Can I, can I, you should have learned from that. Yeah, they probably should have booed me, but what about my own coach? You're not likable. Do you not get that? Fisdale, Jimmy Pickerstaff, I'm off you. Fisdale. I'm off though. They could have had my back. Jamie should have grabbed the mic. Yeah. You kidding me? My home crowd booed me? Maybe they agreed with the crowd. Oh, wow. Yeah, thanks. Where's that been? We need that more. Another home crowd boo. Oh, no, I kind of love that. I can't dodge it. Pop. So, Kenny, you've talked about surprising small market teams. We've seen the rise of the thunder this year.  It's pretty high. It's higher than I anticipated going into it. I think that I was a bit of a skeptic when it came to Chet Holmgren, not because of him himself, but just for the fact that he is a first-year player. Right? It's rare that we see a first-year player, especially at the center position, be as impactful as he has, where if you look at like, I'm also kind of like a numbers nerd for the people. I don't know if everybody agrees with that. But you look at like EPM, he's like six in the entire league, behind people like Shade, behind people like Yolkic and Embiid, and some of the best players in basketball, that he's been able to hold it down in his 2.2 blocks per game. It doesn't tell the full story of his defensive versatility. So I think that adding a guy like him, we finally get spacing for Shade Gears Alexander, something that he's been able to average 30 points per game without it. Like it's really, really high. Obviously, they got a cloud over the organization at the moment. But if they settled that out, I think this really is a team that other teams that are used to being in that situation are not going to be looking for to plan in the playoffs. Kenny, I got to say, man, I'm impressed. I love the way you dissect things. That was really well done. So now I want your opinion on the Kings, man. They're 10 and 7. They're 8-4 when Darren Fox plays. I didn't have on my top five point guard list. Lou did. Who's your top five point guards in the NBA right now? And the reason I didn't is because I counted Luca as a point guard. Yeah. As you should. As you should. You're putting me on the spot here. I think Steph Curry is still the best point guard in basketball. I guess I'll put Luca too. Right. If we're counting, shake yours, Alexander, I think that he has to be in this conversation too. After that, I think it gets a little bit more difficult. It's a little bit more difficult. Like Damian Lillard historically deserves to be in the spot and he's starting to put it together. So I may put him at four, just out of respect. Halliburton. After that. I think I won Tyrese. I think I won Max. Too many. I think I threw in Max. I think I panicked and put Max. And Kenny, in fairness, our top five list are usually seven long. So if you want to, if you want to go ahead and choose as well. Yeah. I always say, I always say the realm of top five instead of giving away top five. You know, he's not playing. He's the guy about him. Stop. Yeah. You can't reward. I would say something like Deira Fox is the top five ish point guard in basketball. There's Kyrie. There's Jalen Brunson. There's Kyrie. There's so many now. Brunson. It's crazy. Dre, y'all. The game's in a good spot. Nessie. Now we're back on the top 10 again. Timberwolves 13 and four. One of those teams that's starting off the season hot been fun to watch. But are you buying it? Are they for real? I feel vindicated because I am a guy that has always said that Rudy Gobert is the best defensive player in basketball. And when he got traded to Minnesota, I was like, I didn't love the trade because it was a lot of capital. It was a lot of good players. But I was like, this is a team that was like 20 second in defense last year. They were towards the bottom of the league in the fits of rebound and where Rudy Gobert does that. And last year it was a disappointment according to the talenters out for the off season. Then got injured in November. And they struggled. Like they ended up making a playoff spot but for the most part when you pay that much draft capital you pay all of that. That's not what your ceiling is. And now we're seeing that Rudy Gobert is injured last season. He was trying to adjust. And they're rolling. Do I buy it as like a real team that I'm appearing in the playoffs? We still have to see that. But if there's any team last year that played the Denver Nuggets well, it was them in the first round. Oh, nice. Like they have the pieces to maybe slow down that with the double big lineup. I'm gonna say because Anthony Edwards is such a stud and Carthony Towns is looking like a good version of himself. Again, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt. But there are a few teams that I might put above them come play off time. Kenny, another team I think taking the next step. The Orlando Magic. Eight wins in a row. Are they for real? Are you buying them as a home court advantage type of team? No, I'm not putting them in the home court advantage, but I'm buying them as a genuine playoff team. I think that the way Jamal Moseley had them guys playing, they have finally a identity. I think that when you have a rebuilding team, that's one of the hardest things to figure out. Who are we as a collective? And they're hanging their hat on the defensive side of the ball. And if you look at the last six or seven games they're doing this win streak. Palo is looking a lot better. Franz is looking a lot better.  Like, it's a fun team to watch, but they still do have things that they struggle with, like half court offense. And if we're talking about the playoffs, half court offense is extremely important. So I am enjoying that the Orlando Magic have finally turned the corner, but I'm not seeing them as a top four seed in the Eastern Conference. The early season fun stories so far. Oh, okay, negative for a second. There are some bad teams. We've talked about one already this morning. Who's the most unwatchable this season? It has to be Detroit. Oh man, that hurts. It has to be Detroit. I sat down and watched the tank bowls, what a lot of people are calling it, the Wizards versus the Pistons. Watch the entire thing. No cuts, no distractions. I'm like, I need to really figure out what's going on in Detroit. It's not pretty. It's Kay Cunningham trying to create for himself and others, but the people that he's creating for don't, they're not real threats. Or like even the guys that we consider positive three-point shooters now, like Isaiah Stewart, the other teams are not respecting because if he beats us, then that's okay. Well, I like watching the Sir Thompson play. He's a fun story, but for the most part, you got a guy like Monty Williams coming in to change the identity. This is not the direction they thought they were going to go in. They have won above 500 seasons since 2008, since Obama was in office. Like think about that. Lifetime ago. So it's a team that has been looking for change and they thought that they found it and they haven't. Well, you know what? I'm kind of glad you mentioned Washington there. The Jordan pool experience for you has been what? It's been amazing. It's been amazing. And not in the traditional sense, not in the Steph Curry, LeBron James sense amazing. Like you don't know what you're going to get any day of the week. Is he going to watch his coach draw a play in the huddle? Is he not? Is he going to blow kisses to the audience when they're down by 26? Is he throwing it off the backboard while down by 30? Like you never really know. It's like the rocks, just this crazy ride that no one can predict. I kind of love it. And for your money, the best league pass team is who? Best league pass team. So I don't want to pick one of the team. I don't want to pick the Lakers or the Boston Celtics. They have a bunch of games on national TV. I might still have to go with Sacramento, honestly.  The Montessor bonus playing as the hub. They were my number one league pass team last year.  They're winning it. I like that one. That was a good one. I mean, if you don't pick the Spurs, obviously. Kenny, we're going to have you on throughout the rest of the season. We very much are looking forward to it. Thanks for the time this morning. It's going to be good. Thank you, guys. Thank you. And we will be back with that man. Have your family in here. Run it up, run it back. Run it up, run it back. Run it up, run it back. Run it up, run it back. Run it up, run it back. Sean, something that you're here for us. This is just a fun highlight part where some people, you know, kind of look like fools. No. There you go. Boom. I love this kid, Choms. He can play, and he's so young. They drafted him in the first round, and he's already proven he can be a starting point guard. He's been one of the bright spots for Utah. This is a team that wants to contend. That's fun. In real time, that's something. You'd like to see your point guard do that. Yeah, that angle's good. I like it a lot. Joel, oh yes. Two monsters. What? That's a nice block. I know you have to go up and under action there, you know. He's like coming down. I like, like, meet me at the rim. There's two centers. Why is the block happening below the net? Look, you can only deal with what you're given, and he was given that. It's a good deal. And he swatted it to the stands. I don't know what else you want. I'd like him to kick it to Dilo over there. All right, we got two more big ones. Possible rookie of the year versus defensive. Oh. See, this is going to. Let's give Rudy Gobert some flowers. Yeah, he's playing well. Shout out, Eddie Gonzalez. Rudy Gobert to the move. Shout out, Eddie Gonzalez. That's right. You know what? This is going to happen to Chet a lot, because he's light in the loafs. He's going to get bullied down there. This is going to happen quite a bit. Are we going to, we're just doing light in the loafs now? You don't like that? I don't know if we're going to let that one stick. Um, you know what? That court's not awful, by the way, for the record. Shingoo. Alperin. Okay, yes. That's my favorite one so far. Kyrie, you played with LeBron, who patented this block.  Yeah, but this is pretty awesome. Look at Shingoo. What can't he do? I didn't know he had this. He's got it all. He's got it all, Shoms. Alperin. Scotty Barnes. Look at you to try to take the charge right here. Do not say anything about you to. We have learned our lessons. Oh, the right foot, dude. See, I think the Euro step makes it even better. And then the fact that he's so lengthy, these guys barely get off the ground and dunk. Yeah, the dunk alone doesn't do it for me. It's the Euro. Yeah, I agree. All the side step. Also, dunking off your right foot, it's just, it's harder. It's more impressive. I've always thought so. Coiletter. Spurgrate. Boo. Who's that, Javel? Oh. Yeah, let's see what he can do. I like, see, I like this because the fact that he's, he's still doing this. He's back. Of course he's still doing it. He is back. And when you boo him, he does it more. So technically, he should be happy that he's getting booed. Is it back to back 30 point games for Kawhi? Yeah. Stay hot. I get a blow right by Lyles. Look, I've, I've moved on. My, my anger has subsided, but I can't speak for everyone else. They're mad at him. Of course they're mad at him. Yeah. Come on.   You buying that, it's time. While on Gilbert Arenas' podcast, Rashad McCant said that, quote, real Hoopers know that Kevin Durant is going to go down as a better basketball player than LeBron. You buying that? No, he's not. I understand what he's saying. Kevin Durant is like a Rucker Park smooth silky Hooper. Like he is a absolute. Yeah. Like it's pretty. It's smooth. He offensively, he's got a deeper bag than LeBron. But no, the, the, you've never once heard the debate. Who's the greatest of all time? LeBron or Katie. It's LeBron or Jordan. I love Kevin Durant. I think he's an unbelievable talent. At his size, what he does being seven foot tall and plays the way he plays is unheard of. But no, LeBron. A better basketball player. No, LeBron is, no. LeBron is a better basketball player. But I, as a Hooper, I get it. I would rather watch Kevin Durant play basketball. Okay, there it, okay. I think it's, it's, it's sexier to see him do his thing than like LeBron bully through guys. Sexier, it's a sexier watch. All right, maybe he should say it that, that way next time. Although that would be weird. Yeah. Paul Pierce. It's always Paul Pierce. It's like the same group of dudes that keep giving us these quotes, but here it is. The best American player in the league is Jason Tatum. Said I'm just looking around. I think he's past Kevin Durant. I think he's past LeBron. The only argument left is Steph. I don't disagree. Also, Joel Embiid now is on Team USA. So if he's, if he's full American, I'm, he's the best player in the NBA. He's just MVP. We have to say American born, maybe. Well, he's on Team USA. Listen, it's not really a Tatum is up there. He's a top five. Maybe he's top five. Can't just change where you're born. It's Steph. It's Joel, because he is American Team USA player. And then it's probably Tatum. I think Tatum has now currently a better basketball player than Katie and LeBron. Hold up. Wait, hold up. So he's buying Paul Pierce. No, because I think I still am taking Steph or Joel over him. Okay, the Joel of it all. He's on Team USA. He's an American basketball player. Okay, but I wasn't born in this country. So I can't say I'm an American born person. You are. You're American. Okay. I'm technically an American now, but I'm not born here. All right. What do you think Tatum is better than Steph Curry, LeBron and Katie? No, I think I like Steph Curry the most. See what I figured it out. All right. Guess what? Who guessed who the next guy is that said something? Kevin Garnett. Had this to say about Anthony Davis. A.D. looks 40 years old. When I watch Anthony Davis play, he looks like me. Chandler, you buy it. He's putting up 40 and 20. I mean, I understand again, where he's coming from, he always leaves you wanting more. He's always on the ground, right? You don't know like when he goes down, is it as torn Achilles or he just get poked in the eye. You have no idea. So it kind of moves like that, like he's a bit older, but I know I'm not buying it. He's still a lead player in the NBA. He still can dominate a game. He is literally the best player on the Lakers right now. Now these guys are drunk. You know what they're doing? They're reaching that age where you look at other people and you think you've deluded yourself into thinking they look the same as you. And you can just say whatever you want. You just don't care. Yeah. Well, that also that. Yeah. That she looks just like my age. No, she doesn't. We're taking a quick break here. When we come back, we got to talk a little Kyrie. What did he do now? When run it back returns. All right. There's a play here between Kyrie and Dylan Brooks. I want to show you right now. I just, I already know this is going to be great because of the two names we just said. But here it is. I want your thoughts. You know what? I saw this play and I was like, oh, that review they're going to win. They reviewed this play and lost. If you watch Dylan Brooks right hand, he gives them a little tug right there. I think he sells it. He does sell it. But it's done. They reviewed the play. It's a barrel. He barely like goes like this. Yeah. But it's going this way. I think he gives a little tug right here. It can get you off balance. And it gets him off balance. I think I'm always off balance. It looks like he got punched in the face, but it's a foul. It's a foul. It's definitely a sell.  This was his, he fouled out because of this call. Dang. And they reviewed it. Dang. And he is not American. He's Canadian. Yeah. Canadian born and Canadian. He's not on the run scene. We're going to have a fight about this for the rest of the season. Fabulous. All right. That's it for us. We will be back Monday. Bright and early. Safe weekends to all.


I've learned a lot from the sessions that we have just concluded, and there are three emerging macroeconomic issues that I would like to focus on, partly informed by that discussion and partly colored by my immediate past responsibility as a central bank governor. So I think the first issue is some worries about what's going to happen to aggregate demand in supporting growth, global growth, as the share of labor is declining, and we heard that from Kaushik today. As labor-saving technology and innovation is becoming very dominant, and also as inequality in sometimes within countries is also rising. We are used to taking for granted that as long as we supply demand will be there, and demand is intermediated through what labor receives because robots don't eat, robots don't wear clothes, it's only humans, and once they receive income, that's the way they also become part and parcel of making sure that what is supplied is also demanded. Now there was a very strong call for redistribution as a way of making sure that aggregate demand is still keeping pace with the growth in productivity and the growth in output. Now from a caldorian sense, we have always thought, you know, higher savings and investment is always good for growth. That always assumed that demand is not an issue, or at least it would have assumed the sales law which is supply creates its own demand, but we know that from the processes that we are experiencing now regarding inequality and labor share decline that could be an issue. Now it is important, a large part of the global value chain developments that brought Asian miracles did not just benefit the Asians, it also benefited a number of our countries including the commodity boom because we do feed into that production process and it is only in looking at that interlinkage on a global scale that that concern for demand is as important for China as it is for Tanzania. And I'm pleased also to note from the discussions we had that even the IMF now has also come to terms with the fact that in fact two major findings which really grabbed me say that lower net inequality drives faster and more durable growth. That's the finding they shared with us here and that the combined direct and indirect effects of redistribution are pro-growth. And with that institution which seemed to be distant in relation to all the conversation that was happening elsewhere coming that close it gives me hope that redistribution will actually get back to being a major issue and it is as we know the UN SDGs as well as Africa 2063 have all focused on inclusion as an important means to development not just as an end. Number two is the challenges we're facing now with the end of QE. And first of course is this exodus of capital as it returns to higher rates both in US and in Europe and it also goes back to safety. Of course developing countries still present a good if you want destination in terms of returns but certainly the end of QE has put a major challenge and we are now forced to do fiscal consolidation and we are doing that sometimes prematurely. And of course we are facing the challenges of debt sustainability and I wanted to focus particularly on the issues that relate to debt sustainability. First it is true that during the time when everybody was enjoying quantitative easing it wasn't just the developed countries as they were adjusting to the global financial crisis. We also took part in it as developing countries because credit was quite low cost. We borrowed but this time we are borrowing short in terms of maturity and pretty high cost which presents its own set of problems. With the advent of the QE the first challenge is that rolling over this debt now has become much more expensive. We borrowed typically when it was five six seven percent as we roll over now when they mature fairly quickly we are doing it at eight nine percent and for some countries this is already proving way beyond whatever that they can manage. I hear of countries that are already having their airports their railways at ransom because the contracts for those debts typically had put these as collateral and this is quite serious. It's the type of issue now that I don't have to take care of central banking again that I've avoided now but my colleagues some of them are here I think they have got to deal with that particular problem. Not only is there all over cost rising also there are bullet payments that need to be made and very often nobody has thought about putting a sinking fund in advance so that they can actually handle those bullet payments but it is now advisable that everybody looks at the profile in relation to when that debt falls due. A related problem is what we call as maturity mismatch. A good number of our major projects that are funded with short-term credit are actually still under construction when you actually have to start to repayment. So you don't have a revenue stream flowing from the investment and yet you have to look for sources now grabbing from other possible sources in order to be able to cover that repayment. This is a solvency challenge and it is an important challenge that again we need to address and the last characteristic of this debt profile now is what we call as currency mismatch. We have gone very big in terms of investment in infrastructure. These are non-tradables. They don't directly yield foreign exchange but they're funded with borrowed funds that have to be serviced in foreign exchange. So there is also a liquidity challenge that countries have got to deal with. Now I thought of highlighting both these new aspects of the debt challenge so that it's not just whether the DSA, the debt sustainability analysis tells you you are okay. You have got to look at first the debt dynamics and it is true that for majority 17 out of the 45 countries actually have real interest rates in Africa. Have real interest rates that exceed real growth. This means you are debt to GDP ratio is certainly going on the trend of worsening. So we have got to look at that dynamics and then we have got to look at the structural characteristics of the debt both in terms of maturity and also in terms of currency. Thank you.


Now we're actually in the construction project right now here within the Zoo Interchange. I'm a 2004 graduate with the civil engineering program at UWM and right now I work at HNTB Corporation. I've been there for 12 years. I'm a transportation engineer. I chose to go to UWM based upon its reputation in the industry of civil engineering. I knew UWM was going to be a good choice for me. The Zoo Interchange is the busiest interchange in the entire state. Over 300,000 vehicles a day. And when you know the work that you're going to do is going to improve safety for all those travelers and get them through the interchange, more quickly it's going to be a huge accomplishment. I had a really cool internship while I was at UWM. I was the traffic engineer on the Market Interchange Reconstruction Project in downtown Milwaukee. At the time it was the largest project the Wisconsin DOT ever undertook and I was fortunate enough to get an internship at HNTB to work on that project. One of the benefits of going to UWM is the strong industry partnerships the university has some of them with Fortune 500 companies. My example when I was in college through a corporate partnership a speaker from HNTB Corporation came and spoke to our technical writing class and that speaker talked a little bit about his job and where he worked and I heard that I said well that's a place I want to work. After that class I talked to that person, got to learn a little bit more about the company I work at now and then eventually I was able to get an internship there and you look at what's been built in Milwaukee, some of the most iconic landmarks, the Market Interchange, the New Art Museum in Milwaukee, Miller Park, the new skyscraper going up for Northwestern Mutual. Those are all projects that UWM engineers played a large role in and that's what makes me proud as a UWM graduate. I'm Andy Kowski and I'm a Milwaukee engineer.


which was specifically referenced in the charge. But second, just because to bring up mention of the process in terms of how we fill the spots on any given Boarding Committee and that like we don't get to see the applicant pool. And so while I do trust that the town manager is taking all of this into consideration and giving us his best decision, it would be nice and helpful to have that process be reexamined. Pam Rooney. Thank you. Councillor Walker covered many of the points I was going to make. I was going to ask, in addition, if as part of the process of recommending something, we've asked a number of times to see the people that actually put in a community activity form. I think that could be added to this summary very quickly. It could be at the bottom of it and just say the following people submitted caps for consideration for this position. I do know Bruce. I know him well and he is a terrific guy. He's a very, very smart architect, knows that zero. But as Alicia just mentioned, he has gone to just about every committee meeting without having to be necessarily an appointed member of the committee. And I would hope, no offense to Bruce Colum, that he would continue to add his expertise but allow a voice of someone else, particularly a parent, to show up on this committee with a voice. Thank you. Anna. I'd like to ask the TSO chair or vice chair to talk a little bit more about their discussion regarding this appointment. I know when we, sorry, when I have it open, it talks about the folks who were on the committee who interviewed the applicants. But I'm curious to know if TSO had some of these same questions, and if so, how they were responded to. Andy. That's why I had my hand up to expand a little bit as chair of the committee. And I know that Jennifer has her hand up too, and she's also a chair of the committee, so she may add. I want to come back to Councilor Lord, but go ahead, Andy. But in any event, to answer your question, if you read the report that the committee provided, it made reference to the fact that there was a public comment that was offered. And we didn't say who it was, but I think that at this point I will acknowledge that it was Jennifer Schaou who offered the comment tonight. And she stated clearly that there was at least one parent and she named the parent. So we had the full set of facts before the committee. The town manager discussed it, and his response was that we were now getting to a stage where the design of the building is pretty well set and we're into the construction details, so that it's a different stage of the process and that at this stage of the process to have Mr. Koldem as a member was very valuable to the committee because his expertise was particularly important in the details of taking the design which had been developed with the committee to date, which did have the additional parent on the committee. And so we took that very much to heart. And the other thing that I wanted to disclose, and then I'll sort of stop after that, is that there was reference made in the report that there was personal knowledge of Mr. Koldem's expertise on that. And I was chair of a committee that included original sponsors of the first version of the net zero energy bylaw, which the select board felt was problematic and select board members who were considering, gee, we'd really like to do this, but we want to get it done right. And it was a really good committee process. Mr. Koldem was not a member of that committee, but he did provide great technical assistance to us and to me as chair of that committee. So the reference in the report was my experience. And I've just related to you what that experience was. So I think that kind of summarizes our discussion. And then we came to the vote, which was unanimous with one member absent. Councilor Lord. Speaking of one member absent, it was I, unfortunately, I had a mandatory work meeting, but I had received three emails that morning. And it gave me pause because I do greatly appreciate Bruce. I spent a year going to those meetings as Mindy Dome's special project consultant. And he taught me so much in his comments every time. And also, how we expand our town politics and inclusion is to prioritize, maybe someone who doesn't have the expertise, but is a parent and they're going to bring up other things because, as I understand, there's already an architecture architect on the, so had I been able to attend TSO, I would have hoped to open this dialogue. And I don't know if you can add another slot or other things. But yeah, just as we move forward, it would be nice to find ways to be more expansive and inclusive. Thank you. Jennifer. Yeah, so I was a member of TSO, and I raised the concern. And we discussed it, I'd say, at a fair amount of length during the meeting that my concern is about the process. And I don't know if it can, of how, why the town manager appointed committees are so different than the council appointed committees. And that's just the way our process is. And I don't know if that's something that could go back, could be referred at some point to GOL to take up or if that's something that would come before the Charter Review Committee. But the three committees that the council appoints members to finance the planning board and the zoning board of appeals is completely transparent. I mean, we, the, no, we don't, yeah, the, we don't, they don't, the community activity forms are not disclosed, but everyone knows who the candidates are. The statements of interest are publicly posted. We interview the candidates in a public meeting. We do the deliberation to select them publicly. And again, it's not, this is the process we've given to the town manager. It's not, it's not something he's chosen to do. But if we could look at why that process is so different for it doesn't quite make sense to me that there's a different process. And one is very public and transparent because it's the council and that the other is not. I ultimately, I did vote for the candidate that the town manager and his committee recommended. And I, you know, was also impressed. You know, it, it, I took into account that the chair of the elementary school building committee had also been part of the process as well as a representative, a resident from the, I think it's the resident advisory board. But again, so my, and the town manager may want to address that, but he in TSO talked about that with this appointment, he still felt that there was, there was diversity among the elementary school building committee, but my concern was with the process. Thank you. Councilor Walker. Yeah, so I just wanted to reiterate again that part of my concern with this was what was recommended in the charge for the composition of the committee. And we're missing one of those spots that was specifically mentioned in the charge, but also just to push back a little bit on the perspective that Andy shared, because I know we're moving into the construction phase and it's important to have the perspective of architects, which we do have with the design team and with another member of the committee. But I think again, the really important perspective is the on the ground perspectives of the youth in the school and of the parents and the teachers and the staff in the buildings. And I think that these are unique perspectives that can be provided by parents of children who will attend the school. So just like a couple of examples, just because my two of my three are going to be at the new school and are currently at Fort River right now. Some of the things that we're seeing is like changes in the pickup and drop off and how we're allowed to drive into the building starting already. These are the information we cannot get from certain members who are not parents of kiddos who are gonna be in the school and how that is playing out on the ground for example, my kiddos who have special needs and who exit the building in a certain way. I was told by staff that that's gonna have to change because of how construction's happening now and they are not sure exactly how that's gonna look, but they'll follow up with me when we start changing the directions in which the cars have to drive in and out of the parking lot, which we'll start within the next week or so. I also picked up my daughter from school today and she said she was sad and I was like, what happened? They took down our swings, we have no swings. Like these are on the ground perspectives that we're missing. Like I only know these things because my kids are in the school, my kid is in kindergarten. We're not hearing kindergarten voices or how it's affecting the kids who are actually learning in these buildings while construction is taking place and my kids only speak for themselves. So I'm sure that parents of other kids would have different feedback. And so I think that that's very valuable for me to have as a parent and also because parents have different parent groups and friends because I have contact with some of the kiddos who are some of the parents of kiddos who are in my kids class, but I don't know every parent at the school. I don't know their perspectives. I don't know their experiences and we all have very diverse experiences. And I think it's really, really incredibly important to have that diversity of experience of the folks who are experiencing these changes on the ground. Kathy. And I see my thoughts. We're at a stage in the building. We're one of, whether you call them technical or not, but one of the issues is how much energy the building is gonna use and coming up with a way that the staff understands how to assess it on an energy budget to achieve net zero. That subcommittee has been missing someone with an expertise on net zero buildings, on energies and working with users of buildings. And Bruce has a unique set of skills that speaks to that. And in terms of people on the current committee who have children, we have at least three who have children in the Fort River School building right now. And two, Alicia and another member have a child in Wildwood and a child in Fort River. And they're in different programs. So their input has been extremely valuable. The one member we lost had kids in Crocker Farm, so wasn't a current parent, but I think right now we're at a stage where this extra knowledge is critical and we would welcome any kind of outreach. We were really looking for efforts to bring people to the forums, but we don't have forums that we're gonna be setting up now. The next steps really are getting the word out that this is happening. And Alicia, there was in the early site package, we went through what was gonna happen there. It probably wasn't laid out as thoroughly, but part of it was that whole area where the swings and everything were going to remove. And there's been an effort to get that through the Fort River principal system to get out to the kids and to change. Jonathan Salvin, the other architect, has a child in the school. So we've got a nice mix of people that are giving us feedback, including the principals. So at this point, I think this is an addition that will be really valuable to us. And I must say, looking way back at the charge, at the very beginning, I would have loved to have a civil engineer. We were dealing with some pretty tricky issues with someone who really knew wetlands and knew structural. And our architects had to reach out to the people they knew who were those builders, because architects. So some of those skills, because it's a building committee, are particularly useful. So I think that was the issue here. So we had several candidates, not the one that people have mentioned, but several have attended literally every single meeting of the school building committee, have been reading the diagrams and coming to subcommittee meetings. So they're there. And so there's no startup time. And there's been a big difference with some of the people because the school committee membership, who the school committee was sending, the person who comes, you have to say where we are, what this is, do the stage you're on. So having someone who comes in already knowing where we are and can read the diagrams, we're coming to 90% construction paper with very detailed architectural drawings. And just take one more look. Given that 11 o'clock, I'm gonna move to the question. That's all I'm saying is that was part of the rationale for this choice. Councilor Walker, do you mind if we just go ahead and move the question? One more comment, please. I just am trying to notice what's going on. Councilor Walker. Well, I don't disagree with anything Kathy just said, but I did wanna share just one more story because you said something about someone who's gonna help get out the word. And I don't think that a lot of us are fairly aware of how unaware the public actually is that this is happening. So just another quick story. My cousin, whose kid also goes to Fort River, her car is broken. I've been bringing her son to school every day for the past two weeks. They started cutting down the schools. He asked me the other day, why are there no trees? I mean, sorry, they started cutting down the trees, not the schools. He asked me, why are there no trees? And I said, they're getting ready to build the new school and he had no idea. He is a student in second grade. And my cousin, who is his mother, he said, you need to tell my mom, she doesn't know. And when we got there, I said, hey, Niko really wanted me to tell you that they're cutting down the trees. And she didn't know my own family member and I'm on the elementary school building committee. She had no idea and her kids in the school. So like outreach, it's gonna be critically important, especially to families who do not speak English. And it is, again, my understanding that one of those parents was another, spoke multiple languages. And so how are we really gonna engage the community members who are unaware if we're not bringing in members who are in the school community? Okay, the question has, the motion has been made and seconded. We're going to begin the vote. Pam Rooney? No. Councilor Ryan? Aye. Kathy Shane? Yes. Andy Steinberg? Aye. Jennifer Tob? Yes. Councilor Walker? No. Pat DeAngeles? Aye. Anna Devlin-Gothier? Aye. Councilor Rete? Aye. Lynn Griesper is an aye. Councilor Haneke? Aye. Bob Hagner? Aye. Councilor Lord? Nay. The motion passes. I'm now going to make some additional adjustments to our agenda tonight. Councilor Vice President, Vice President, Anna Devlin-Gothier and I have agreed that we will postpone liaisons until the first. Can I make a quick note on that? Yes. I only heard from three of you. Please, if you sent me an email, I'm going to check again, but by my creation of the memo, I'd only heard from three of you. So I will double check again, email me again just in case. And that's it. Okay. Sorry. My brain just stopped working. The committee reports again, to the extent that it needs to be said, CRC, Pam Rooney? Thank you. Just very quickly, Nusant-Quailaw was sent to KP Law for legal review and sent to GOL for review itself. And the big news is that after two years, the CRC is bringing forward rental registration by-law and regulations and a fee structure to go with it. And look forward to presenting an overview of that on, I believe, April one. The Nusant-Quailaw will come back a bit later after GOL has had the opportunity to review it. Thank you. Elementary school building committee, anything else? No. Thank you. Finance committee, Bob Hegner. I just wanted to mention that in our report, we also discussed the policy on disposition of surplus properties. So people, if they have questions about that, please just email me and I'll be happy to answer your questions. And that will come before the council, I believe, in one of our April meetings. GOL, Anna? GOL will be meeting this week. And we have yet to have determined the pool for either the finance committee or the charter review committee sufficient. We need more people to put their names forward for these two committees. We will continue this as you all know because you received the CAFs. We have not received any new CAFs. So since the last time GOL has met, so please do some outreach to your folks. Please let them know. We've got vacancies on the finance committee for a non-voting member and the charter review committee for all members. Please, I don't know how else to beg for this, but please, we need applicants really badly. Thank you. Oh, sorry, other than that, we've got other things too. We're going to be starting in on the review process for the town manager evaluation. And we have some proclamations. Okay. Jones Library, Pam Rooney, Paul Bachman. Pam, Paul? Yeah, there's no updates on that. I'm sorry? No updates. Okay. There have been no zero meeting. Okay. TSO, Andy and George Ryan. Yeah, the only thing that was additional that we really spent time on at the last meeting that was not included in the report because I had to do it with such a quick turnaround was the discussion presentation by the superintendent of Public Works and support for the proposal on redesign of sidewalks and crosswalks along the section of North Pleasant Street that runs from the roundabout of the university up to the point where work has already been done south of Pine Street. And George reminded me that there needs to be a forum on the subject of a major work of that type. So I think that I would do two things. One is that if you are at all interested in what is proposed there to look at the TSO packet for the last meeting and if there are any questions that you have about it then let a member of the committee know and I will take it up with the committee as to whether we wanna reopen the process to allow time for getting more public input through the forum process. So I guess that's my report. Thank you. Paul, town manager. Thank you. I do wanna mention a few things. One, first, we're really thrilled that Camille Therriak will be starting on April 8th as our new director of community responders. We will be holding a reception for her the interim leadership team is organizing a reception for her later that week and you'll all be invited. I hope you can come get a chance to meet with her. Kathy already mentioned the Fort River Elementary School groundbreaking March 26th at 3.30. You're all able to be there. The senior center open house is in the packet April 8th. I think whatever the date is. And then lastly, the police chief search we're planning on the search committee is planning inviting the two finalists to town on April 2nd. There will be an interview. There'll be a open session with each of them in different times, not obviously together. And so we'll, I learned that later late this afternoon so that we'll get that word out so people can set their schedule to meet the two finalists. Are there any questions of the town manager? Okay, we're going to town counselor comments. I got my report in, it was late. I invite any questions now or later. I do have one correction and that is rank choice voting was not reported out. We will not know until tomorrow whether it's been extended or reported out. And Anna, you had a report as well. I did. My report also included the information about the rank choice voting. So this is the first VP memo. Please take a look at it. Let me know if this is going to be at all of interest or helpful. Basically what I'm trying to do is track the bills that we've put in or have expressed an interest on or have mentioned in a resolution. I know I am missing some. I am very aware. Please tell me if you've seen one that I am missing and I will add it. And if there's one that you have interest on in and you want me to just keep tabs on it as well, please let me know. This list should be shifting. I heard back from one of our state reps staffers today on some information that they have about some of these bills that just hasn't been updated on the website yet. So continually going, but let me know if you want something added. And just I wanted to make a quick note. Lynn and I are going to meet at some point this week to discuss how we bring topics forward to our state delegation. They've asked for a more streamlined, prioritized process. And so we may need to shift just asking for general topics to bring forward because they'd rather, they want to hear about things that the council has voted on or taken a stand stance on in some way versus necessarily something that counselors might just be interested on their own. So more coming on that, but Lynn and I are going to meet to figure out the best way to seek input and make sure folks are heard while also respecting the time and energy of our state delegation. Great. I also do want to note one thing in that is that the present open meeting law that allows virtual meeting expires at the end of March. We made a specific point with our delegation to say, hey, you need to do something. But for any of you that are noticing meetings that are going to be like the first week of April until we know that this has been extended, there is no virtual option. Okay, thank you. Councilor Comments or future agenda items? Councilor Ryan. I know it's late and I'm asking your indulgence, but I have some things I need to say. I was deeply upset by what transpired two weeks ago. Please speak closer to the mic. I was deeply upset by what transpired two weeks ago at the Amherst Middle School. Not by the period of public comment in which many of those present spoke with passion and at times eloquence and respected our request to keep comments to a two minute limit. I agreed with the council decision to extend the comment period beyond what was allowed by our rules so that everyone who came out that night and who wished to speak had the opportunity to do so. What upset me was what happened after that. The same courtesy and respect that we showed those who came to speak their minds to us as I believe was their right was not reciprocated. The audience had its time to speak. Now we, as their elected representatives, needed our time to deliberate. But when the council initially took actions that many in the audience disapproved of, the meeting rapidly became chaotic. At that point, we should have adjourned, but we did not. I was upset with myself first and foremost that I did not act more forcefully and insist that we cease deliberations. While I did repeatedly say that we must stop, that was lost in the noise and confusion. But I still had the opportunity to at least call for a vote to adjourn, but I did not do that. And for that I blame myself. I'm also deeply disappointed in us collectively. We could not hear each other. I could barely hear myself think, and yet we went on. We were not deliberating in any meaningful sense of the word. We repeatedly violated our own rules, spoke over each other, spoke without recognition, engaged in back and forth with the audience. And I myself was guilty of all of those things. Something very similar happened in Northampton when its city council came to vote on a resolution on the same issue, but it was handled very differently. When the audience repeatedly interrupted their deliberations and refused to desist, the meeting was adjourned. They reconvened two days later on Zoom, allowed yet another 90 minutes of public comment, and then they were able to talk to each other. The resolution, by the way, passed by a nearly unanimous vote with one abstention. One of the most important things we do as a body is to deliberate. I value hearing what each of you has to say. I often learn more from those with whom I disagree on an issue than I do from those with whom I'm in agreement. Tonight was a good example. But on that night, I did not get to hear your thoughts. As I said, I could barely hear myself think, let alone anyone else. Going forward, I hope that if something like this ever happens again, we will have the foresight and the courage and the wisdom to declare in a German and come back when we can, in fact, hear and be heard and fulfill one of our most important and sacred duties. Deliberation. Kathy? This time I won't speak at length, but when you just said that our state representatives would like the council to have thought about something and targeted it, I would like us to target the charter formula. We spend, send about 3.2 million, 3.3 million each year to charter schools, which is $21,000 net. In contrast, we only send $5,000 when a child choices out. If we even spent just half of that, the million dollar hole wouldn't exist in our budget. So really thinking of putting a hard court press on changing the way the formula works to the disadvantage, not necessarily saying good charter schools shouldn't exist, but the state could open up a line for charter schools. I think we need to take a group stance on it because it's a long-term problem and solving it would solve it year after year after year in a positive way. Thank you, Councillor Walker. Sorry, can I just respond really briefly, Kathy? Sure. Kathy, if you'd like to get together and write a resolution in support of that, I think it's something the council could vote on and then have really good standing to bring forward. I think yes, but I'd like us to have a specific thing we think should have happened rather than we should just say it's unfair. I'd like to go behind that and I'll put together a background paper and anyone who wants to help, Annie has already offered to lay out what the issues are. Okay, great, thank you. Councillor Walker. Yeah, I just wanted to take a quick second to address some of the things that happened during public comment and while I know we can't speak directly to comments that we had tonight, and I know that we cannot cut people off because freedom of speech, I'm hoping that we might be able to determine as a rule of practice of the council that if something like that occur again, we might make a statement after public comment that could read something along the lines of we do not condone hate or hate speech and we value each and every resident regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other way in which they choose to identify themselves because this space in general is not very welcoming. It's scary for people who have never come to comment for us before and I can only imagine what it might have felt like to proceed a comment like that. And so I hope that I know we cannot cut them off but maybe we can say something just reaffirming that like we value everyone. Councilor Walker, I could not agree more and would ask that GOL look into drafting such a statement. Councilor Lord. Thank you. A quick point of clarification. The virtual option that goes away, does that include for subcommittees as well? It does. Lynn, it expires in 2025, not 2024. I thought it was 2024. I hope you're right. I checked the open meeting log website because that started me quite a bit. Thank you. It's 2025. Thank you. Thank you. I just assumed it was one year at a time and I know it's in the one of the other bills, but thank you, Councillor Ate. I'd also like to address what we had as the meeting a couple of Mondays ago. I'm going to focus on two points. And the first is going to deal with the environment of that meeting. The second is going to speak about the process. I'd like to add my voice to all the voices that have spoken up during that meeting and the description of the events that occurred in that meeting. I'd like to provide a different perspective. And this evening we've had a lot of discussions about diversity. I hope my voice can be considered one that provides that diversity for the proceedings that occurred. I looked at what the lawyers had to say about the meeting and I've read the comments of those who were both sponsors and those who didn't support what was sponsored. And one of the things that seems to be lacking is a sense of what the environment was on that meeting on Monday. I'd like to read what was written by the lawyers. If you go to the page where KP Law had its comments, point number 13 speaks about the fact that there was something like an adjournment but actually no one stood up and no one left. And the idea that could be gotten from that is that all the counselors who were there understood that moment to be just something that was passing. In fact, if you go still to what was written by the lawyers, number five says the audience grew more boisterous. I checked what the word boisterous means in a dictionary. It means, actually, let's just think about it like a bunch of fans at a Boston Red Sox game. That wasn't what I saw there. It was serious enough for me that I had to have a recording when President Lean called for the adjournment. The noise was so much I was concerned about my safety. I had to have a recording. And it was a recording for about six minutes. I sat down and I wrote down my thoughts and the word that I used was melee and pandemonium. And then I'm reading comments by members of the community that speak about passion and describe what happened as just an example of democracy. That's concerning to me. By the way, in February, during the CRC meeting, three members of the Zoom audience spoke for about 15 minutes. And they used course words during public comments. And it was serious enough that during that meeting and even days afterwards, I was receiving comments from people asking how I felt. Someone tossed the N-word, but I wasn't even sure it was directed at me. But this was during public comments. But on the meeting on Monday, the words that were used extended beyond public comments. They extended to the very discussions that we were having. I'd like to say to the members of this town that that is not the kind of environment that we want. Neither is it the kind of model that we should be expressing for those we want to be politically active, the children that come after us. I've taught in college. I've taught political science. That is not what I taught my students. That is not what I would want anyone to take away from the kind of work that we do. What the environment does, and this now goes to process, is that it assaults deliberation. And what exactly is deliberation? It is thinking aloud, but it's thinking in public. One of the benefits of the council is that we get to hear not just others speak, but others think. There's a lot that we don't know. Maybe I might speak for myself. There's a lot that I don't know. For example, this evening, I voted to abstain from one of the votes. The reason being, I couldn't give in what was said, understand completely what happened. That's with regard to the debts, 1.5 million. The environment that we had then was hostile. Because it prevented us from deliberating. Think about it. This evening, they were conversations, but at least shouts outside the door. That is, they were not physically in this room. And yet we had to take a recess. It was supposed to be five minutes. It clocked at more than seven minutes. Why? Because in a hostile environment, it is hard to express yourself. And what ends up happening is that some people can decide to keep their thoughts to themselves. If we are truly representatives, then we want to express our votes and express the reasoning for our votes. What happened on that Monday made it hard for me to do so. And I'm hoping, I'm pleading with our community, not to downplay the corrosive nature of disrupting the council and the deliberation that goes into whatever the council does. Thank you. Andy. Yeah, I too want to just say something related to the fourth this month. However, I was going to be really brief because it's mostly a disclosure that I decided to write an article about my thoughts regarding that particular evening and submit it to the Amherst current for publication. And it is going to be published possibly tomorrow. And I wanted to just make a public statement that I have done that so that it's out there and to this group and any public who are watching the meeting. And I'll let the article speak for itself. Pat. I just want a clarification. I just want a clarification because one conversation I had, I was also in that CRC meeting and it was the N-word. And there was also some really protest anti-Semitic pornographic comments that we had to sit through. It was a horrible, horrible experience. And when I asked you, you know, you said we don't have to listen to pornography.  But you also said we didn't have to listen to hate speech, I thought. And so the N-word repeated over and over again should have been stopped. And it seems to me that we had that kind of, we had that kind of comment today. And it wasn't stopped. So I'm just really trying to get a clarification here. What are the guidelines? And is it okay also, if I have to say the rest of it, I was gonna say right now. I'm more than glad to share with the group in the near future tomorrow. A piece that we were provided by with our attorney over this very issue. And the bottom line is there is no perfect solution. It is horrendous. And I have spent a lot of time on trying to figure out when we can stop it and when we can't. And when we do stop it, are we opening ourselves to a freedom of speech lawsuit? And it is not an easy one.  Absolutely love to have shut them down. And yet that's not the advice I've received from the attorney. Can I, as a counselor, turn off my sound? And if, can we all do that? Yes. But the problem is that how do you turn off your sound versus?  Sitting here, we can't. Okay, and then one more clarification. No. I know. I got it. The pornographic, can we stop that? That is a little more clear, but not as, but yes, it's a little more clear. I am totally and completely open to any and all suggestions on this, but we have to do it within what happened in the case that led to all of this, which was the Southbridge case. So. I'm sorry, I took a long time. That's okay.  No, I just wanted to thank counselors, Ette and Ryan, you know, I appreciate your comments. And I don't know if this is some conversation we wanna continue with the retreat, but I just thought those were very heartfelt and insightful. And I just wanted to thank you personally for addressing that meeting tonight. Unless there's no other comments, I'm going to make a motion to adjourn, seek a second. Change seconds. And we have to do a roll call. This way, there'll be no doubt as to whether or not we have adjourned. Roll call. Councilor Ryan. Aye. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tob. Yes. Councilor Walker. Yes. Pat DeAngeles. No. Oh, come. Patricia. Fine. Donna Devlin-Gott. Aye. Councilor Ette. Aye. Lynn Griezmursen. Aye. Councilor Haneke. Aye. Bob Hagner. Yes. Councilor Lord. Aye. Pam Rooney. Yes. It's unanimous except for one. Good night. Good night, everyone. Good night. Pat, unless it's Pat.