If reality check radio enriches your day and life, support us to keep bringing you the content, voices, perspectives and dose of reality you won't get anywhere else. Visit www.realitycheck.radio forward slash donate. Winston Peters has been dominating the news since his State of the Nation speech. The media have misrepresented it, Chris Hipkins attacked and got sat back on his derriere, and Winston is laughing all the way to the parliament. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, welcome back to the crunch. The last time we spoke officially was election eve, where you gave me an interview just after the results had come in. Yes, I did. Actually, the first interview I did was anyone. That's right. And it unhinged David Fisher at the Herald something wicked as well. Well, you know, why doesn't he wise up? The idea that they know everything when the circumstances are not in their control, it quite allows me. But he's usually a good write-up, David, but sometimes he lets himself down, I think. Yeah, I have a different point of view on that, but that's more of a personal issue that I have. But he has been a good journalist in the past, but unfortunately he lets himself down rather too frequently these days. But don't the media let themselves down all the time? And a case in point is the little contra-tomps that's going on now between the media and yourself. Was the reporting of your State of the Nation speech? Well, here's the thing. What happened here was they didn't take what I said. They took what they thought I said and then went bonkers with it. And then in a question to me, in person, not part of the speech, I confirmed another aspect. But they still read it to the speech and on they went. And words like genocide and holocaust was never in my speech at all. No. And all those people that use those words, dare I say it, Nazis, holocaust, genocide, they all got counters. They've got a whole file of them now from YGT to Gullriss and sad to say, all sorts of people. Packer, making all those comments, genocide, not one journalist went to them. But when they thought they had a chance to guess like me, they had to go. But I'm watching the social media. The social media is awful for them. Well, that's the thing I saw this morning, a comment from the new co-leader of the Greens, Chloe Swarbrook, who said that it was, you know, crazy behavior. And I was thinking, hang on a second. Weren't you the one who had a tea towel draped around your shoulder shouting from the river to the sea with great vehemence, you know, promoting a chant that actually does celebrate or indeed invoke genocide? Well, after the 7th of October last year, in that appalling terrorist attack on Israel, did she say a word? No. No, not a murder, not a murder. That's why you cannot trust people who've just unbalanced when it comes to things like that there. But my point to the mainstream media is you're not going to get away with trying to gaslight me. You're not going to go to Luxon and say to him, Winston said this when he hasn't even heard me say it. I'm going to impute various things about that and then expect him to react. The reality of it all is I made it very clear in my conversation with the Luxon that I've been saying this for 40 years. I believe in one standard of citizenship with equal rights in this country called New Zealand. And I always have, and I'm always going to defend it, because without that, the moment you get, as Whiteley said, claiming that Māori had a superior DNA, the flow on of that superiority is to imply and impute and then put into place policies of inferiority and you know how bad that looks. So we're not backing down at all. Rather, we're going to rocket up because people need to know that this country called New Zealand has fallen dramatically on the basis of divisive policies like co-governance. Co-governance based on what? Race. That's simple and worse than that. Based on ethnic numbers, where sometime the numbers impute Māori when the person's got one part in 512. See the picture in the forward that's going on here? Meanwhile, real issues of Māori want housing, health education, access to education, health education and housing and first world wages just passed by the wayside. Māori want the same thing as everybody else. Yeah. And if that's the case, why aren't we just everybody else? I was showing a graphic on X formerly known as Twitter yesterday and it's just got a short message but it applies to this topic that we're talking about. It says it didn't start with the gas chambers. It started with one party controlling the media, one party controlling the message, one party deciding what is truth, one party censoring speech and controlling the opposition, one party dividing citizens into us versus them and calling on their supporters to harass them. It started when good people turned a blind eye and let it happen. And that's what we saw in between 2020 and 2023. That's exactly what we saw in New Zealand. Yeah, that's the truth. There's a famous, this is near my life from Germany. He said that he's going through all the groups. They came for so-and-so and I wasn't one of them. They came for so-and-so and I wasn't one of them. And he goes through all the cases and said, and then they came for me and there was not a very left to defend me. And he wasn't precisely right. So these people were extrapolating their interpretations with no authority or veracity whatsoever. But what's been amazing, I can tell you, but I can't give you the names, but the number of senior experienced journalists have called me to say stick to it. You're on the right pathway.  Well, that's the feedback that I'm getting, you know, just walking on the beach this morning at Takapuna. I had someone stop me and say, do you see what Winston's doing? He's saying the right thing. This is what people on the street are saying or on the beach in this case are saying. Well, that's the thing. But what is imaged here and screams it is that you've got people in the media who think that they're so special that they've got tremendously unique insights that everybody else out there is nobody. It's that arrogance that I find quite crushing. And worst of all, that's that arrogance that needs people to not report everything in the marketplace, but only one booth in the marketplace, so to speak. The old media town choir of the former age saying over here, over here, all these products are over there. No, let us talk about one product, the one that they support. I was on the AM show this morning, a morning show for TV One. Soon to be defunct. Well, the thing was, they began with a lie and thought they could stick to it.  They wouldn't have liked that. Oh, well, they had a staggered look. How dare he talk to me this way?  Well, you just have to look at what's happening on X.  Winston's right. That was incredible. It's about 99 to one. Oh, it's terrible. They call it ratioing. She got absolutely slammed. I thought they're going to accuse me of doing all the tweets and all the comments, but I didn't. I just hadn't been referred to there by one of my staffs and you better go and have a look at that. Yeah. It's extraordinary. And you know, I'm saddened by them because it means that their duration in this industry, it's not going to be for much longer. What was interesting is that the spin-off and Tover O'Brien went running off to the probably the sole remaining living band member of a one hit wonder band and the guitarist and tried to create a stink over that.  And I particularly like the one where you said you were going to pick another song from them, but you found they didn't have any. That's right. But the thing is, here we are at Palmerston North. Maybe they're always packed with people outside, but this preposterous thing all the way there in Liverpool after all those years, the band, when it has been disbanded, they had a view. Oh, no, they didn't. Some lifty shill from spin-off wrongly informed the guy and by the time he met up his mind, he was adamant about it, but at the very close, he wasn't too certain about it, even in that interview. And that's for the legal side, but I thought this is extraordinary. They went off to get it to a legal expert as well. And with the greatest respect to that legal expert, he had no expert on this matter. You show me the precedent case he's talking about. And I'm not talking about NMM and National because they were using it in their campaign advertising. I was talking about a public meeting. Yeah, exactly. But it's a massive beat up. But you know, I was talking to a mate and he says, I reckon Winston probably slipped a few quid to that band to have a go so that he could keep the story running for another day. Well, there are people out there who are so disconnected and so unbalanced, they would believe that instantly. Well, they probably would. Look, it's been going for four days now. Do you think you can get it to carry on to the weekend? Oh, they will not leave often until they find out by Sunday, but it'll go all the way to the weekend because there are variations on their bias. Yeah. Have you ever had a state of the nation speech that has had so much coverage? No. No, that's the part they're going to accuse me of. You did it all to get coverage. No, I didn't. I just made one statement and all of a sudden they're there. All these journalists were there. They didn't like me telling them though, things like, for example, what did you do about talking about the true state of the economy last year? The public interest fund, the bribes. What did you do about that? You guys did nothing. That's what I said to them all. And of course, they're sitting there with what I think called a psychological condition called recognition hunger and a medical condition called group venom. And they decided to take another. There's a famous line from General Abram C. Made his name in the Second World War in the forest on the outskirts of Germany, France. And he got cut off. He had 250 men under his control. He got cut off by the Germans and is in serious isolation. And those days, they have a backpack that's half the size of a done car on your back as the phone. And his generals only got in contact with them. The conversation went right through the American troops in a sense. And they said, we've got to go and find this guy. But the general said to him, what's happening, what's happening? And he said, what's happening? They've surrounded us again, the poor bastards. And that's how I feel at the moment, right? Well, they surrounded you again, but you're about to fight your way through them. Well, they said, we've got to go and find that guy. He's got the right attitude. Well, they actually named the Abrams tank after him. That's how revered he is in the US Army. Yes, he went on to be a commander, allied forces. Vietnam, sadly, was the war they should never have entered. They hadn't studied the true state of the affairs over there between Vietnam and China. But that's another story. Oh, yes. We can talk history all day long, as you and I do often. There's a lot of talk. Bryce Edwards wrote an article on Tuesday saying that the government's in trouble. They've only got this much percentage in an average of the polls. You've got Benedict Collins who's saying, has the Prime Minister told you off? Has he ticked you off? Are you in trouble with that? You've got all these other journalists. What is the state of the coalition, Winston? Well, there's Benedict Collins who called me, asked me one time, are you a crook? You know, this would be with respect to the serious court office. So we spend hundreds of thousands, rather, of our own money in two major court cases and win both times. And he never has the decency to apologize.   Isn't that a great question for a journalist to ask?  See how frustrating he is? My answer is Benedict, I can't see you lasting long on his profession at all, not down in Parliament. People like you can become irrelevant. Well, that's right. They can become irrelevant because everyone recognises how biased they are. And so no one then wants to talk to them. And when you're a journalist in the press gallery, you need people to talk to you. Otherwise, you're not going to get stories. Well, you know, the great PR people, the great lobbyists, that met him and great journalists also have one feature. They talk to everybody. And that's critical. That's why they're telling the marketplace what the product of ideas is on the market. They tell them what the full quality of the product is, not just one product. You know, I look back at the press gallery and there's some pretty famous names. They're just brilliant journalists. Sadly, you know, there's not many of them left. In fact, I'd argue there's probably only one left. And he's only working part-time at his job. But the rest of them seem to have no understanding of history, no understanding of how the political process works. And they're running around trying to get somebody on things that are not important. No one in the street cares whether or not, Chris, it concedes that you like the drunk uncle at a wedding. But, you know, no one cares about that sort of stuff. What they care about is how much their petrol costs, whether their mum or their dad can get a hip operation or something like that, whether the teachers are teaching the kids how to read and write and spell things properly. That's what people care about, not these sledges and not these idiotic, gotcha-type moments.  I'll take you seriously. Yeah. But this is how bad he was.  And he said, I'll get back to you. See what's wrong? Totally. Now, as the foreign minister, I've got a bit of an interest in the Pacific having been born in Fiji. You've just recently come back from a trip to Fiji. How'd that go? It was excellent, actually. It was really quite comprehensive as well. We went to the barracks, so to speak. Victoria Barracks? Yep. We went there for a reception they put on. It was huge. I could be totally unaware. And then I spent some time with a number of people over there. But I got a chance to probably meet, well, half the cabinet, one function. Which is great, really. And then I spent some time with Ram Booker, who I know have known for a long, long time. And others, the elite of the other political persuasions I got to see some of them. And all in all, this reinforcement of the reconnection, and we're going to have to do a whole lot more work with Fiji. And of course, the Pacific Forum is there, the Pacific Islands Forum. But we signaled all that. And then since that time, look, I have been to India to talk to their foreign minister. And we talked with them about a program that they've got to set up a hospital in, guess where, Fiji. A new Indian hospital in Fiji. And then I talked to the foreign minister for Indonesia on my way back as well. And I was talking about a wide range of subjects, including Fiji. And they're going to work with us together, New Zealand and Indonesia, to put together a project in Fiji. So it's really quite exciting when you think about it. Yeah, because there's been a lot of inroads made into the Pacific by China, using their cash to carry favor with Pacific nations. And New Zealand and Australia have sat there, in many respects, wagging their finger at these Pacific nations, whilst the Chinese have been burying millions and millions of dollars into their infrastructure. Well, it's been my concern, and it was for some time in my younger political career, as to the approach being taken by New Zealand and Australia with the Pacific Islands. We're concerned. And my approach has been decidedly different. I've spelt it out over and over again. And that is when you're, no matter how small that country is, when you're in that country or you're talking with them, never underestimate the need for them to be regarded as total equals. We expect that when dealing with large countries. They've got a right to expect it when we're dealing with smaller nations. Yeah, at any time I've been in Fiji talking to government people, and this goes back quite some years, back to the Bani Marama years. The feedback that I got from locals in Suva was that they're quite like Kiwis coming up there and doing business and being involved in the government level. They really don't like Australians an awful lot, other than for the tourism. Well, there have been changes in Australia's approach as well, of late. And I've got no doubt that they would have seen the previous two, Penny Wong, Foreign Minister. They'd have seen a different person, a different approach. But certainly I've sought always to ensure that they could never accuse me of patronising or coming the senior soldier and all those things which we Kiwis hate, which are not replicated in our behaviour, are they? How about the recent visit from China to New Zealand? How did that go? Well, it was great to reconnect with Wong Yi. I mean, he was a foreign minister for a long time. Then he left that scene and another person took his place. And all of a sudden, mid-last year, there was a switch back to Wong Yi. And I've never asked what happened to the previous one. So I was reconnecting with him for the first time since 2018 in China when I was in the Nassau. I've seen him in a different forum after that, but not in China. And they were obviously, actually I put it not in an un-nice way, but they were on a charm offensive. So we had a great discussion about a lot of things, something we didn't agree on. I raised the issues, you know, like the Uighurs, like Hong Kong, what happened to the one country, two systems, which I was aware of on that and over, which I attended in 1997. It's a long time ago.  It's called Treaty People's Equal. It's funny because I haven't seen any of that reported in the New Zealand media anywhere, particularly that you raised the issue with the Uighurs. The New Zealand media, I got six journalists into telling specifically what happened. Again, the time of day, early in the next morning. No, guess what they've reported on in the main? They've reported on Foreign Minister Wong Yi's in New Zealand, but he's going to Australia. Are you like that? That was the headline. But I would have thought raising the issue with the Uighurs, which is kind of a third rail issue for the Chinese. Yes. Would have been reported. I mean, if Jacinda Ardern had met the Chinese Foreign Minister and raised the Uighurs, they would have been waxing lyrical about how she challenged the Chinese Foreign Minister. You're exactly right. You know, Wong Yi, Foreign Minister Wong Yi got to see Mr. Luxon. He got to see the trade minister, Todd McClay. Now, you've got to ask yourself, why didn't they think that was worth covering? This fellow's coming from this huge economy, big population, second biggest population to India in the world. He's in our country, and they didn't think it was worthy of headlines. So it begs the question, don't they understand that trade is critical to our future? Well, otherwise, we'll all sit around cutting each other's hair and thinking everything's wonderful. Yeah, taking each other's washing and going broke. Yeah. For New Zealand, trade is imperative, but it has to be trade on fair terms. But you're quite right, and on fair terms. But, you know, trade has been seriously of enormous help to us, and it's been of enormous help to China, because Chinese need to feed their people. They need to do a lot of things, and they know they haven't got all the resources, and so that's been good for them as well. But here we are, a country hardly dependent on trade, and now media don't seem to understand it. What on earth is going wrong here? And more worried about whether or not you used the right song or not? Ah, yes, you know. And that's the point. They said he's been using it in all his meetings. No, I haven't. Somebody on my staff thought it was quite a funny idea, and I thought, actually, they're right. It sounds good. I'll try it. I did it down in Palmerston North. I had no idea that reverberating on the BBC would be my meeting in Palmerston North. How do you look like that? There's not many people can put Palmerston North on the map, and you've managed it. It's hilarious. Yeah, I mean, there were 700 people. Yeah, the photos I've seen of them, they were standing room only at the back. You didn't use the usual little trick of putting out the chairs and then removing two rows so everybody has to stand.  There's only 600 chairs there, and they were out more on the side, out the back door, and many people couldn't get in, so there's well over 700. You think that would be important? No, they described it as a meeting of the party base. No, it wasn't. There were a stack of people there. There were a lot of National Party people there. You'd be pretty happy if you had 700 members in Palmerston North, wouldn't you? But you're being logical. You worked it out. I know the biggest party in Australasia about it, but they said it. So what do you do? Well, you just press on regardless. I've got to press on and keep on being reminded by my staff, Winston, be charitable, be forgiving, keep smiling. It's not so easy these days. I've seen a lot of smiling this week, and you can thank the media for that. You're a busy man. I better let you go. Thank you for taking the time to talk to the crunch, and we'll get you on again sometime soon. I'll just give you an idea now. I got up here to work early this morning, but I began the day by talking to the Spanish Foreign Minister. I'm going to be talking to the Romanian ambassador from Canberra today at four o'clock, then on to the Foreign Minister for the Marshall Islands, and then on to the ambassador for Egypt, and later on tonight to the Foreign Minister for Malaysia. So it's a heavy day to work, and it's all about this country's better cooperation and better advancement of our trade and our values and the rules-based system that keeps the countries like us going. There's a lot of work involved here, but I don't get that either. No, they don't. Once again, Winston, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us. Thank you very much, and good luck to your show and your listeners. They love hearing you on the show, Winston, so they'll be very pleased to hear this. No, thank you very much. Excellent. OK, thank you. Bye-bye. Presipkins might think Winston Peters is like a drunk uncle at a wedding, but after his shellacking about wine biscuits, he may be a bit more circumspect in doing that again. Winston certainly isn't holding back with his contempt for the lying legacy media, and nor should he. Tell me your thoughts on what Winston had to say by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057. Thank you for tuning in to RCR Reality Check Radio. If you like what you're listening to, either way, we want to hear from you. Get in touch with us now. You can text us with your message to 2057. That's 2057. Or email us at inbox at realitycheck.radio. We would love to hear from you. So connect with us today.


Hi everyone, Sean with jaspyscasebreaks.com here doing 2020, 2021 Obsidian basketball six box pick a team random number block number For pick a team five for the Lakers and the Nuggets works just like every other random number block where everybody in the break It's a number from zero through nine And if you get the number three you'll get all cards for those teams with three being the first number next to the slash On the left side of the slash So for example the card is thirteen out of ninety nine three out of twenty five forty three out of forty nine ninety three out of ninety nine And so on the number three with the cards all redemption cards will go to the zero spot Even if it is a known one-of-one it will still go to the zero spot and any non numbered cards Which could potentially happen in Obsidian will be randomized to one person in the random number block as a group. So Here is the List of customers. So thanks to everybody for getting in from Robert Runkle down to Sean Maddock and the team The numbers from zero through nine dice for a randomized both lists and pair them up three into two five times Good luck guys Exactly then But in the meantime at least it's protected, you know From Eric down to Robert to change the titles five times on the numbers Fifth and final time from six down to There you go. So five times on the numbers five times on the customers and five times on the dice There you go Eric jock six Sean Maddock for Travis Melberg seven Sean Maddock one nine and three Travis Melberg eight Sean Maddock zero And Robert Runkle with two and five box these up and sort the numbers out So Sean with zero spot gets any and all redemptions for either the Lakers or the nuggets in this random number block Even known one-of-one redemptions But since he also has the one spot That's not going to matter because you'll get all in person one-of-ones as well as any redemptions So there you go. That is the random number lock randomizer for 2020-2021 of city and basketball six box picker team number five random number Lock Lakers and nuggets. I'm Sean jaspyscasebricks.com. Thanks for hanging out break itself coming up next


Hi, I'm excited to share how I super-charged my meetings leveraging Microsoft Loops, no-taking capabilities within Teams. In my team meetings, Microsoft Loops and Teams has revolutionized our note-taking. It's collaborative and dynamic. As you can see, I have the Microsoft Loops document here in our Teams meeting, and as we discuss various items, everyone contributes to the Loops document in real-time. This way, we're all engaged and on the same page. Now here's how you add more agenda items, and here's how you can leverage the forward slash character to easily open up a variety of formatic options. I think this is a really cool feature. Here is the Loops interface where I can continue to add, share, collaborate, and even add it to a workspace in the Loops dashboard.


We have witnessed over the past few weeks and months an increase of violence and violations of international humanitarian law here and therefore the needs are increasing. What people need most is access to medical care, which is not guaranteed at the present moment at a sufficient level. People have to be assisted to survive. It's access to water and it's also access to food because the economic fabric is destroyed by the armed conflict. ICRC would like to expand its medical operations here, its war surgery in particular because we see serious wounds appearing with civilians and soldiers alike. We would also like to focus on areas here in the east and which are increasingly affected by the armed conflict.


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasewrakes.com. Quick little randomizer for the Dolphins-Bangles random number block right here for pick your team in nine, six half case from a fresh case. Gold sander is back. We just need to do one more number block and then we're gonna be in breaksville on that. So check that out, jaspyscasewrakes.com. There's how it works. Everybody knows how it works. There you go, Jason, Jordan, Sean, Brandon, thank you. There are the numbers right there. Let's roll it, let's randomize it. Four and a four, heart eight. Your names first, one, two, three. And eighth and final time. That's right, Brandon. Brandon L saying gold sander's been fired lately. Yeah, let's sell it out. Let's continue pulling some fire out of here. Four and a four, heart eight for the numbers. Two and eighth and final time. After eight, we've got six down to one. Remember, as always, as you saw in the description, zero gets any and all redemptions for those two teams down there, including one of one redemptions. And although it's a moot point here, Brandon has zero and one, and one still gets live, one of ones. So Brandon has all the numbers, except for Jordan's two, Jason's seven, and Sean's four. There you go. He does not have two, seven, and four. Two, four, and seven. Two, four, and seven right there. There you go. Again, one more number blocked to accomplish, and then we're in Breaksville on that. Let's fill it up, and we'll see you for that one a little bit later. I'm Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com. Bye-bye.


Thanks for being here everybody, because this is my first economic development infrastructure committee meeting partners as a national redeveloper of mostly in-town type projects, super successful and have raised a ton of money which makes them an immediate player when it comes to these types of redevelopments. What I want to do is have somebody and also what are the certain challenges and opportunities that they see for Columbia as far as economic development. So we're going to go ahead and jump right in. I put the record I've noted the attendance and the fact that Russell is participating. Thank you. All right. You're welcome. So anyway, there's hard copies of the presentation. And I'm sure Jason be found this we want to make this as interactive and possible. I think we all realize that economic development in Columbia is challenging, but also it's not to the point where it's just, you know, challenging to the point where it can't happen. Absolutely. All right. Go ahead. Jump in. Perfect. Well, first of all, we're honored to be here. We represent Asana Partners, which is a company that was founded here in Columbia about eight years ago. A number of us worked at Eden's, who I'm sure many of you are familiar with Eden's, a company that had been headquartered here for 60 plus years. In 2015, a few of us left Eden's to form Asana Partners and we saw an opportunity across the country in really cool near urban neighborhoods to aggregate institutional capital and bring some expertise to renovate buildings, bring interesting local regional tenants into the neighborhoods and really drive economic activity in urban and near urban neighborhoods across the country. Today, 105 people, we have six offices in addition to the office here in Columbia. We have a portfolio of about $7 billion of assets in 26 cities and we've invested in about 65 neighborhoods across those cities in the U.S. With no city that is more important or dear to us than Columbia, so we have been and will continue to look for opportunities to invest here. We've not yet invested here beyond having a significant office in Columbia and we can talk a little bit about why that is. We are, I would say, certainly in South Carolina, a third of our people went to a South Carolina undergraduate school. We have a significant office in Columbia but our investment strategy is pretty simple. Most of the investments we make are in neighborhoods that look like the Vista or look like Five Points. We're active in Charleston, we're active in Nashville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham. Most of our assets are in the Sunbell or Mountain West and then we have some other investments. You can see some images in the document in some larger cities as well but we really prefer, for a lot of reasons, the Sunbelt cities that are high growth, a little bit easier to do business in and where we think a lot of the future is from an economic development perspective. So our strategy is to sort of quietly kind of move into a neighborhood, identify owners and most of these neighborhoods, the owners are local and we will look for an opportunity to, we don't have to own everything in the neighborhood but we want to own critical maps where we can put our capital to work and improve buildings and really change in a good way or enhance the way a neighborhood feels. A lot of these investors, do they come to you or do they go to them? It's a really interesting business model because we have tenants, local tenants, growing regional tenants and then growing national tenants who come to us and say, we want to be in this neighborhood, these are our requirements, can you help us find a building and we may have a building that works for them or a space that works for them or oftentimes knowing what their requirements are, quietly going to a neighborhood and look for an opportunity to acquire a building, renovate it and then put them in place to make the neighborhood more vibrant and generally when we move into a neighborhood, we really celebrate the history in the neighborhood and we celebrate and identify the local tenants that are beloved by the community and we protect them and want to keep them in those neighborhoods but when we get involved, we're very focused on making the place vibrant, making the neighborhood active 18 hours a day, seven days a week so we're very focused on being really strategic about the merchandising of the ground floor, retail, we want to have coffee shops, fitness, restaurants, soft goods, service oriented tenants and then upstairs typically there's a few stories upstairs of creative office and residential and the types of neighborhoods that we invest in, young people want to live there because there's a really cool amenity base on the ground floor and interesting high growth companies want to be there because especially now because of COVID, you really need to offer your employees something different and the cool neighborhood and what's happening on the ground floor is that amenity that a lot of the employers are looking for. Is there a certain mix or a certain metric that's associated with the number of people who have to actually live in that area? We're very focused on a one-mile radius because we, most of our investments draw from a more distant radius but we love to invest in neighborhoods that are walkable where people can walk to the businesses, they can walk the work, things there and walk just really interesting stuff so we start with what are the one-mile kind of metrics and we're really focused on places where at least 15,000 people live with a near urban experience. We're also focused on growth so we want density but then we also want to see, you know, projections where that population is going to increase by at least one and a half percent a year which is two to three times the national average and usually there's a, as you know, a high correlation between both and there's a high correlation between job growth and income growth and just to be blunt obviously we all know this but Columbia had lagged a lot of what I would consider sort of pure cities in the southeast from a job growth income growth. I always find this so frustrated because of all the things that we have going on here and we talk about it a lot. What would you consider the chicken in that? Circular. That's a really good question because we are very focused on investing in neighborhoods that can catch fire and when they catch fire they catch fire. Once you get, once there's interest from really cool businesses to be on the ground floor all of a sudden really interesting high growth, you know, office users want to be upstairs all of a sudden young people want to live in the neighborhood, institutional capital, you know, wants to live in the neighborhood. So we're just looking for neighborhoods where we can get involved and help it sort of catch fire and one of the things that excites me the most about Columbia is I continue to believe Columbia and by definition of with our jobs we travel all over the country and spend a lot of time in cities like Columbia and I think Columbia is probably the single greatest opportunity of a secondary city from a population perspective that we see across the country. So you got this wonderful investment overview I'm sure that y'all go through. Here's the list here. I mean how far off is Columbia from these metrics that would really engage the private investment to start and we're willing to we categorize neighborhoods as sort of you know pioneering neighborhoods, emerging neighborhoods and then established neighborhoods and we tend to want to invest in emerging neighborhoods and we're willing to make up that like we're willing to we don't have to check every we're very quantitative we're also qualitative we want the trends to be moving in the right direction but we don't have to check every single box from metrics. In fact a lot of neighborhoods we invest in don't check all the boxes but we get a good feel that there's really good momentum and if we can get involved we can help accelerate that momentum and by the time we're done with our physical work five seven years later the metrics all do sort of conform with our investment criteria. Have you found that these trending neighborhoods you know often have a municipal component to participate with you? In all these larger markets you have a public private partnerships that we've worked on or I wouldn't say it's not as common on a formal basis but informally there's a lot of support from municipalities. If we move into a new city and we're not a known quantity the initial reaction is who are these guys from South Carolina or from Charlotte that are moving into our city and buying properties but once we show them what we've done in other cities their blood pressure goes down and they're they're really excited because we preserve existing buildings we love historic buildings we love what makes a neighborhood diverse and energetic and dynamic and that celebrate that and want to defend that and enhance that and we really believe that elliptic high does rise all people raise all boats so if we can drive traffic 18 hours a day seven days a week to a neighborhood every business net neighbor is going to do better and generate more sales. We work with the SANA and Coalites on the signage for their product couple projects at Atlanta what was Crock Street in the outskirts yeah you know the first time I've only been to Crock Street once and that was at the very beginning that that area appeared at the beginning not to check a whole lot of boxes so that's right we're curious as to what your overview to Crock Street if you can google it's an amazing city about in town in town what's the bell line it's in town but it's very much like you know obviously on a different scale but it's embedded in a residential neighborhood very much like five races and we love that a lot of people can walk to those buildings there's a lot of history there the Stove works building used to be a manufacturing facility for stoves it's a hundred-year-old building we renovated the building it's right on the east Atlanta bell line so the bell line then the signing factor for that area it was a big part of the deciding factor and I think we have been calling you know state me obvious like a lot of this is not rocket science a lot of this is pretty obvious but we have the single greatest belt line opportunity along the river that Atlanta doesn't have but that belt line in Atlanta is now like waterfront property like everyone wants to be right on or within the walking distance of that of the bell line so it was a big factor for us and then just the historic buildings we're good with a lot of history MLK's birthplaces three quarters of a mile from those buildings so it's just a really cool place to come in and invest you know but it's you know I think to give get back to your question I would say the single most important factor for us is we need to see some growth like we can bet on where the numbers are going to go like where the population is going to go in a neighborhood where the you know other metrics are going to go but it needs to be vibrant there needs to be growth and we all know this we look at the bar charts you know we compare Columbia to another dozen or so you know secondary from a size perspective cities in the southeast and we're pretty consistently in the bottom quartile on an income growth perspective population growth job growth and until we start to see that you know bend a bit you know we've been reluctant to invest because we we don't want to be the only national institutional investor in a city or in a neighborhood we want to invest with others and ultimately you know we're going to improve our properties and eventually we may want to sell them and we want to know that there's a there are other institutional lectures that are provided with properties more times so that's been the but I do think I think we're getting close I mean I think we're columbia is the type of city state capital major university influence southeast it should catch fire and we're willing to be on the front end of that is there is there in the time period until we're there I don't think it's going to give you a few more like announcements of major employers I do think I think I want to not the river because a lot of good things happening here I think we need to make columbia even cooler for young people I think columbia has incredible natural resources and in my opinion if we just focused on five points and the river and by definition if we focus on the river we're focusing on vista right we in five years could have just two vibrant 18 days seven daily neighborhoods right now five points is too far and food beverage centric and the river is just an untapped river it was just a river the river's just a river and the damage from the flood in 2015 has not been repaired I run down there all the time it's sad like if that damage had happened in Chattanooga it would be repaired it'd be better than it was you never before and then still you know so I think as soon as we start to see activity we would get I did you know it's it's really just I think it is a chicken and an egg thing we need to make columbia cooler for young people and then I think employers are going to also want it's going to want to be here and I know you're already working on you're making it even more business friendly place to start a business um you know so Jensen do you feel like that concept of a rise in tide maybe needs to be um amplified the message about that Erica's going to get me because I might um because I think in Colombia too I guess and from my vantage point which is more the practitioner and of course the mayor and the council members of policymakers in this city where we're um broken up into districts and oftentimes there are some areas of the city that may have over time felt disenfranchised or it's not our time or we're not focused on I think what you just said is really interesting to me because you said you focus on the best to focus on um making it cool place focus on um the riverfront and put that focus and energy in it make it happen make people come but I think what's missing sometimes in the narrative is once you do that that rising tide then affects all the other districts and all the other communities and I don't I really feel like we don't we don't um we try to spread ourselves a little bit too thin and we're trying to accommodate maybe the other surrounding areas and districts and from your perspective as a developer how do you how could you give us some advice on how we narrate that better about that rising tide and what that would do for economy and commerce and and keeping our critical infrastructure which is human beings and young people right here I think you you just said it I mean I think if you look at what our income growth has been over the last 10 years on an average household basis for the entire city the entire metropolitan area we're at the bottom of the list of medium-sized southeastern cities and I just think I think if we can create make Colombia cooler for young people employers are going to want to be here there will be a a rising tide for everyone regardless of what district you live in and there should be better jobs better paying jobs and then I think we'll have the resources at that point to really focus on on all the districts but I think we need to be strategic and not spread ourselves too thin we have two I think really near-term opportunities to really have Colombia catch fire and I think everyone will benefit but I I can hear you it's a more challenging you know sitting in your seat than in my seat yeah I was just wondering if there are other cities like you mentioned where you've seen that happen and they did focus in but no one was left behind ultimately and maybe we could use that to our advantage too to you know use them as examples yeah I think it's amazing and maybe this is you know apples and pecan I just think this is it's amazing how Charlotte has just transformed themselves in a really short amount of time I mean so I'm not sure that you know how we relate to Charlotte but you know 20 years ago I mean Charlotte was dead I mean you know if you went if you're downtown or anywhere six or whatever yeah you ask any of those leaders up there that tell you that their change came when it became the best air out of that I mean so how long was that shit about 20 years ago right yeah so 20 years ago and then what you find out is that you know all the the number of like in-town living developments in Charlotte are just amazing yeah I agree and there are a lot of examples in Charlotte of neighborhoods that have improved over time and there's been incredible job opportunities in Charlotte so I do think that's probably a good case study I know we don't want to be Charlotte correct right but I think in Columbia it was more vibrant that and there's better job growth and better income growth every every citizen would benefit so two of the quick questions so how do you see USC participating in this you know five points it's the river you know how what's the best way to incorporate them into this vision or growth I mean they're here and you have thousands of families passing through the city you know multiple times a year and a lot of young people come here for four years and then leave you know it sure would be nice to you know I think we're already making a really positive impression we could make an incredible impression on all those people and I don't necessarily think it has to be in partnership with the university I think we already have a university as an asset as a resource I don't think it's going to take the university's partnership to reinvent the five points or reinvent the riverfront kind of the university has some land and they're trying to figure out what those do with the land including some land making everything you know on the riverfront but I think that's a small part of the puzzle it's just it's another standpoint when you're trying to get right employers here it's an incredible thing uses their research and their patents and all the things they're creating businesses they're going to do out of here and then they're all economic part I think from an infrastructure and development we just we gotta find the right partners with the vision they can take a place like five points and drop a hundred million dollars and then change three blocks or suddenly it becomes a vibrance I mean we look at the south end the straw is a perfect example you know we had prices of chicken coop there for you know four decades still my favorite place to see jenny's but it was all industrial now Utah where the jenny's ice cream it probably does I can't I face one of their top soils doesn't see it at all so you know that's concentrating on what we're living they allow towers they're allowing creativity to happen in the cross section of the business and the retail is what we've been saying they need more people living downtown more options now maybe my next question is so in town living so if we could help develop or improve in town living in this kind of importance do you think that would be I think it would be huge I think it's a missed opportunity the fact that there aren't like incredible places for young people to live within a few blocks of Jervais Street I mean there are a few okay but it from from the capital down to the river all along within a few blocks of Jervais Street should just be a mecca for young young professionals in my opinion and if you could get to the river you could get to Main Street easily you know it would be amazing you know getting back to Charlotte I think Charlotte wishes like they had University of South Carolina Charlotte wishes they had a river Charlotte wishes they were a state capital I think they did all that over the last 20 years without those resources I think we really have to do a good job of attracting that sophisticated customer because that's what all these national retailers and restaurants want and not to say that we want only nationals to come into Columbia but I think that's like a big piece of it right because they think the same way we do you know we want a sophisticated consumer we want lockability we want that 18-hour neighborhood where we can lock live work and play you know I mean that's why we've been successful across the country as a company in partnering with a lot of these tenants you know we're Jenny's largest landlord we're Patagonia's largest landlord and I think tenants like that are really transformative you know to that end I think there's another layer of it is finding the right institutional capital to come into Columbia because you know for us you know it's not just about making money it's really really important to us to create that right merchandising mix you know we want the the gym use the service use the restaurant breakfast user and then someone you can go grab a cocktail at five o'clock and also have a great dinner so I think like that's a really important piece of it because it's not just buying real estate and you know changing Columbia it's buying real estate and curating the perfect tenant mix that really does attract that sophisticated consumer you know that young person who's coming from USC and scoring a great job who really wants to give them some money I think adding to that so we created this intercollegiate council engagement that's what we heard from those young folks that the reason they're choosing other places is that vibrant they want to be able to walk to work they want to be able to walk to entertainment they want all of their resources right there within much like they had at the university in a downtown setting they want to be part of that and that's what they're looking for that's why they're thriving to places like Columbus and Nashville and Charlotte and etc you see I think one of the things we've missed is part of it is we don't market our our community we don't share and a lot of communities that have three major highways 60 000 students let one of the 4 000 recruits at the 4 500 45 000 recruits that come rolling through here it's 15 million difference is usually the emergency only gets 22 million so when we look at that but our visitors only a third of them are spending time so the more we can activate the river the more we create more activity the mix of chain and local are important because that creates excitement you know we've seen people who flock here for a change because within you know 20 minutes you're about in the county so there's a huge draw from where we sit we just haven't really told our story we've always said we've always said that it's really hard to recruit people to Columbia but once they're here they don't want to leave so we can fix like the top of the funnel and make it easier to recruit it would it's just gonna catch fire people don't want to get here they love it Jason I'm asking someone you know you're in these markets that are high-demand high growth and have a steady record of that for a long time moving into the future we you know hopefully get a piece of that someday locally the municipality's counties you've worked with in these areas any incentive packages they've put your way maybe outside of you know just your standard water tap these stuff like that like the really big things that make you take a second look the biggest stuff that we're working on in few cities are you know is we're working on a few adaptive reuse projects where we're converting you know I would say a class B or class C obsolete office building which doesn't have a very bright future as we all know into a really vibrant mixed-use residential and retail building and a few cities are using us as a case study incentivizing us you know for your property tax perspective they want to have that case study to attract additional institution capital to the city to do the same thing because most cities are going with half of their office inventory it's never going to be so right well and we see that I mean I just sat here yesterday through a meeting in town where we're real through some exactly what we're talking about we have a shortage of class A space we need some new towers we haven't had one since 2019 but we all like 2010 but we also have a whole network you're looking at one through the window right adaptive reuse for residential makes use this and that it could do would help us speed up the downtown but it takes the right person to understand it how to make that happen it's tax credits the issue and that's what we thought about yesterday as a matter of fact could we issue tax credences and incentives to get that private investment here for that activity it probably is what it will require some tax credits because on a stand-alone basis the numbers just don't make sense just the construction costs just the purpose of everything yeah most of the office footprints aren't the right dimensions for residential so you have to think they're not really something yeah or you want to run through the case study yeah I think we touched on you guys can get a sense for a lot of the neighborhoods you invest in we put the case study of the south end of charlotte in here because this is a really good example of a place that caught fire and in a very short period of time you know a decade um is now the most vibrant neighborhood in the city of charlotte so we you know you can see on page 10 this is kind of typically what we we like to do we like to sort of quietly move into the neighborhood and buy some buildings try to get critical mass we bought you know through 14 transactions 14 buildings in the south end of charlotte about 300 000 square feet initially invested 94 million dollars and then over the ensuing couple of years we put another 50 million dollars into those buildings just to give you a sense for the order of magnitude of the capital that we're going to put into the buildings to improve them um and you can see some of the metrics here you know population exceeds our 15 000 person target it was much lower than that when we started investing here population growth this is a neighborhood that's growing to an half percent a year um you know walk score is really important to us and the neighborhoods we're talking about in columbia have really high walk scores they're very convenient places for people to walk and accomplish all of their daily kind of errands on foot um these types of neighborhoods typically attract the young professionals using the average age in the south end is 34 and you kind of see some of the other the other metrics but and then the tenants we thought it was important to put give you a sense for the tenants because our strategy is not to bring a bunch of national tenants into a neighborhood and just destroy the soul of the neighborhood we are very thoughtful in we want to we want primarily local tenants and regional tenants we're very selective when we bring in a national tenant our national tenants need to kind of feel like a local or regional tenant so it's the patagonias who have an incredible mission or jennies those those are national tenants that kind of feel like more local and regional tenants and we think are additive to the to the neighborhood and then you can just see some before and after pictures so we'll buy one off dilapidated buildings we'll buy entire city blocks um i think one of the most transformative photos here is on page 12 you can see the service alley at the top left corner of page 12 that was only being used to back load you know some of the the tenant pre-existing tenants we ripped all of that out converted to the death tree and only popped in some storefronts and now on a weekend or even in the evenings that's one of the most trafficked the death tree corridors in the city of charlotte just a really vibrant place we have markets there festivals you know live music it really contributes to the kind of we think the quality of life of the of the community of charlotte you all leverage the store tax credits we do in some some places um you know we most of our investors are tax exempt investors big state pension funds and sovereign wealth on types so federal programs don't benefit our investors as much but the municipal programs certainly do and i would feel the last thing i would say touched on it but you know esg is is really important to us and what's really cool about our strategy you know from a sustainability perspective you know we're buying typically buying existing buildings that are not very energy efficient bringing them out to standards investing significantly and then making them very energy efficient we're not tearing down trees building new buildings we're investing in neighborhoods that are diverse we want our tenants to represent the diversity of our neighborhood we have a tremendous number of minority owned businesses women owned businesses across our portfolio and that's really important to us we think part of what makes these neighborhoods you know vibrant and attractive places to spend time much participation that's the utility play sometimes is it with the local government i'm looking at the power the lines are removed and some of these pictures and some of the logic is that more of a common thing than it is here we have to really request it and we have good relationships with dominion and all that there are programs we have a director of of esg who has a relationship with some of the power companies and there are programs that we can take advantage of when we make our buildings more energy efficient and i would say generally and i think one of the reasons we prefer to invest in the sundell versus like some other gateway cities is it easier to engage municipality or engage the utility companies to beautify the street or the corner i think that's one thing that we all right no clumbier to be beautified like there's you know a lot of power lines need to get under the street there's just so you know i think that would just be part of the solution of attracting institution capital to the city but yes we we cities like charlotte delis you know charleston nashville have been easier places for us to do business the relationships are good with all the partner yes there's questions my only question is is page your official city of columbia you know broker and char absolutely cheerleader absolutely you know she lives in the district peter so good she's she's the big champion of our degree that page on the team she's joined us gets a little over a year ago about a year ago and um leads a big portfolio from a leasing perspective of course so she sees a lot and she's saying that thanks for talking to me about that she cares as we all do about the city so it's important for her to be here at born and raised here so definitely hopeful that we can make columbia here i will be here for the long haul so let's do what we need to do to get these awesome folks in the right great thanks so much any other questions anybody just anything yeah good thank y'all thank you yeah it is too oh well you'll have a good one thanks all right you guys want to move on to the next issue brian you want to yes sir you just want to absolutely well first of all before we do that i did want to take a quick moment um to introduce grace salter who is our new business recruiter with the office of economic development i'm not sure if everybody's had the opportunity to meet her yet she's just started her fourth week with the office but uh this is a position we've we've worked on filling for a while and we're incredibly excited to have her with the team so great thanks appreciate it i think we're on the same schedule i think i've been here well what we've built like four years so the first item we have up is the central sd alliance contract for services this is the contract for the current year that we are in now this item had previously been referred out of committee late last year along with the other partner contracts we brought it back to committee for consideration but we're pretty late in the budget year right now and so wanted to kind of bring this back up with y'all i know we will need to get some consensus on the contract and if we intend to pay the 72 000 for the current year we do need to kind of resolve that because it probably will need to go back to council for an official approval and i think you know probably a little more importantly something that we had discussed earlier we're coming into a fresh year we've got new leadership new staff members probably a good time for us to sit down not just with this but with our other partner contracts and really assess our strategic plan that we put together last year where we're going as a city what our partners can bring to the table and make sure that the the items that we were blessed that they work on on our behalf are really reflective of where we want to go with our economic development priorities i think that's extremely well said you know i mean you know some of these issues that are coming up they're calling the hangover issues for me because they've got they go back a long way and you know i have been here a long time so um this particular 72 000 dollars covers what period of time uh you know why uh last year july 1 to basically June 30 this is like the so that's right yeah it's like the budget negotiations in your congress talking about you to where we're negotiating the past and so so i mean i feel like i was a future yeah right yeah i feel like we're we're kind of beholden i mean this money's already been budgeted right yes yeah so i mean i feel like we're i mean it feels like we're we're obligated to this money however it doesn't feel like we're obligated to the future and i think you bring up a really good point i mean i think you know if you just listened to what we just heard and the things we've been talking about i think we're all extremely open you know like we're on a you know awareness tour you know of you know what what are we going to do going forward and so it feels like an amazing opportunity time going forward and and you know this does a bit with what we think we should be spending money on and then i think i'm open to that as well well yeah i agree it's looking attractively i think we have to meet this commitment moving forward we need to let them fit into the story we're gonna tell right and the the role that they play is it a more of a who's that organization out there really buttoning up our workforce development pursuits connecting to the universities that's been a big gap maybe that this is somewhere where they can step in but i'd like to see them come to us do some research tell us how we can fit into your plan so yeah with some and with some you know i hate to work deliverable because it's overused but but but it's really still true what are what are they you know what are they selling for us you know so so we're all selling something so when it comes to columbia what are they selling well and and um mr. chairman i tell you with scout i'm gonna think everybody's game plan is changing but i'm gonna roll being redefined um so it'll be interesting to see who's doing what in the next three four months right but i can i ask a clarifying question so the 72 000 was committed this past budget cycle correct yes are we talking about what's coming up now yes ma'am past okay one of the things that we had talked about um councilman taylor and i and the mayor had met with um central sc alliance uh at the end of last year was focusing on one piece of what they're good at and potentially it being just doing research for us or helping market a particular component that we may not have the capacity for um and councilman brendan i know we had potentially talked about a 25 000 investment in the past but i do want to put that on the table in terms of um really narrowing down and taking full kind of advantage of maybe a particular skill set that the central sc alliance has one of the concerns we've had is first of all even the term central sc is not widely understood or used so as we're thinking about telling our story columbia often gets lost in some of their efforts because it's um focused on a much larger region i totally agree with the concept that i mean i'm not you know i'm not even sure columbia really even resonates with their work you know so so i think it's just important for us to understand how we fit into you know because why they represent seven counties county city right so so i mean so it's a big footprint yeah they they do do research for us um marketing support one thing we were actually talking about earlier was having them do a custom drone flyover the river you know we could certainly probably using our repertoire at some point going forward a a package that promotes the riverfront as an opportunity in its hold um i think there's some some things out there but i think it also goes back to i think daniel's i think you know i think we really i think his comment about how we've done not marketed ourselves you know we talked about two different things marketing and messaging you know they're different but they're similar you know marketing is making you better than you are to somebody else messaging is how you present yourself as yourself to everybody else so so when it comes to marketing and messaging i think we need that we even talked about this with the police force you know we have to develop the proper marketing and messaging for and that that's in progress with the rfp submissions that are coming in from the the broader which i think the economic development marketing is a component of that correct we've gotten all the feedback back from the morse school on the research projects that the students were working on we're still kind of digesting that because we got it back two or three weeks ago you know but i think kind of having that informed consensus from yet that targeted audience that we want to have more of because we lose them right after college i mean we're great in the gen z demographic 18 to 24 and then 25 to 30 there's just a drop off and we've gotten some pretty good intelligence from them as far as where some gaps are so today's request is retroactively go ahead with what we owe on the last contract and in the future we're just going to wait for a proposal to come in we're not going to specifically budget align item or that component what's the what's the forward request going forward there's no obligation for us to do anything in the upcoming fiscal year we do have funds budgeted within the economic development budget for this group or other groups so what we had discussed yesterday and this morning and really this is something that we've discussed over the past year we've got a lot of things going on so maybe we haven't given it the full uh flashlight look or a full look at as we should but we need in the early fall to have this group and various other groups that we fund that are supposed to support us to come and talk to us about what they really can do for us that supports the mission and what the city expects and then we can make a determination of if we're going to utilize them and to what extent and what that cost is going to be so I would argue that even for the upcoming year it might not be 72,000 it might only be 20,000 it depends upon how we're going to utilize them but as we get through the summer we need to have some good in-depth discussions with this committee and with these groups coming in and it might be that some of these people we have funded in the past they can't really provide something for us for what we need and that it might be time for us to say we're done or it might be that they're going to adapt or it might be they have certain parts of what they currently provide that can assist us. Well I know that I'm on a day-to-day relationship with every one of my customers so I think we have to just really re-look at what we're doing why we're doing it and what we're planning to get out of it. But am I wrong in thinking that that overall branding, marketing company we bring in could carve out a a lot of our option for an economic development consultant to come in and help us with that particular I guess part you see what I'm saying so so here we are we're rebranding all of cities on everything we do in that niche of economic development so there might be somebody specifically that can come in and fill what we need there that work in something like this could potentially funding or potentially even the specific industry that we have our eye on that the RFP isn't covering I agree with you I think that we could we could do something like that where we bring them in. If I'm going to read this before I'm going to apologize in advance I'm saying this because I just think this really ties into what we're talking about so and what the mayor said so this is by the A&E Golan Bitsky who's the head of Austral Development going to do the departments over there by None and Del. This is his quote out of the state newspaper. Columbia is still a little bit under the radar which is attractive to us okay so keep in mind think about where this is going. The region is stabilizing factors which include government offices universities healthcare facilities for Jackson and the Bull Street district make awful development confident in the project. Also he goes on to say certain types of retail tenants and certain types of places physical features will attract young people that's what I like that's the marketing and that's the messaging that we want in Columbia as this guy tells us we're under the radar straight from the investors now. We don't want to be under the radar. We want the radar on us and we've got to figure out how to get people to know who we are. The concept that if you drag people kicking and screaming here they'll love it is not a marketing plan. Sorry and that's what we I get out of this we got to get out of this mentality that if we can get people here they'll love it. Nobody else is that's not on anybody else's website I promise you. So this is what I talk about marketing and messaging that's what I want to market and message is that we do have all these things and we are going to be a vibrant community and my point is when you market something what you do is you say I am a vibrant community and then you say how okay just marketing you know it's not lying but it's also representing what you want to be not who you are. So what we got to do is represent where we're going not where we've been and I think that's just so important to just you know have this basic awareness of that's the way the world sees us. We want our messaging to be affirmative. Yeah right I mean this is what I'm just telling you all those things you know even when I read it I was just like wow he really he really summed it up great that's what we want people to know. We just got to do a better job telling the stories. That's not everything but that's a that's a good start telling them better a really good story you know we're all selling ourselves every day. I mean I tell everybody that works you know at Coalight every day you talk to somebody you're selling you and us to somebody so make sure you're selling us the way we want to be seen. So it's just that important so as we title this together that's that's really what I think you got to focus on is is how to message and market ourselves into the future. To get patient to say we're going to do this not that we could do this but we're going to do this and and we believe in you know where the city is going and that's I mean it's interesting I mean I think their metrics are amazing I like them I mean we're data driven world but I also think that what he told you was there's there's data but there's also some trust and and some you know sorry I always say this there's some you know believability and hey we got faith in this city and we have faith in this community and we got faith in the future and if that's what I was going to sell Columbia that's exactly what I was telling um that that you can get we have just trust you have trust in the city and faith that that we're we're going to deliver and that we're we're committed to moving forward so anyway all right so we need uh some type of motion to come out of this saying that we're important of the seventy two thousand dollars is that correct are we voting on a consensus you don't need to vote we did I mean are you on that now he prefers not to vote but we do endorse or rip it out of the committee how do you have any reservations no I think that this works moving forward okay I agree okay so we've got a consensus to move forward and we will move that forward and possibly next agenda okay that's okay and Nelson has offered to come in as early as June to our future committee meetings and that's right I think they do a really good job I think it is easy to understand what that means that's perfect and there's a fit what we want okay you all right if they could come in with some suggestions yeah right do not just to jump out of general communication okay that's one of my hand go over it so you want to move Ryan to this yes sir next thing the next item is this now they created create opportunity with the workforce development training programs specifically focused on the information technology sector that program is being transferred over has been transferred over to the South Carolina technical college system foundation and they will be running running that from here on out but he's come back again asking for some additional support as the program transitions over to continue help growing that as well and so what he has put in is a $50,000 one-time request from the city if we would like to support to get that program transitioned over and to help grow it over the next few years he did indicate this does not need to be done in a single budget year so if we're inclined to support and we wanted to break that payment up 25 over two-year periods they're open to that as well but demand for information technology jobs is growing they've had good support through the program so for they've placed some employees at colonial life diesel laptops nephron yoban and others and that's the request before us where the students come from specifically so in the program the students and you don't necessarily have to be a college student per se but they go on and they take an online aptitude examination which takes about one and a half two hours once it kind of pre-screens you and identifies that you have you know the traits that they're looking for you do basically a six-month boot camp through midlands technical college once that process is completed and then you go into a two-year apprenticeship program with an identified employer the employer gets some some labor with some preliminary training at a lower cost so you're not paying full freight for an IT graduate you don't have to pay the 70 000 per year maybe it's closer to 50 per year and then the point that you've finished that apprenticeship you're finished you've got a degree you've got two years of on-the-job training and your commitments ended and you can go work wherever you'd like so it's the training and then into an apprenticeship program so do you have a specific recommendation for this bringing it here for the consideration sir so i'm sorry chairman so how many you funded this last year for the first we funded it in 2020 to get it started and i believe we contributed $40 000 at the time okay since then we've not paid anything we'll just just give me the success stories so they've um got uh 13 students or they've had 15 students that have completed the six month training program and then they force it three three years yes so they they did some initial phases where it was just two forced students a piece um because it takes a while to run through that program now they're kind of ramping up to where they're doing full-sized cohorts which are more the 15 students per batch and these are essentially these are uh grants to Milistat for the students to go through their program but it covers tuition costs is there any recommendation that they or requirement that they live live work in the city of Columbia afterwards or it don't have to i believe our initial um request of them that was that they um have was it in came from the Columbia from within the city of Columbia they came close to meeting that they probably got more around eight yeah i'm supportive of it again but i would like to add the layer of priority for students that live within the city limits um if possible i guess i'm i'm i guess i'm reasonably reasonably supportive of it as well um i'm just trying to figure out you know if we didn't do this does this thing exist or not exist going forward or you know so it's just it's just hard to tell i mean you know i mean i would think of it was an uh an amazing what are the other funding outlets there are other funding outlets definitely right yeah i mean the um the employers have a buy-in so you know colonial life diesel as an employer um you know i'm willing to i'm willing to fund stuff as an employer as an employer just hoping that i could get some employee down the road so so i mean the fact that we're carrying you know i don't know how much of the freight we're actually you know of the total percentage i mean i would just think that the employers would have their own you know the other model where they pay versus that's what we are in today's world where there are no employees you know this should be driven by the private sector in my mind you know it's not us it'd be fair to say that this model we are taking on more of a incubator role to incubate these this future workforce that will find hopefully a job of the wonderful large employers here in the city very close to the city i think that's more of the approach that this group is asking yeah i don't i'm not asking for a long term recurring commitment i see this as more of like a help kick start this and get it to the next phase you know we want to transfer we want to ramp up and with your support we feel like we can boost the program up to where it needs to be i guess i guess what i'll i guess what i'll say is this should be important enough to quality like diesel labs out of net brown pharmaceuticals joe v and cyber world will do this on the ground and really really drive this thing um so so i'm not i'm not saying i won't support it i'm just saying i'm not going to support it for long um if we support it because i just i just don't see that this is a good use of this is going to happen without that's what i'm saying this is necessary stuff in the world in today's world where you don't have technical employees that you need and and we're basically paying for this program when the private sector should be paying for this program they're what's benefiting from this right i mean you know so we know almost we know so little about this so yeah i don't know that we we have to answer affirmatively or negatively today i think you know this was just to kind of get the request in the queue if there's follow-up questions that we would like to ask regarding you know commitment to um power in the city or information about us to understand no free plan or lexington's just understand why why this can't just be driven through the midlands tech in the private sector out of store play and i think that's a larger conversation what's what's our role in or force development and investing in it right yeah so but i think it's a great program and yeah i'm all for it i just don't know that it's it's our yeah we can just get some more information we have any questions we want a prayer phone who else is participating from public sector level or level yeah what's the total what's the total need and what's the total you know commitment and you know what are the companies the private sector uh contributing to this what's me list text role i mean i i would love funding yeah it will it move or without the participation of the city yeah i i didn't i did not get clarification on him if it was kind of a but for situation i think that's what though are there partnering opportunities for grants out there where we can partner with not this nonprofit sure dr bustle are you okay with the approach yeah and i think going back to what councilman brandon said about making a clear connection as to the direct benefit to the city and how many folks from this cohort are either staying after going through this program and being clear but i agree with you chairman i think that it would be a initial startup investment if we did anything and then i think the private sector needs to take this and run with it we need to focus our efforts on building quality of life and some of the other conversations we've had um earlier today totally agree all right everybody happy with our approach yes sir rotten you got anything else no sir that was it jack you got anything else that did i think we're good she all got something else it was all almost on time good job i didn't do a lot of talking so you're saving that for another time okay i'm saving that for we haven't figured out i love to talk so um anyway so that's uh i guess uh we'll adjourn yes thank you there be happy yes sir thank you


What's the best way to stay healthy in the face of so much conflicting nutrition information? Well, ideally you would go to the source, the gold standard, the peer-reviewed medical literature, and read through the stacks of the latest medical journals. But who's got time for that? I do! Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger. Today we hope to settle the debate once and for all for the role of cholesterol in heart disease. The cholesterol controversy is over. In fact, you can argue it was over a century ago. It seemed obvious in 1920 that high cholesterol levels in the blood infiltrating your artery walls was the cause of coronary heart disease. The number one killer of men and women confirmed as unequivocally as the revelation that blood circulated throughout the body, or that the tuberculosis bacteria causes tuberculosis. The question is, why did it take so long? What is so puzzling is that why do we have to work so hard to sell the message, given what seems to be an unbeatable amount of hard evidence? Many rejected the cholesterol heart disease link, because so many patients were dying of coronary heart disease despite so-called perfectly normal cholesterol levels. Of course, as I've detailed, before having normal cholesterol levels in a society where it's normal to drop dead of a heart attack isn't exactly saying much. Ideally, we want to get our total cholesterol well under 150 since having high cholesterol levels in your blood is thought of as the only direct atherosclerotic risk factor. All the other things, smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, inactivity, obesity, just exacerbate the damage caused by the high cholesterol. Another factor may be the preoccupation of cardiologists with all the new fancy gadgets and procedures out there. It's like we train them to be highly skilled high-tech fighter pilots to fight a war but then sent them on some boring preventive diplomatic mission. But the reasons may be even more personal than that. As an editorial in the Journal of the American Heart Association asked nearly 50 years ago, why do we pretend the cause of heart disease is mysterious? There is no mystery as to why the incidence of heart disease, like that of lung disease and of venereal disease, sexually transmitted disease, continues to rise for many decades after the cause is established. Why? Because human beings, including physicians, are eager for excuses, not to face annoying facts, and so they continue to do things which are agreeable but hazardous. People tend to reject new ideas even when they don't impose any change in our way of life, and it's almost impossible for most men to accept any suggestion, and it might be wise to give up agreeable habits such as smoking, unsafe sex, or eating their favorite foods. This continuing challenge is represented by a senior professor of medicine who questioned whether an alteration of diet would really affect the course of heart disease. These professors know the facts. The problem is that they, like so many patients, will not allow themselves to believe the message. Eating rich food just means too much to too many people, even when it's our gravest mortal threat. Scientific consensus panels going back decades established beyond a reasonable doubt that lowering LDL cholesterol reduces the risk of heart attacks. Consistent evidence unequivocally establishes that LDL causes our number one killer, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. And what raises LDL cholesterol? Saturated fat. Where is cholesterol-raising saturated fat found? The number one source is dairy, the number two source is chicken, then pastries, pork, and burgers. And it's not just saturated fat. Dietary cholesterol has been known as a dominant factor in the genesis of atherosclerosis since 1908, which is why we should lower our intake of saturated fats, trans fats, and dietary cholesterol as much as possible. This is consistent with how our biology evolved. Extensive evidence clearly indicates that a plant-based diet was the traditional eating pattern of our distant ancestors. And so dietary cholesterol intakes were typically very low, while at the same time we were packing in whole plant foods containing components like fiber to help us eliminate cholesterol. Where is dietary cholesterol coming from now? Overwhelmingly eggs with a number two source chicken, then beef, dairy, and pork. So wait a second. If the Institute of Medicine recommends that individuals consume as little dietary cholesterol as possible, presumably that would mean cutting out foods like eggs entirely. But does eating cholesterol actually raise your blood cholesterol? We'll find out next. The question, does egg feeding, in other words dietary cholesterol, affect the level of cholesterol in the blood? Was answered 40 years ago. Give someone half a cup of eggs a day, and within two, three, four weeks their cholesterol keeps going up, and then stop the eggs by switching to an egg substitute, and the cholesterol comes down. Or start people on the egg substitute, and not much happens, but then start feeding eggs, and their cholesterol shoots right up. Put people on a cholesterol-free diet, and their cholesterol is dropped. But then add some egg yolk cholesterol, and their cholesterol goes up. Take it away, and their cholesterol goes down. You could do this all year. And it's within days, 10 days of eggs, and cholesterol shot up 50 points. Take the eggs away, and it comes back down. You can reproduce this effect over and over and over and over, though evidently penguin omelets are only about half as deadly. Switch people from a high cholesterol diet to a cholesterol-free diet, and you can drop blood cholesterol levels as much as 100 points. Okay, but that was giving people more than a half a cup of egg yolks a day, but even just a single egg a day can increase people's LDL cholesterol 12%. Put all the studies together in this 2020 meta-analysis, more than 50 randomized controlled trials feeding people eggs, and egg consumption significantly increases LDL cholesterol. Period. Now, studies funded by the Egg Board use a variety of methods to try to minimize the reported negative health effects of eggs by, for example, claiming that dietary cholesterol affects only certain people. That's actually been put to the test, and only 3% were even potentially non-responders to dietary cholesterol, and even these probably evidenced some adverse response. Wait, then how was the Egg Board able to design a study in which egg intake did not change blood cholesterol by feeding them sufficiently large quantities of dairy and meat? See, there's a plateau effect. Though all lines of evidence converged indicate that dietary cholesterol is a major factor in promoting hardening of the arteries, confusion about dietary cholesterol has arisen, because above a certain ceiling, you basically max out cholesterol absorption. Check it out, if you're eating a strictly plant-based diet with a baseline of zero cholesterol intake, and you start adding meat dairy or eggs to your diet, you can get a dramatic rise in blood cholesterol. But as your diet starts out more and more meaty, you can saturate your system and basically max out on the additional effect. So no wonder the Egg Board packed in the extra meat dairy to mask the egg effect. A systematic review of egg industry funding and cholesterol research sought out to see if industry-funded studies were more likely to report conclusions that were not supported by their own objective findings. Of the non-industry-funded studies on the effect of egg ingestion on cholesterol, cholesterol increases were reported in about 90%. Among industry-funded studies, cholesterol increases were reported in about 90%. In other words, even the egg industry-funded study showed eggs increased blood cholesterol and not a single study funded by anyone showed a significant decrease. Okay, but here's the crazy part. About half of the industry-funded studies reported conclusions that were discordant with their own results. In other words, they found that cholesterol went up, but if you read their conclusions, they exonerated eggs. That's why you can't just read the abstract. You actually have to see what they found. Readers, editors, and the public should remain alert to funding sources in interpreting study findings and conclusions. We would love it if you could share with us your stories about reinventing your health through evidence-based nutrition. Go to nutritionfacts.org slash testimonials. We may be able to share it on our social media to help inspire others. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, or studies mentioned here, please go to the Nutrition Facts podcast landing page. There you'll find all the detailed information you need plus links to all the sources we cite for each of these topics. For a vital, timely text on the pathogens that cause pandemics, you can order the e-book, audio book, or hard copy of my latest book, How to Survive a Pandemic. For recipes, check out my new How Not to Diet cookbook. It's beautifully designed with more than 100 recipes for delicious and nutritious meals. And of course, all of the proceeds I receive from the sales of all my books go to charity. NutritionFacts.org is a non-profit science-based public service where you can sign up for free daily updates and the latest in nutrition research will be a bite-size videos and articles. Everything on the website is free. There's no ads, no corporate sponsorship, no kickbacks. It's strictly non-commercial, not selling anything. I just put it up as a public service as a labor of love as a tribute to my grandmother, whose own life was saved with evidence-based nutrition.