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he looks like he got the keys to his parents boathouse. But he's really
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parents can't figure out. It's probably a good thing. From the Mac of
All Trade studio in Fairport and driven by Victor Chrysler Dots Jeep Ram. It's
bilified the Bill Moran Podcast. Well, hello and welcome, Thanks for getting
your pot on, Thanks for telling a friend so excited. The guy I've
been a big fan of for a long time. You see him on ten
NBC Berkeley Breen, who many years ago we call balls Breen because he had
the balls to go up and knock on people's doors that were probably doing something
they shouldn't be doing right more or less, but really looking for I think
back then I think ten NBC's Moniker was digging for answers, reporting them first
right, yes, yes, and it was a situation out by the way.
Good to see a bill, nice to dis here, Yeah, holy
cow, that's nice to hear. It was a case out in Wayne County
and the police had removed or the state had removed children from this house,
which was in Squalor. And I went up and knocked on the door,
and secretly I was hoping that no one would answer the door. I was
doing it sort of a for effect. And I knocked, didn't hear anything,
knocked again, and all of a sudden I heard footsteps, and I
thought, oh, oh no, what I'm getting myself into. And the
guy opened the door, saw me sort of instinctively was about to close it,
and then he opened it up again, and I introduced myself and I
said, can we talk about this? And he said, yeah, sure,
come on inside. And I thought that this was not the game plan
here. I all I wanted to do was knock on your door and brought
me in. And it was lovely. Among the most uncomfortable situations I've been
in, I talked about, you know, I've been in situations where you're
you're sort of have to be alert and you're constantly scanning your surroundings. I
think police officers do this all the time, whether they're working or they're out
at a restaurant with their family. They're constantly scanning the circumstances in the situation.
And I've had to do that occasionally with work, and I remember doing
it there. I was looking at everything, the knives on the countertop,
I was looking for guns in the house, and I was looking for the
squalor and I saw it. It was all around me. Yeah, And
I think it was after that that well, it was because I remember that
story and the guy opened in the door, and I think we had talked
to you, and at the time I was on CMFT with Tommy, and
I remember you saying, like, how uncomfortable. But I thought, God
that that that's a really ballsy thing, because somebody is at their lowest point
and you don't know what they're gonna do, like to your where saying scan
around you don't know. I mean, they could flip out at any moment,
just flip out. And because their whole world is caming in on them.
Who doesn't love their children, even if you live in Squalor. You
just something's going on there. It shouldn't be allowed. It's not healthy.
But it doesn't mean you don't love your kids, or at least in your
own mind, I know, but I don't. Honestly, I'm not sure
I considered that back then. At least I didn't consider the threat to me
back then. Right now, and I don't knock. I really don't knock
on doors, and we'll see, well, I think the world has even
changed even more now, right a little bit. But I don't think you
can. I think sometimes I'm a big believer, like, if you go
in with pure intentions, if the intention is to tell the story, right,
hear their side of it, which all we're getting is kids were taken
away and blah blah blah. All right, well, how does this person
feel and what is their story? And maybe there's some empathy we can show
maybe, right. I think if you go with that and you don't even
think of the other, that's all you're gonna get. You're gonna get the
story and not the violence. But people are unpredicted. I just think I
just think it's not the safest thing to do to knock on random doors anymore,
and so I generally don't. I try to make contact other ways.
And then if I've been that was my favorite thing. I know. It
was Ball's Breen Man, Ball's Breen. You came in here this morning and
we're gonna, I know, we'll have this up a couple days later.
I have a family issue I have to deal with. My mom has surgery.
Next week's on. We're prerecording some stuff. But when you came in
here, you said that this is one of the times where you can really
relate to the story you're reporting on or have been reporting on a lot lately.
Well, last night when we were on the air, someone tried to
steal my car in a lot that has yeah, that's secured and has cameras
from the secured parking lot at Channel ten. It's fenced, it's monitored by
cameras. There's a gate to get in and a gate to get out.
Yeah, And they tried to steal my Kia okay, and they couldn't do
it because it's a push start. So they broke into the keya next to
me and stole that And it was the car of a young, young,
young reporter just starting and had a traumatic impact on her. I was surprisingly,
there's a couple of twelve year olds. They didn't even realize what lab
they were in. No, I don't know, I honestly, truly,
truly thought truly because I've seen video of people doing stealing keyas and hun days,
I thought, and I've seen them look into the look into the car
through the window and look for either a key ignition or a push start.
Mine's a push start, And I thought, that's my defense. Yeah it
is, that's it. Yeah, they're going to see that and they're gonna
realize, let's move on to the next one. They didn't. They broke
in through the back window, climbed over into the front seat, ripped the
plastic covering around the steering column, and probably tried to start it. There's
glass everywhere. Um, oh my gosh. Yeah, unbelievable. And so
that happened that I was alerted to it at five forty five and I was
live on the air at six, and so I had to kind of wait,
this is daylight. They did this, and they did too. Thought
this was like eleven, two o'clock in the afternoon. Two o'clock in the
afternoon, parking lot was full, cameras were on, people were But you're
not thinking that way, you know what I mean? Is there somebody that
sits and monitors the parking lot, not at that hour at that but there's
people constantly moving in part of the parking lot, especially at that time of
day. But think about this, when you were walking from your building to
your parking lot, what are you thinking about? Going home? Yeah?
And your kids hockey? Yea, all that stuff for dinner. What's next?
Where am I going? Nobody? It's just human nature. We are
where. It's almost like you could say we're self absorbed, but we're you
know, we're not. We're just in our thing. You're not thinking of,
Hey, what's this guy doing in the parking lot? You people might
have walked past these people, I guess. And the reason why I wanted
to bring it up yea, why it's thinking I think it's important to talk
about is like you said, I I don't. I haven't personally gone through
the problems that the people LIKE talk to are going through. Right. Occasionally
it's happened, and I can sympathize even more I can, I can have
firsthand experience of the problem they're going through. But generally speaking, I don't,
right, but now I do. And for the how many there's been
more than a thousand, I guarantee. Probably we're getting close to fifteen hundred.
It's ball that's the ballpark. And even though they didn't actually steal my
car, Yeah, it is like slamming on the brakes on your life.
Yeah, because of all the other stuff that you need to take care of
in addition to the stuff you to do on a normal day, it's a
pain in the ass. Yeah, you gotta go get the window fixed.
Yep, you have to get the steering column fixed. That could take who
knows what. They probably have to order. The glass to get it out
of the door has to be taken apart. You're not it's not an easy
It's not one of these things where you're going in for an oil change.
This is not people have told me when it's happened to them, they don't
have the parts to fix this. Okay, well that's another terrible So the
irony or the coincidence, I guess I'm not sure how to describe it is.
Last night our stories were on young people committing crimes in the community and
how they're getting arrested. They're getting ticketed because of their age and because of
what they're getting charged with, and then they're just the system the juvenile justice
system just kind of leaves this giant gap between the time when they're arrested and
ticketed and the time they've got to show up in court and there's just nothing
there and they may or may not reoffend, and they're just there's a kind
of steel people's cars. And even if your car isn't stolen, yea.
And I can say this by firsthand experience, it is a massive, massive
burden on your life. It's a pain in the ass and you feel very
violated. Yep. I've had like a radio stolen from my car and you
just feel unsafe. Somebody else was in your space, right, that's your
space. And then in addition for you all the repairs that have to happen,
when can that happen? And when can that happen? In your life?
As you said, you got a kid, you got baseball, you
got hockey, You've got all these different things going on. Plans with your
wife, your wife may have plans, you need to stay home with a
kid. You were going to golf with your buddies. So you know,
I mean, I'm just saying, like on live TV in ten minutes after
I found out about Yeah, yeah, I mean, so all these things,
and that's the crazy parton As I said to you, when your car
is actually stolen, it's almost that it's only a pain in the ass for
you. Everybody can say I'm so sorry to hear that, but nobody really
gets the impact of where you had to be. What bills aren't going to
get paid because you can't. Maybe you're working a job that pays you outurly,
so you're not getting there, appointments that you can't get to, where
your kid can't get to, just the inconvenience, and then you know,
you start to become a burden to other people because you got to call in
favor and you know family. First, let me just say that Channel ten
has been fantastic, totally supportive and helpful, particularly to me and the other
our other staff member who actually had that's great. But the other thing is
it's a secured parking lot. Yeah, I mean security measures are there,
and so I think the vulnerability is everywhere. And that's not hyperbole. Well,
I remember talking to Sheriff Baxter very recently and he told me, and
I'm gonna i'll say paraphrasing, but I'm gonna think I'm missing the exact numbers,
but I thought he said there was one somebody about fifteen years old who
had committed six of these types of crimes and had been released on all of
them, and that they weren't detaining them. And my only reason for bringing
that up is, as you're saying this, right, that long lag time
in between ticket and appearance and being released back into the wild, so to
speak, it's frustrating for law enforcement. They're frustrated as well because they don't
know what to do. And now I thought at some point somebody had a
good proposal, because of course the number one an outcry, and mostly from
the suburbs, would be where are the parents? Okay, hey, man,
I I can't answer that, and nobody can. Doesn't solve the problem.
Clearly, there's no authority figure in these kids' lives. That's that are
dropping the hammer. But somebody said, what if we started to have the
parents' insurance pay for this stuff? And I don't know how you do that
legally, but damn I kind of like it. So that that's Jose Peyo
who says, yeah, that's who it was. He sat here. Yeah,
So there's probably some there's probably some like legal they'd have to figure it
out. But but don't you know, my dad used to tell his uh
what was the expression? He would say, don't He would tell his students,
don't, don't cancel the prom because you can't find a dress or a
tuxedo. I mean, figure those problems out and then still do the good
work. So let's not just dismiss ideas because wow, they might you might
have fitfall. So I think it's probably worth looking into here. Here's what
I would say. I bet most parents, I know, most parents are
doing the best they can. Ye, whether they're in here in Fairport or
on Frost Avenue, Ye, they're doing the best they can. And sometimes
the problems are more severe in one house versus another house. One of the
things we learned yesterday through the County Executive's office was that parents are reaching out
to Monroe Rochester Monroe Youth Services saying I need help. I cannot do this
by myself. They're not listening to me anymore. And I think there's lots
of parents who somebody who's raised a teenager could tell you the same thing,
But now you're in a different environment where this is what my buddies are doing.
The buddies in Fairport aren't doing that, you know, and I and
kids are smart and they gravitate. I had some kids walking here from Fairport.
All these kids, some of them were from other countries. One was
Somalian, one was from Israel or I'm forgetting. And one kid had bounced
around a lot and had been in the city school district. And these kids
all lived in the pines of Parrenton. Okay, Now, the pines of
Parrenton would not be the nicest place to live, I think overall, right,
especially compared to some of the other kids that they're walking or sharing lockers
next to and all that, right, you can, it's almost like the
haves and have nots. This one young man stood here and he said,
I hear kids at Fairport who have been there, and we were talking more
about bullying most of their lives. And said, got it. This school
sucks. I hate it. And I said to them, you don't know
how good you got it. And so when you think of just that environment,
so it becomes like almost a mob mentality, you know. I've always
been fascinated by the fact that, like the Menendez brothers, for example,
I always like, how do you get somebody to go along with you to
do something heinous, right, Like I had two boys that were sixteen months
apart. I'm hoping that if my oldest son, Jackson, went to his
younger brother, Jordan goes, what are you doing Friday night? He goes,
No, I don't know. I was thinking maybe going to the movies
or something. I want to kill mom and dad. Jordan would go,
what the fuck is wrong with you? No? But how would you get
to But when you've got a group of kids and this is a cool thing
and you want to fit in, shit changes, you know what I mean?
And I just think, like, there you have to you have to
think of those things. It doesn't make it right. Please don't think I'm
trying to excuse this. That's not it. I'm trying to say. I
do think when it comes to the parenting thing, it's hard, and there's
a lot of single parent homes everywhere. But and you're also talking people who
don't have the means to be able to get you into a psychologist. So
there's lots of like go arrest the parents, go to the parents. Yeah,
that kind of thing. Parental supervision is key. It's probably the number
one thing in raising any child. But I do think that parents are probably
trying. They're very hardest. Here's an example of something that's happened. It's
gone on for about a month. Again, I don't want to get too
far into the weeds on this, but typically the way it works is if
a teenager or a mine or any kid, say under eighteen, gets arrested
for you know, possession of stolen property, which is what they would get
if they were caught in a stolen car, the police would arrest them and
give them an appearance ticket. But the time between that appearance ticket till they
have to show up in Core probably family court, is anywhere from fourteen to
twenty days. So there's two to two and a half weeks where there's nothing,
yeah, where they're back home, where they're doing what they would ordinarily
do. To two weeks not that minimum. So what they're trying to do
now is as soon as that ticket is issued, county probation is notified,
okay, within hours, so the probation officer has to probation officer then within
twenty four hours makes contact with that teenager and tries to get them into services.
They can't compel them to do anything, right, but they try to
do it. And one of the things they said, the head of probation
or public safety in the county is they're actually they're actually open to it.
They're the kid's receptive to it. And here's so, here's the data they've
got for thirty days, okay, thirty four kids they've had contact with.
Thirty four kids okay, get arrested, ticketed, contacted by probation. And
of those thirty four, they only have evidence that one of them has been
arrested again okay, okay before they get into the court system. Right,
And if you heard the mayor talk, I don't know when this is going
to be aired, but talk on Thursday of this week. He's frustrated that
the system just doesn't do anything for these kids. The system catches them,
tickets them, and now it's everybody else's problem. So right, So I
kind of like this, and I think I bet you as you're saying you
can't. I think you can't force them to go to anything, but you
can try to persuade them to do it. But one of the things,
by the way, is enroll them in school. Yeah, enroll them in
school. That's one of the things that they've tried to do. Ye think
about that. Enrolling in school, so the teenager. But um, but
there's other things like get them or something. Yeah, that's right, get
them hooked up with a job. As a matter of fact, the I
think it was either the county executive or it was the head of youth services
said they met with a couple of teams and both of them had jobs within
two hours of connecting with them. See, and a lot of these kids,
you go, if you could use those powers for good, they they're
they're motivated, they got some smarts, they can figure stuff out. I
don't know kind of they'm trying to bring into my car, and they should
have known they couldn't have. I'll give you that. But I think that
also these kids are scared. I think they're scared at some point. And
I do wonder if you sometimes pushed through because you're with your peers and they're
doing it or whatever. You usually don't think they're individual, but I probably
pure. Yeah. And so complex problem, right, complex problem, And
the toughest thing with complex problems is trying to just come up with a simple
solution. So you got to you got to come up with multiple multiple things
or doing well, here's the thing that and somebody I haven't seen, or
somebody should go talk to. Roland Williams has that leadership academy. According to
law enforcement that I talked to, they've never had contact with someone who was
enrolled in that. And I have thought, even with my kids all the
way through, I would call it, if you can get them to get
a win, get one win whatever that is, one hundred on a test,
scoring a goal, assisting whatever. It is something that's gonna make you
feel good and keep chasing that feeling, because when you win, I mean,
you played sports. When you win. I had a coach when we
won, Oh my god, he'd be screaming us, you guy, god
damn blah blah. You were enough coming off the line, too quick,
you snap? Did you see that? We lost five yards in that,
But we won, so it was easier to take when we lost and we
made mistakes. He's like, hey, guys, look everything. You know.
I was like an old boxing coach. It's one step, one punch,
one round, right, you know, it's one down, one play,
that's all. Let's go. We can get back to this. And
it's a very different thing. But I think if you find these kids and
they start to feel like they're winning in a positive way and it's reinforced.
Not gold stars and bullshit like that, but maybe in the form of a
paycheck or in the form of something, I think you could you could fix
it. I mean, look, I sit here and you can say all
the words you want. I'm not doing anything about it. But I was
always impressed with the Leadership Academy, and I know it seemed to rub some
people the wrong way, but boy, the results speak for themselves. And
I'm just surprised someone hasn't talked to him. Well, we did just years
ago, we did lots of stories on education. Yeah, every week we
did it was called New York State Exposed Education, and every Thursday we had
an investigative style story just on education. And some of it had to do
with common core and curriculum stuff. A lot of it had to do with
achievement problems in the city school district, achievement and attendance problems. And what
we did is we sort of looked at what other cities were doing, Boston,
d c, Cleveland, Hartford, you name it, and we came
up with a list of ten things. Ten here's ten different things that other
cities are doing that you could do, And one of them was a military
academy, which they had in Buffalo, And it was the most popular idea
that we proposed. And it's so popular in fact, that suburban families were
contacting us to say, how do we get signed up for that? And
U and Van White, who was the president of the school board at the
time, liked it and he was looking into it seriously. So just you
know, I just it's usually options. I'm not gonna say, maybe this
is painting with a broad brush, but I think most of the people committing
these crimes are young men. It's not saying that maybe there isn't a girl,
but it's usually young men, right, And they're the ones that you
want to try to grab in and go. And young guys, I mean,
they're always looking for some they're looking for a leader. They I just
feel like young guys are looking for a leader. And I think if we
look back through the history of the world, if you had the wrong leader,
bad things could happen, you know what I'm saying, Like certain countries
were trying to rise up and take over and they and it wasn't good,
but it was young people who were lost. It was after, you know,
great trauma of a war. And then we're looking and you know,
you look in the city and it's almost like, if you could just get
young people to buy into something better than this. And from what I've been
told, and I don't know if this is two or not that are there
adults behind this in the Hey, you're not going to get in trouble,
but you go steal that car. Not all of them are being used in
smashing grabs. So I don't I don't know how much truth there is in
that. You know what I'm saying that was what was proposed or I had
heard banning about by police. Yeah, I've heard that. Two. Yeah,
I haven't. Honestly, I can't recall ever covering an adult right who
was arrested for conspiracy. Yeah, to at teenagers to go commit crimes.
Yeah, I mean, when that happens, we'll definitely cover it and it
will be proof that there are twenty five year olds or thirty year olds that
are enticing teenagers or miners to commit crimes. So, yeah, I've heard
that conversation, but I can't recall an arrest of an adult and charged with
some level of conspiracy because it's sort of what it would be. I mean,
I'm not a lawyer or law enforcement, but it seemed to be well,
yeah, all right, well look at that conversation just because but he
wanted to get my car. Yeah, but but a great conversation and one
that I think is insightful for people to know. And again, unless it
really happens to you, you can't you can't really know, right unless you
Yeah, that's the thing. I know you have a hard out. So
let's take a pause here. But I wanted to get into how Berkeley Breen
became Berkeley Breen from the great country of Canada. That's on fire. I
mean they're smoking up there. Wow, it's it's something. Yeah, that's
scary. We'll get to that just a moment. Have you been to Iron
Smoke Distillery? What are you waiting for? Man? Come on. They're
making some of the best bourbon outside of Kentucky in the entire world. That's
according to Forbes Magazine. I mean, that's pretty impressive. Right. Whether
you're a whiskey connoisseur or you're just starting your journey, Iron Smoke Distillery has
something special for you. Their signature Iron Smoke Straight Bourbon whiskey is a true
testament to their commitment to absolute excellence. It's smoothness and complexity will captivate your
taste buds, leaving you craving more. That's exactly what I said after I
sipped it. This leaves me craving more, and I finished the entire bottle.
They also have great live entertainment over there and some really great stuff.
Tonight, go check out the Acoustic Sunset Sessions from five, five thirty,
seven thirty It's free. Brianna Blankenship is playing fantastic, and then the living
Room Sessions go on stage seven thirty to ten thirty for a five dollar cover.
Friday Night, Absolute Maybe doing the Friday Acoustic Sunsets Essence from five to
eight and then the Breakfast Club Eighties Tribute ten dollar cover taking the stage at
eight thirty. Always a lot of fun. Ironsmoke Distillery right here in Fairport,
New York. Baby the Wings are Home. This weekend Right eight features
a tribute to Milo Thebatdog with a poster giveaway and fireworks. Saturday features a
cap giveaway and fireworks. Father's Day has a baseball giveaway and kids can play
catch with Dad postgame. For tickets, visit Red Wings Baseball dot com.
RV shoppers. Father stays right around the corner. You know what you should
let Dad do buias on RV. Just let him do it because you benefit
as well. The summer selloff is going on at all three Rochester area Myers
RV locations. You're gonna see toy haulers, fifth wheels, motor homes are
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Myers RV's original location in Caledonia, which is just ten minutes off Exit
ten on three ninety and Myers r V in Farmington, just east of the
village of Victor on Route ninety six. You can learn more at Myers RVs
dot com. It's the June Summer sent off. It's happening now at all
area Myers locations, Well Conrey's Irish Pub, the happiest place in Fairport or
maybe on Earth. Robot Brewing Company, Rochester's original craft brewery, knows your
summer is going to fill it fast. That's why they're telling you right now
that on Friday, August eighteenth, you need to make yourself available for the
Flower City Brewers Fest. It's back, and it's hosted by Robot Brewing Company.
I want you to picture yourself at the Public Market listening to live music
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unique brews from ready for this, over sixty five breweries. This is not
just any beer fest, man, It's a celebration of craftsmanship, creativity,
and community. Rochester Brewing Company is proud to bring together over sixty five local
breweries, with each bringing unique beers that you can't find anywhere else, from
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Now, VIP tickets have sold out Ga. Tickets are going really quick,
so visit Flower City Brewfest dot com slash tickets to secure your tickets to
the best night of Summer again. Make sure you're available Friday, August eighteenth
for Flower City brewers Fest, hosted by Roboc Brewing Company, Rochester's original craft
brewery. It gets sticking down to it's Berkeley. What is happening in Canada
right now? As I mean, you know, we saw the air.
It's wild, right. I hadn't really seen anything like that, And even
when I was out west, you know, I lived in Park City for
a while. You would look up at the mountains from Salt Lake Pristine.
You go to Colorado, you look at from Denver to Boulder, and there
was always this heavy smog and it wasn't from forest fires but just pollution,
and it was all called elect right, the mountains would trap it, and
it's a it's an amazing thing air quality. You walk out the other day,
like I always had a just a rough day one day last week and
I decided to go for a run, not paying attention to anybody, and
all of a sudden, like it smells like fire out here, and I'm
breathing like I ended up just walking and somebody called me while I'm on the
run, They go, you probably shouldn't be doing that. I remember Monday
night, I was coaching Little league, and I guess I wasn't aware of
the fires that were going on in Canada. And I remember looking up and
I'm like, look at that sun. Yeah, that's just like, that's
unbelievable. What is going on there? And then it was slowly I think
the wind started blowing. Our way has everything to do with the wind.
If the wind starts blowing the other way, we got I was in northern
California, I think last year, and there were terrible fires out there,
and I mean, you want to talk about fire destructions. You the land
I was looking at in northern California, you could take pictures of France in
World War One and they were identical. It looked like a war zone.
It's very scary. I mean, it's unbelievable. But but all of a
sudden, if the wind were blowing one way, we didn't see it or
think about it at all. The skies were blue, the air was crisp.
It was incredible, and all of a sudden the wind shifted. It
was cloudy. And you could taste it. It's amazing. As soon as
this wind changes, it starts blowing north, then we get some warmer weather,
it'll just blow the smoke somewhere else. Yeah, but it's it's crazy.
I mean it's all up in Quebec and Ontario near Ottawa and then that
west. Yeah, and I am seeing that even up along the Saint Lawrence.
I had heard reports in the Thousand Islands of ash Yeah, falling people
being told to keep the windows closed. You know, people wondered if that
was happening here. I think it's more pollen on our cars here because we
haven't any Oh yeah, it's someone out. It would be a long waiting
for that. Asp. I haven't seen that here, yeah, um,
but I did. It's funny. I did, Like I saw something on
my car before they tried to take it, and uh, you know what,
just put my fingers like on the hood and I looked at it and
it looked yellow. I'm like, I don't think that's that's no, but
I hope not. We were breathing something in, Yes, we were breathing
something in and it is uh a wild, a wild thing. I don't
I think it's moving down to downstate at the at the time and we'll see
good more complaints of that. Um, talk to me about growing up in
Canada. What did your parents do? Where? Where were you did?
You grew up in Hamilton, Kingston and Kingston? Excusing me with Dave Andreotta
and other down here, but he was Hamilton, I was Kingston, which
is where the Saint Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario or vice versa. Yeah.
New people used to take their boat up to Kingston. Loved it. Oh
it's great, great town now for me, Kingston growing up was my neighborhood,
Strathcona Park, our schools, church, the hockey rinks, baseball fields,
and that was my grandparents and that was about it. Really. That
was Kingston to me. That's nice and it sounds very quaint. Yeah,
um this yeah, it was a great great It was kind of like Maybury
a little bit. Yeah, when I go back, I see all the
other stuff now, the unbelievable downtown. They influenced the university and the college
in the Royal Military College and um, so it's become much more of a
fascinating kind of little city. Yeah. Um, it's everybody asked me,
we're sure you go in Canada and you know the obvious ones of Toronto and
Montreal. I'd say out it was amazing as long as I get those fires
under control. But Kingston is incredible apart for two dollars and you can walk
walk anywhere. So but growing up, it was just my neighborhood, all
my friends and hockey, baseball, church Wolf. What did your parents do
your My dad was a teacher. He was an art teacher, but he
was kind of a restauance man, so he taught visual art. Uh and
then when class was done, he coached football and rugby okay and uh in
high school, and then he coached me in baseball and hockey outside school.
You didn't play rugby or I did play football in high school and I played
rugby for one year and got injured. Um it was that was a tough
sport. It's a tough one. Football. I liked playing. I did
not like practice football practice, but I liked football games. It was weird.
I was practice, Oh, practice was awful, awful hate. And
I didn't mind hockey practice. I hockey practice fine. Baseball practice was fine.
Football practice. I don't know if I was practicing the game as much
it's all these stupid drillings over and over, and I wasn't that big,
and they had no sense of like, well, let's line these guys up
right. I mean, these guys were older than me. I had one
of those fun I didn't listen once, and I was supposed to go with
the backs, and I was paying attention. I wound up with the lineman
and we were the Oklahoma drill where you go back to back, they blow
it, they blow again, and then you turn around and run at each
other. I think I got I got my bell rung after the third time
agains it's this one kid, big kid. He the kid looks at the
coach and goes, coach, come on, and he goes, no,
it's gotta learn, gotta learn to listen. By that point, you couldn't
even hear. I'd be curious if they do that drill anymore. I don't
I don't know. I don't know. My son, my youngest son,
played uh, and I will tell you that it was the I liked football
for the discipline and that no matter what your job is, you gotta do
it well for everybody else to do. This may not be the sexiest,
the sexy one is the guy who's got the ball, quarterback, running back,
somebody like that, or the linebacker who's coming in. But other everybody's
got to do their job. And I don't remember Oklahoma drills when when I
went to watch Breakfast, I think, I'm sure that it the coaching clinics
that a lot of the high school coaches go to. And even Pop Warner,
I my guess is and I'm I don't Burk's not in football, but
my guesses they don't do that drill anymore because that I mean that that those
were those were head on us. But my dad was at a different high
school than me. He was at LaSalle, named after the French explorer who
came through Kingston probably in the sixteen hundreds. And I went to Rejopless,
notre name, and I played against my dad three times, beat him every
time. Wow, three interceptions against him. How is dinner after that?
You know? Dinner was okay? Breakfast that morning was the day of the
game. Not for me so much, but for my dad, you know.
And my mom would tell me that he was very uncomfortable coaching against when
he when he had to play against me. Yeah, Um, I don't
think he liked it. When he played against played against my brother, he
beat him all the time, and I think that even upset him more because
his team, his teams were so good and they my brother was a quarterback,
and they just hammered him so many times. I think my dad felt
bad about it. Did your brother go to the same high school? He
went to same high school as me. It was a little younger than me,
so not on the team at the same time. No, he was
younger. Yeah, so by the time he got there, just my dad's
team. I don't think they lost it. Dad out the screaming SA no.
But when in the first time I played against him and I got into
interception right in front of him, like not quite from you to me,
yeah, but pretty darn close. His players were yelling at him to ground
me. That's funny. Yeah, that's very funny. So you grew up
there, and then what what's the next You have a knack for news,
you have a storytelling? Is that a little bit, quick little thing about
my mom? My mom's nurse, greatest greatest nurse in the world, to
greatest mom in the world. So she listens to this. I want to
make sure that my mom so I'm okay. Her name is Mary Breen.
Um, so where does it begin. So we would play road hockey.
We called it road hockey in our driveways sometimes on the road, and I
would just do the play by play as i'm as I'm playing okay, And
so it started there my grandfather, who was the first Berkeley Breen. He
was a radio sportscaster in the Canadian Maritimes. It did hockey play by play
for the Monkedin Hawks. My bio, which I need to change, says
it was in the American Hockey League, but back then it was in the
Atlantic Hockey League, so it wasn't quite against the Rochester Americans. But eventually
the Monketin Hawks would play the AMers. And so that's what he did.
And he died very young, so I never met him, but I was
always sort of inspired by him. As a matter of fact, he won
the sportscaster or radio announcer of the Year for the Maritimes in nineteen eighty seven,
and it's like it's up on our wall in our house, the trophies
there. So he's always been an inspiration. And then when I went off
to university in Canada, I walked into the newspaper and said I wanted to
be a sports reporter, and they sent me over to the sports desk,
and I think either that night or the next day, they had me off
Governor story. So I did that for a couple of years. What university
is this. It's now called Western University in London, which is right in
between Toronto and Detroit. At the time it was called the University of Western
Ontario, which was always a misnomer because it's in south central Ontario. So
but it was one of a big big school, had a journalism school.
It's probably why I went there. Not a lot of kids from Kingston went,
so I didn't know anybody going there Kingston. People in Kings usually go
to State in Kingston, or they go out to the Maritimes, Um Saint
Francis, Xavier, Saint Mary's, that kind of thing. So I was
it. I didn't I nobody else in my school was at Western except me,
But you know, makes you sat Fisher. So then I graduated with
a degree in English and political science. And I was qualified to do everything
and trained to do nothing, so I didn't know what I was going to
do. Came back home, worked at Canadian entire, Canadian entire entire.
I worked at the worked in hardware and sports, and then eventually this information
desk and people would come up and they'd be like, where's this and and
I got to the point where I could tell them what aisle it Wasian Tire,
Canadian Tire is. I thought it was just a tire store. Also,
it's everything. It's it's the greatest store in the world. It's it's
it's misleading name. Well, Jim Gaffigan actually has a bit about Canadian I'm
sure he does. You know what, Let's lure them in with tires,
Yeah, and then we'll sell them a toaster. So it's kind of like
if you imagine Dix and Walmart and Home Depot combined to do a store Canadian
Tire. All right. So so I worked there and then I I did
cable Access. I hosted a show on cable Access once a week called Kingston
Today. And then um, so I'm trying to do all these different things
and the one that you're doing a cable access just when you produce, you
make it up. Yeah, somebody else booked the guest. I showed up
and just okay, let the moneymaker right, you know, bring people in.
And then got accepted, applied to schools all in the United States and
got accepted to Syracuse, went to SU for the graduate school in journalism and
did that, and in the Christmas break went back to Kingston, had a
meeting with the news director of the general manager of the TV station at Kingston.
I said, here's what I am, this is what I've done,
here's a couple of things that I've done. And it was he was nice,
but he said, we don't hire kids out of college. I mean,
he told me I'd have to go up to Sudbury or North Bay or
Timmins like I mean, way way, way up north And I wasn't interested
in doing that. And then a couple of months later I got a job
offer in Watertown, New York, so and I took it. It's been
in the United States ever since. And so I always remember, I always
remember, despite some of the some of the issues and problems that the country
goes through that are uncomfortable, I always remember the United States game. You
shot Yeah, oh that that's an interesting take on that. Because my hometown
did own country turned its back on town, did not give me a shot.
Watertown game. You a shot, and I'm grateful for that. And
I think that that you know, that may be a little sappy, but
that's sort of um. At least when I was growing up, that was
the brand of the United States, that anybody you could get a shot if
you worked hard enough. And I and I tried, worked hard and I
got a shot. Yeah, that's interesting, that's an interesting thing. Yeah.
I am a big believer, and I know this country has its problems,
and they're certainly more apparent today than before, right, but it's still
the land opportunity. And you see, you know, if we talk about
the migrants and the immigration and stuff, we need to fix our immigration overall
on a federal level. But people are literally dying to get into this country
because it's better. I will tell so I'm an immigrant. Yeah, I
will tell you. It is not easy. It is not. It's not
easy to do it the legal No, it's not. And I have run
huge deterrence, right, so I have my you know, when I was
married, my sister in law's from the Philippines, getting her here and my
brother in law was a captain in the army, a West Point graduate.
There was nothing. It was years and I have friends from Ireland and stuff
who extended some visas and things where it, but it was never easy.
So and I'm not saying it should be. I don't know if it should
be easy, but I don't know if it should be as hard as it
is for people who really want to come and either go to school or or
work. And you know, I listen, I'm no expert on it.
I gonna the only thing I can tell you is that it is not easy.
Yeah, So how do you get to ten NBC from Watertown? From
Watertown? So I was in Watertown and I and I was on a work
visa, so I was there a little longer than most people would be there.
I was there for a little over two years, was a little longer
than a most people would spend in an entry level market. But I was
close to Kingston, so I was close to home, and I wanted to
get as much out of as complicated expensive visa as I could. And then
one day I eventually just said I need, I need something else, and
I knew there was a job opening at Channel ten, and as I recall,
the news director at the time lived up on the Lake Shore and Webster
and he got my station in Watertown over the air really okay. He had
been watching me, Yeah, unbeknownst to me. So when I got to
the station and I came in for an interview, he knew I wasn't offered
me the job, and I said I would. I'd said, wow,
yeah, I think I'm gonna take it. I just got to talk to
I got to talk to my folks a little bit. And that was on
Friday, September. Let me think about this seventh, okay, two thousand
and one, okay, oh my gosh, following Tuesday eleven. Yeah,
so it took a little while for us to hook up again. He was
busy here, I was busy up there. Yeah. But then eventually,
I think two weeks later we talked again. I said, yeah, I'll
do it. And I came here on October seventh. October seventh, and
you've been here ever since. There were no aspirations to go to bigger markets,
and you've really entrenched yourself here. Yeah. I think it's nice.
There were definitely opportunities for Chicago, in Pittsburgh, in Kansas City, Charlotte,
and Dcan that Chicago people would jump at that. I think so,
although you know, I've made quality of life decisions. Yes, that's it's
one of these jobs that could be very transient, or you can entrench yourself
and stay somewhere for thirty years of you. So, I so where I
live reminds me in the neighborhood I grew up in, and I think everybody's
sort of attracted to everybody's sort of drawn back to, Yeah, their their
roots, you know, or something that's familiar to them. So my neighborhood
looks exactly like the neighborhood of it. But I just I had done some
assignments in big cities Toronto, d C, New York, and that adds
a whole level of difficulty that I just I wasn't sure I wanted to live
in those places, live in a big city. So there are some I
wonder sometimes what I could be doing, where I could be, and then
that, and then about sixty seconds later, I look at where I am
and it's just the most livable community. It's one of the most livable communities,
I think in the United States. And we get some tough winters sometimes
and there's some other tough things, but for the most part, it's a
great liberable community and things were generally affordable, and I love it, and
I if I had a wish, it would be that people who are native
to the Greater Rochester area would see their hometown like I see my hometown.
Okay, so I go back and like I said at the beginning, to
me, it was my school, my neighborhood, hockey rink, and church,
right. But now I go back and I see something much more complex
and beautiful and engaging and exciting. And I think that if people could just
sort of step back a little bit and look at their community in the Greater
Rochester area, and despite the problems and the serious problems that we've got to
deal with seriously, it's an incredible community with incredible diversity, incredible opportunities and
your home in and the longest commute you'll have is probably thirty minutes. Yeah,
I was even thinking maybe shorter. But you're right that that is absolutely
all true. And I always think this place as though it's not what it
is, it's not today what it was Kodak. I really feel like it
brought some of the most brilliant minds in the world here. They did they
invent a lot of things and not take advantage from the VCR to the digital
camera to all that stuff. The answers, Yes, they built them,
but it was people who wanted to have a lifestyle. These were brilliant minds
that could have gone out and patented themselves, but they gave that up to
let Kodak do it and having life one of paycheck, you know, something
that was steady, this other. You know what I'm doing. It's a
little bit of a risk here, and a lot of people want to do
that, and I understand. But all those brilliant minds then had children and
that and a lot of these people stayed here. It's a very family oriented
area. And I can't remember the story if it was Bob Duffy or if
it was somebody else. But they talked about Kodak in the seventies, eighties,
nineties when it was still a huge machine and they had difficulty getting their
executives to move here wherever else they were in the world, and then it
was nearly impossible to get them to leave. Yeah, right, so they
got here. Now that you know, that's could be a sales pitch that
somebody was given to me to, uh, well, thank you know,
visit Ron Jeffreys over this way. But but I believe it, well sure,
because there's a lot of there's great art and culture and restaurants and lifestyle,
and people are friendly, and there's activities and even in the winter if
you if you're a winter sports person, there's a ton to do. They
groom trails in our parks if you want to go skiing. I mean,
right, and it's amazing and all that is free, right, it's or
your taxes, but you're paying your tax I always always love the argument my
taxes paid for it. I don't know what my pack taxes paid for it.
I just assume it's gonna be there. I know the taxes are going.
I go, what am I gonna do? But that's the way it
is. I know you have a hard out and uh, you got to
get down to the mayor's office. But this has been a pleasure. I
would love to even talks some time again and just find out, you know,
best stories you ever recovered, your favorite things, things you learned along
the way. That was it. I mean, you know, I think
now as you're talking about not getting an opportunity. People hate when I say
this, but the barrier to entry to these sorts of things is gone.
Right, you buy the equipment, you could have your own YouTube show,
or you can maybe even get Roku to give you a little space on their
platform and be able to do your own thing. And I do wonder if
at some point, well Berkeley Breen become an investigative reporter for Rochester with the
Investigative Pod or something to those along those abilified investigative reporter. Yeah, well,
I mean, but for your own, like even your own podcast of
things and ideas, because you're a smart guy and you've got a lot of
connections and know how to dig in for answers. Right, what was the
thing again, digging for answers for reporting the first Yeah, that's been gone
for a number of yearbody like that. I actually didn't hate it. I
didn't hate it because it gave me a tenacity, like a tenacity with the
news. I know, like we all poked fun at everything that everybody was
doing, so it didn't matter. But it has been a pleasure. And
I hope things that the Mayor's officer all set up. I'm ready to go
when you get there. I think we're Yeah, I think they'll be ready
and we'll be ready, and I think it'll be some by the time people
watch this. We've already talked about it about guns and a report on guns,
and I think I think the information will be helpful to people. Okay,
very good. I don't know if you know this song John Hyatt,
Tennessee plates. It's kind a little tribute to Elvis about a guy who meets
a girl and they drive out to Memphis and they steal some of his Cadillacs
because they he gives them to their friends. And he's writing this song,
this letter from a prisoner Tennessee. When I come back, we'll talk about
Hank Snow. Let's listen to this, Okay, tell you my Hank Snow.
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