WEBVTT

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Good morning, good morning, good
morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome me.

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It's time now for our community connection
right here on KAY one, the

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one you trust, and we have
state Representative John B. Kane, who

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also has the Kinge's column on Bartlesville
Radio dot com. He's also your representative.

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And how you doing there, John
B. Hey, I'm doing really

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well. As you know. We
wrapped up our legislative session yesterday evening rather

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late. I think I got home
ten fifteen or so last night. But

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it's great to be home. Man. I just love getting back to Bartlesville

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and getting back into District eleven.
And I think we had a good session.

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It was for me since it was
my second year in. It was

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a better session because I was more. I was just prepared for what was

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coming. You know, a year
of experience, it means a lot,

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and I was happy to have it, and I think I'll be better even

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going back here next year. So
just excited it's over, though, because

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if you don't want us down there
any longer than we have to be,

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we'll just cause we'll just cause a
problem. Now, John, you mentioned

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in your column and you also mentioned
here a couple of times on our Capital

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Call program that the disappointed a bit
that we didn't get that any kind of

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tax cut, going yeah, detail
that. Yeah, I'm disappointed. We

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could have done it. I mean, let's say I'm moderately disappointed because it's

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still a lot done. But we
did get a lot done and it's still

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on the table, and you know, we did we did get the grocery

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sales tax, the state portion of
the sales tax removed, and that's that's

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this is the first budget year that
that's going to impact it. So I

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think, you know, I can
understand someone saying, well, let's just

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let's watch what happens here, let's
make sure we're okay. I, on

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the other hand, do feel like
there's no doubt we're okay. I've seen

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what the numbers look like. We're
still exceeding revenue projections. So I think

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we could have done it. But
the good news is we still kept a

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very conservative budget like I think that
most Oklahomas would want, and we've had

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the four point eight billion dollars in
savings right now that still gives us.

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That leaves all these things on the
table. It could be a tax cut,

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we could continue to you know,
some of the deferred maintenance on our

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state facilities over two really important,
and it gives us the ability to address

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these you know, my gosh,
you know, ten years ago these couldn't

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even be discussed because we were just
trying to get by and fund whatever core

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services we could. But we do
have an obligation to take care of our

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assets once we build them and take
you know, like any business, you

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don't let them fall down and go
to ruin. So but the fact that

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we've conservatively budgeted, it's left all
these discussions on the table. We can

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prioritize it. We could spend money
and take care of things that need to

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be taken care of. Well,
you mentioned a problem that the state never

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really had a few years ago,
but it was a good problem to have.

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What do we do with the savings? Yes, how do we account

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for it? How do we yeah, how do we put this on the

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books? We're saving money? Because
I would first talk to the fiscal staff

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now there and I said, okay, where where's the savings? I can't

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see here's well, and why can't
we get a number that's the same that

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everybody understands because it was in oighteen
different accounts, and it was some of

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it was actually labeled as savings.
Some of it was just in what would

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you call them, revolving funds.
So now we've now that we have this

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money, we're getting better at accounting
for it, handling it, and knowing

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what we have. And so I
feel pretty confident will be at a minimum

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at the end of this year,
which is the end of June, end

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of this fiscal year, will be
at least at four point eight five billion,

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and it could it could get up
closer closer to that five billion,

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depending on what happens. You know, a lot of states don't have this.

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I'm going to tell you Oklahoma's very
blessed. Iowa has this. Oklahoma

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has this, Illinois, New York, California, they New Jersey, they

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don't have U. They're running on
hopeing a prayer and maybe tomorrow will be

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a better day. It's become pretty
clear from a fiscal standpoint at least,

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and I will argue many other standpoints, but the conservatively run, Republican run

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states are outperforming the others by quite
a margin, and I think it's only

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escalating. You're seeing more and more
outward migration from these liberal states into more

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conservative states like Oklahoma. You know, we're a top ten state as far

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as in migration net My gosh,
you know, who would have thought that

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was going to happen in nineteen eighty
five, you know, but here we

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are, and it's because we've taken
care of our business. We haven't seen

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this kind of in migration since statehood
begin That's right, that's right, This

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is pretty good, John, you're
a big proponent of education. We saw

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some education bills come by anything take
you pique your interest there as far as

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it's very important ones. You know, we we continue to fund education extremely

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well. We we continue to address
the teacher shortage with signing bonuses. That

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was an effective program of bringing teachers
in. And then it's also in the

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we're paying student teachers now for the
first time to try and say, hey,

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we're going to help you get through, finish your finish your degree.

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If you're going to come help us
out, we're going to pay you something.

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And I think all these things are
part of the answer. Note there's

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no silver bullet, but I think
we continue to put our money where our

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mouth is. We don't just say
education is truly kind of the top item

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in the state. If you look
at what's going to propel us in the

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future. We have to have an
educated workforce and people and that create jobs

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that stay here. We want we
want our young people to stay here.

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And we made a lot of good
maybe not well it's education, but it's

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take career tech. We made a
nice investment. We made a nice investment

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in career tech for workforce development.
But that's something that we went down there

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over the last year or two years
that's been talked about a lot. Well

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we've addressed that in any ways.
So you know, that's not something you

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get an immediate payback on, but
you just have to keep doing your best

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and on faith that that's the right
thing to do well for a long time

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here in Oklahoma, if you didn't
have a cattle to ranch or oil to

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work for or develop, you know, you really didn't have a reason to

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stay here. You could do anything
other than that. In any state in

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America, you know, you could
do this, do that, or whatever,

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be a doctor or a lawyer,
maybe go to some other state.

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But now with all these different things
that are here, it makes people want

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to stay here, raise their families
here, knowing darn well that the kids

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have a better chance at finding jobs
Aaron and I I mean, my goodness

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sakes, that field is wide open
for that. A variety of different professions,

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a lot of different professions, and
they're all very well paying jobs.

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And as they're growing, industry shows
no sign of slowing up. Of course,

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we got our own Kevin Potters.
There's only Anononyx commission. He was

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down in Oklahoma City last week helping, helping the state, and well,

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we're lucky to have people like that
in all our commissions, but Kevin,

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that being down there helping on that
is is big. But yeah, those

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things are really a I don't know
when I've never been more optimistic for our

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state right now. You know,
you see Tulsa and Oklahoma City just continuing

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to climb the rankings of you know, all the good metrics, you know,

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whether it's cost of living of course, it's jobs, it's new business

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startups. They it's really turned.
Both of those cities are doing so well,

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and it's it's reaching out into some
of the rural areas too. So

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it's a good time to be in
Oklahoma. I promise you that, and

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you know I will I want to
say something, you know, do this.

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You know I'm gonna be back here
in just a little bit and doing

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capitol calling and with my good friend
jud And. But I so I'm gonna

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pivot a little bit to what's going
on in Bartlesville, because you know,

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again it did we kind of led
right into it. I mean, I

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think there's reasons for optimism here,
just like there is all over the state.

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I come back and I'm never I'm
always amazed at how many great things

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are going on here. You know, we got SunFest getting ready to kick

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off, and we got Okam getting
ready to kick off. You know,

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Kitty Park's open. What an investment. We can thank Ken Johnson for coming

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into Bartlesill, Oklahoma, where he
was born and raised and still having that

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connection that he wanted to do something. And if you have not been down

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to see what he's had done at
the Kitty Park, please go down.

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Oh my goodness, we owe him
a great debt of gratitude and seeing those

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kinds of things happen. I see, we got a new new fire chief.

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But he's a guy that's from Bartlesville. A matter of fact, he

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stayed in my district. He was
he left Bartlesville to become the chief in

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Collinsville and then be Coore talking about
HC. Call And now he's going to

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take that take over here after Chief
Toppings retired after thirty five years. You

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know he's gotten a he deserves,
deserves a good retirement. Well you ran

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into enough burning buildings. He can
retire. Yeah, and you know,

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a shameless promotion here, But I
will say, you know, I'll start

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this by thanking my wife because she
she manages my Facebook page. Oh,

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she helps me so much. I
don't know how a person does this job

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without a spouse or somebody that's still
committed to it. Like she loves this.

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She loves Bartlesville in district at eleven
just like I love it. So

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she's she's an important part of this
work for me. And she keeps this

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up up for me. But now
where was I going on that? Oh

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but you could go to my Facebook
page and she all this information is there,

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the good news, what's going on, what's happen in Bartlesville, whether

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it's the farmer's market. You know, you just got me your ambling here.

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I was out in the district a
couple of weeks ago, and I

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was speaking to a young man at
the very Cafe and he told me about

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Throw Town Ramona. Do you know
what throw Town Ramona is. It's a

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track and field for the throwing sports, you know, the discus, the

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shot put, the hammer. And
this man started it. He was He's

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done very well for himself. He's
got a coach that came in. They

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set a world record discus throw a
man from Lithuania. We're drawing people from

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all over the world to Ramona,
Oklahoma to throw because they've set it up,

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because they're knowledgeable on how to say
and they set it up where the

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wind is right and everything. And
they've got four different pits to throw out

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of. And I'm telling you what, we ought to embrace this because I

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don't know what this could become.
But they have people. When I I

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just stopped in unannounced, they had
something going on and there were kids there

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from Georgia, there were kids there
for Florida. There were kids there all

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in participating in a tournament and they
were they were national champion type track and

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field athletes. And it's in a
pasture south of Ramona, Oklahoma, on

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the Old Highway, and it's incredible. It's just if you look around a

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little bit, you can find some
amazing things. A nettle kidding espn ought

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to be I think I think you
ought to take it. You ought to

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go all check it out. I
will. And they I think they deserve

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to be talked about a little bit. I just first first heard about them

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when I saw a world record was
set in Ramona, Oklahoma, and I

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thought it was a typo. And
sure enough, and they're doing incredible things

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for track athletes in that down in
that Ramona. Wow, I'll be yeah,

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it's awesome. Another gym in the
area, another gym in the area.

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It's and of course we got voting
coming up. We got camp AIM's

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going on. Sure it's coming up
on the eighteenth. We've got some forums

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and things that will be going on
too. Will be talking to a lot

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of folks about that on the radio
here pretty soon. You don't have an

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opponent this year. No are you
having a primary opponent, nor do you

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have opposing party opponent. Yeah,
I feel I feel very blessed with that.

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You know, if there's at this
point doing this job. And my

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great friend Earl Sears told me when
we were talking about me potentially running for

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this office, you know, we
really have two things. You have to

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do and constitutionally we have to pass
a balanced budget every year. Okay,

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check. But the second thing is
to advocate for our district. And so

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this gives me time. Sometimes the
line between campaigning and doing the job is

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kind of blurry because it's my job
to be out to talk to people,

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listen to people. I want I
want calls, I want emails, I

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want texts. I want to understand
what District eleven, what's going on here

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and what we need. How can
I what can I do in Oklahoma City

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that will help us here? And
that's so that's the other important part of

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my job, and that this interim
period gives me that great opportunity to really

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be out and round more and please, I mean, I'm going to give

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them my cell phone number one more
time they do call it at nine one

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eight four four zero seven two nine
five, and I will answer that phone.

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And if there's something like I'm working
on a constituent request. There's some

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question as to taking money out of
your HSA account, your health savings account

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after you reach the age of sixty
five. There seems to be some then

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the law doesn't seem to be definitely
clear. If we follow the irs law

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of saying that that there's no penalty
for taking it out of your HSA at

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that age or is there a penalty. We're trying to get that figured out.

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But if it isn't clear, I'm
going to try to run some legislation

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just to clear that up, because
it shouldn't be a penalty to take that

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out your money at that age.
Yeah, you put it in, you

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get it out. So but I
know that because a constituent called me and

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a constituent had concerns, and I
wouldn't have thought to be looking into that.

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And that's what I love. I
love to hear things from people.

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And I'll be out and around and
check that Facebook page out as John John

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Kane for okay, and Barbara keeps
that thing up so well. She does

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an amazing job. Wow, that's
the great way for to stay in touch

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with me. John, Thanks for
being with us. We'll see you here

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in about an hour. I'll be
back. It would be more like forty

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five minutes, but we'll have you
on Capitol. Thank you for being with

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us today. Thanks a lot,
Tom folks, you've been listing and watching

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our community connection. When it comes
to your children, it choosing the right

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daycare is important. You want peace
of mind knowing you're putting your child in

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the care of the best facility.
Wesley and Kitty