Church and State with Luke Eldridge

Join Kosta and his guest: Luke Eldridge, Housing Program Manager at UCHRA and  Vice-Mayor for The City of Cookeville.  

In This Episode: The most urgent and pressing challenges facing Cookeville as we continue to grow and expand, Luke's opinion on honoring the separation of church and state, and how UCHRA is working to resolve the issues of homelessness, substance abuse, mental health, and domestic violence in the Upper Cumberland. 
 
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find out more about  Luke Eldridge and The City of Cookeville:
https://www.cookeville-tn.gov/358/City-Council

Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/

Transcript

Luke Eldridge: 0:01

We need those caring loving individuals who's like, okay, what can we do to help, but we also need those checks and balances in place. Because all of this, you think about all homeless, substance abuse, all that is just a symptom of a deeper issue in somebody. And that's what we got

Morgan Franklin: 0:19

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta to get to the root. Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation on making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev

Kosta Yepifantsev: 0:39

Hey, y'all, this is Kosta. And today I'm here with my guest, Luke Eldridge, Housing Program Manager at UC HRA and vice mayor for the city of Cookeville. Luke first, congratulations, this election was not for the faint of heart. And I want to start the episode by asking you to share the story and inspiration behind your campaign. What motivated you? How did you get started? And most importantly, how did you know the time was right?

Luke Eldridge: 1:12

Let me just start off by saying thank you for having me. And appreciate it. Man. I had looked to do this, probably two election cycles back. Okay. I'm 37. So as as a little young, as a probably a little gung ho. And so I talked to some people talk to at the time Mayor Shelton and talk to, you know, Randy, Portis talked to a lot of people talk to my wife, and a wife didn't feel good about it. And I needed to get some more understanding and knowledge of some things. So I said, All right, well, we'll wait four years. So the next one came up, and I went, No, I'm not ready yet. My wife still wasn't feeling good about it. And of course, I look at see where people are, you know, you're not going to run against Randy Porter or ricochet, because they do. They did fantastic job. And they still Randy's doing a fantastic job. Just something people you don't run against. Right away. You know, there's certain things you don't do. And there

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:05

are institutions. Yeah. All right. The time is your institution, institution. Absolutely.

Luke Eldridge: 2:10

And I just thought, Okay, well, I'm going to get more knowledge, sure, see what's going on, and still focus on just serving my community, like if I was even there, and so for 10 plus years, that's what I've done. 13 Actually, me and my wife, but yeah, 13 years. So this last go around. I talked about it more course there was Mayor Shelton at the time, he's rolling off, and we had a good Council last go around. And I wanted to be a part of that. And of course, I knew Chuck Womack, rolling off. So what I did was talk to my wife again, and she said, I still don't feel good about it. And I'm like, Honey, we're faith, people so prayed about it. And one Friday night at church, we have a prayer service at the last Friday of every month that where we come together as a congregation, we pray for the community, we pray for our leader, whatever we need to pray for us what we pray for. And so that night, our pastor was I'm in the sound booth, I do sound at church, and I monitor that what's going on my wife sitting up front, and I'm in the sound booth. And I'm like, Lord, you're gonna have to talk to that woman you gave me that. I said, Lord, house divided cannot stand right? If she's not with me, I can't do this. And if this is what you would have me do, let me know. So our pastor, he says, Hey, if you just need some help making decisions, need some clarity or whatever, come down front, let me pray for it. Let me lay hands on you and pray for you. So we did, and me and my wife went down. And then he's, he was praying over us. And then he kind of just spoke some things into my life. And he said, Lord, you he's one way with our sound team. He's one way with our youth group. He's one way with this, that and the other. But we're you have him sitting at this table, or in this city in this community. We're what he does, or he needs wisdom. And in my heart, I'm thinking yes, because that's from God. So my wife can't go against that. So we're walking back. And so we get done praying, and we come to the back of the church, and I'm gonna get back in the sound booth. But I leaned over and I say, Well, what do you think now? And she said, Let's do it. And all right. So she was in agreement. And so to have us in agreement, and then all of a sudden, all the favor just started coming. So I start talking to more people, and they were like, sounds good. You should. That was around the time even a mayor Wheaton at the time, we were talking. She had come to UC HRA when we started up this essay s program substance abuse solutions. And she was like, Have you ever thought about running for city council? And that was in 2020 ish, I think November ish. And I said, Actually, I'm going to this next she goes, You should. So it's good to see because I think the council now is fantastic. We got we work really well together. It was a long road. It was a lot of fun. I think we have some like minded individuals right now on there. And so you know, that was the journey that got me there and here I am now.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 4:51

So you were the second highest vote getter. In the election. You became vice mayor when you You decided to run? Were you expecting that type of success? I mean, because it's a lot. It's a big deal. Yeah, sure,

Luke Eldridge: 5:07

you know? No, not really. I thought I had a decent chance of being on there. Just because 10 plus years of working in the community serving in the community already in different aspects of the community with homelessness, mental health, substance abuse, working with churches working with leaders already. So I already had some establishment and I thought, Okay, I think I'm gonna be okay. Of course, I didn't have a big social media presence at all until I started running because I don't like social media much. I don't

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:35

mean, I saw Florida, don't let Morgan hear you, though. Yeah, it's,

Luke Eldridge: 5:40

I want to find I know there's a website you can buy or get on that does it all sends it to everybody? That's what I want to do. So I don't have to be on every one to that's the

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:48

same thing that Lauren said to so there must be something to social media and being a politician. It's just constant, right? Sorry. I didn't mean No, no,

Luke Eldridge: 5:56

you're good. No, is there is it's just it is a lot. And honestly, I don't see how some people do it unless they have a team. And so if this whole time it was I had a good team I had most of them were from our church, the guy who did all my artwork, and all that he was from Daryl Curley, fantastic. He was some other people's campaign managers in the years past and help them win. So he already had a good idea, because you're as good as the team around you. And so I had him, I had kale, he helped me with my website from church, Kylie, she helped me with a lot of my word and verbiage and how to get things out there. Because I'm a worthy person. So she helped me with that, and then had some other individuals that really helped me, but I wanted to get the experience and understand all aspects. So a lot of I did on my own, in the sense of, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to do, hey, I'm gonna change this up. This is what I really people need to know about me. And they just helped make it look pretty, right. So anyway, I felt good. But then you get in your mind as the thing goes, you're like, Man, I don't know if it's gonna happen. Well, there's a lot of good people running. There's 11 of us the odds, I got a decent chance. Hopefully, there's two open seats, but every seats open. So let's see, I was okay. The last week somebody asked me, Are you nervous? I'm not nervous. I'm really not. I'm tired. We've done everything we've done. I think people know where I stand. People understand who I am. Even with all the issues that we hit that last couple of weeks with everything

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:29

cuz you got tagged with that Dorsey Putnam thing. And I was like, But why. So conservative,

Luke Eldridge: 7:38

I'm very concerned when I saw because I was on a certain billboard board, but I address that issue with those individuals and you know, ask them some questions, but it is what it is. I went through impact leadership and the whole class. I mean, we had you have people in there that are conservative

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:58

having Amy winter impact leadership. Ron Williams,

Luke Eldridge: 8:00

was there. Bailey, was there any fair you know, all these guys that come in all it is they just taught it? It's like, you have leadership putting on and you have impact, you know, and I get it, there's diversity and all that. But you know, My Voice Matters, too. Right? That's what it's all about. So if people are concerned about being heavy on one side, while my voice, I'm a conservative, My Voice Matters, too. And that's the whole beauty of freedom.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:24

I mean, dare I say, Luke, that you may just be a moderate of No, not putting words in

Luke Eldridge: 8:30

your mouth? Sure. Not well, and I had to conservatives asked me to join that board.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:33

Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean no, that's fine. You are the only person on the city council who actually participates as a full time job in the function of the operations of the city through the UC HRA. So that means that like your full time job is to support the citizens of Cookeville. Through the human resource agency. Do you think that the time the effort, the commitment, the various crevices that you go into whether it's homelessness, mental health, trying to solve some of the housing issues? How much of a role do you think that played in getting you elected?

Luke Eldridge: 9:15

I think it played a big role, honestly, because you think about all of that, I'd say 1520 30 years ago, those things we just talked about homeless, mental health, substance abuse, housing, it didn't affect every family. Well, now it's common. Right. And so for the upper Cumberland, for Putnam County, you know, I think our poverty rate is went down a little bit, but our poverty rate, there's so many people that it hits, it's 16 or 18%. For the Putnam County and our housing issues got more problematic since COVID. But the homeless is always we've had the issues for the last. It really picked up obviously because of COVID. But some of our panhandlers are BCWS there before COVID. But you know, there's a lot that's happened and I've have tried to be that spearhead of some of this stuff to say, look, we got problem, we need to work on this. But on from both sides, we need those caring loving individuals who's like, okay, what can we do to help, but we also need those checks and balances in place. Because all of this, you think about all that homeless substance abuse, all that is just a symptom of a deeper issue in somebody. And that's what we got to get to the root I'm What do you think it is just free? Will you determine how you want to do but I think a lot of it goes back to how they were raised. It's not what's wrong with you. It's what happened, right? And that's what we got to understand. And you also have to understand that some people do drugs because they want to, because they just love it. But others, they do the drugs so they don't get sick. So they don't have the withdrawal. And we got to help them with that. Homelessness. Some people live that way, because they won't be off the grid. Yeah. But then they have enough. I got a friend like that. Yeah, well, they have an iPhone, or smartphone, you're off the grid. But some of them, they want to live that way. Oh, well, that's fine. But you can't do it on someone's property. Now we're starting to see a lot of property owners come up and say, Look, I don't want them there anymore. We tried to be merciful, but damaging when you start defecating on things over they needles everywhere. And so he's got to be mindful.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:16

But now that you're on the city council, and you're bringing this element to the council, from your perspective, it opens up a whole lot more tools in your tool belt gives you access to a lot more resources, not to say that all of them are meant for resolving the problem of homelessness or affordable housing, but it can be could be Yeah. And what do you think? Are you trying to take it slow? Or are you wanting to like dive headfirst? Like, let's get to work, folks?

Luke Eldridge: 11:43

Well, if you dive into a shallow pool, you could hurt yourself, right? So we don't want to dive in just yet. Yeah, we do need to address it. But we also got to make sure things are in place before we do. It's kind of like, you know, the city's growing so big. I think we've in a sense, put the cart before the horse in our city. Now we got to our infrastructures bogged down. So in the same sense of dealing with these issues, we got to make sure our infrastructure in a sense is there to deal with these problems. One of the biggest things are upper Cumberland, I'll just say even we don't have transitional housing. That is the big key that's missing. You know, I do Salvation Army, had lunch with him over this past week. And I said, That's what I want to pinpoint on. So they're gonna give me a whole team to work with me to try to do that. I'm going to try to get the churches together to say, here's what we have. We got to get away from putting people in hotels, it's costing a lot of money. And the hotels are not meant for that. I would encourage churches to look at renting an apartment and doing a transitional.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 12:39

Do you think that's one of the biggest issues and possible solutions in Middle Tennessee right now, like having transitional housing, I

Luke Eldridge: 12:47

mean, we got to have that. And if we don't have because think about when you're working with somebody who has baggage or has history or whatever, we have a rescue mission. We have a Genesis house we have on the street and you go right into an apartment, with no training, the mission they have their program does a great job at training individuals. My cousin went through that training, went through their program for a year. phenomenal job. I mean, this was a kid I was not allowed to be around growing up. And he shares his story everywhere. So it's not I'm not saying anything he wouldn't say but he had a felon, he had drug issues, violent. He gets out of prison. This is the only place he stayed other than prison will prison he had to write but here he didn't, he had free will. He didn't have to, but he'd call me like, I'm leaving. No, man, you're gonna do that. And if you do the program, I will help you. And the mission did fantastic for him. We are able to he works him and his wife now work at a place making good money. Both had fell asleep, I actually gave him a shot. Now think here in a couple of weeks are going to get in a car. Oh, well, somebody's given them a car. They've said, and so now they're gonna be able get back and forth. But you know, it's been a slow process. Because that was two years ago, he went through the mission roughly. And it's a slow process. But he his stage is consistent. And I was on the phone with him the other day. And he said, I just keep remember, okay, if Luke can do it, I can do it. If Luke can do all this and have all I can do it. And so just to see my cousin turn around and deceive mentally, where he was at before he went to the mission, and how the mission just brought him the peace he needed, brought in the mental stability. He's not on medication. He went through a life transformation. And they taught him about Jesus. And he taught him everything they needed to teach him. And he may be doing a lot better than me in his walk with God. But you can see the mental transformation. And it took a year. I want

Kosta Yepifantsev: 14:33

to ask this because I just want to understand, you see these things, all these problems? And I mean, granted, somebody pays you to work at UC HRA and tackle these issues. Sure, they probably don't pay enough in terms of how much work you do and the heartache that you go through but that's a different conversation for another day. Now you're choosing to take not the work but also the criticism. Oh, yeah, of being on City Council. So now you get criticized by not, you know, well, I'm sure you probably don't get criticized by many at your job. And now you get criticized from everybody for being for essentially doing your job. Yeah. And so why would you want to do that?

Luke Eldridge: 15:16

Well, there's a lawyer by the name of Hiram Sasser, he does a lot of things, you know, when it's against a First Amendment rights, stuff like that helps the church out a lot. And he's national. And he was talking the other day at a church event that my pastor was at an hour. And he said, You got to be okay with getting booed. And he says, We got too many people are afraid to be booed. I've already been booed a couple times since three weeks, you know, and attacked a little bit, but you know, that's part of it. And that's okay. Because it's the freedom we have. And I, and I'm okay with that. But people aren't going to criticize I've had somebody in state attend the law when, you know, State of Tennessee passed the homeless law. And, you know, I'm for that law, but the federal side and the felony side, I don't agree with on that, because that's somebody sleeping on a park bench. No. But what is done is just give local entities now the power to say, Okay, now you can do something with what you write, but I had somebody criticize me a little bit and saying, Well, your law passed, you know, and I said, Okay, I said, Well, I'll tell you what, why don't you invite him to your home? Let him stay with you. I think that caught him. We had coffee. I'll talk with anybody about these issues. And he said, You know, when you said that, that that kind of stirred something in me. And I'm like, and that's the problem. Everybody wants to, we got to do something, we got to do something, but we got to do something about it. But when we come up with a solution? Well, no, we can't do that. Well, we can't do we don't need to do that. Well, okay, well, then tell me what you would like. I'll take

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:40

it even a step further. Morgan and I were discussing this earlier, when you are faced with a problem in the public sector, and no one wants to raise taxes. But nobody wants to directly affect the problem with the solution. Like they don't want to raise their hand and say, Okay, moving here. You're kind of in a rock and a hard place. Sure. So from your perspective, is transitional housing, your goal for the next four years? Sure. Other sides as well. Like when you like, here's what I want to ask is if we fast forward four years, and it's 2026, and you're up for reelection? What are your core accomplishments? How did you uphold your campaign promises? And why should constituents reelect you? Sure.

Luke Eldridge: 17:24

Well, you know, one of the biggest things I've always said is, I'll be fair and balanced. But the other one, I would love to see that transition. And that's something I think a lot of those on the city council I've taught, we've talked about, we've got to do something, because everything just keeps getting higher and higher and higher. So I would love to see that in the next four years. And we've talked about it and I know the city, James Mills, and myself, we've got to pull together some individuals, and let's work on it. So we got some things in the works. But I've been talking to people about this for 10 plus years, saying we've got to have it now. Again, we're behind. And so we've got to come up with a solution to be able to do so I talked with a person who owns some apartments yesterday, and I explained my situation, I said, Dude, if you have something you want, get off your inventory. We don't need to sell it somebody Nashville, right? Do you have something that I could use, even if it's four units, and see, and he's like, let me look at my inventory. So that's the thing I'm gonna start doing. He's just asking some of these guys, you have something on your inventory that you could sell, because even with UC HRA, if we could purchase something for a decent price or the DD, if we could purchase them, we could we could start doing that because we we do housing, we do housing for elderly and disabled when we need to. And I know we're wanting to look at going down this vein. It's a slow process. But I hope within four years, either we've got a plan or we've got it established,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 18:43

Are you optimistic?

Luke Eldridge: 18:44

I think we're at a place now 10 years ago, I think the whole community really didn't see it. But now we're starting to see it a lot more. And they're starting to see the problems because this is a community, this is going to be a community effort. There's grants or stuff we could get. But it's going to take us pulling together to come up with that solution to work together. So I think we'll see something within four years. It may not be at units, but I would hope we would see something coming about

Kosta Yepifantsev: 19:13

if nothing happens. What's our so that so that people really understand, like, if we don't do anything about this, you know,

Luke Eldridge: 19:19

always it's gonna get worse. Yeah, I'm getting calls now from people who are getting evicted, either because they can't they don't make enough the rents have when I'm getting calls from families with children. I'm getting calls from elderly individuals who can't afford their rent anymore or the place they were living getting sold to another entity because process and some people won't get stuff off their inventory. So it's not just homeless individuals. We're starting to see people being affected who are either on set incomes because they're elderly, disabled, or you're starting to see like middle income. Yeah. Or you know, the stress of it. The boyfriend husband leaves or the whatever and You know, through all of this stress, one of the biggest things that happened through COVID was you saw domestic violence go up because of the stress because of being at home all together for so long, but and that, and that really did happen. But you're starting to see the stressors inflation has, it's 350 to $400 Extra family now. So we're going to have a big boom, in the next little bit if we don't do something. And I don't want to have to go and say, Oh, gee, so

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:24

when you finish your four year term, and you reflect back and you measure your success, how are you going to be able to measure it?

Luke Eldridge: 20:33

Hopefully, I stayed true to my word and stayed consistent. And hopefully, we were able to get somewhere close to some of the things that we have, we want to look at, too, you know, we won't look at for me, I want to look at pay or something for the police department, because they just gave him a raise, you know, but

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:51

I'd be I talked to Mark Miller about this, because, you know, he obviously used to be a police officer, and he was very involved with EMS, a strangest thing, man, the people who protect your ability to survive and live peacefully, the people that save your life, when you have a serious medical event, the people that take care of you and you have a behavioral episode, the people that teach your kids some of the lowest paid position, people fix your roads, some of the lowest paid positions. I don't,

Luke Eldridge: 21:26

I don't understand. I've never understood it. But you think about this, too. We've had the same amount of police officers since the 80s. Yeah, and cities grown, you know, people's all in arms about the or excited or not excited or irritating or whatever about the waterpark, okay, well, if we do that, that means there's more policing, there's more of this, because that's going to bring more people into the community. I think the other day, we had six police officers on patrol on the streets during the day, you know, we need more. Yeah. And they know that. And we know that it's just how do we get there? Because it's gonna take money. There's a lot of things it's gonna take, and what are some interesting ways we could look at doing that? Or it's kind of like with my budget, I have things set I love to buy things I want to see, you know, this, that and the other. Well, sometimes I have to wait a few years for those fun things. There's things I need things I want. So do we need to relook at some things and say, Alright, what do we need? These are once we've been wanting, yes, it would bring it would help us some things, but maybe we just hold off a little bit and try to get this if things would have been done years ago. We always want to hold off hoping things get cheaper. Yeah, it's not gonna get cheaper. There's just no way if we had done little things, step by step on the way we probably wouldn't be where we're at now. Yeah.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 22:42

Kind of a multi multifaceted question. Are you worried at all for the upcoming potential upcoming recession, every single person that I've talked to whether they were running for city council on the council, newly appointed, they all say guys, y'all got We got nothing to worry about. We got record sales, tax revenues, and we can just make it rain. Like it's all good. Everybody stop worrying. No one's raising taxes, property taxes, everything's fine. Everybody chill. But if we do have a potential recession, and that revenue base dries up, and there are these things that we want to accomplish, is that something that keeps you up at night?

Luke Eldridge: 23:24

Where we're at right now? Yeah, for sure. could keep you up at night. Yeah. You know, you think about inflation, how it's been in the housing, and it's getting a little, some people say it's stable, some don't. We're talking, hey, do you want to listen to I think we just we be mindful? I am we make smart decisions. And we're gonna do our best to do that, because we got some great brains on the city council. And we all have great points of views we bring, I think we just need to see for the next few months year to see what this does. Does administration change in our national in DC? Does that change some, you know, I think things are just going to get worse before they get better. You know, and that's how it normally goes. But if we do our due diligence, and we plan this right, I think we will be able to

Kosta Yepifantsev: 24:10

ride it out. Okay, without having to raise taxes. Oh, boy, I

Luke Eldridge: 24:13

hope that nobody likes those words. Yeah, sorry, does no way you know, but nobody's gonna like it. If I say we might have to look at that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 24:20

But as long as we have sales tax revenue, then we don't have to do them. Right.

Luke Eldridge: 24:25

I would hope to think that we've done our due diligence enough that we've budgeted very well that we don't have to always have that overflow, always have that protection. But people get mad about that. You got all this money sitting over there and slack. Yeah, that is wisdom. We just got to be mindful. I hope we will be okay. I'm gonna stay down the middle on that. We just got to make sure we do our due diligence and Aggie and I'll tell you, our art department heads do fantastic. But you think about health insurance is going up. Our electric bills are going up because of fuel and there's things that we can't control All people don't realize how much of this outside stuff really affects a small little community luck as a small but compared to everything else, how this affects us. I was at the electric department the other day, I said, Why is my electric bill going up? And I just asked him, he said, Well, it's fuel prices. Ah, yeah, fuels shot up so high. And so that's increased a lot. So there's a lot of things, apparently, because the natural gas, the Ukraine, Russia war, that's affect our natural gas.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 25:27

Well, also Biden doesn't want to pump a lot more, you know, to kind of bridge the gap, because he's got a green agenda. So

Luke Eldridge: 25:34

got a pipeline that would be great to be used.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 25:36

We'll see. We're not getting political. Yes. All right. So we all want to make Cookeville a town where it's growing in, you have two young children, Jude and Jovi. What kind of growth, development and community values do you hope to instill as vice mayor that will keep your children in Cookeville? after they graduate high school or college,

Luke Eldridge: 26:02

I'm going to just make my kids stay. No. I'm always thinking about our future. You know, I'm a youth leader at our church. So I see our youth I see my kids, I want to make sure Cookeville is a safe place for our children. And I will stand in any gap I have to to make sure that I'm good, bad, right, left, up, down, whatever. And I would love to see some more inner. I will say entertainment things. But I would love to see some more stuff coming in that our children could do. I'd love to see more. My kid really loves soccer. So I'd love to see more soccer fields because that's growing. Jerry, I love to see like an indoor soccer thing, or somewhere where we can have some indoor events like that. But to just instill into my child, I just want him. He knows what that he does. One thing I tell my son is like, what do Eldridge is? Do I tell my kids, and we help people. It's exactly what Eldridge is. Do we help people. And so just to put that into them to say, look, nobody's better than you in certain aspects of life and make sure that you're always willing to help somebody, regardless of race, color, their identity, whatever they feel, you always be kind, you always be sweet. We're not going to be those so far, one way that we don't love on people, because people are hurting. And, you know, our faith tells us this thing's wrapping up, right? I mean, they've been saying that since Jesus come back, but you see the world getting in, where it's starting to tear apart more, it's start we're starting to be angry more about because you believe differently. And there's an and social media has done a lot of that. Everybody's got an opinion. And everybody's they have a voice now. And we do but I want to make sure I instill in my kids is that we don't we're not going to always pick fights. We're not going to do certain things. But we're going to love people. But we're gonna stand for truth. That's always helped me so much. But my kids understand that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 27:53

Do you ever feel like a lack of family nucleus is a lot of the crux of why we have a lot of problems in our society that we have today.

Luke Eldridge: 28:02

Yes, I believe. I mean, I'm a Bible based husband. And we see a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of families who don't have one parent or the other or, and that is that's that's what's detrimental. You think about? Again, I always go back to my belief. You have a father, a mother, because I get you the nurturer. And that gets you both sides of what God designed. But if you're one sided, you're missing something. And that's just what I believe. And, and that's okay. Because it's a free world. Sure, because I know somebody will get mad about that. But

Kosta Yepifantsev: 28:35

well, this is a better together podcast, which means that we make sure that we spread it around. Okay, you know, we never have guests on just one side of the agenda. We want everybody's opinions. And so please be as open as Oh,

Luke Eldridge: 28:47

yeah. But I just believe that growing up my family, my dad, my mom, they're on their third marriage. My mom, they got divorced. They're married now doing great. Both sides love my stepmom, stepdad. They're doing fantastic. But that shook some stuff in me growing up, and I want to make sure my child doesn't have that much. I'll never see we don't talk about divorce. The words don't get brought up in our home. It's not going to happen. We're going to make sure we fought through everything. It may be till death do us part we may kill, you know, I say here, but through thick and thin through whatever. But I think that nucleus, that family nucleus is getting attacked, it's getting broken down. And with that, that's where you're seeing the issues, or even even our society in our community, where it why America is not what it should be.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 29:34

So let's talk about religion. Yeah, because it's a big focal point of your candidacy. I mean, pretty much everything that you ran on. I know we talked a little bit about the nucleus and some of the issues, but I want to talk about the tagline of your campaign. It said Luke is not your typical politician. He's dedicated to leading and serving his community in a biblical way. Why is it important to understand our elected officials religious backgrounds? And how do we honor the separations of church and state and local government? Sure.

Luke Eldridge: 30:16

So you think about church and state a lot of times, but I think people misunderstand that. It's kind of backwards. It should be what it was designed for was that government doesn't infringe on the church. You think about how America was set up, we left a king and a queen, that kind of royal that was a faith thing. And we come here freedom of religion. So it's like, that's when they the government is not going to infringe on the church. That's what it really is, versus not the church shouldn't infringe on the government. Because when you look at the Bible, you just lay the Bible out, regardless if you believe it or not, you read the book, which is if you don't believe it, you read recently recently, it's interesting. So you think about King David, well, as a king, politician, you think about judges, judges, or judges, you think about Jesus was before Pontius Pilate, you think about he had a tax collector on his team, if you will. 12. So all these, there's politics all through the Bible, but even the Bible, even the God the way God designed it, even your three branches of government come from religious or Christianity viewpoints. If you look at Moses, you look at Moses, he was, he was over millions of people. And God said, You can't do this on your own. Almost, if you wanna look at him as a president, and Governor, whatever you want, look at him as he put establishment underneath him to govern the people. So we get it backwards sometimes. And that's why we have freedom of speech with what freedom of religion, that's one of the greatest things in this nation, is that you do have that freedom. And so I have that freedom to run as I'll always be, I represent Christ. First. I don't represent a party. I represent Christ first. And so I see things in the Bible, and I'm going to owe everything all my decisions will always be based on that. And I know people are gonna get mad about that. And like, well, I don't care what your religious beliefs are, well, if I do this, right, my religious beliefs will always line up with law, because God designed all this to line up. And so you may not like it because of a personal belief, or because of a whatever. But that's just me in this way I see it.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 32:24

Do you get your morality from religion? Or do you get it from the state? Or do you get it from humanity? How do you determine if you've made the right choice?

Luke Eldridge: 32:37

If you can walk away and your conscience be cleared? You know, you've made the phone go home. So mono, mono all come from? There's, there's, I guess made me say two things. When we think about religion, it's gonna be my walk with Christ. Sure. But also, thank God, we have a good lawyer, hey, can we do this? And then he's gonna give me yea or nay. But there'll be some things he may say that I'll have to look and say, Well, what about this, and so it always bring it back to my Bible, and always bring it back to how I see things through that. But a lot of mine will come from my morality, my belief system, my inner core, and what I see, and how the Bible lays out how we should be because there may be some stuff that I had to stand against, and people, I've told some of even the ones that were behind me, I may make you mad. I'm sorry.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 33:25

But your religion is what controls your morale?

Luke Eldridge: 33:27

That's what yeah, that's what controls my belief.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 33:29

So how do you stop yourself from crafting policy that is designed to separate religion and the rule of law? Or are you saying that they're one in the same? I know, it's a tough question. It

Luke Eldridge: 33:45

is, no, you're fine. There are certain things that we do in America that go against my beliefs right? Now, if it lines up with the Constitution, then I'm not gonna go against it. Right. The constitution is set up, I believe our Constitution and our forefathers set all that up, because I saw insight from something, and I'm thinking that should ever change, but we'll just take alcohol for an example. Or we take abortion. Sure. An example, you know, they did overturn Roe versus Wade, but all they did was give it back to the state to make the decision. So they technically didn't, they just said, No, we're getting out of that business. We'll get back to the state. I'll always stand on, you know, abortion is I don't believe in it. And I don't think we should have now thank God, I'll never have to make that decision locally, because I can't do anything about it. But if somebody asked me my opinion, that's just where I'm at. But I also think we should have other if we've done that, okay, well, then let's get some care for some people who need it, who can afford it? Sometimes I think we talked about that we put policies into play, where we haven't a solution or something to help like

Kosta Yepifantsev: 34:48

the infrastructure like you were saying. Yeah, it's like the homelessness bill. Exactly. You know, it's a fantastic bill, because it will allow people to gain access to resources that they typically wouldn't know, or there are so many people, whether they're homeless or not, are so unaware of the resources that are available to them, whether it's state, federal or local, you're codifying all the homeless population to put them in a in a network to say we can help you. Yeah. But if the resources aren't there, you're kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Luke Eldridge: 35:25

Yeah. And so somebody had kind of asked me like, well, y'all may not do that you may never do a felony in your city. And I'm like, Yeah, well, that's what I'm focused on is my community, my city, I said, I can't determine what somebody in Giles County is going to do. Hopefully, they have some wisdom about him. And understanding he's like, all this gonna do is cause more problems. And they don't put a felony charge on too, but you're gonna have power trip people, right? And I'm not going to be out there making all my decisions, because I'm not a bible thumper. And I'm not going to try to corral everything into it, because then you get a little too. I don't say radical. I mean, there's common sense things that we look at. But the good thing is we have five votes. So if it goes against my conscience, oh, look, I just can't because this is where I stand. Now to bring resolutions in, there are certain resolutions that I would love to see that we could do, because there's certain things I believe in that affect this community. And it's about safety, and it's about our children. And so I want to bring in some things and look at some things and see if we can do that. But that's just because I'm a human being and I care. But that also comes from some things just because of my beliefs. Right. So I don't know if that answers any. No, it does.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 36:37

I mean, I think we've established that church and state that the Constitution obviously supersedes the church, and that church and state is, is fundamental in establishing our country. And I think what we can take away from this is that every single person that's elected and that serves an office is different. And we can't forget that we live in a country with a majority rule. And if you were elected, that means that the majority of people that voted decided that your values are important are important. And so and and I'll and I say this to a lot of people, before we wrap up, I think it's important to mention that, at any time, when we don't vote, we are not participating in the process, which means that we shouldn't talk about because of laying Exactly. So if you don't agree with something, or if you ever want something to change, if you ever want to improve something, and elect people go vote. But we got to wrap up. This has been a fantastic interview. Thank you so much, Luke, for coming.

Luke Eldridge: 37:40

I've enjoyed it. Thank you.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 37:41

We always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better when you're together?

Luke Eldridge: 37:49

Well, obviously, my wife would say her right? She makes me better. And she does. My wife is fantastic. I mean that she has been beside me through all this. She can see a perspective of things that I can't. So when I talk to her about things, she's always there, but yet Michelle disagree with me on things in which that's what makes us such a great team. So she makes me a lot better. She challenges me and things. She'll say, Look, you don't really need to do that because of this. And even on Bible things, right? She's like, well, this is the way I said God talks to her to men see one way that's how God designed us but a woman, man they they can do so much and see so much and handle so much. Our pastor always says a woman is more valuable than a man. He always like men, they can have a baby on their hip, cooking, talking to their husband and not even stress but a man has his children for a little bit. You're like holy cow. But my wife she makes me so much better. She has been the one who's totally changed my life.

Morgan Franklin: 38:49

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a Kosta Yepifantsev Production. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com. We're better together!