Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev

The Common Good with Randy Porter

December 19, 2022 Kosta Yepifantsev Season 2 Episode 48
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev
The Common Good with Randy Porter
Show Notes Transcript

Join Kosta and his guest: Randy Porter, Putnam County Mayor and Host of Today in Putnam County, a weekly radio show providing news, interviews and useful resources to listeners of the Upper Cumberland.

For over 38 years Randy has served Putnam County as a volunteer, civil servant, leader and advocate.

In this episode: How a lifetime of service in Emergency Services shaped Randy as Mayor, how voters should approach local electors when they see an issue in the community, and as the Mayor of Putnam County what Randy wishes every voter knew.

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find out more about Randy Porter:
http://randyporter.org/

Listen to Today in Putnam County with Randy Porter:
http://randyporter.org/radio-show/

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

Randy Porter:

I'm helping people on a day to day basis. That's what I did at EMS. That's what that's all about. You're seeing people sometimes it's a worst being county Meier. It gives you the opportunity to help a lot of people also not the same way you're not dealing with their emergencies, or their medical conditions or accidents, those kind of thing, because you're dealing with things that are very important to them. And the dog barking across the street all night long, is very important to them. And you might think, Well, that's very minor, but it's very important to them. So I've tried to treat this position the same as it did EMS is that that I am there to serve you.

Morgan Franklin:

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, 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:

Hey y'all. This is Kosta and today I'm here with my guest Randy Porter, Putnam County Mayor and host of today in Putnam County, a weekly radio show providing news interviews and useful resources to listeners of the upper Cumberland. for over 38 years, Randy has served Putnam County as a volunteer civil servant, leader and advocate. Randy, we are honored to have you here today. And I'll tell you, I've lived in Putnam County for 11 years. And this is astounding. I have never heard one negative thing ever said about you. And we've interviewed a lot of politicians. So we get a lot of mixed reviews. But for you personally, I've never heard one negative thing. Oh, so I want to set the scene. The years 1980 you've just started working full time for Putnam County EMS as a 911 dispatcher, what are the county's biggest problems? And how did these problems compared to today?

Randy Porter:

First of all, thank you for having me on your podcast for sure. I feel very honored to be here. And back in 1980. Things were different. In Putnam County, we were much smaller that we only had one ambulance on duty at a time in Putnam County, you only had one sheriff's deputy on duty at night time. 911. You couldn't tell who the person was it was calling all you got was the telephone call. We didn't have street addresses. There wasn't a lot of new jobs come into the county, all those kinds of things. So we were more concerned about emergency services and the services that were bought in the county and what were we going to do to be able to grow in Putnam County? Sure. We were kind of on a in a standstill. Yeah, I asked for it. I mean, look the difference?

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Absolutely. How many 911 dispatchers were there in 1981

Randy Porter:

on duty at a time. So when I'm credible that I started, there was one on DVD at a time, we had two telephone lines. And that was it. Wow. And so you took the normal one call, you didn't know where they were at? They had to try to give you direction because there

Kosta Yepifantsev:

was no software. Right? And so literally, what was the population? Like in 1980? Do you know off the top of your head, we're

Randy Porter:

back in the 30,000. Maybe? That's incredible. Yeah. So people would call in the head give you directions to say, Okay, go to the third road pass the big oak tree, turn right at the barn. And it's just like a house on the left. Those are the kind of directions that we got back then. So it was a totally different time in Putnam County's history.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

In 2022, you've got what 100,000 People just in Cookeville alone,

Randy Porter:

at any given time, when we look at the people that come here on a day to day basis, they're eating, they're shopping, they're coming to work here, probably at least 125,000 or more during the day, our population in Putnam County, we think somewhere in the 80 to 85,000 at nighttime when a lot of those folks leave but look at what a change was incredible. 40 years.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

What do you think the biggest change has been?

Randy Porter:

I think the growth that we have seen in housing, we've been setting records every year, this year was no different. And you just the building the construction that that's been going on. One big thing we have going on for us is Tennessee Tech University. At any given time you got 10 or 11,000 students here that that's what's made our community and hipped it to grow. But then you've got all these people that are moving here from other places, California and New York, see them all the time. He talked to them all the time. What's bringing you to Cook County, it's the crime. It's the homelessness, it's the drugs, it's the shutdowns. Everything has to do with the pandemic. They are wanting to get away from those big cities and coming to smaller communities where they can raise their kids or to retire.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

This may be kind of a bit of a complicated question, but the things that you're describing the crime, the homelessness, those are all concerns for Putnam County residents as well. And so as the city grows, those things grow as Well, you have been in your position you've been affiliated with, you know, the operations of the county for 40 years now in some way or another. Do we have the resources to manage expectations on crime on homelessness on affordable housing? I mean, does that stuff keep you up at night?

Randy Porter:

A lot of things keep me when you're in this job, yeah, not so much. Because we do have the resources to take care of those things, had lunch with a friend of mine that deals with the homeless, most of those folks will not let you help them. So that that becomes an issue if folks do not want helping, how do you help them? We deal with that all the time? What's the answer to that? Crime is a concern. Probably the number one issue right now that I worry about is the drug situation with bail. We're seeing all this fentanyl come into our country, we're seeing young people that think that they're buying a Xanax or an ecstasy pill, and it's laced with fentanyl, and they want to overdose in some of them die, or drug overdoses are like everywhere else across the country, they are up. That's probably my number one thing. We got a lot of good folks, and a lot of good resources are working on it. But unless we can stop that drug coming into our country, it's very, very hard to deal with

Kosta Yepifantsev:

when you were growing up. Did you guys have to contend with drugs?

Randy Porter:

I didn't even know what drugs were. I'm raised on a big farm. And because the worst thing we had to deal with back when I was growing up was smoking a cigarette or drinking. That was the there there was, um, I came to tech. And that's the first time in you know, getting out of the country and coming in that I'm a new what marijuana was, I mean, we just didn't have those issues back there in small town America.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

You know, I grew up in Atlanta, and I have a brother who's 19 years old, and he grew up like in the heart of Atlanta, right. And I remember talking to him one day, and he's telling me about his experience in high school. In Atlanta. This is what 2019 2018 And he's talking about how they can buy drugs on Snapchat. And it scares me to death because like you're describing, you know, back in the day, you'd go and you buy a case of beer, and you'd go to a party or whatever it might be nowadays, they go for like, hard core drugs, and it's illicit. Right, right. And if it's laced with fentanyl, and they've never taken fentanyl, I mean, it takes what like a gram or something,

Randy Porter:

oh, it's such a small amount. I mean, we use it in patches for people that are in really bad pain. And it's such a small amount, because we're very careful in EMS about touching the patches. And it's such a small amount, and these drugs are being delivered to them. I mean, they texted or they Snapchat or they whatever, and somebody brings it to them. We've had some really sad stories where that young people thought they were taking something very mild as a get high thing and they didn't never dealt with fentanyl before and it winds up killing them. It's it's CYA,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

do you think that every family should have Narcan in their home?

Randy Porter:

Absolutely. And I think that's coming. You're starting to see it being kept in all the schools. It's being in vending machines across the country. They're putting it out. You can get it for a PowerPoint, and I'm here, they put out the free Narcan to folks, I think it's coming that everybody's going to be carrying Narcan in their vehicle and have it at home just in case.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Absolutely. So as the mayor of Putnam County, what's one thing that you wish voters knew,

Randy Porter:

I wish they knew more about how county government operated. I find so many people that you talk to them, and they have no clue who their county commissioners are for their district. They may know me as the county mayor, but the people that actually vote on the budgets and their tax rates and all those kinds of things. They have no idea who those folks are. They do not know that I'm don't have the authority to regulate over all the other elected officials. So the sheriff and the road supervisor and all those other folks that are elected officials in the county government system, I have no authority over them, they answer to the people. Most folks think that they can call me up and say, Hey, Randy, I've got potholes in my road or I need to this or that I can talk to those folks and use it get it worked out. But it's not something that I have any authority. So I wish folks would take more of an interest to learn about county government and how it operates.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Can you give us a brief overview of how county government operates?

Randy Porter:

There are eight elected officials in Putnam County, you have myself you have the sheriff, you have the road supervisor, county clerk circuit court clerk trustee registered deeds and property assessor. Those eight elected officials run the day to day operations of county government, they have their own duties. Then we have 24 county commissioners to per voting district, and they are the ones that set our budget each year which is very important, but they as their primary job once they set the budget, they deal with policies and different things with economic development, so forth, but they are the primary ones that set your tax rate, what your property taxes gonna be what your hotel motel taxes are gonna be. They are the governing body and then once they make those decisions, then the light elected officials, they operate on a day to day basis inside that budget. They have their own atmospheres, their own government agencies is run. Being the county mayor, I have all of the agencies that don't fall under one of those eight. I've got EMAS, I've got solid waste. I've got building maintenance,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

all the fun ones,

Randy Porter:

all the fun ones. Yes.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

You're not overseeing uch IRA, are you?

Randy Porter:

Actually the county mayors are the governing body over uch and the development district, the upper covenant region, there's 14 of us Wow, we are the governing body by state law over both of those agencies. So

Kosta Yepifantsev:

what interaction? I mean, do you kind of just like make sure that the county commission runs smoothly? Or do you interject do essentially interject just like on the rules of how the county commission operates? Or is it more than that?

Randy Porter:

It's a little bit more than that. You get the county commissioners they meet once a month. I'm the CEO, Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Financial Officer for the county. So about everything that happens financially comes through my office. So I set the agenda for the county commission. So anything that needs to be put on the agenda, any commissioner that wants an item, I set the agenda, I have to to pull myself to be the factfinder and the information provided with the county commission. So when they have an agenda item, I'm gonna give them everything that I can information wise for them to make a good judgmental decision, but I'm not gonna tell them how to vote chair. Now you have some counties that the county mayor is actually the chairman of the county commission, I chose not to do I have veto power, though, okay. And it's kind of like the President does with Congress, but I've never had to veto anything. I always thought that if I could not provide the commission with enough information that they went the way that I wanted them to, then I need to rethink my attitude towards whatever it was that I may have it wrong. Absolutely. And so ultimately, it's their decision.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

The reason that I asked that question is because there's 24 county commissioners, and they span from Cookeville, to Baxter to Monterey, Rickman,

Randy Porter:

right? Yes. Well, Bailey is everything inside.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Exactly. And I have some brief experiences working closely with people that are in politics. And I would say that they have, gosh, I don't want to make it sound negative, but they have an ego. They have a specific type of personality, I guess, type a kind of person out there alphas. And you've got 24 of them. And you gotta manage all 24 Alpha personalities. I mean, what's that, like?

Randy Porter:

I've been I've been very fortunate in the last four years. And it looks like it's gonna be staying that way in the next four with having a great county commission. Now, I've dealt with county Commission's over the years that were they were not good, those personalities got involved. He goes, got involved. Back in the 80s. We kind of stood steel, they didn't want to do anything. They didn't want to build anything new, they won't fund anything. And then all of a sudden the girls started, and it was crazy catch up. Yeah. But I've been very fortunate over the last four years to have a good group of commissioners that work together and try to do the best for the county. I'll tell you a little side story, please. When I came into office in 2014, the very first vote that happened at the county commission at the very first meeting I was at was to elect the chairman of the county commission, toiled 12 ta, not only once, but three or four times over and over and over, they kept trying to elect a chairman, which is supposed to be the simplest thing, right? 12 tilta. Finally, after probably an hour, one of the gentlemen that was running says we don't need this, we don't need to split in our commission. So he says more back out. I admire that person to this day for doing that. And it helped the commission going forward. That was my first first meeting. And I thought, Oh, this is gonna be by. It got better as we went forward.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Can I ask you about EMS? You've obviously worked closely with EMS for I'd say pretty much your entire adult life. Yeah. What are the main issues in EMS right now? And also how can we sort of fix some of those issues moving forward?

Randy Porter:

Young people are not getting into the field. We are seeing a total different attitude with young folks about what they're going to do with their career. When I was getting into EMS Yes, we would go and say it at the hamlet station waiting for an opportunity to work a shield or guard to get hired. You don't say that anymore, we have a real problem and getting folks to get into the EMS Field. Some of that has to do with pay. The salary is not as good as it could be. Although we have done some major improvements over the last few years. We need a marketing plan to be able to get folks involved in anymore, what we see is you won't go be a paramedic and start out at $45,000 a year when you go be a nurse and start out at 100 pandemic has changed a lot. Exactly. And we don't have the TV shows that we used to have years ago, emergency 911 All those TV shows that got the kids interested in it. The other thing we have a problem with in EMS is reimbursement, teen care, Medicare bad, they're terrible. Yeah, you know, on a day to day basis, you're involved. You

Kosta Yepifantsev:

know, I think EMS, you know, we have a company that that works with TennCare very closely. And I mean, I feel bad just calling EMS, you know, on behalf of one of our clients, because I know that they're not going to get paid anything for it. It's astounding. But the thing is, is they always show up and they do such a great job. As you were talking about with regards to getting more engagement. How understaffed Are you guys, though right now in terms of like percentages, how many vacancies Do you guys need to fill to be fully staffed?

Randy Porter:

At any given time, we have about 60 personnel at EMS, okay, there for a while we had six 810 openings. At any given time, we started something new pandemic really affected EMS really by it had a lot of folks that didn't want to deal with it. It was it was tough on them, and they were near retirement. So they retired, we started our own marketing plan or concept. And we felt like that we had to reach the young people at a younger age before they got up to a senior in high school and decided what career they wanted to do. We started hitting them in the freshman and sophomore years, we started teaching emergency response classes inside of the high school so we could get them attracted into the field to great idea until just recently, two months ago, totally staffed. Unbelievable. amazing ideas have not been at that place in years. Yeah, I don't know how long it works. We've got our fingers crossed. But so far, so good. And we gave him a $5,000 pay increase this past year at the county, which really helped, I think, to keep some of those folks that were thinking about leaving, and it kind of starts looking out to those folks that are looking at coming soon. Well, wait a minute, maybe that's not so bad. They pay for all my schooling, they pay for everything. I've got vacation days and holidays. Great insurance, great benefits, retirement. So we've got our fingers crossed, we'll see how it goes.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

I love it. So you talked a little bit about how people need to get more civically engaged, find out who their county commissioners are, you know, step one, right? What kind of problems do constituents go to their local elected officials for? And also, how do they contact them,

Randy Porter:

most folks will wind up calling my office, they don't know who to call. In a lot of cases, of course, we have a whoever website, and it has all the phone numbers. A lot of times they don't know who to call or who to go to. So they call and we try to direct them in the right place. Probably the number one thing we get called on is roads, okay? Not necessarily in always bad things. But traffic lights out, stop signs been knocked down. We have a pothole, all those kinds of things. And and we get a lot of those calls, even though the road supervisors elected official takes care of those, but we just turn around and we forward those to him. A lot of folks would do email, send us things have pretty good presence on social media, I get a lot of notifications and messages on social media from folks that use it a lot in reaching out to me and I had one Sunday morning with a water leak inside the CD and they didn't know who to reach out to so they message me. And of course I called the CD and social media has kind of changed the way things are happening. And so that's that's a big

Kosta Yepifantsev:

part of Do you encourage county commissioners and you know, road supervisors like those eight agencies that you were talking about, and maybe even city council members. I mean, do you encourage them to get more engaged in social media?

Randy Porter:

Absolutely.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Are they scared to

Randy Porter:

I? Oh, yeah. I'm thinking about running for accounting Meyer back in 2012 to 2013. And I never forget the first meeting I had with my campaign manager. I didn't have a Facebook page. I didn't have I was not on social media at all, because I was totally against it that I thought this is not something I want to do. And he said, Randy, you got to and I said no. He said, Let me tell you if you want to get elected, right? You have got to do social media. today. I look back and that was the best advice that I've gotten. It's a way to reach the people and get messages out that they might not read the newspaper, they might not listen to the radio, but they're on Facebook or Instagram or some of the social media platforms. And it's been a great thing for me,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

when you open up that social media world, it increases your workload by a lot. Do you ever think it would be beneficial for the state or the city or the county to add some resources to the salary or even like money that they can pay to hire like an assistant or something, I just feel like they could be a lot more effective in communicating with their constituents in getting them more civically engaged, if they can at least have somebody helping them do it, right. I know,

Randy Porter:

the sheriff's department has their own public information officer that helps do a lot of that I've kind of been my own. It is a lot of work. So on Saturdays, I come into the office usually for 234 hours and get caught up, you know, there's nobody there and it's quiet, and I get things done. But that's when I schedule all of my social media, it's great thing about social media is you can schedule those posts as they're gonna go out. So I may have some of them scheduled a week ahead of time, but it is a lot of work. But it's a great way to reach your constituents. So I've encouraged folks, like you're seeing it more city councilman, cabinet ministers, most of them got their own Facebook pages now. And they're trying to push the information out down

Kosta Yepifantsev:

because and Ricky and when we talked to Ricky, he spoke a lot about how he use social media to not just build support for his election or his candidacy, but also just communicating all the different things that are happening within within Putnam county or city of Cookeville. Essentially, really quick, going back to emergency services. How did your work in emergency services shape you as mayor,

Randy Porter:

it taught me that I was a servant. I take the county mayor as a service position. I also took that in EMS has been a paramedic and being the director of the service then for many years, that being a service position also and also thought it was a calling. Not everybody can do EMS, and not everybody can do what you do or health care teaching. And my sister's a teacher and I think Oh,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

right. That they deserve. They deserve so much. Yeah, but

Randy Porter:

it's I took it as a service position and helping people on a day to day basis. That's what I did it EMAS. That's what that's all about. You're seeing people sometimes it's a worst being county mayor, it gives you the opportunity to help a lot of people also not the same way you're not dealing with their emergencies, or their medical conditions or accidents, those kind of thing. But you're dealing with things that are very important to them. And the dog barking across the street all night long, is very important to them. You may think well, that's very minor, but it's very important to them. So I've tried to treat this position the same as I did EMS is that that I am there to serve you and are to serve the people and I'm gonna do everything I can to try to help. Most of the time you can. Sometimes there's things you can't but it really molded me I think into the servants thinking,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

what did your parents do for a living? Like when you were growing up on a farm? I mean, obviously, you had some life events that occurred because I mean, you're right, you've definitely embody the servant's heart.

Randy Porter:

My father died when I was very Vietnam or was going on. And he was a Vietnam veteran. They roll maneuvers in Belgium, I think before they went over and he had a massive heart attack. Oh my gosh, in his 20s It's just just unbelievable. But while he was active duty while he was active, so I lived with my grandparents, my mom and I moved in with my grandparents. My grandfather was a deacon in our little small country church. And he worked at a at a lumber mill, and we formed and he molded me it was his way of thinking is, is that he served the community, I can remember anybody that got sick in the community, we'd go get their corn crop in or their hay or we would take care of their cows, we do whatever it took, and it was a community effort. And everybody had that same attitude. So he kind of molded me into that my mother was a beautician hairdresser. And she kind of had that same attitude. So that country life and the way I was molded in that little small country church really carried forward into my life as I came to tech and saw a different world, but I didn't give up on those things that I learned early on in my life.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

When you see Cookeville growing and expanding, and you have these values, do you still see those values in Cookeville? Today?

Randy Porter:

I do in a lot of people. Yeah, but there's some people I don't you get folks that are moving here from other places, law, those are good people, okay, they're just trying to get away from bad things. But you asked to see it in a lot of people. I think the pandemic and the political environment. It's been going on the last couple years or so. It's got people divided for no reason. We're We're all God's children, we all are here to do a job serve a purpose. Let's try to work on the things that we agree on and that we can do. And let's put the politics aside. And let's let's try to make Coolblue better and put them Kenny better. And I think before the pandemic, I saw that really big. And now I start seeing it coming back out again, just it's Tree Lighting service. Kupo had the other day, I've been in two parades, a Christmas parades. And I'm seeing all those people coming back. And I'm starting to see those attitudes, get back to the ones that were pre pandemic,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

because pandemic made a lot of people cynical because they were isolated, you know, and I'll tell you, social media man, do you think that that's driven us even farther apart?

Randy Porter:

Absolutely. prepended? Yeah, I rarely had a negative comment on any of my social media. Occasionally, you get something paying me kids. It's like, everybody goes negative. Yeah, they're arguing and they're fussing amongst each other because they're on different sides of the ideas of whether you should be shut down or not shut down, or mandates and all those kind of things. I'm starting to see that get better, though, in the last six to 12 months, I think is things are starting to get back to normal. I have started seeing that easing up and don't see it near as much as I did before.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

So Mayor Porter, I only have two kind of controversial topics. And we'll address one and you know whether or not you want to answer it, we'll see. How do you feel about this don't Pelosi Putnam thing, and how it's kind of taken over at least for a period of time, all the oxygen in these elections. And sort of, in my opinion, I feel like kind of put a black eye on our community.

Randy Porter:

I think so too. I disagreed with all that happening. I'm a positive person, I try to be positive, I am never going to be negative in an election area in a campaign. If you can't sell yourself to the people with what your ideas are and what you want to do. If your elected office, then I just won't be elected. I'm going to run on who I am, I'm going to run on the positives that I can bring to the to that office. And I think everybody needs to do that. I think we'd lose so much when we go negative. I disagreed with the Pelosi Putnam thing. I disagreed with the way that they had an impact. I love that organization. A lot, a lot of great friends there. We had never done that before, in an election that I remember where it got real negative. This was kind of the first and I think that we need to make that the last I think we need to go back to running on your your good things and what you can do for the county or for the city and lead the negative. Does that

Kosta Yepifantsev:

concern you? It does. There's a lot of agencies that a lot of elected officials that say that the best thing about Putnam, county and Cookeville is that everybody works together. Yes. So division is

Randy Porter:

division is what kills us exactly. If we're not all working together. And I think, take me out all the other elected officials over the last eight years have done a great job of working together, I think that's when we've been so successful. All it takes is something like that negative or you get one or two that try to break it up. And we can have a downfall. So I won't say a stay positive of cam.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Absolutely. And a lot of it obviously comes from the growth of Cookeville. And a lot of new faces, a lot of people moving here, a lot of new opportunities to you. And not everybody can take advantage of those opportunities. So in your opinion, how do we protect the charm of Cookeville and the upper Cumberland while supporting growth and economic development?

Randy Porter:

That's a fine line. To walk, I try to walk it every day, and so did the other elected officials. We want to see Cooper and Putnam County grow. I always said that if you're not growing, you're dying. It's kind of one way or the other. But you don't want to grow so fast as did some of the other areas in our state of the last several years to where that they're trying to play catch up. They're reacting to things instead of being proactive ahead of time. So that's a fine line. You asked me in a previous question, what keeps me up at night? That is one. Are we growing too fast? Yeah. How do we keep our small town feel are at small town attitudes, the great positivity we have with all these folks moving here? I don't tell you that I have all the answers because I don't. But I think that's something that we have to work on daily, because if we don't, we can lose that very quickly. And so I think you've got a large group of people CD Meyers County, that we constantly are talking about that and working on that to try to make sure that we don't lose it.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

I was at the chamber and I heard someone say something about Randy Porter. The story went that there was an RFI request for information and they brought it to you. Actually, they brought a few to a You said Do not bring me another RFI unless that business is willing to pay $15 or more. Yes. And I think that fact that you kind of have your thumb on the pulse of what is the future of Cookeville. It's not just growth for the sake of growth. And I'd love that I'd love to hear that perspective. I always ask this to everybody that comes on the show that's involved in politics. If you could have a dream business, a dream industry, something that would completely transform the economic dynamics of this region. What would it be?

Randy Porter:

While? That's a big question, I think it has to be in the technology sector. So if I could pick it, it would be in the chip sector, and the technology of chips, they run everything? Absolutely. So I got a truck last year, okay. And it's minus chips who don't have all the chips in it. Some of the things don't work. It's crazy. So I'm thinking, wow, if we had, we've got to bring all that stuff back to America agreed. So if we had the chip technology, and I'm not necessarily saying making the chips, but designing what those chips gonna look like in the future, those high paying tech jobs, if I could pick just one that will be

Kosta Yepifantsev:

even the raw materials? Oh, absolutely. You know, we don't have to bring Intel over here. But if we can at least just mine, the raw materials that would be transformational for us.

Randy Porter:

Absolutely. I mean, we're bringing everything from other countries, we used to make everything pretty much in America, we've kind of lost track there. And I think we need to bring back to the United States most of our manufacturing jobs so that we could don't have to worry about the supply chain shortages.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

So you were the chief local elected official, Cleo for the upper Cumberland region workforce development. This is the controversial question that I wanted to ask you. Good. You know, there's 11,000 job openings. Now that may change if we get into a recession, it's going to come down a little bit. My question is, why not consider bringing immigration as a topic for this community, this county to try to bring people from outside the United States that are maybe involved in significant conflict, like in Ukraine to try to plug some of those employment holes that we have? I'm not saying like, you know, be a sanctuary city or anything like that. I'm just saying, if you have a economic problem, in the sense that you don't have enough bodies to be able to fill all of these positions. And you have companies all across the upper Cumberland that need people. Why is immigration such a sticky subject to talk about?

Randy Porter:

I think it's because of the illegal immigration. I think when you started that flooding our country with illegal immigrants, it's really put a bad light on immigration itself. We're all immigrants from some point. Right? Exactly. We may have been born here. But our ancestors were not at some point, they came to America. So that's what America is built on. I think if we could shut down our borders to the point that we're controlling our immigration like we used to, and we're bringing in legal immigrants work vases. I think that's probably a great answer. Yeah. So we have a lot of construction going on. In Putnam County. If you go out and look at most of the construction workers, a high percentage of those are immigrants that have come here, Hispanic Mexican dish, different nationalities that are doing those construction jobs. They're good at it. And there was a shortage. So they're filling that void. I just don't know how we make that happen on the legal basis right now until we fix the illegal.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

And I'd say that the first step in I'm not obviously telling you how to do your job I couldn't even imagine I'm already begin. I'm open Well, I think that the first step is there's a h1 B visa program that's very low, like the amount of slots, I think 285,000 or something like that. If a county or city or even state is serious about improving their economic conditions, through immigration, they have to work with the federal government to try to get a lot of those slots filled and educate their businesses, their local businesses, about how they can access that visa program, and how they can get employees from overseas to come and work in Putnam County. And I'll tell you, it's interesting, because there's a lot of h1 B visa workers in Putnam County that work at phi cosa that will be working at portabello it's not like it's something that's just crazy to say, right. We were doing

Randy Porter:

it before Yeah. And I still go back to the to the issues we're having with the illegal immigration but yeah, it's great book OSA is one of our big manufacturers here, eight or 900 employees most of the time, and they use a lot portabella coming in, they're moving their whole North American operations here to Putnam County, 100 and 50 million. And they're bringing a lot of those folks with them, because they're already trained. They know what to do in the factory. I think you're onto something, I think he's great. I have found that it is very difficult right now to addressing those issues, though, because of the attitude of the federal government right now on illegal immigration. We had a ceremony at the courthouse recently with a young lady that she became a US citizen, she had worked very, very hard to get to that point. And she was very proud of that. And I think you're seeing a lot of those folks that they're not looking at doing that when you've got all these other folks that are coming in ahead of them and not going through that process. I think we've got to fix it. And I wished our congress and senate and President would come together. And let's fix this. Yeah. And let's start these programs up, because we're in need of workers when you got 6000 10,000 12,000 jobs in the upper criminal and around in the counties. That's a lot. I go back to the day, when if we had five or 600 job openings, that was a big number. Yeah. And now almost every industry that we have has a shortage of workers and we've got to do something they have to.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

So we always like to end the show on a high note. Who is someone that makes you better when you're together?

Randy Porter:

My my first inclination is always going to be my wife. Okay. We've been married 35 years and she's been a great influence on me. If I take her out the probably the the answer you get most of the time if I take her out, I'm gonna say my other four Myers here for four together all good Monterey Bastian Cool. Well, if we're all together, they make me better. And I think we make each other better, because we're always working on the same team. Great things are gonna happen.

Morgan Franklin:

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 Podcasts, 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.