Greetings, and welcome back to ZacCast, the official podcast for local government nerdery of all kind. I am Chad, and that's Patrick. And Chad... Or Patrick, um, you know that I hate to be wrong about things, and so I wanna own up to something right now real quick before we start and introduce our guest. Um, when the Aggies started the season ranked number six, I thought that was a little bit over-hyped. Sure enough, though, I turned to the stat books and you guys are ranked seventh right now. So I have to admit, you know, I was wrong about that, uh, to start the season. So... Oh, wait, I'm sorry, that's seventh in the SEC West. Okay.

That's, that's all you, that's all you have there? That's, that's your intro? Uh, just, just gonna go ahead and throw it out there that my Astros won the World Series last week. Can we, can we just focus on the good things in my sports world?

And, and speaking of disappointing things, we're gonna talk about sales tax a little bit later here, um, things that are underperforming. But, uh- ... without further ado, uh, we have a special guest today, Milford John Williams, the assistant to the city manager for the city of Lake Jackson. Uh, Milford comes from, uh, the Virginia area by way of Colorado and Washington, so he's had a lot of different experiences than a lot of Texas managers do. So a lot of Texas city managers tend to stay, start in Texas, stay in Texas. So, um, Milford, we met you at TML, had a really great several conversations and, uh, and thought it'd be good to have you on, uh, on the podcast. But before we start, why don't you just take a, just a little bit of time, let the listeners know a little bit more about you, and then we're gonna get on to, uh, the main topic here.

Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Chad, thank you, Patrick, for having me. So, like you said, I'm from Virginia. I grew up in Northern Virginia, just outside of DC, uh, to a child of immigrants from the nation of Sierra Leone in West Africa. And, um, they came over here in '70s. When I grew up, um, had the nice suburban upbringing outside of DC. I went to undergrad at Virginia Tech, so go Hokies, even though we are not doing well in football this year. It's been a pretty rough, lean few years actually. So I'm actually more excited for basketball season on that front. Um, both men's and women's looking really good right now. Um, I got my undergraduate in economics over there. I went to George Mason University. If they're known for one thing, it was that one miracle run in 2006 where they made it to the Final Four, and everybody was asking, "What is a George Mason?" I went there and got my MPA, and after that, uh, I started my local government career outside of school. I actually did start working in the summers, um, in undergrad for my home county, Prince William County. Shout out to Prince William County in Northern Virginia. Um, but after I finished grad school, while I was still working for them, then I got a job working for Athens-Clarke County in Georgia, so home of the National Championship Georgia Bulldogs. And, uh, so I started out there in the budget office, and then moved around, moving up within the budget world. From there it was Boulder, Colorado, um, then Bellevue, Washington, and then I became, uh, the budget manager for the city of Chesapeake three years ago. Uh, pandemic hit, some things happened, and I decided, hey, I feel like I should try just, just to work in city management. What would it be like? It's something that I've, I've thought about at some point in my career. Why not just make the jump, see what it is like? And so I was able to find this opening for the assistant 2 position in Lake Jackson. I've been here since March of 2021.

Very cool. So one of the things that you said, uh, that you wanted to talk about, which in previous conversations Patrick and I have kinda hinted about it, so it was really cool that you, you brought it up, uh, because you have a little bit more, uh, of life experience with this, and that's biking. So you a- do you actually bike to work right now at Lake Jackson?

I do. That is correct. Um, I would say probably 90 to 95% of the days of the year I bike to work.

That's awesome, even in the heat?

Yes, even in the heat.

The humidity.

I don't care.

The humidity in Lake Jackson, though, that's, that's the thing.

It is a lot of humidity, um, even today. I actually did, fair admission, I did not bike to work today. I drove my car. And the reason why was because I brought a dish that was too big for me to carry on my bike, so I, I drove. I drove today. I'm sorry to all- ... the bike lovers out there. Um, but I actually did drive today. But I, I did ride my bike yesterday and Monday, and I plan on doing it tomorrow, so, um, e- even with the heat. Um, I learned over time that... I, so I grew up in an area where there was a lot of humidity. I wouldn't say to this level, but I grew up in an area with a lot of humidity. Um, these are lifesavers right here.

The undershirts.

This is a dry fit V-neck, 32 Degrees. I don't know if you wanna get a sponsorship from them- ... but, um, they do the trick very well. Um, uh, I've learned some other things on how to get through the heat. Um, I, I, I watch a lot of stuff for... I love Amsterdam. It's one of my favorite cities in the world. I had the fortune to visit it almost four years ago, rent a bike, go around town. When I visited there, it was snowing and in the mid-20s, and it didn't deter people from riding around, which was crazy to me. But I also noticed that, like, the architecture or the way the, the, the Dutch bikes are constructed basically lend you to by default be more upright.

Mm-hmm.

And when you're upright while biking, you expend less energy, which lowers your ability to sweat. And I don't have a Dutch bike, but I realize if I do certain things like that, um, it makes it a lot easier, but I still might get a little bit of something. So yes, I have backup deodorant. I have the dry fit. Um, I even have a dry fit crown, um, to put over my head under my helmet-And it also really helps, it's probably the biggest one, I live a mile away, so it's not that bad.

Yeah. So the Dutch bikes, I didn't even know about these. I mean, obviously, you know, there are different types of bikes, but watching videos of just people moving about in, in Amsterdam, like, you're... Ev- everyone is using these Dutch bikes. They're very upright. They... I mean, they kind of look like old school bikes that you would see in, you know, like, 1950s pictures. Uh, they're not-

Yeah

... like the sporting bikes that we have here in America, where you're, you're leaned over, they got the flat handlebars, you know, you're at, like, a 45-degree angle. Um, it's... I, I imagine it's probably better for your back, too, but just from a, from a commuting standpoint, it's a much better posture to be in.

Oh, yeah, definitely. And it makes sense. And a lot of them you'll see they'll have, like, the baskets in the front. So, like, it's, it's tailored for you not only to get around town, but it's tailored for you to bring things and carry stuff, whereas here in the States, for me to carry something, I had to buy an extra bag to put it in my rear, hook it up, get a netting, get it over that. I mean, whereas their styles are more along what we see, like, with, like, the beach cruisers or something from, like, the, these, like you said, '60s, '70s. Um, I think it's, it's crazy because it's like you think about it, it, it's, it seems so small, but it makes such a difference. But it's just what happens when you have just a different perspective on how people should get around town. And we do the same things just to our cars and our trucks. Um, and they have gone in a different direction, um, i- since, since really the '70s. And a lot of times when I, I bring this up, people will say, "Well, that's how they've always been. They've always been like that." And you look at their history, if you look at post-World War II, uh, Europe, a lot of it mirrored what you saw post-World War II in North America. Um, it was just that around the early '70s or so, there were a lot of, uh, incidents where kids were being killed by cars and stuff, so they were talking about how to protect the children, and out of this movement, you had a way of, "Okay, let's rethink how we get around town and that that keeps everybody safe." So that's when they started slowly going the route of let's cont- let's engineer our c- cities, our communities around getting around and getting the maximum amount of efficiency of getting around by bicycle, whereas in many cities in North America, we just accelerated going the way of the car.

Yeah. So if you, if you just think about the design of the bikes that we use, um, and what they're really geared for, it really te- tells a big story about why our infrastructure is based on largely using bicycles for recreation and not for transportation. So you look at, uh, at, in Amsterdam, they use bicycles as modes of transportation. Most of our bike infrastructure, even, even though, you know, we have bike lanes and things like that on the roads, but most of it is just recreational. You have people that will put their bike in the back of their truck and drive 20 minutes to go to a bike trail so they can ride, you know, along a river sort of away from all of the cars. We don't really have an integrated network of, uh, of bike transporta- or bike infrastructure that is designed to be used for actual transportation. And to me, that's, that's kind of the, the biggest problem, the hurdle that we face, is that when we, when we try to do these things, it tends to come from the top down, and it tends to be sort of, um, monkey patched, uh, which is a computer programming term, uh, about, uh, when you take, like, a, take, take, like, a piece of code and you sort of patch it over on top of some code that you don't actually have access to. And that's kind of what we do is we take this infrastructure f- or we take the infrastructure that we have designed almost exclusively for cars, and then we wanna just sort of take this other thing that we, we can't really a- can't even really access these roads as pedestrians or as, as bikes, but we're gonna try to just kinda add this on top of it. A- and whether that's just a painted bike lane, which I don't know why anyone would wanna ride a bike on, on a, just a, just a striped li- lane on a shoulder with cars driving 45 miles an hour. Um, but even when we do go out and build, say, protected bike lanes and things like that, it's usually sort of piecemeal, um, because it's, it's as part of some bigger project. It's not thought of as a whole integrated network, uh, of transportation.

So I'm glad you mentioned the piecemeal portion there, and, um, the reason why I was gonna touch into this. I- in theory, particularly the communities in the United States that are probably, like, better known for this biking, on a grander scale, it's Portland, it's Minneapolis. On a smaller scale, it's Boulder, it's Davis, California, um, they have these bicycle networks, these master plans, and they've gotten it enough to the consciousness of the public to where it is a priority for the city. We have something like that, um, and a lot of other communities have something like that. May not be updated as well. A lot of the times when it comes to trying to get that network, even when it comes to its fruition, it's still what you talked about. It's trying to retrofit biking into a community that is designed for driving first and foremost. But another thing that, another issue that you get with the piecemeal things is we have to deal with multiple different agents. Uh, for us, we have to deal with TxDOT or something like that, you know, when it comes to a project. You had a road or a multi-use path, and we wanted to do, oh, eight feet wide, and it got to TxDOT and they're like, "Nope, we won't accept this. We won't give you the grant for this unless it's 10 foot wide." So now that obviously goes over our cost overruns, our, what we had budgeted for. You get into issues like that. We have one bike lane on one of our roads, and it is actually called that wayInteresting fact about Lake Jackson, the downtown is where this way and that way intersect. And that was a tech stock project. So you just get this broken network of, okay, we go out for this grant 'cause it, it's great to have this pedestrian and cycle-friendly thing, which even in my position I'm like, "Yes, I'll take it. Anything is better than nothing." But now you have these incomplete parts of a network. So even if you wanna go out and bike somewhere, now it abruptly stops here. Now you're back in the road, and then maybe we say, "Okay, but we still want to encourage people to bike," so we will slap a sharrow on that stretch of the road now and call it good for now. And it doesn't really encourage the, the idea of wanting to do it, to just go through your day doing it. It's the people who are willing to do it are the ones who love to do it recreationally, the ones who cycle, who like to just wake up and ride 40 miles. And so y- y- you can always get those people encouraged to go. It's harder to get the people who are just like, "Hey, you know what? This is actually a short trip. I'm only a mile away from here. I don't need to pick up that much stuff. Maybe it would be easier if I just got on a bike." Like, it's trying to get to that member of the community, and it's hard to do that when the projects are put so piecemeal and put on top of an infrastructure that still makes it hard for you to get that short distance in because it is so favored towards a motor vehicle.

Yeah, just the idea that you could be a mile from something and have no other safe option but to drive is, to me, a, a failure. It's a failure of creativity. It's, it's a, uh, it comes down to relying largely on TxDOT and state departments of transportation to set the terms for w- how we actually build this non-automobile infrastructure. Like, if I'm gonna go and ask someone, some authority, "How should we build a bike path?" It's not gonna be TxDOT. That, that makes no sense. I don't know why you would ever think that that's a good idea, but that's, that's where the funding comes from. It comes down from the federal government. They wanna have multimodal, which, again, is good in theory, but if it doesn't actually pan out in practice, that people can use the infrastructure, then really, what's the point?

Yeah, I mean, that, that's the thing, and a lot of these DO- state DOTs that it's not, it's not gonna be their biggest priority, and a big reasoning is they're not gonna get as much federal funding to put these projects. I mean, you might see a little bit of shift here, um, over the past couple years, but for the most part, it's been the big, the big amount of funding that you're gonna get is for roadways, highway expansion, things of that nature 'cause you're like, "Well, we, we can increase capacity, and this helps with growth," and that, that's the mindset that they're coming from. So I, I can't even... It's not even castigating blame on them. It's just the system that, that, that, that they're in, so that's what maximizes their amount of funding. A lot harder to get it being like, "Hey, we can give you this funding, and it will help you get your, get people around in different ways that, that are not, not by their car." That's just not, it's not as financially rewarding from their perspective.

Yeah, and that's come in a d- a couple different iterations, right? I mean, so you talk about federal funding and, and coming from the State Department of Transportation and from the federal government. You know, it is, it has changed year over year by administration by administration, right? So, um, you know, in Texas, uh, basically because of that Federal Highway Authority funding that comes through TxDOT, um, there's basically we go build all these roadways, and then we have these percentage sets, right, that have to go towards specific types of projects. So, um, specifically like, uh, like safe sidewalks projects, uh, bike lane projects, those type of things. Um, that's really just a percentage of all of the TxDOT projects that get done throughout the state, and then each region has to go out for these grant funding opportunities. You were kinda talking about that a little bit, but they go out for these grant funding opportunities to spend that couple of percentage points. You know, sometimes it's 1%, sometimes it's 2%. You know, same thing in landscaping. You know, they don't really landscape the projects that they're building, but they'll take whatever they don't landscape, and they do, uh, green ribbon funding, where 1% is giving out, given out of all transportation projects per year in green ribbon grants, right? Um, so it's an afterthought. Even by the funding formula, it's an afterthought. And so I, I think, like I said, I also wanna make one point 'cause I had to look it up. Um, a sharrow is the V that goes in the bike lane.

Yeah. I, I, I-

'Cause what, I mean, the crazy thing is I built roads for years for cities, right? I was in capital improvements. I always came up on that capital improvement side. I had to Google that, and, uh, just, just to understand exactly what that is because I was so used to building vehicle-centric, um, roadways, even though we did road diets and we did, you know, large sidewalks and street trees and things like that to make it feel safer for everybody. I, I, I wasn't a, like a bike lane professional. I didn't have a Peloton bike back then. Joke.

Well, I mean-

Yeah, I ap-

Go ahead.

Yeah. Sorry about that. Um, I apologize for not clarifying what a sharrow is.

Oh, I Googled it, you know? So...

So I guess there, there are two options that we have here, or probably more, but two primary ones. One is that we can build the roads so that you can cycle on them as well, right? And that the sharrow is not sort of just a, something to make you feel better, that like, "Look what we're doing here. We're telling our drivers that bicycles can use this as well." Kinda like TSA at the airports. But if the road is not safe enough-To, uh, allow for that, then it's really no added protection. So option one would be to design our roads in a way that people are not driving so fast that you can, you can safely share them. But in situations where we don't have that, does it make more sense to do-- to just use the right of way, build, build protected bike lanes, or to just reimagine... I mean, in, in Amsterdam, they don't-- they have separate infrastructure for bikes that connect those places where it's not safe, those big intersections and things like that. So they'll actually route you different places so that you can get across i-in a more safe manner, rather than just sticking you in the middle of, you know... I, I don't know how familiar you are with Fort Worth, but, uh, if you look at the West Seventh University Camp Bowie intersection, Patrick, like they're doing a, a pretty big bike project right now on West Seventh, but it's gonna spit you out-

Mm-hmm

... in this, one of the most massive intersections, uh, on local streets that, that you'll probably come across.

Five-- it's five streets, right? Is it five streets that come together at that one intersection?

One... I think it's six.

Six, yeah. So beautiful bike project.

Yeah, it's protected.

I mean, really-

They're, they're, they're narrowing down the roads to, uh, to provide that extra space. So I mean, it's, it's good, but it's again, it's just this one little strip, and so I don't know how you get there, and I don't know how you get out once you're past it.

True.

So what is your experience from living in different places that we, that, that at least, at least have the climate that would be more, uh, amenable, uh, whereas, uh, here in Texas, it's not quite so good? Or do, do they-

So, um-

Do they treat it differently? Do they think about it differently in, uh, Colorado and Washington, Virginia?

Uh, I would say yes overall. Um, now mind you, I grew up like many Americans in the suburbs, and I had my, my training wheels on, and they finally went off, and I guess I was like six or whatever when I was able to ride a bike myself and rode around my neighborhood. Was able to ride it to my elementary school half a mile away. And then it got to a point where I just stopped using my bike, and I was able to drive a car, and I never thought about riding a bicycle pretty much again. Until I moved to Boulder, Colorado, and I found a place to stay, um, and I had two roommates at the time, and one was moving out, so they, they rented out the room. And when I moved in that day, one of my, my roommates said, "Here's a bike. You're gonna need it." And I was thinking to myself, "Okay, sure, whatever." Um, if, if you're not familiar with Colorado's climate, they love to remind you that there are more than three hundred sunny days a year, even more sunny days than Florida. Um, the, the air there is a lot more drier. Elevation helps. Um, by the way, the altitude sickness is real, and getting adjusted to the altitude is real. Um, but most days of the year, even the days when it snowed, it would still... The snow was light. It was fluffy, not as big of a deal. Some days it would snow a foot in the morning, and it'd be sixty-five and sunny in the afternoon. But mo-majority of the days, sunny. Wintertime, probably thirties or forties. Um, sometimes you get down into twenties, but I had gear for that. But I would say on your average Colorado day, let's say it's fifty-five, sixty degrees and sunny outside and pretty dry. And it was probably s-s-six minutes for me, slightly uphill, um, if I get on the, the bike path. And we had a major bike path that along Boulder Creek that went, uh, west, east around town. And then we had a few major north-south corridors that you could get. Um, trails that, separate, uh, trails that we could-- you could use. Um, and then when I was there, they were just... They had a few protected bike lanes implemented, um, on some arterials. Now, they were of the, um, what do you call the little rubber things that stick out?

The bollards?

The, those, the bollards.

Yeah, the little-

Yes, they had the bollards

... plastic ones? Yeah.

Yeah, the plastic bollards. They had those which, you know, back then, big deal. This is like twenty fourteen. Now not, not as much of a big deal. Um, but the climate was great. Um, you know, a lot drier. I didn't s- didn't sweat as much as I would have here. Didn't have to worry as much about dry fit. Now granted, altitude was still a thing. It took me about six months to get adjusted to, but after that I was fine. Um, and Boulder is up against the, along the foothills of the Flatiron Mountains. And here in Lake Jackson, it's flat. Like I, I don't ever have to change the gear of my bike here. There's just, there's no reason to. In Boulder, you have your hills here and there. Um, nothing to the level of the Seattle area. But even when it's flat, it's a gradual incline going from east to west that you could, you could feel it slightly, um, just enough. Um, I will say that if you're talking about great weather to bike, it's-- that's a big part of it. And the same thing with, with Portland. Part of why Portland is known as a place where it's easy to get around a bike is weather for the most part is nice there. Um, you know, like the Pacific Northwest, it's cloudy. Um, it's fifty shades of gray, but it doesn't rain as hard as everybody thinks, and it doesn't really get too cold. And they've made it in the news, Portland, Seattle have made it in the news the past couple summers for how the heat waves. And the reason why that's a big deal is because the Pacific Northwest is the least condition-- air-conditioned region of the United States because it tends to not get hot there. Like I can't remember my time living out in Bellevue around Seattle-I, I can't remember a day above 90. If there was, it, it was hard to recall. I, I did not have AC living in the Pacific Northwest. I didn't have AC in Colorado. Um, I went five years, five and a half years without having to use an air conditioner. So that obviously makes it a lot easier to get around town. But even on the times when it snowed or whatever in Colorado, just put on my GORE-TEX jacket, and I go out there, and I'd still be fine. To be fair, you get used to it, and that's another thing. There... You do it long enough, you're gonna get more and more comfortable. So I was able to-- Because of the climate, I was able to build myself up to a place where I'm now even more comfortable doing it down here.

Do you prefer to have, like, protected lanes on a stroad where people are driving faster? As a cyclist, would you prefer to have totally separated infrastructure? Are those kind of equivalent?

Yeah, it's, it's hard. So-

I, I think that a lot of the-- a lot of problems with our bike infrastructure comes down to people that design it who won't use it. Right? So if we're designing something based on with, with really no knowledge about how it's gonna be used, that, that could be difficult.

Oh, yeah, definitely. Um, on that point, you know, we're looking at calls out for, uh, uh, projects from TxDOT, and they're saying you have to get it from a certain employment center to another employment center. In theory, that makes sense because a lot of people work here, a lot of people work there, and you can get it back and forth or, or whatever, connecting employment centers. Well, a lot of our employment centers here are along stroads. So even if we got the project to build it there, with the way a stroad works, you have all of these shopping ce- usually around shopping centers, and you have a lot of pathways for cars to drive into. So let's say you have a protected bike lane along the road. You're still gonna have to watch out for these mid, uh, light intersections. Even in, in between the... for all the cars turning into, turning out of, there's still a lot to watch out for. It's still a, a hectic type of environment, uh, to have that there. But if that's what the project calls for and you're saying, "Well, I can get bike infrastructure here, and I can get money, grant money to do it, so less of it comes out of our pockets. This take-- tackles a project that we can work towards our network," you're still gonna go for it. But it, it's not going to entice people to want to, um, bike out there. Um, as somebody who rides around here almost every day, there is one side of the highway that is mostly stroads and shopping centers, and the other side is more the old, the older residential from the po- post-World War II homes, which have narrower streets, so they, they don't have the built-in bike infrastructure. But since they are comparatively older speaking, um, you-- it still feels more comfortable to ride around there because the cars aren't gonna drive as too fast. There might be streets where there are cars in the road, uh, parked on the side of the road, so that means any car that drives through has to slow down to avoid that, which provi- provides a natural traffic calming element. Um, even... So I do the, I do social bike rides here on... Our local bike shop has a social bike ride every Tuesday. I joined in on a few times. Um, the route that we take, none of it is west of two eighty-eight that comes straight down from Houston. And because that area is just stroad heavy, and it wouldn't be a comfortable place to ride, and it'd be, it'd be dangerous. So it's hard to even try it. This is-- goes back to your original point. It's hard to just slap something on a road that just is inherently not designed for anything else but cars to be on.

Yeah. When I was in college, it's the last time that I-- really the only time as an adult that I rode my bike to school and to work. Um, and yeah, I would-- I, I, I found a direction that basically I had to cross a major road once, a stroad one time, and then I was just sort of on those quiet residential streets, um, where they, they may not have been sidewalks, but it was safer to actually ride in the streets. Like, whatever infrastructure that they had on those major roads, it felt less safe than just meandering through a bunch of residential areas. Even it probably took me longer to get there, I mean, two or three extra minutes, but it was much more relaxing. Like, I didn't have to be on guard all the time, so you could just kind of enjoy it. Um, but that's-- I mean, that, but that was fifteen years ago, so... And I don't-- I haven't since then lived in a place or worked close enough to where I lived where it made any kind of sense to, to bike anywhere. But what about you, Patrick? Do you, uh, do you bike at, uh, A&M?

Oh, yeah. Super common at A&M in College Station to bike both from neighborhoods. Uh, it's, it's not super safe, uh, once you get off campus, um, 'cause you have basically the two state highways that kind of surround campus, and then you've got another kind of farm to market road that's on, uh, the other two boundaries. Um, so it's a, it's a very interesting way to do it. But College Station has tried really hard to, to try to bridge the gap over the stroads, right? Um, and, and so they've, uh, they've put, like, university on a road diet and try to put protected biking in place, um, and do some things to where they can connect the residential areas back to campus. Um, 'cause before, those residential areas were, were separated by either a four-lane, uh, or, or six-lane roadway, right? Um, and with, you know, fifty mile an hour speed limits on it.Whereas everything on campus is shrunk down. The speed limit on campus, I think it's like fifteen miles an hour.

It's fifteen. Yeah. Maybe less.

Yeah. And, you know, everything is, is, is right in there. So, uh, it's, it's really interesting. Um, also, uh, scooter rentals have become very common on A&M's campus, but they don't work off campus. Right? So-

The GPS is like, uh-

Because the city-

Limited?

Their GPS shuts them down. And it, it doesn't shut it down totally, but it slows it down to like a quarter speed-

Mm-hmm

... uh, when you, when you get outside of that GPA, that GPS fencing. Um, but yeah, I mean, so, so we were there on spring break, uh, because, you know, the MLB kinda had to shut out during spring training. And so we took the kids to some Aggie baseball games and spent some time there and, you know, of course, got them totally into the cult mindset of A&M. And, uh, jumped on those scooters and just drove around campus. And yeah, it's super, super friendly-

Yeah

... to be on a bike-

So-

... or a scooter on A&M's campus.

On, on campus, yeah, but, uh-

You can't really integrate the outside

So my brothers lived on Welborn or o-

Yeah

... not on, but off of, like just off of it into one of those residential neighborhoods. I guess that's like the south, southeast.

Mm-hmm.

And I mean, those are some relatively quiet streets, you know, tree-lined. But to get from campus to there, you've, you've got like a six-lane George Bush Drive. I don't know where-

Yeah, so-

... a lot of the residential areas might be that are near campus. But yeah, University on the north side is another divided six-lane road.

So they have not tunneled University yet, but Welborn and, um, and Texi- uh, W- Welborn and George Bush, I think, on either side. Um, I may be wrong about George Bush, but I know on Welborn they're tunneled. So you can actually get across-

Oh, got it

... uh, Welborn without actually being on the road. Yeah. And it's, it's got like a, uh, bike lane tunnel underneath the roadway. And that's kinda been, that's kinda been the solution there. Um, and, and, and the reason that that is important is because, uh, TTI, Texas Transportation Institute, which is where we invest all of our R&D funding for transportation, is housed at Texas A&M University, um, you know, right on the other side of that stroad. So, like, uh, the people who are coming up with all these ideas, um, are, you know, they're, they're housed at A&M and they're not all Aggies, but there's a lot of engineers in there that are trying to come up with ways to, to make some of these roadways safer for bikes. Um, and, and they utilize a lot of that at A&M. But I, the... Kind of what was striking to me, uh, Milford, w- is your comment about Boulder and how really Boulder's like Velo infrastructure, like bike infrastructure is not really on the main roadways. It's, it's kind of like its own bike trail system to get you to the same place as the same roadway. So, so my question for you is, is now that you've been in multiple cities where sometimes they, y- you know, they give you the ability to ride on the road and they give you the r- the ability to have its own trail system that kinda takes you to the same place, um, because we're behind from like European cities, right? Is it worth trying to go in and retrofit this old stroad infrastructure, or is it better to try to find different paths that are bike-centric to get there?

This is a good question. Um, you know, I think about it. I think both can work, and I'll tell you why. Um, we're all familiar with the, I mean, the three of us are familiar with Strong Towns.

Mm-hmm.

And a lot of what Strong Towns espouses, Chuck Marohn and his crew. I mean, a big part of it is saying that our current growth pattern isn't sustainable long term for our cities. So if that is true, then we're going to have to get away from the stroad model to begin with because that-

Mm

... upholds an unsustainable economic model for our businesses and the, uh, if you're talking about value per acle- acre and how that's being decimated when we build a sea of parking along stroads for maybe one or two businesses. Um, so I feel like just economic pressure-wise, that, that is probably going to have to change, which means that would be an opportunity to do something else in that regard may- for, and, and having bike infrastructure could be a part of it. Um, having a separate path, too, towards it, um, or finding a way for a separate path, um, could also, could also be a, a way of going at it or improving the certain paths you have. Before here, I lived in Norfolk, Virginia, and they have the Elizabeth River Bike Trail, which goes along, shocker, the Elizabeth River. And, um, it, it's not fully complete yet. The whole idea of it is to get you basically from Norfolk State campus all the way out to the world's largest naval base, Naval Station. And there are stretches of it where it's an actual separated path, and there are stretches of it that is actually part of a road, where they actually slap a sharrow on it. Um, there are stretches of it where it's a separated lane or two. Um, and for me, it was still, for the most part, mostly comfortable. But what I appreciated is they took that next step of trying to improve that area of the, of the road to where, uh, I went back two months ago, um, to watch my alma mater lose to Old Dominion the first game of the season. Uh, and I spent way too much money to have seats behind their 50-yard line. But before that, I even took the scooter along the trail and saw that they had massive improvements, you know, well, not massive, but, you know, definitely improvements like, "Oh, this wasn't here last time I was here. Oh, now they, they, they've, they've highlighted it with some green painting to make sure to provide awareness. Oh, they made this protected. Oh, they put a nice little playground around here to make it even more of a comfortable space to wanna be, be at." I think-Depending on the community, there can be space to... I think a lot of times you don't work with the-- a lot of our departments work in silos, a lot of what I worked in in city government. I think this would be a good opportunity to work with our parks department. Um, I know for here, our parks department is working on working with a volunteer group to clear cut for a mountain bike trail. But-

Mm-hmm

... maybe other opportunities to take other trailheads and make them more, more bike friendly. And we've talked about that. We've talked about a path that would be lit up. Um, it's really more about trying to find ways to connect it together. Um, it, you know, it's, it's-- I, I'm not gonna sit here and say it's easy to do this. Um, even what we talk about towards our peers in Europe, I mean, what Amsterdam has done has been over the past fifty years. Um-

Mm.

Paris right now has had a quote of a bike boom in the midst of the pandemic, and their mayor, An-um, Anne Hidalgo, uh, she, she, um, she got reelected on a campaign of having a fifteen-minute city to where you could walk around or bike around and get everything that you need within fifteen minutes. This is still a relatively recent thing in a major global city, let alone a major European city. So even what made Boulder work is something that they decided to do in the '70s and the '80s and, and imco-implement as part of their master plan and have, have things tied to their master plan through their, through their, uh, CIP and... You know, these were all projects that tied into their master plan. This was part of one of their priorities as part of their priority-based budgeting. So it can be done. It's we have to have a mentality of leadership of saying, "Hey, this is the outcome that we would like," or, "Would you like this outcome?" Um, for me, I think of it this way. What's that show where... I forgot. It's based in Japan, and they, like, let their two-year-olds go out and get groceries on their own.

Yeah. I know what you're talking about. Um-

The Flags. The Flags. It's coming to me.

I, I just saw this on 99% Invisible or heard it. If you keep talking, I'll find it for you.

Yeah. That's fine. Um, and I even saw on an epis- It was one of the Not Just Bikes videos where he was talking about he can let his seven and nine-year-old kids walk around, um, and if he did that back in his native London, Ontario, CPS would be called. But-

It, it's called First Errand

... I think First Errand. Congratulations, you're two. Now go get us groceries. Um, but a lot of times in, in the United States, I see when we think about safety, we think about it towards ourselves, and this is the case with our vehicles, right? So our vehicles have gotten bigger over the past two decades, and as they've been s- A lot of stuff has been put in there, technology. You know, and a great result of this is that you wear a seatbelt, you drive, you get in a car accident, it is the odds of you being killed are so much lower than fifty years ago. What has also taken an upswing over the past decade is the rate of pedestrian and cyclist deaths. So what does that level of safety come at the expe- comes at the expense of what? So now it's time for us to think of, okay, think of would you want your child to feel safe being out in the road or feel safe just being outside their house? I mean, we were talking about in our council meeting the other night, uh, doing, uh, some type of, uh, speed correcting for the very road that I live on, which happens to be anyway. I cannot make this up. And an incident happened earlier this year where somebody was turning, w-was speeding through, there's a curve, overcorrected the curve and, like, hit a house. And this is a-- it's kind of a collector road now, but it originally started out as a residential road, but now it's a road where people cut through on their way to get ahead in traffic and not get stuck behind on that way. But I'm thinking now, now it's framing of, do you want your kid playing outside on that road where you feel like there's a threat of, of having somebody speeding coming through? So how do we build a road that reduces that level of threat? And I feel like the conversation of making a road or creating a pedestrian and bike-friendly road can help, can be a part of that solution.

Yeah. To me, as, as someone who's not a cyclist, it seems like on many levels that's the optimum end goal because sharing infrastructure is cheaper than having separate infrastructure. Uh, sharing infrastructure means that we've found a way to encourage people not to drive faster. I mean, you talk about strong towns, incremental steps, little bets, right? So, um, taking whatever that next step is that we can do to encourage biking and to make it safer, uh, on a small scale is probably better than what we're doing right now, which is where everything comes in one big package. Even if it's piecemeal, it's all, uh, coming in, in a, in a big, uh, a big package with a bow on it as opposed to these small things that we can do on a daily basis where we don't have to go get funding from TxDOT, right? We can, we can make these small bets and incrementally change the, change the culture, change the way that people use our city, and that's probably a much longer term-Process, right? If Amsterdam's taking... Like, they started, I think, in the '70s realizing we have a car problem, and how can we shift this mindset? Because they were not a biking people then, right? They, they just... They didn't do it, now they are. And it takes a long time to do that. You have to be patient with it. But, um, I think you also, to kind of go back to some of the things you said, you have to be... take what you can get right now, and if that's we can add some protected bike lanes on this road, then that's a, that's a small bet we can-- hopefully a small bet that we can, we can take. Building an entirely separate set of infrastructure for biking and pedestrian traffic may make biking and pedestrian traffic safer, but it's not necessarily solving any of those other challenges that we're facing in making places that people wanna live and feel safe living. But if I can ask you one question to kinda go back to something that you, that you said. One thing that I am worried about with all of this talk, uh, and, uh, this push to improve and enhance our non-vehicle transportation options is that, I mean, there's a limit, right? Fifteen-minute city sounds great, and in Paris it's probably possible. But if you live in this neighborhood that Patrick and I talk about a lot right down the street from me, whenever we talk about neighborhood profitability, this is the one that we use. It's a massive neighborhood that if... I mean, it takes you ten minutes to drive through it and get to the highway. It's not built for using bicycles as a mode of transportation, because now you're talking about, like, a twenty, thirty-minute bike ride just to get to a, a grocery store. And so I just wonder if this, the suburban model where all... We, we don't... We have no mixing of uses. We have all of these, um, sprawling roads with cul-de-sacs, and, and they're designed so that you can't use them as cut-throughs largely. Are those compatible with, uh, with that? Or are those go- those types of developments gonna be kinda left out, and older developments that are maybe more gridded, maybe have a little bit more mixing of uses or a little bit closer proximity to different uses, um, gonna be kinda where we cap out with some of this, this work?

I mean, that's a very good question. Um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's really, it's really, uh... It's definitely a challenge when you think about it because we... Paris, the reason why I said fifteen minutes is I said Paris 'cause she- that's the concept. Obviously, Paris, we can't compare to Paris in basically any way, shape, or form. And a lot of cities in North America, um, we have a few outliers, New York's a very notable outlier, um, are developed on a more suburban spread out sprawl, um, pattern. Even our major cities. Be- I mean, take Houston, for example. With all the annexations it's done, it basically just took up all the sprawl that was built around the original city. Um, Charlotte did the same thing. Memphis did it to such an extent they're now de-annexing some of their areas, um, because the infrastructure was too much to keep up with. Um, yeah, that's... It's going to be a challenge to... In my opinion, yeah, I do think it will be a challenge to implement it in a, a neighborhood with that development pattern. I, I feel like what might have to be done down the road is go back to what they said with strong towns. I mean, these things are not sustainable long term. If you're thinking about where, where we're at right now, a lot of the infrastructure problems that we have here, it's now coming to show. We're now as a community starting to experience these things with infrastructure from what was built generations ago. A lot of these newer suburban, uh, patterns, they're not gonna feel that down the road. But at a certain point, you might have to look at rezoning areas to allow for a, a diverse mix of uses for the land, um, not only to make, make something, s- infrastructure like a bike lane or bike path more viable, but to actually get more bang for your buck of the infrastructure that you're using. Um, but I do think that that will be a challenge, and that's, that's definitely a long-term challenge that I, I don't even know if that's something that-

It will be a lifetime.

I feel like w- yeah, we'll grow. I think we can tend in that direction. I just feel like economically speaking, we might have to be forced to go in that direction. I don't know how long it will take. That would be for me-

I mean-

I feel like it would be a slow grow.

I mean, you s- you said it. You talk about Houston, right? I, I grew up in Katy, um, in, in an area of Katy that's now been annexed by Houston, right? So it's not actually Katy proper, it was the county and now it's Houston. Um, why? If you're Houston and you look at that, if you did any financial analysis on that at all, right? Uh, even, even just, you know, super basic financial analysis, why would you have done that in the '80s and the '90s? Uh, other than it's a money grab and a little bit of a Ponzi scheme, right? 'Cause I'm gonna go do this now, that sprawl development's gonna help me pay for some of my issues on the inner city, uh, to pay for that infrastructure that maybe wasn't done right. Uh, but eventually I'm gonna have to go and rebuild that infrastructure, you know, in the west side of town where I just annexed all this stuff up. So you s- you know, same thing going towards, like, Pearland, right? I mean, you know, same issues. So, but you asked the other question, why do that? And, and, you know, then you look at places like Memphis. You know, Memphis has made some very interesting, uh, decisions on that. I think Nashville's made some really interesting decisions on ETJ releases.

Uh, specifically, not necessarily like dis-annexation, uh, but you know, ETJ. The Memphis stuff I've gotta g- really go look at. I think that's really interesting. Because, you know, I think Texas cities are gonna ... Because of what you're talking about, like some of these things are coming to roost, right? And Texas cities are gonna start seeing what their weak links are. And especially with annexation reform in the state of Texas, um, you have to start looking at this from a standpoint of, well, if I'm not growing, then I can't really pay for my old mistakes, right? And well man, even with those old mistakes, should I hold onto them? Or should I just hand them back to the county to pay for that, right? Um, it's just a, it's a very interesting discussion. I think big cities in Texas right now are having to take a really hard look. I've talked to a couple of them on growth and annexation, where they really should look at, uh, zoning and density and use mixes and things like that where they could make more money on making those changes than they could on annexations and sprawl.

Yeah.

So, and bikes is just, you know, one aspect of why-

Well, it's about scale though

... you know, why you would do it or not do it. So-

Yeah. When everything is big, it has a large market area. So it has to be able to support itself, which means it takes longer to get there for a lot of the people who use those facilities. If you can develop in a way that's a little bit more smaller scale, then you can create places where you can bike to go get some food or to, you know, go do ... get a haircut, whatever your basic needs are. As opposed to having to drive really far away to the, to the strip center or to the power center that has all of these different things that I need, um, but that also serve this huge market area.

But our model in Texas development of being everything bigger is better, right? Chad, you'll have to ... You, you paid more attention in grad school than I did. Um, but I can't, I can't remember who taught kinda the, the public administration principle of bigger is better because it's more efficient, right? And we always argued that in grad school, that, that we didn't think that was the case. We-

It probably started with Woodrow Wilson, so you know it's a bad idea.

Yeah. True. But, but, um-

Sounds like Public Administration 101.

Yeah, it does. So Chad actually read those books. I occasionally cracked them open. Um, but the, the, the reality is is that y- you, you look at that and you look at that in Texas, and it really isn't bigger is better, right? I mean, some of these large cities that are dealing with the sprawl are kinda, you know ... They're, they're taking money from one area and, you know, for every ... You know, we talk about this in Parker County where I live. For every new home that hits the ground in Parker County below 600,000 in value, an older resident has to pay for that new home to be there for the services that we provide.

Or the next home has to pay for it.

Um, or the next home has to pay for it.

In- increasing that gap.

So it's just a-

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a continually ec- uh, increasing gap. Um, and, and we, we just kinda put ourselves in a situation where we, we ought to really look at this and say, "Okay, if that development wants to go out there, then they shouldn't get city services. They should figure it all out on their own." And, you know, that may mean they pay a higher tax rate, but that's fine. That's their tax rate. It's not the rest of the city's tax rate. Because that city doesn't have the, the option to pass its 45 cent tax rate across and then, and then change it for different areas. So I, I just ... I, I think like there's a, there's a really big conversation. We, we got into kind of the bike infrastructure, um-

It's all connected though

... and then, you know, Milford ... It's all, it's very connected.

This is why I say that I actually think that Chuck Marohn has come across like a grand unified theory of all of the ails that our cities have. And it l- all it all stems from ... I mean this, he's not the first person obviously. Um, but it, it, it all stems from everything being so geared towards vehicles, cars. I mean, it touches, it touches-

I would agree

... fire safety, it touches police, it touches, uh, economics. It, it touches everything. And again, he's not the first person to say it, but Strong Towns has really sort of homogenized the argument into a, a package that the average person can understand.

I, from my perspective, you know, obviously we, we went on this f- coming from bikes. The reason how I even got into it was because I just happened to move to the community, um, worked in their office. And they, they prioritize riding around more than other places in the, the United States. Physically getting on a bike and riding around town gives you a different perspective of your community. It helps you to see certain things. And like for me, that was my gateway into seeing why are things constructed like this? Why are things built like this? Does this make sense? And then going on and on. This was also around the time that I did start reading Strong Towns, around 2014 or so. So yeah, I mean, it is a grander issue here that people better qualified can explain than me. But this, my personal experience riding the bikes was like my way of even tapping into that. I mean, everybody else has their own ways, but it, it is definitely interesting seeing how just that one small aspect, 'cause it's a smaller aspect in the grand scheme of things, but it can still get you on the pulse of seeing all the issues that go on-

Yeah

... um, with a city and their infrastructure, and, uh, the issues that they have to face.

Putting police officers in cars takes them away from the community. It, it, it makes it more difficult for them to get to know people because they're in their little box and they're having to drive around. Like walking a beat gives you the opportunity to talk to people, stop and talk, get to know the community, right? So like, um, I don't remember the book. I'll, I'll find it and I'll put it in the show notes. But, um, it was sort of tracing the, the history of policing, and they marked the introduction of the automobile as, as a turning point when, um, when-The community ties and the ability to, to get to know at a ground level what's happening in your community really started to shift. And now everything is just traffic stops, right? Like free textual traffic stops. Like, let's get out of the cars. Let's, let's live together. Anyway, we don't need to go on.

We're going full-

Yeah.

... full war on cars episode right now.

Yeah, I know. Well, um, that was a, that was a awesome conversation about that. I, I mean, I, I wanna thank you so much, man, for taking the time to, to chat that through with us and, and look at it. I mean, obviously you've had that opportunity that we haven't had to live in those communities that did have more of a bike-centric, uh, mentality. And we have a lot of cities in Texas that are trying to do that, that are, that are moving that way, but, you know, we probably just don't have enough people on the ground that, that really understand what they're supposed to be doing in order to make that happen. So it's, it's, it's cool for, you know, our listeners to be able to hear that from you.

Thank you. And I just wanted to let you know that, like, there, you know, there are people like me who, I don't ride 120 miles every weekend or whatever. I don't have all the Tour de France gear as going by. I'm just a person who just uses it to go to work, goes around the town, goes grocery shopping. So I, I appreciate you guys having my perspective. I also wanted to thank Chad, um, because, uh, and apologize to him as a, as a Chelsea fan.

Ah, here we go.

And you thought I was gonna go through this entire episode without mentioning the fact that not only is North London red, but so is West London.

Uh-oh.

All of London is red.

Oh, man.

'Cause Arsenal is at the top of the table right now, and we, we get, we get one goal, but really, let's be honest.

You could've had five.

We dominated that game-

Yeah

... through and through.

There, there was about seven or eight minutes where Chelsea was actually putting up a fight, um, but that was... The biggest thing that I've, I've been worrying about is, you know, we were kind of at the top, I think we were, like, fourth or fifth, uh, in the standings, but we hadn't played anybody, and we hadn't scored any goals. So, like, yeah, we're, we're under a new regime now. We have a new, a new, uh, manager, and, uh, so things have been trending up since then, but we still hadn't played anyone. And we, like, the top half of the, of the league is still, still, uh, on deck. And so, yeah, seeing, having y'all come in, um, I think we were very fortunate just to give up one goal and, and end that close.

Very fortunate. Um, that was a solid, about as solid of a one-nothing win as I've seen. And, uh, I made sure to wake up around 6:00. Um, I had a, my cousin was getting, got married in New Orleans last weekend, um, last Saturday, and I still made sure to get up just so I could watch a good chunk of that game. I didn't watch it all. I decided to go back to sleep 'cause I figured it was, it was a wrap after a while.

After they got that first goal, I'm like, "This is, this is over."

Yeah.

Well, hang out, hang out with us for a little bit while we talk about sales tax 'cause we, we won't take very long on this one, but-

Okay

... uh, Chad, do you wanna, you wanna run through the, um-

Yeah, all my-

... the absolute sadness and depression that we're gonna see in sales tax coming up?

I'm gonna go, uh, from memory because all of the other stuff's in the other room. But sales tax came out for November allocations. That is, uh, September sales. Um, 5.8% up for all cities across the state, okay? So, um, obviously that is, uh, nominally a growth number, but when you account for inflation, it's about 2.5% down from last year. And this is the third month now in the past seven that we've had inflation-adjusted decreases in citywide sales tax. Um, I think the only month or the biggest month in that time was about 3.5% above inflation. So when you start to look at the trends, so, like, you, you're still getting... I think we had 15%, uh, growth last month, so maybe it's about 6% above inflation. But that 15% growth number is still, uh, eaten up significantly by inflation. And when you start to look at the trends over the past six to 12 months, the, the actual, like, total net gains is rapidly approaching zero. Um, and so we're, I think, heading faster than a lot of people think into, uh, stagnation or maybe some negative territory.

Yeah, I mean, we talked about this, uh, you know, last month and the month before as, you know, we started looking at the things, the kind of the precursors of sales tax, you know. Um, we were looking at trash tonnage. We started seeing a drop in trash tonnage, uh, city by city. We were looking at, uh, shipping volumes, uh, because FedEx and UPS actually publish their shipping volume information in their, uh-

Quarterlies

... in their data. And then, you know, we were, we were specifically looking at all these different data points, and everything was pointing towards, you know, 60 to 90 days from now we're gonna start to see a significant slowdown in sales tax. I think this is the real... You know, once we get the, uh, the confidential data and we get to start to see everything industry by industry, I think what we're gonna see is that, um, you know, retail has really slowed down. Uh, the consumer has slowed down quite a bit, and, um, you know, interest rates have put a damper on there. The, the other side of that is, is we're, we're in earning season right now in the market. Um, and it really doesn't matter whether you have good or poor earnings. The earnings in general have been pretty lethargic, but even those players that have come out with positive earnings are, are just seeing, you know, 10% to 15%, uh, reductions in, in market, market cap, uh, because they're, uh, you know, everybody just has this negative feeling towards, uh, where we're going from an economic standpoint. We don't know how long it's gonna last. Uh, we don't, we don't really know where it's gonna go. Uh, you know, obviously we'll get into that once we start, you know, uh, projecting, you know, how flat or how down this is going to be, just like we did in COVID and, and we did, you know, back in, uh, you know, 2009, 2010 to 2011. So, you know, we, but we, we do fully expect, as we've, we kind of sent that flare up there, uh, you know, to cities that, um, you know, they, if they projected warm and fuzzy sales tax numbers of 15% growth this year, that's a bad spot to be. Um, and, you know, you, you probably still are gonna have positive growth, but that's nominal. It's not, uh, you know, inflation adjusted. And so, um, you know, we're one month into the new fiscal year right now, and, and so you still have time to make adjustments if you haven't made those adjustments.

Well, that is, um, not exactly the most pleasing news to hear.

How did Lake Jackson do? Have you checked it yet?

Uh, I have not checked it. Um, like I said, I talked to my finance staff. But I do, uh, run, uh... Actually, this is... Yeah, it's about the... This is around the time where, uh, month one would've closed. So yeah, this would be a good time for me to just fire up the system and see where, where we're at one month in. You know, I-

You wanna get a live, live, you wanna get a live, uh-

Live take

... live update on where you were?

Uh, it's like, d- do I?

So your number came in-

Live.

Your number came in, uh, nominally positive at .02% up verse last year.

Ooh. Wow.

Yeah. So which, you know, it, with, with inflation is-

I think-

... you know, really... Chad, that'd be like an 8, 8% decrease?

Yeah. So we don't use the-

8.4

... we don't use the, uh, top line CPIU. We use a subset that's more geared towards things that are sales taxable. So it's, it's different than the, uh, what gets reported as inflation. But I think it was about 8.5%.

Just wanted to give-

You know, not as, not as bad as the 18% we saw in 2009. So-

Uh, decreases you mean?

Yeah. I, I just deliver great news.

Was this-

Happy Thanksgiving

... was this payback for just talking about Arsenal?

I didn't bring that up. Actually, I guess I kinda did. But Patrick actually looked the number up. No, no.

No, let's, let's stop talking about this London derby. L- let's give you two British people a break.

Let's change the subject. So, uh, that was pretty good. Well, man, I'd, I'd... H- honestly, Milford, I, I wish you were not, you know, all the way in the Houston market, dude. It'd be awesome to, uh, to be able to chat with you more often, grab lunch with you-

Oh, dude

... uh, and, and do it.

Well, a- actually-

So we, we'd love to have you back on at some point.

Oh, no, I'd love to be back on. Um, I don't know if, uh, if I could make it work, but I'm actually gonna be up in the Metroplex Thanksgiving weekend, so.

S- so funny enough, I'm gonna be where you are.

Oh, hey, that's right.

So I, um, yeah. So, uh, you know, we actually have a, a, we have a place, or, or my parents have a place, we've had it for, for years in Freeport, so we-

Oh, do you?

... kinda-

That's so close.

So, so we s- we literally are flipping.

Yeah.

You're gonna come up here and I'm gonna go there, yes.

Yeah.

Um, but, uh, but any time I'm in town in that area, I'm certainly gonna look you up. And, uh, and, you know, if you're up here, let us know. We'd love to get together. And-

Will do

... um, but your perspective is, is just really, really good for Texas City Management, and we appreciate you taking the time to kinda share that with all our listeners.

I appreciate being on here and just, you know, being able to chop it up with you guys. That's what it feels like.

Yeah.

It's like a barbershop conversation.

It's, it's the normal. Yes, true. All right, Chad, wrap us up, man.

Oh, that's actually your job. That is not my job.

I know. I usually do, but I fe- I felt like I'd already kinda wrapped it there-

Okay

... for a minute, so.

Thanks for listening.

All right.

Milford, thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

See ya.