Real Estate show with Guest Joe Brett Rogue Valley TV

Full Video Transcript Below

[00:00:00] Alice Lema: Well, good morning, Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the real estate show. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here at John L. Scott real estate in beautiful Southern Oregon. And I want to welcome our guests today Mr. Joe Brett, Joe was one of the original hosts of the real estate show along with Pete Belcastro back in the day.

[00:00:25] And what a lot of you don't know is his day job is working for Rogue Valley, TV RTV through SOU, and he records a lot of the government meetings for housing. So Medford planning commission stuff going on in Grants Pass, things going on and Ashland. He is our in-house fly on the wall. Mr. Joe, Brett is coming back to visit with us.

[00:00:50] And since he is watching all these meetings and streaming them, he has some interesting observations. He has some predictions and he has some news.. So you want to listen to this interview with Mr. Joe Brett. We're so happy to have him back today. And I have dubbed him our in-house fly on the wall. Hope that's okay with him.

[00:01:10] And he has some surprises. So you definitely want to stay tuned. Speaking of surprises, our market in Southern Oregon, it's only January, oh my gosh. It is so active. We have lots more properties coming on the market. We still have a lot of buyers, but what is different the interest rates. So the few interest rate adjustments, we've had little bit of crying for some of the people that were right on the edge of their pre-approval. But we've got a couple more to go, and it's not just the buyers that might be a little boo hooey because their purchase power went down.

[00:01:49] It's going to be the sellers, you know, if your buyer pool drops. If the buyer pool's, financing ability drops, that affects the purchase price out in the open market. So if you're selling or you're thinking of selling in the next year or so you might want to rethink your price. Because you know, a lot of us were in the habit this early in the season when we put our house on the market, of starting high, because we had the whole season to come down.

[00:02:20] I'm thinking that's not a great idea this year, just because we have this changing market. We have more inventory coming on. We have the interest rate adjustments, which is effecting the purchasing power of your buyer pools. So sellers take note, take it into consideration, have a real honest conversation with your agent and please don't overprice. And if you do, don't be mad if you don't get offers.

[00:02:48] And if you overprice it do get offers well yay for you. Call me. I want to know about it. Okay. We've got a break coming up. We're going to have an interview with Joe Brett here from our TV. Do not touch that dial. We'll be right back after a brief word from our sponsors.

[00:03:04] Well, welcome back folks to the real estate show, Alice Lema broker, John L. Scott here in beautiful Southern Oregon, your host for today. And today super, super excited to welcome back, Joe Brett. He has a lot to do with the Medford planning commission, and we're going to talk about his interesting story, but he's also the original host of this real estate show. Welcome back, Joe.

[00:03:28] Joe Brett: Hey, thank you, Alice. You are doing a great job carrying on the show's traditions, rich history. I had a real estate license for 10 years and for a good bit of that time, as you know, Pete Belcastro, and I worked on the real estate show and just always enjoyed being able to talk with local people that had great local information that, you know, you can find out things about everything else going on in the world. But sometimes that local information is hard to find, but you get a lot of it here on this program. And good work on keeping it going.

[00:03:56] Alice Lema: Well, good work on you. And, and Pete starting it at the bottom of the crash. I mean talk about inspiration. Well I I'm particularly excited to have you here because I want you to tell the audience kind of why it is you're involved in the commission and why it is, you can be more frank and candid than anybody else in the room.

[00:04:17] Joe Brett: Well, I'm not in the room or on any of the local planning commissions. The reason that I get a firsthand look at their dealings is because I'm the operations director. And also my main focus at Southern Oregon university is the government relations aspect of Rogue Valley Community Television. So our RV TV started back in the 1990s, just with the city of Ashland as a local cable television channel.

[00:04:44] It's grown since then to include the cities of Medford and Grants Pass and Jackson county. So we operate four cable television channels in two counties through the spectrum charter cable system and all of those channels that are cross streamlined these days. So everything that goes on the channel.

[00:05:03] Also, it was available through the RB tv.sau.edu website. And another aspect that we do for a lot of our governments is we collect, we record and collate those meetings. We play them back on the RV TV channels, but we also archive them through a cloud server so that citizens can go back and watch meetings after the fact and get information they might've been interested in.

[00:05:27] So it's a, so it's a kind of a full service partnership with our local government, to provide government television programming, city council meetings, planning meetings, school boards, the site plan and architecture commission in Medford to, to quite a little gamut, the rogue valley transportation district board of directors live on RV TV.

[00:05:48] So it's a, it's a neat little consortium and the city of Grants Pass has also been really involved up there. And they're kind of the center of Josephine county operation.

[00:05:56] Alice Lema: Well, very cool. So so your there doing the media support and the recording during the planning commission meeting. So, and I remember when when you and Pete had the show and I would come on as a guest, you always had some little snippet of update.

[00:06:11] And I said, the other day, can we have Joe on all for the whole segment? Let's find out what's going on in Medford. So thanks for coming.

[00:06:19] Joe Brett: Yep. I actually, I'm getting ready tonight to go to a Medford planning commission, meeting their first one for the month of January. So give you a little tidbit there. There's a new roundabout in the works in the west Medford area, near the new development of the aquatic center of the rogue X. Aquatic center that city Medford is developing. So that's going to be on the on the agenda tonight. That's big stuff. That planning meetings where the roundabouts come up.

[00:06:47] Alice Lema: So that Southwest Medford, over by the new aquatic center, what, what are the main streets over there? Trying to remember where that is. Oh, okay. Okay.

[00:06:56] Joe Brett: And the west Howard Memorial park where the logos charter school is now open area. That's out there near where channel 10 is I work there so that I would recognize there.

[00:07:08] Alice Lema: Yup. Yup. Okay. So folks can watch for a little update on that. So the meetings like tonight's Medford planning, commission meeting, that's on the charter cable system live on channel 180 1. Oh. And it's live so you can watch it livestream.

[00:07:24] Joe Brett: Right. And then it replays for the next two weeks until the next planning commission meeting comes on. So we operate those channels from about four o'clock, till midnight, every night with local programming and just little tidbits of information and the short pieces that we run during the day. So the RV TV channels are 180 prime, 181civic. Ashland meetings are live on 180 because that was the original home for the Ashland city government.

[00:07:48] Jackson county, and Medford government meetings are live on channel 181, our civic channel and the Grants Pass meetings are live on channel 183 in Josephine county only.

[00:07:59] Alice Lema: Wow people don't even know we have civic channels.

[00:08:01] Joe Brett: It's a pretty incredible resource on local cable system. Unfortunately, less and less people are subscribing to cable as we go forward. And the younger generations prefer streaming and other options for themselves. But that's still a reason that we stream all of the meetings and all of the channels just stream right onto the internet too. So you don't have to have cable necessarily to see this or see this live or get the information.

[00:08:24] Alice Lema: It's an interesting shift. Yeah.

[00:08:27] Joe Brett: it really is. And we're seeing that we're adapting our contracts and our operating procedures with the local governments, in fact, doing so with the city of Medford right now. Looking into the future as to how people want to get the information and how we're going to be able to position ourselves to get it to them. So it's media landscape, as we know.

[00:08:44] Alice Lema: Well, and I think not having to have hard wires in your home. It, it just speaks again to the transport, the transportation, not transportation, sorry, the transportability of media now. And when people are looking at real estate, and since you were a real estate agent, it's starting to change where people live because they don't necessarily have to be in a cable area.

[00:09:08] Joe Brett: Right. No, it changes where people can work. The, the ability to have high-speed internet in your home means you can work virtually with an office in Los Angeles. Or one of those other big hell holes where no one in their right mind would really want to live, but it's a place where the jobs are. And most of them, you know, really good money making jobs are.

[00:09:29] So what a great in-between we can bridge that. And then, you know, what table rock sports, the company that Pete and I own and operate, we just go in the middle of a field where they're playing softball or baseball out there with a hotspot and can live stream high school athletic events. So it's amazing.

[00:09:45] Alice Lema: Well, and I know that's been super, super successful and a big part of our community lights the sports programs, and it's been a little bit hard with the COVID, but were you guys still able to broadcast during that.

[00:09:58] Joe Brett: March, 2020 til March, 2021. We had no events, no one whole year off. And then in March of 2020 until the end of June, 2020. We basically did nine months worth of school events in four months. So it was just, and we couldn't have fans at the games. So the streaming was really, really important, even though it was outside. Yup. Yup. It was a number of different ever-changing rules there, but the back to our local governments, they love this ability to stream and to have these things, cause their transparency is really, really important to them as citizens. And that's really the impetus for them. Contract with RBT TV or providers like ourselves.

[00:10:39] Alice Lema: And, you know, I was, I've been to some of those meetings for personal reasons or on behalf of clients. And they get kind of a bad reputation just for being bureaucracies. But I was really, really touched by how human the commissioners were. And how, how detailed the conversations were like at one point, there were talking about a new school going in over by the airport and they actually took time to discuss how the parents are going to be driving in and out of the parking lot for pickup and drop off.

[00:11:09] Now, this was pre pandemic, of course, but I was very moving to see that our local government takes that level of care in the planning.

[00:11:20] Joe Brett: I would say one of the things that are really, come to be impressed by is that each and every file that goes before our commissions really is given some thorough scrutiny and the members, those are volunteers on the planning commissions and the city councils. They're folks who care about their community and volunteer and have the background and the expertise to be able to interpret to the, what the land use laws want cities to follow the guidelines of what they want the region to follow the guidelines, up and how they want them to be able to work together.

[00:11:53] Thetransportation systems that are tied into that, so even a small commercial operation for a low building, say for a truck repair or something like that, less than two acres, the planning for the traffic ingress, landscaping accessibility for foot or bicycle traffic, if applicable, it's a really thorough process.

[00:12:17] I would just say I wasn't, you know, I wasn't real thrilled when I started going to planning commissions 25 years ago for my job, but as time went on and I participated in the parks commission, voluntarily a member of the park. So I had a, I had my own taste of, you know, what the, what the work was or what was like anyway. And so it became more interesting to me. And then as I got a real estate license the planning commission meetings became fascinating. I was warped that way housing developments, subdivisions and all.

[00:12:52] Alice Lema: The best stories. So So the city of Medford is morphing in part because of the COVID and the, the housing shortage. What kind of takeaways are you getting? As you're sitting there doing the rogue valley TV, the RV TV, media streaming. What what are you going away with? Just about how are they handling the housing shortage? Well, then the fires, right?

[00:13:16] Joe Brett: They're trying to be really flexible. And they're trying to look what other communities are doing. And they're trying to, they're trying to innovate and look for opportunities where they can create some opportunities or some relief for housing. You know, they're, they open up and loosen the rules on having additional dwelling units. So it's easier as now for, for families to accommodate family members and maybe have a little residence or even an additional dwelling unit that is bringing a little income to your property.

[00:13:48] So we need the housing, we need the opportunities. And they're looking at also talking about dense density, you know, make, make for developments that are a little tighter and, and as I've seen my own neighborhood evolve along Aspen street, Southwest Medford, such a beautiful street.

[00:14:07] That's one of my favorite streets. And I can't think of the developer and his wife's his wife's his agent, but they put in 21, 23 houses. Yes. And I just watched that whole thing come together and the houses are a little tighter than where my house is down across peach street. That was built 45 years earlier. But man alive, did they get great use? It's a beautiful development and its houses were super cute. And they went like as soon as they went up, in fact, before they were completed, a lot of them were pending just waiting for them. They were under $400,000.

[00:14:42] You remember that? Yeah. And that wasn't that long ago. Some of those, some of those first ones, Alice were like 2, 2 40. Before we, before we really took off and the housing prices, some of those were really the value of those has gotta be. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:02] Alice Lema: Well, we're coming up on a little break here. Joe we're visiting with Joe Brett, who was the original host on the real estate show with Pete Belcastro. But he's also had a day job, which was RV TV, it's thru Southern Oregon and he is a, the media representative and does all the live streaming for all of the government, our local government. And it's just so fun. He's like our own fly on the wall.

[00:15:31] Joe Brett: I sit in tiny little rooms with a lot of buttons and levers around me.

[00:15:35] Alice Lema: But you get to hear everything that's going on. Yeah. Yeah. And so you can just report back. So we'll be back with more conversations with Joe Brett. After a quick word from our sponsors brought to you by Mutual of Omaha mortgage ,Guy, Giles, Rogue Valley Association Realtors, and John L. Scott Southern Oregon. Do not touch that dial.

[00:15:56] Well, welcome back to the real estate show. I'm Alice Lema broker, John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon, having a very lively and informative conversation with Joe Brett, a rogue valley TV. He does all the media work for all of the local government meetings and the live streaming.

[00:16:11] And he is our, what we call fly on the wall during all this stuff. And he can come back and tell us what's going on. Like the roundabout. That's going to be going in I guess in Southwest Medford, west Medford, over by the aquatic center. And so has the, have that, has the public had much of a reaction to that yet?

[00:16:30] Joe Brett: No. I just saw it on the agenda, just taking a peak earlier this week. So I think it's the first time that the actual plan is coming before the planning commission. And it is a comprehensive plan change because they had presented the original traffic information to go with it. So this is a request by the planning commission to consider what they now feel is a better way to handle the traffic with the mini roundabouts busy little area.

[00:16:57] Alice Lema: Well, but then, you know, they put one of those traffic circles on highway 140, and I guess it's helped.

[00:17:03] Joe Brett: Yeah. I've been been through it a few times, myself.

[00:17:06] Alice Lema: Ah, just makes me nervous.

[00:17:11] Joe Brett: But it takes time to get used to new things, but ODOT has them all over the state of Oregon and mixed reactions though, by people, but just, it does, it does seem to help the traffic flows in this particular one.

[00:17:23] The logos charter school is on this, the west Howard Memorial acreage there where the aquatics facility will be. You think about it when we have a big swimming event or they've got indoor courts for volleyball and basketball. Those are going to be some pretty sizable events that are going to demand some traffic considerations.

[00:17:41] Alice Lema: Well, and there's the mobile home park across the street, which is very substantial. Lot of, a lot of people live there. It's a busy little section.

[00:17:50] Joe Brett: And that's the major artery out towards Jacksonville too, that they grabbed it from, from the rogue valley mall out that way. That'd be a lot of that'd be a, probably a very thorough discussion tonight.

[00:18:00] Cause that's a, that's a lot that transportation is, is a lot that the planning that goes into it as, as, as we're often quick to point out when things are not going smoothly in our transportation plans, there's a lot of work and effort to coordinate those and to, to mesh those new developments with the existing ones.

[00:18:19] Alice Lema: Well, and this is the time for the public to get involved when they can make a difference with their opinion and their expertise. Not later when it's all said and done.

[00:18:28] Joe Brett: Yeah. Yeah. That was the deal with the the Chevron that's over there on spring. The new the gas station, convenience store and the carwash that are there .That came under intense scrutiny from the neighbors.

[00:18:40] Time will tell, you know, if, if, if the doomsayers would be right with, with that for the neighborhood, but the problem for most of the citizens, they should have been there to represent their concerns for the neighborhood at the zone change. That took place six to eight months before and after it was zoned properly commercially for that use at that point, the planning commission couldn't turn around and say, no, there've been an application to rezone it. They were looking to add services like that in east Medford with all of the building going up in the Hills and those new home stretch all the way up to the road that goes up roxanne park now. So there's a ton of new growth up there and they've got to have those services there.

[00:19:28] So the citizens were upset, but their time to intervene was when the zone change took place. And so it's really complicated for just average citizens in their neighborhood to understand that process or that they, they may be noticed a number of those neighbors were noticed about the zone change, but I don't think really realized that the ramification of that zone change was going to be that facility, it was going to end up in their neighborhood a year later. So that, that, that part of the process, I have a lot of empathy for citizens because it was complicated.

[00:19:59] The timing of it is sometimes essential if you want to have some input like that. And always even, even after the fact it is not a bad thing, or is it ineffective to give input to those commissions? They value that whether it comes from email in-person testimony or however people are most comfortable, they really do look to incorporate as much information and opinions and, and local knowledge, even when, when they're making those types of decisions,.

[00:20:27] Alice Lema: The zone changes are huge. And I think the notices that go out, it doesn't say they're going to put a gas station. It says somebody has applied for a zone change from this zone to that zone. And so I think that's what kind of gets overlooked by the local residences is so maybe we can with this broadcast help, get the word out. If you get a zone change, notice in your neighborhood, that's the time to do something about it.

[00:20:53] Joe Brett: The dig in a little bit, and you can always call the city or the county planning department, whichever it may be. They do field questions about zone changes and things like that. They are able to respond to email or phone calls to their department.

[00:21:05] Alice Lema: So do, and they answer the phone and they're really quite nice. Quite, yeah. Quite informed you say, why is this happening? They have a pretty thoughtful answer. You might not like the answer, but it will be well thought out.

[00:21:19] Joe Brett: And Oregon has some, some really deep and mysterious land use laws. So there, it can get kind of a complex for sure to keep up with it all. And it is it's, but a very important process for cities to be able to function smoothly in neighborhoods maintain best quality of life that you can for everybody involved, but there's a give and take and how that comes together.

[00:21:50] Alice Lema: So do you have any any wind of new subdivisions, any, any new shopping centers, anything big coming?

[00:21:59] Joe Brett: The new the new hotel and the development that is coming adjacent to the north gate complex. There's another big phase of that. That's about to unfold. And I remember the north gate, it was planned and then it went away several years and we hit the downturn and is just kind of went on the shelf and then it came roaring back to the big complex that it is now, but it's not finished at all. There's a lot more room out there. And so there's a new motel that's in relatively close proximity to the airport again, and hotels have been the hot, hot item.

[00:22:32] Alice we've had hotels out by the airport. Some more by the south interchange, which are directly tied to our us cellular community sports park and all of the tournament's and all the active.

[00:22:44] Alice Lema: It's just hard to imagine Medford being a destination of any, any consequence, but you see all these hotels going up. We must really matter to people.

[00:22:53] Joe Brett: And the one of the big calling cards of the city of Medford in the future, and I'm a member of the Southern Oregon sports commission that works with travel Medford. We are aggressively going to go after sports tourism. Bringing mountain biking events, swimming events, super cool.

[00:23:09] We're going to really extol the virtues of the great weather that we have almost year round here for outdoor activities, and really try to step our game up in sports tourism too. So using that new facility out out of west Howard park. And the other just incredible kayaking and biking and hiking experiences that are out there. That's going to be a real focus of our traveling.

[00:23:33] Alice Lema: We have some great rapids on the rogue river. Professional kayakers do practice here. In fact, I think we have an Olympian His name is Steve. Yeah. And he actually owns land on the rogue river and is a kayak coach for some of the future. So if we start bringing in you, Joe Brett start bringing in those people, they can stay at the hotel they're building out at north gate.

[00:24:00] Joe Brett: Yep. We're getting, we're getting more and more rooms. We're getting ready for them to come.

[00:24:05] Alice Lema: So north gates, the one that has the Ram restaurant and the Chipotle. Okay. Yeah. So the land, the vacant land is going to be behind that then like behind the home store and the sporting goods store .

[00:24:21] Joe Brett: Closer to the, to the, on the airport side of it.

[00:24:26] I haven't actually seen the plan. I just have heard that the concept of what was it going in there and there's, there's a little more, that's going in with the motel as well. A couple of better retail businesses, I believe.

[00:24:41] Alice Lema: So, it's going to be interesting to see how this all gets hammered out with the city during the COVID and hyperinflation, and, you know, we've got a labor shortage and supply shortage. It's I just wonder how those conversations are going to be handled.

[00:24:58] Joe Brett: A lot of it, you know, that is kind of outside of the purview of the commissions, you know, the, the dynamics of the market. They're just going to approve this site plans and make sure that all blends well together there, but yeah, there I'll tell you, there are it's it's interesting that all of those things, if they all come down on us at once could be a big deal for our supply chains.

[00:25:24] And we've seen that in the housing market. Trying trying to rebuild homes here in the wake of the fires have been pinched by lumber, shortages and lumber prices and and supplies of all kinds. So that's another big step in, and we can plan for them and we can plot out the subdivisions, but we've got to have the materials and the people to actually make those happen.

[00:25:43] And, and, you know the regional problem solving, the regional planning efforts that took place. Gosh, 14, 15 years now, or the cities have all turned in their urban growth, boundary, expansions, new areas. All of that went to Jackson county to be approved at the county level before it went to the state.

[00:26:02] That was one of the biggest undertakings that I've ever seen in my many years of planning commission meetings. How much work it took and how each of the eight or nine new parcels in Medford were mitigated for school needs and park and open space needs, and everybody kind of making their case. Cause there were only so many acres that could be allocated.

[00:26:23] And that was that was quite a give and take process over the course of years to watch it all unfold. And now look at, we can't do, we can't build and develop out that this 20 year supply of land and the expansion of the UGB. We're going to fill it up. It's just as fast as we could possibly build it.

[00:26:41] It's really amazing that the market is we going to use everything that we allocated for in those 20 years, I believe. And that planning process is already going to get started very soon for what's going to happen beyond that.

[00:26:53] Alice Lema: So are there any big changes in the kind of housing or the kind of use the that they're looking at longer term.

[00:27:02] Joe Brett: Oh no, I hear some really interesting planners conversations before or after the meetings when we're just chatting, you know? And, and I think there's a lot of talk that development community is really proactive right now and trying to you know work with the new regulations and some of the new rules that are going into place to encourage more density and more ability to create more housing.

[00:27:28] So that's kind of fun that some of that doesn't come out in the meetings, but that's the fly on the wall nature of my work down there. It's just to talk to them and, and our, our professional planning staff, the city, and the county, they take some heat. Sometimes not everybody likes the decisions that comes from there, but I have to say much, much the same as the commissioners, these are people that are focused and dedicate their life to this planning process. I couldn't do it. You know, it takes a special type of person. It's kind of like, you know, being a doctor who would open people up and fix .

[00:28:02] That's not for me. And full-time. It wouldn't be, but I had a, I used to host a program on RV TV called the Medford forum. And I remember Matt Brinkley, our planning director. Oh yeah. When Matt first came to the city of Medford, he was down as a guest and his passion for planning from back in the day. He really caught the bug when he was in college. And his whole professional life has been about planning and he, you know, he, he brings it all that experience and all that knowledge, but the passion that he brings for this process, and it is you have to really get down deep in the diagrams. And it's a, it's a painstaking level of work. We have some great, great planners on the staff.

[00:28:42] Alice Lema: We do we do. And we're going to have to take another quick break. We're talking to Joe Brett. He is our onsite kind of ears and eyes during the planning commissions and other government meetings because he's RV TV. And he used to be the host of the real estate show. We'll be back with Joe Brett in just a quick minute. Don't touch that dial.

[00:29:03] Well, welcome back to the real estate show everybody. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker at John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon. And this conversation with Joe Brett is so eye-opening. I just love talking to you. Joe, you're there at all the, the meetings you are the media expert. And so you really do get to be kind of the eyes and ears while our government, while you're streaming, while you're streaming and recording our government meetings. It's really, really fascinating to get to talk about.

[00:29:32] Joe Brett: Thank you, Alice. Sometimes when we're planning for four and a half to five hours, or our city council is wrestling with planning issues till late in the night. It's not as exciting as other types of some of those we've had some meetings that have gone, I think the record is a Medford planning commission went seven hours and 15 minutes one night.

[00:29:51] Alice Lema: What were they talking about?

[00:29:53] Joe Brett: It was, it was a big, big meeting, but it went on, I think they started at five and they got over at 12:15. That's that's the record. We've had some five, five and six hours ago. City of Grants Pass has had a few doozies as well.

[00:30:09] Alice Lema: What's going on in Josephine county, do you record any of those sessions?

[00:30:13] Joe Brett: Yes. City of Grants Pass city council meetings and workshops are televised in stream by RV TV. So we don't get to see their planning on a regular basis. We just mostly hear about the planning items that might be remanded or appeal to the city council for final decision sometimes. Yeah. Josephine county.

[00:30:34] We used to televise Josephine county government meetings as well. And those were probably the ratings blockbusters because they had some political characters along the way. It's really, yeah big. Their commissioners ran the gamut, the spectrum, political and personal idea, loud ideology. So they were, they were a lot to work with for a while there, but the city of Grants Pass has been great, a great partner. They were sharing channel with the county and then the county just didn't have the funds or the where with all to be able to continue.

[00:31:07] It's all the channel. There was all operated by the city of Grants Pass.

[00:31:12] Alice Lema: Yeah, it does cost something to broadcast. All that.

[00:31:15] Joe Brett: It does relatively to, to, to media costs in general, we've found a plan by basing our operation through Southern Oregon university. And we have a beautiful facility down there down next to the athletic complex the digital media center.

[00:31:30] It's got a computer field lab for students. It's got a full fledged studio for students. They've got virtual media opportunities. This was all kind of the original plan of partnering with the local governments through SOU. We're a regional university. This is the regional government channel and the regional clearing house show for information through cable, TV, distribution.

[00:31:55] So it was a great partnership in that way and by their contracts and support of RV TV through the university, it helps us operate that facility and create those opportunities for students who get some great, great chances to learn their craft and have hands-on opportunity. So it's been a great regional partnership in not only media distribution and getting the information out, but they're kind of residual effects of what that does for the university and our ability to operate down there.

[00:32:21] Alice Lema: Well, and I think that transparency really speaks well to just our society, that, you know, that's how our government is run and the citizens have access to what's really happening. And what's really sad. Excuse me. So I am curious have you seen any really lively, like heated conversations in any of those sessions.

[00:32:44] Joe Brett: At the city council sessions, there have been a number of very heated conversations and, not yet had people actually dragged out, but they've threatened.

[00:32:58] Alice Lema: They get hot under the collar about what topics, really?

[00:33:04] Joe Brett: The homeless lately, the issues of homeless in our community. And you know, they have passed some ordinances at the council level in Medford about outdoor camping. And you're trying to find a happy medium of businesses and properties and not just being overrun or compromised by people just kind of crashing there or using their property as a bathroom and things like that.

[00:33:25] So the, the there's a lot of, you know, really passionate people about helping and trying to solve that problem. And then there are rules, ordinances, laws, and regulations that are passed that are intended to make things, be able, operate smoothly for all of us and fairly for all of us. So that's definitely been some of the, by far some of the hotter crowds that that have come before council and so many changes with the homeless situation and the last couple of years.

[00:33:55] Alice Lema: And it seems, I was under the impression that the government was happier and that the businesses were a little more happier. Medford police, I don't know how they feel, but it seemed like the situation is more under control in general. Is that part of the conversation? That you're hearing, are you hearing differently?

[00:34:15] Joe Brett: I'd say that's accurate. And the Medford police they're very much trying to be a part of the solution. In fact, they are part of an inner agency group, livability team that is to try to connect with through there. They've got to go in and got to kind of deal with the camps and, and deal with the people that may be in illegal places that they're camping, but they don't go in with any kind of heavy-handed presence. In fact, what they're trying to do is help people bridge the gaps to get to a more stable place to live or connect with the resources or the people that would be willing to help them or try to find a way to help them.

[00:34:52] Alice Lema: Yeah. If they need some mental assistance, medical abuse, substance abuse. Yeah. Yeah. So it just seemed like things were going better.

[00:35:01] Joe Brett: They do seem to be in every community. This is not just, just Medford, every single community of our size. We're a little smaller, a little bigger are trying to find equitable ways., You know, to, to deal with with people that are not in a stable position, to some of us take for granted that we are.

[00:35:21] Alice Lema: Equitable, that's a good, that's a good word for it. So when, when you hear of these, in these meetings some of the longterm, I'm wondering about the population growth, are they having any conversation about what population growth expectations.

[00:35:37] Joe Brett: I think it's, it's always, you know, part, part of what we try to do. And part of what Medford the city tried to do is attract businesses and attract industries to come here, to grow here and to help to grow the valley in that respect. So that is very cognizant of that, that, that is a big part of that planning for the residential growth.

[00:35:55] That it's pretty much inevitable. We've seen the growth patterns as, as many of our friends flood over the border from California, escaping high taxes and the wildfires and earthquakes and everything down there. So we we've seen that, you know, and you see that in a real estate and tried and true over the years and years.

[00:36:14] Alice Lema: But you don't think of it always when you're helping people relocate here with a home, you don't think about the businesses that they're going to start to bring with them.

[00:36:23] And, and just the overall impact they're going to have, except that the remote worker and I don't know if any conversation goes on about this in the, in the plannings, I don't know if it'd be relevant, but the remote workers I think, are really going to have a big impact on our community, where they have these high paying jobs, high tech jobs Yeah.

[00:36:42] So we'll have to maybe we'll have you back to talk about that. Cause you've got a meeting tonight, so maybe we'll have you back in another few weeks.

[00:36:50] Joe Brett: I'll keep, I'll keep my ear out. You know that.

[00:36:53] Alice Lema: Okay. Well, that's great. Joe Brett Rogue TV rogue valley TV., S O U university and the media expert and responsible party for streaming and recording all of our government meetings and public and private right. Public, not the private okay. Private still means private. Okay. Just the public. Sorry.

[00:37:17] Joe Brett: I got my hands full with the public.

[00:37:19] Alice Lema: I bet I bet. And Joe Brett and the original house of the real estate show. Thank you so much for coming in.

[00:37:27] Joe Brett: We could not have left it in better hands. Alice, you did such a great job and Pete, all the great, great guests and the great information that you continue to bring.

[00:37:36] Alice Lema: Well, it's been, it's been, it's been exhilarating, so we will be back next week. Thank you for listening. Have a beautiful weekend. Bye now.