Flora joining me today, fresh back from New Orleans.
Oh indeed, boy, when you say side hustle partner, boy, the Imagination Races, we are not.
Promise. No, only fans going on there. You have to follow my social media and know what I'm talking about.
We're not talking about that today, No we're not.
We're talking Let's start with talking about something we weren't necessarily here to talk about. But you just got back to New Orleans. You spent yesterday at the World War Day ride has also been to the World War Two Museum and said it was just absolutely incredible. What are your thoughts?
It was amazing. So my husband and I went. He's an eighty second Airborne veteran, you know, he studied military history, and so we've been to numerous military and history museums. There's something unique about the World War Two Museum. It's the national one. It's in New Orleans, completely different than Bourbon Street, which is a whole other story. But it was so immersive, it was so moving, And what I thought was most moving about it was you saw the
sacrifice of young men. I mean we're talking eighteen, seventeen, nineteen years old who just said, yes, this is the right thing, I will do it. I will show up. And they were called the greatest generation for that reason, and some.
Of them lied. I've met a World War two better than went in at fifteen because he lied and his mom, like, I guess his mom backed him up. Yes, fifteen years old, Like my daughter's fifteen. Now she's afraid to order for herself at Fuzzy's Tacos, you know, right, right, No.
It's so interesting. I start babysitting when I was twelve years old, but when our daughter was twelve, I'm like, oh no, too young. Yeah, and now we are looking at this generation and it hit me in many ways, Mandy. One of the ways was looking at the fact that, you know, we literally have created and I'm not blaming the younger culture, but we put them in a circumstance where we have communicated to them, you're not resilient, you're
not strong, you can't deal with issues. In fact, if you find a mouse in your dorm room, call the police, call, you know, go to your safe space with your crayons. And this generation took down the worst evil the world's ever seen. Yeah. One other takeaway that I well couple, but it ends by walking you through the Holocaust, and that's always just sober museum I.
Have That museum for me is every person in the world should go through the Holocaust Museum in DC, because when you see that, you begin to understand the depths of depravity that human beings are capable of.
And the thing that I took away from that is it's time we rein back in our public discourse. When you call someone that you disagree with politically or ideologically a Nazi, you are doing a disservice and trivializing right one of the most horrendous periods of human history, and
it's time we just step back. You use that word all the time, you were really literally taking the power away from telling the story of the Holocaust and what happened to these individuals, And everybody needs to really kind of check that at the door. There is evil in
our history. There is evil in the world, but it's not your neighbor who maybe has a different letter after their name or a different sign in their yard when it came to election season, So I think that that was something that really hit me.
Wait a minute, I'm going to take it from there in a natural segue. Okay, to the Douglas County Citizen Recruits. But you and your husband and several other wonderful people said, look, we're tired of angry discourse. We just want to create a space where people can hear from people experts on different policy issues and sit around and have a conversation here from people they might agree with, here from people
they might disagree with. And that is the organization that is hosting a home a charter home rule for yes, tell me about that.
Yeah, absolutely, And that is why a group of us founded Douglas County Citizenry. You notice nowhere in the name are we declaring and planting our flag on one side versus the other. We're talking about citizens coming together to be engaged and informed. I believe a lot of things that happen in our state which are extreme, happen because people don't know and we're not you know, we believe
in the Big ten. We truly do believe. The Constitution was written based on the idea that eighty percent of people agree on eighty percent of things, and let's come together and this stuff we don't then let's not be afraid to ask questions. There's so much self censorship today people won't even ask a question, even if they're afraid that people in their own party are going to call them a name, the men that they even ask a question. So that leads to the town hall we're going to have.
It's going to be April twenty ninth. It's open to the public. It's going to be at Northstar Academy, which is a school in Parker, Colorado. So it's going to be as big as we need it to be. You're going to help me moderate, which I'm glad about that. And the whole point is this, We're going to have not just one viewpoint. We're going to have people that talk about what home rule is is, what Home rule isn't,
what it allows, what it doesn't. And I want to say ahead of time, I am a smaller government proponent in every possible way, but even I have a lot of questions about Home Right. And it doesn't mean at the end of the day people might not say, yes, this is the thing to do, but we have a right to come together and get the full information right, and that's what this is about.
So who is going to be there, Okay, who's on our panel?
Yeah? So what we have so far and we'll keep putting information out and by the way, if you're on Facebook, go to Douglas County Citizen read the page. The group is private at this time, and you can certainly request to be a member, but you have to buy the way, not call your neighbor a name to be on that page. But go there. We'll have details and we'll keep announcing more people. But right now we have Douglas County Commissioner George tile because the county commissioners have presented this as
an idea. We have Wells County Commissioner Scott James because Well County is one of only two counties in Colorado that has home rule in this way. It's Well County and Pitkin County. So we're going to find out what works, what doesn't work, what challenges there are. We have somebody coming from Boulder County who's conservative but stood up against it there because a lot of it is the devils are in the details, you know, what is it?
That's my question, right, That's that's my question because I and I've had people reach out to me and saying, what are you going to talk about this home rule thing? And I said, when I understand it yes, when I understand what the real limitations are. And that's why I'm excited we're having the guy from Weld because a lot of people are making a lot of suppositions that we will be able to get out of this law or get out of that law, and I currently I'm not
seeing that. So I'm interested to hear from both Commissioner Teel, who who is advocating for this, what his thoughts are, and then what the reality in Weld County is, because politically we're very similar. Weld is more red.
But much more we have to be Aware County.
Yeah, so I'm very fascinated to find out all of that stuff before I make decision. Someone on the text line just said, is this just Douglas County? This sounds great for all of Colorado. It is just Douglas County. But I'm hoping to get enough of a handle on it after this forum that I can come back and talk to every one of my listening audience about what this actually is.
Yeah, and we're in the process right now of identifying the right person. We've got several folks in mind who will be a part of that panel to talk about what does this actually look like what state statute over rules a county home rules statute? Right, not that it may sway people one way or the other, they already have made up their minds, but at least we will have informed citizens right when they vote on this and
so much of it. By the way, is the next step in this process is going to be electing twenty one members.
Oh, this is critical right now. Yes, it is the deadline coming up for this that is critical. So the Home Ruld Charter Commission is a group of twenty one citizens and in June, which I think is insane that we're having a special election for this, but that's a whole conversation for another time. They're going to vote on two Douglas County residents will vote on two issues. Number one, whether or not to pursue a home World Charter, and number two, they will vote on twenty one members of
the Charter Commission. Now, one of the things that makes me distrustful of this process currently is that apparently the County Commission at hand picked twenty one people that they were comfortable with. Now that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to be on the commission, but the fact that they came loaded for bear and literally brought all these people into our room so they could sign each other's petitions. That to me feels I'm uncomfortable with that, right, I'm just.
Going to say that well, And I think here's the thing. You know why I appreciate, you know, Commissioner Tail being a part of this is is it gives him an opportunity to answer that question, to create that transparency, which creates greater trust in the process. But this commission is going to be the key because this commission of twenty one elected individuals, and the way anyone who wants to run for that, it's only twenty five signatures you have
to get in Douglas County. Bye, I believe it's April twenty fourth. But that commission, it's going to be the Home Rule Commission, will come up with a charter. And that's where the details really come in. What does the charter allow a home rule county.
To do it?
A lot of it has to do with how elected officials are chosen and different things like that. In Well County termles. In Well County, for instance, some of those county wide elected officials are now appointed by commissioners instead of elected. That's all stuff that citizens should know and find out more about. And that's why we're going to have this Douglas County Citizen Retown Hall. And by the way, for the listener who asked about it, this is just
Douglas County. Hey, you don't have to be from Douglas County to come to this find out more about what home rule means. If you want it to come to your county or you don't want it to come to your county.
Somebody just pointed this out. Yes, being in this is important. Having the sessions recorded and also stream live on YouTube will also create more community engagement. Is that going to happen?
Absolutely? What we'll do we probably won't live stream it, but what we do for Douglas County citizen We have all kinds of panels. We've had a border panel with an ice expert and law enforcement. We've had one on schools and what's going on state, local, and national. This one will be recorded. We will post it for everyone to see on the Douglas County Citizenry page, which is different than the private group. It's the page. It will be there for everyone to see, but we encourage everyone
to come. We will be taking questions from those who come, and that's going to be important. We really believe the founding of this country is based on a well educated citizenry is the key to maintaining a free republic.
There are two dates that you need to keep in mind. The forum that is going to include much more information isn't until April twenty ninth. If you are a person who would like to be a part of this Charter Commission, you've got to get your application in by the twenty fourth. I on the blog today. I just added it all the details about how to get a petition. You have to have twenty five signatures. They will be verified, so make sure that you know who's signing these petitions. But
then you have to appear on the ballot. But it's all going to be done in by April twenty fourth, So it's all on the blog today. Debrah Flora, thank you for coming in today and talking about this.
Thank you always good to chat with my sister from another message
Yes that's right.