good afternoon my name is to testify and i'm here with multimedia resource and training institute and ethiopia youth media today we have council member tim burgess who's been a council member in the city of quick conversation just to get to know you this is an exciting time of the elections as we know and we feel really strongly that getting information out to all voters and all of the public is really important because we really believe that so they can gauge mintz is critical to the well being of our cities absolutely true so if you can give us a quick maybe biography and i'll fill in the holes from what i read in case you forgot and so i'm a cellmate if i grew up here and my wife and i raised our three daughters here i started right out of high school as a radio journalist in seattle covering city government and the region that was a time of pretty intense corruption in city government so i covered a lot of corruption trials can you give me a quick little like a time period and so there's one little and there was massive corruption in city government and it would involve the police and that the police officers walking beats in the city were kind of the bagman who collected money from illegal vice operations gambling alcohol prostitution shared that money at least department and passed it up to elected officials and so i covered those trials and i covered that scandal well i then joined the police department because the new mayor wanted to reform city government in the police department and i thought that would be good in someone in my early twenties i thought that would be exciting so i spent about eight years of the police department on the street as a patrol officer and also as a detective  and i'm glad i did that that gave me a perspective of what it's like in the city where a lot a lot of people don't go and you got to i got to see things that i've never been  saw the effect of a criminal justice system that was not justly unfairly dealing with people i saw the effects of racism and poverty in our city and then i decided i was going to solve global poverty and i went to work for an international n g o s work mostly in east africa and south asia unfortunately i did not solve global poverty but that was an amazing eye opening experience for me and i saw the effects of s injustice and and corruption on oprah's show and that kept people down i came back to the united states and i opened a marketing communications business and ran that for about twenty years and then that's when i decided to run for the city council in two thousand and seven and i will say that all of my previous life experiences have prepared me for this job and this is the most fulfilling job because i get to do things that actually directly impact people's lives and and hopefully make life better for the people of seattle and i really enjoy doing that well talk about not having just the one career going to think about how many careers do imagine it requires a lot of listening it requires listening out in the community in your neighborhoods but among my colleagues as well because one of the jobs of the council president is to make sure that you know council members can advance their legislation and my job is to measure whether something has support and make sure it's moving forward and so i do a lot of hand holding and listening which  critically important do you feel that in this role you get to hear the voices of many different community members or is it predominantly particular groups i think it's everybody we have to be proactive about that though because if we just sat in our offices at city hall we would hear from those who are most organized those who maybe have professional lobbyists or who are used to coming to city hall and meeting with council members and such but that's why we go out a lot and you can go to my website at at seattle dot gov and i post a map of all the meetings i have in the city and so you can see these little dots of you know where i've been all over the city and i try to make sure that i get  where in the city and we spend a lot of time and i know my colleagues do as well meeting with community groups listening to neighbors doing little walking tours of our little business communities throughout the city meeting with neighborhood groups  i think that's excellent and today you show that by coming to our little studio but i'm very happy to thank you very much so i was going to ask you about how you entered politics but it seems like one step led into the next and it's not just politics it seems like on a city council level where we might or perhaps i'm wrong maybe i don't understand politics enough to know the roles that are played but why city council and climate verster i don't know what climate it would have been easy but so i think local government municipal government that's the government that touches the people the most you know that you call nine one one the government comes whether it's the fire department or the police department or the public health department or whatever you need a pothole fixed or it repaired it's city government you want clean water it's city government turn on the light switch and the electricity is there it's city government municipal government is in most direct contact with the people and that's what i enjoy and i think also in our country because of the gridlock in washington d c and and frankly even in olympia our state capital i think it's locals local governments that can lead the way and seattle has certainly done that we did that with our fifteen dollar minimum wage we did that the year before with paid sick leave so that every worker in our so he can care for themselves and their family we've done that certainly with preschool last year and an amazing progressive step for our kids and our families by beginning to offer universal preschool so this is where the action is at the local level and i as i said earlier i think this is where we can most impact people's lives is here at the local level so i'm very happy to be serving at the local level i have no ambition to go to any other so you brought up preschool and i know that you're currently on the education and governance committee what are the initiatives that we can look forward to that voters will be responsible for implementing or not yeah so i was the lead architect of the setup preschool program which was adopted a year ago by seattle voters and so we're just implementing that now so where we have fifteen classrooms today and it's phased in over four years and by your face and by your four will have one hundred classrooms and then we will face a big decision because we've only got funding for the first four years and what will we do then to expand that program and make it truly universal and there's about twelve thousand kids ages three and four in seattle today so who are part so as you know who are all the total number of kids who are three in four years say ok yes right three and four so by the end of that fourth year we're going to have to have what's the next step and so that's a big issue that we want to stay engaged with the community on king county has a measure on this ballot in just next week best starts for kids going to ask you which is it's different than the preschool program but it's very similar in that it's designed to give every child in king county a fair and strong start and to make sure that when they are age five and ready to enter kindergarten they've had good medical care and health care they've had good opportunities for learning whether that's preschool or something else it's going to fund a lot of home visitation programs for especially low income families but others as well so those are good steps that we can take as we look toward the future and how we're going to make sure that seattle is a place of inclusiveness and opportunity for all that's what's really key is to make sure we have a level playing field so everyone can have opportunity for success in our city whether it's a newborn baby or it's a fifteen year old or a thirty year old or a fifty year old who lives in our city well i have been following up on best starts and i love that it goes beyond that yes you know i think it's twenty four to twenty five my understanding it's primarily focuses zero to five because we know that's so important but it goes up to age twenty goes up to age twenty yeah yeah which is great for those of us who do you develop network you know that once you turn eighteen it doesn't mean that all of a sudden you have the so you know and you have enough i think so much experience that maybe you can as a police officer as an educator as a global free worker  as a journalist i just want to bring a little bit of attention to what we've been recently seeing in the news missing in the news of a young lady who was i'm going to call it  assault because that's what it looks like you know just seeing the video i understand discipline but as an educator i don't understand that form of discipline at all are you going to the source of underline it richland the school district where absolutely right yeah so i'm very inappropriate it just brought up so many questions in my mind when i saw it as one why do we have police in our schools i when i was growing up and i grew up in michigan and we had you know security which was very beneficial they had deep interactions with the students which you know listening to that sheriff you know say that they also do the deputies there also do perhaps my perspective maybe i'm too close to it being a mother teenagers but if you can just speak to it a little bit because my mind is completely boggled right so again i don't know about that yes what you know of what you've seen on television in the newspaper i think that they have real issue here is is is layered so you have the issue of race y have the issue of the police being present in a school building you have the actions of that particular police officer in that particular situation and we you know the whole black lives matter movement and the importance of that and why we is because unfortunately in america we have a history of racism and a history of structural and institutional evils that have worked to keep a particular group in this case african americans down and we can trace that all the way back to slavery and the results of slavery and you know a lot of americans think slavery ended when president lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation slavery continued in this country into the one nine hundred fifty s and when you read about that and realize that unfortunately it was the police who were the enforcers of that and then you get into all the jim crow laws and all of that the police unfortunately became the enforcers of these systems of oppression and that's why it's important to have these conversations and that's why it's important that the police have these conversations and thankfully in seattle most of our police officers do a good job and want to do a good job but we have our problems here too as well and those need to be talked about and dealt with and we shouldn't be afraid to have those conversations you know i think it's always unfortunate when such issues arise that it becomes an us versus them and i think it was it's not actually and perhaps i'm wrong perhaps it wasn't him but somebody in the f b i ended up looking at a lot of the cases within the issues of have been coming up around police conduct and basically said that the push and that being aware we both have to stop pushing because on the one hand it becomes either just a black lives issue or just a police issue so an us versus them sorry my paraphrasing is it's not very strong but i get you get my what i'm trying to say and it just was really disappointing because once again he drew the line and my problem and going back to this young child is however inappropriately she behaved she's not the one with adult training a life skills training she's not the one with just all the training that a police officer would get you know and somebody in a place of authority be they police or any other role and so  i really think it's dangerous to do that we've been having conversations within our own communities just so that we can build that bridge to say what is happening here and why is it happening and i know right now you know within seattle police department there's one east african police officer that's for the first time ever so you know we see a lot of disparities for all kinds of reasons i have a proposal to address that by the way ok so to be a seattle police officer or a firefighter in the state of washington anywhere you have to be an american citizen oh i didn't know that yes and i am suggesting that we go to the state legislature in germany were and i asked them to modify that so that someone who is documented and is here legally and has a work permit but are not yet a citizen could apply to be in the public safety career is a firefighter or as a police officer and i've talked to many young men and women in our immigrant committee who community who would love those jobs and their great job and that might be a way to further diversify or police science and i have answered get rid of that share your so it's been interesting to have conversations around that topic but i want to go back to a point you made about the us versus them it's not you know i get around as we were talking earlier i get around the city a lot i talk to a lot of communities all over the city everybody wants  professional police force that's fair and effective no one has ever said to me take all the police out of our community never so we all need the police and but we need them to be what they are supposed to be which are the protectors of our city the guardians of our neighborhoods in our people and to do that in a constitutional way that's fair and professional and yes their job is tough and i'm the first to acknowledge that  but that is not an excuse for misconduct and that's why i like kathy o'toole so much our new chief of police she gets that and she's not afraid to make tough decisions she's fired police officer shoots you since she's become the chief about a year and a half ago and she's disciplined many others so it's it's important to have the kind of city leadership that i think we have now in memory and chief o'toole that are going to do the right thing and make sure that we have the best possible police department possible because all of our citizens want that wouldn't be kind of an idealistic thing for me to ask maybe five ten years from now if you had a vision for what that relationship would look like based on the implementation that are set in place sure i think in five years or ten years we'll have a much more diverse police force that is reflective of the city population i think we will have worse where officers truly understand the significance of the power and the authority that we've given them the sacred trust an honor that we place in them and from both a constitutional perspective but also just from a human relations perspective and they'll do their jobs really really well and the people of seattle will be proud of their police force hopefully that will be the case because that's what we're all working toward another one of the cops conversations we've been having within our community and access to fair housing of course seattle has just months of being and of course that's not just to say seattle because it affects all the other cities and you know i'm very grateful for the economic power of this region in this city that it's certainly better than the opposite would be but you know mayor murray has sent a series of recommendations to the city council that we're now considering that are going to fundamentally change how we deal with affordable housing in our city and what's most important about that first there's tons of details there that we could talk about but what's most important is for the first time in our city's history we have labor unions and social justice groups and affordable housing advocates and providers and landlords and developers and business community all aligned and on the same page and headed in the same direction that is huge this year and so we're going to change fundamentally how we approach affordable housing we've already passed the mandatory commercial affordable housing fee mitigation that passed in effect and we will soon deal with the residential side probably just after the first of the year which will require that every multifamily building like an apartment building that's built in seattle will set aside a certain number of units that's that are affordable so you've always had to build in compliance with the building code and life safety codes now you have to meet the affordable housing code yeah ok first time in seattle and that's going to create over the next ten years twenty thousand you it's of affordable housing six thousand at the low end of affordability for those with incomes of sixty percent of area median income or lowest level so i went to the opening of the first new multifamily building there and those families are delighted randy is already oh it's open and they're in there it's right there at the corner of fourteenth and see you know how that continues to evolve and i also have been hearing in the news that for small business owners as well that there's there are proposals caps so they're that's right a couple of candidates who are running for the city council have proposed various strategies to deal with small businesses because they experience running creases and i well they are just residential you know so you know yeah i agree with the argument that if it's only you know big box stores that can afford these and it really is not seattle anymore that's right you know i don't really change is that the charm and the uniqueness of it otherwise why don't we just live in any other city that's right and you're for those of us who grew up here we've seen that change and some of that change is good yeah but when we have the displacement that we've been having that's where it causes real problems well you know one of the things that we do here is really largely you think community development through the use of media empowering young people and elders as well to come in is it to communicate you know to build that bridge again one of the things that we see i'm not speaking just for this but just in my professional experience and i want to know how come programs such a that measurable results don't end up getting funded and they end up getting you know pushed down and and people every day people oh i'm don't get funded it's very confusing to me and seattle has some phenomenal youth programs but again they're all struggling to stay afloat and i feel like this is that that is an injustice because what if we're trying to resolve some of these issues that we're talking about community issues policing issues housing issues access issues equity issues how is it that we're not supporting those who are doing this work so we support a lot and we spend millions of organizations that apply every year for city funding and you know we don't fund everybody there are processes that people go through to to how they get funded but what the council does is we will our kate budget continued training and education and you know just because i see such amazing work right next door some amazing work that's great and it's you know makes me so proud it makes me so happy but i also want to see it continued i think that youth employment is really important and we see that as a major success you know for every youth that we have come in i'm volunteering year where as you know when we bring you thing we make sure that we're hiring them because we want them to learn you know professional skills we want them to be personally and professionally sound but we also want to be supported in doing that work as well we've all heard of the volunteer burnout which is really unfortunate and i'm sure you've been in that in those shoes as well over the years but so that you know i just think that something that you can take with you and you know memory this past summer increased the summer youth employment program that the city runs from approximately five hundred kids to two thousand yes that was huge but one of our cities that we're often compared with boston has over ten thousand kids involved in their program so we've got work to do has for sure great well i'm happy to see those increases and i definitely look forward it's a great thank you continue so do you have any final thoughts besides make sure to vote yeah everybody should vote and even if you don't vote for you should vote yes but of course people should vote not to but we live in a great city and this city has produced some remarkable people and we can continue to do that well into the future we're very blessed here thank you very much and we will definitely come and sit in council meetings that have so many what rak there ok or you can come down and do drop shadows or whatever we can do to help or happy to do that  and sign up i've seen some amazing things happen through that and i definitely promote that continued and the application period for that is later in late winter early spring so that kids that apply then are in the youth communicate with various sections of our city and communities in seattle take advantage of the opportunities here here well thank you for having me and i feel like i'm home because i little it literally live across the street from your studio pamela can you tell us a little bit about yourself before we start it's absolutely  like i said i live literally across the street from the studio i've lived in seattle since one thousand nine hundred eighty seven and i was born in portland oregon my mother is was half japanese and have chinese my my my grandfather was actually an immigrant to this country he was japanese my father is african american and i lived in portland until i was seventeen where i came to school at the university of washington i'm a first generation college graduate in place and i always tell people i believe  husky and to the core i spent my first thirty years in seattle my working career working in city government where i actually got introduced really to the east african community my working in transportation on the like realignment on martin luther king and i worked in housing and human services as well spent a good part of my career working for the department neighborhoods and then worked for mayor nickels as outreach director i'm currently the president the urban league and we focus on programs and services that help african american people in other disenfranchised or low income communities around employment education health and housing so we look at the disparities that happen in our community and we empower communities by providing access and opportunities in those four pillars and really excited because that organization is literally the street so i live and work in the neighborhood  we know now it's under seventeen percent so during the mortgage foreclosure crisis and through gentrification income inequality black people have lost across the country half of their wealth because we lost property during the foreclosure crisis in and that's what's created helped create this big income gap so right now if you think about it if you look at the average white family in the county their average income is around ninety eight thousand dollars for black americans it's around thirty two thousand dollars a lot of that has to do because we're not in the tech field are we and held back and haven't had access to those techno technology jobs systematic racism jim crow i mean slavery all that plays in and i think what's gone on across the country especially around black lives in the matter especially the incidences that have happened in ferguson in baltimore new york is it's put a spotlight on how those things especially the prison industrial complex jim crow slavery those systems were put in place to keep black americans down and out and so now it's put a face on that and so that's what i think for this area the gentrification us losing our you know not only our homes but our businesses and we and i and that's one of the reasons i wanted to run for office to is to help kind of bring that to light in work on systematic racism jim i mean slavery all that plays in and i think what's gone on across the country especially around black lives in the matter especially the incidences that have happened in ferguson in baltimore new york is it's put a spotlight on how those things especially the prison industrial complex jim crow slavery those systems were put in place to keep black americans down and out and so now it's put a face on that and so that's what i think and for this area the gentrification us losing our you know not only our homes but but our businesses and we and i and that's one of the reasons i wanted to run for office to is to help kind of bring that to light and work on work with the community and then work with other organizations like yours to bring that to light and help you know bill back the black population back into the central district and across the city great you get the other thing is i think there's a lot of issues like one of those probably over seventy five hundred homes personally during the campaign and you know our district really goes from about babies st to the montlake cut and then from the lake to interstate five and so three to tell you the top three heard knocking on doors has been public safety transportation and of course affordable housing affordability but the other big one for me i actually have four top ones the fourth one is really economic development is supporting small business as well as helping people get employed get jobs because we can't change the trajectory of what happens with you know our east africa brothers and sisters as well as african american people and less were employed or that we have access and opportunities to good education so well i want to work on those four top things everybody's tired of you know we the public safety issue is big for us because you know we have a gang issue in the black community there are some gang issues some culture tribal issues i'm sure in your community we're seeing that we have a big big big gun issue in our city there's a lot of guns there's been shootings have actually been up fifty per thirty percent in the center district city the first six months of the year than they did all of last year and we're going to break a record on gun confiscation and we have to get to the root of why people are picking up guns and why people are shooting each other and again a lot of that has to do with systemic racism it has to do with us not having the ability to have access to good jobs or housing and education and so those things all playing together for me you know economic development a lot of immigrant and refugee folks in the community have come into the area to open businesses we have to support those businesses and we in one when i say support i mean economically when we decide that we're going to do a major transportation project that's happening on twenty third avenue and so that that  think types of issues happen in the city i think the city's to be more responsible in how we can help businesses stay open and accessible during construction because i know that that impacts a lot of the businesses that are in this area that happen to be somali and so those are some of the things that we need to work on and i think that that's the beauty of this district system i will be representing everybody in the district on a variety of issues and that you'll have that access an opportunity so i have a strong history in education and working with youth in this district so when my son went to garfield high school when he was john i ran a sports baseball program for ten years from the time he was t v all the way through garfield high school we ran inner city baseball program so it's important to keep our youth active and keep our youth busy and so having this this is a gym in the community because a lot of young people don't have access to to visual you know television and radio that kind of thing and so being able to support things like this it's one of the things that like to do is next year when the city is ramping up to do some reason point that you get interned here that the city raises the money and you get paid in terms that come here to work and definitely building bridges with you not like the youth violence prevention initiative because i think all young people want to be safe they all want good educations they are want to have summer jobs and i think we the city can do a better job better job with that that the other thing is about public education where a lot of our kids are going to school while the city of seattle in the mayor and the city council do govern public school system we do have levees that we put a lot of funding into the schools and i want to make sure that that funding goes to the most the schools that are in most need and so bailey gets or that school is the most high poverty elementary  school in the in the district and know there's a lot of east african children to go to that school so we need to make sure that they have the resources that they need that they can succeed when we were kicking up this early learning this early childhood education we need to make sure that  women that had childcare that they get certified so that they can have access to that money so that our kids have access to quality preschool that quality early good early childhood education that we know is crucial in making sure that our kids are ready when they start school they need to be reading we know that if our kids are not reading at grade level by third grade they're kind of prison beds we have got to stop that so they're really what i always tell people we  what's happening right now and i think you're going to be helping us with this problem absolutely and the other thing is i'm on the board of the alliance for education so the alliance for education is is a philanthropic nonprofit where we were raised money from all around the city and we want to win we support public schools one of the other things that we need to do is we need to make sure that we see teachers that look like you that our kids see teachers that look like them to give them that because i think that's what really spurred me to the thought of going to college was i got to see black teachers both male and female and our kids need to see us as doctors and lawyers and doctors architects and police and firefighters but especially teachers so i bring up the alliance because the alliance is in partnership with the university of washington and seattle public schools and we have a teacher residency program so we are funding trying to find more teachers of color to put in the school so they go through a year long training and then you're put in a high poverty school with a certified teacher like yourself and actually just paid a stipend because basically you're training teachers right and those teachers work in the school for the year and then we hope that they're placed in a school after they graduate so we have to support very creative public private partnerships in that or i can do that because when you say that like for the urban league the urban league's been around it's on the second all the civil rights advocacy organization in the country there is ninety urban league's in thirty five state the urban league in seattle is eighty seven years old i'm only the second woman to be the c e o so those are the things that our kids need to see that there's an opportunity you know that they have the ability to do things like this to be teachers to run you know to to run television studios or radio or own the we that's one of the things that i do want to bring back thank you very much yeah anything you want to tell us more about the you want to say something for the community also especially for east afghan people yeah also we need some way i think we need to make a  break african american yes we have to come together i think that's important that's what always you know we don't write because we always talk about africans over here african american over here but we're all the same because our youth specially when you see the you know that you when people are immigrating over here that they are told bad things about black people there are drug dealers that we do crime stay away from us so people come in with these preconceived notions and i think working together we will definitely be stronger for all black people and our african brothers and sisters because you know we were we were from there and i think what i'd like to do one of the things i really like to do is work on bringing some black american kids in africa and african kids and go back to africa because i think that would be an amazing experience because i know being born here i've been to africa twice it is it is it is life changing to absolutely know where you've come from especially first second generation east africans right they they have been born here right but to go back to your country and understand the importance of our culture our language our food respecting your elders but i would love to do some kind of joint trip like that so that's something i'm going to work on  then just being able to support businesses in collaborating one of the things that i'm supporting is we want to do a multicultural center down in southeast seattle this idea came up about probably six years ago and then it and then you get the mayor's change and then things change and so we want to help do that and then we could have the urban league there and we could out east african community center the ethiopian the regions and so really building bridges like that so doing more partnerships and doing with intent right and being able to support one another when we run for office or small board our jobs you know one of the things i'm really proud of is our employment program at the urban league is focused on african american men and other men of color that have at multiple barriers to employment we put our first three east african brothers through that program and they're now working and so those are some of the in and people don't know that this think urban league is only do this but that for me was really important that we had that bridge in those and those young men are now working and being able to deal with issues you know around you know police accountability and and helping you know if you have an issue in the community that you come to the urban league and and then we can help  some of the challenges that can happen when you get you know or you don't know where to turn and so just building bridges like that i think would be very helpful and i would continue to work on that as your councilwoman and as the c league what i want to do is internships when i talk about interjects is bringing young people in to my office and so they can see how politics happen so dominic that young woman that's out there that's a my campaign manager i met her parents on the very first election council it was a it was actually it was a judge it was a candidate that i worked on and i met her parents so she when i was you know went to go put my campaign staff together as it is very important that there's someone that looks like me or that we have people of color working on this campaign it is hard to find so i would love to be able to find more young people to get involved in the political process and i saw some young people when they did the big summer youth employment program we had some of our kids working in the police department some of our kids working in the court system so they can understand these systems and so those are some of the things that i would love to do and definitely in turn ships but eventually hiring someone to work on my staff that kind of thing very great question thank you thank you and you know i'm here i'm so glad that you're in the schools or anything and i think that c l teacher residency program i was really excited that's one of the reasons i got on the line for education because they raise a lot of money and i want to make sure you know that it goes to the schools that need it the most and that we that our kids are benefiting and special around the at the education level and now the county has this best our first kid we have to be on the you know one of the reasons i ran for office is i'd like we can fight on the outside but we have to be on the inside by setting policy is change won't happen and i'm going to be that voice for all of us and you know i don't you know i don't know people try to say that i said you know negative things about the immigrant and refugee community and you know my record i've been down in the valley i have long relationships with people in our community and plan to do that on council so i will be that voice and may like even the immigrant refugee office i don't know how many people really know that there are what they do and so it's really staffing that you know in in keeping the city so i was really proud in the work that i did was to get languages  translated have an interpreters on board we don't we have to do that intentionally and we also have to look at hiring people inside city government that speak different languages and the public outreach engagement liaison programs i was at the department of neighborhoods and got to got to launch that and again you know when marriage change in staff leave things get we get and i want to bring that back because we were hiring from all the east african communities liaison spain them to do that are reached because it's c competent outreach making sure we have the right food there making sure we weren't meeting and during ramadan you know and having the materials translate and having the interpretation and i think that is so important as our city is going to be more and more diverse and bracing all of that in forcing government and i'm talking at every level that they recognize it in except we are going to be the minority majority but we need to do with power unless we're sitting in a city council and that's where the teachers and the principals the administrators it won't change for us and that's where you're encouraging i want to encourage people to step out there running for office is not easy but i'm glad that i did it i learned a lot and i know that when we get into these positions that we can really affect change and if we're running against some you know barriers on the inside i know i can come to the community on the outside and say you got my back i got your back pressure you have a man and i really do g my name is pamela banks i'm the president see all of the urban league of metropolitan seattle and i am running for seattle city council in position three i support multimedia resources and the training institute i came across them about ten years ago when they actually interviewed me at a community meeting down in the rainier beach area i think the work that m e m r t i provides is crucial to our community they are providing a gateway for young people to get engaged in multimedia services and they actually do the production here in the studio and it's just an amazing opportunity to really exposure on people of all ages and ethnicities in this in this type of work so we need to continue to support am r t i and anything that you can do to support the station i encourage you to do so and thank you for having me here today