James Gore talks Wine and Wildfires in Sonoma California

James Gore: I didn’t know that I was going to get a master’s degree on the fly in disaster management and now be leading a charge not just in my state, but nationwide. To get more of that money into mitigation results. Better not perfect. I think the biggest problem that we have in government locally, statewide and nationally is, is that everybody stops doing better because it needs to be perfect for them to be able to vote for it.

And so I believe in the get stuff done motto. The only real progress in this world is imperfect, relentless progress. I kind of switched my mantra from one of saying like, like that. Our purpose in our office was to serve our community, to our purpose in our office, to serve the greater good. That’s my job. I just raised my hand when I saw something that needed to get done.

And so, you know, I started to just kind of become the de facto leader because I was willing to sit up front and be involved and.

David Martin: Welcome to a good government show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. When you talk with a county supervisor from the heart of wine country, you have to start with wine. Not only is James Cork, County Supervisor here in Sonoma County, he also comes from a family of vintners. And I can tell you, the guys make great wine. Sonoma County is also wildfire country.

And I talk with James about how to both prepare and manage firefighting. We also look back at the story. We did our first season of The Good Government Show, and that was many houses for veterans. The good news, the program is still working and it has expanded for 2023. James is the first vice president of the National Association of Counties, and he has an interesting background.

He joined the Peace Corps after college and worked on agricultural issues in Bolivia. And that’s where he met his wife. It was an interesting tour, to say the least. And we talk about that back in the USA. James was the assistant chief of the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, and that was in the Obama administration.

There he led nationwide conservation efforts at the intersection of agriculture, business and environment. For nine years, he’s been a county supervisor. And he says since so many people want to talk to him, he’s no longer allowed to go to the local hardware store since it’s rarely a short trip. So open a bottle and listen to my conversation with James Gore coming up after this.

The Good Government Show is sponsored by Naco. That’s the National Association of Counties. County government is actually the oldest form of government in the United States, and it touches more people directly roads, highways, hospitals, schools, recycling, law enforcement, water and sewers in most of the country. Those services are maintained by the county that’s county government. Naco is a nationwide organization that represents all 3069 counties across the USA.

Naco helps county government work better together through things like sharing best practices because when county government works well, well, that’s just good government.

Welcome to the Good Government Show and a conversation with Ed. Right now we’re having a conversation with James Gore. James, if you would introduce yourself, tell us where you are, where you’re from, what you do, what your title is.

James Gore: It’s a pleasure to be with you. I, I like good government. That’s why I’m here. I consider myself a public servant, not just a politician. Good, good. James Gore, county supervisor in Sonoma County, California, north of San Francisco. NorCal. I’m in the leadership of Naco. I’m the second vice president. I’ll be the president here in a couple of years and past president of California counties.

But for me, it’s really, you know, I live in the trenches, each and every day where, we’re hammering out the issues in our communities that people see each and every day. And I find purpose in it, even with the burden that I wear around my neck. So it’s a.

David Martin: Pleasure to be with you. It’s a pleasure to have you here. But let’s talk about the real issue in front of us here. Yeah. Sonoma County. Yep. Wine.

James Gore: Oh, God bless you. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

David Martin: What are you what are you making in your part of the Sonoma? What what are they and what about growing? What are they saying? What what’s the last bottle you opened?

James Gore: Well, the last bottle I opened was Gore Zinfandel. Zinfandel. I opened up some last night. Sweet. And had it. Yeah, we did what we do. I grew up in a vineyard, family and and a winemaking.

David Martin: Family that’s in.

James Gore: Brooklyn. Absolutely.

David Martin: All right. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good to know you can.

James Gore: Ship anything to Brooklyn.

David Martin: They tell me. Yeah, yeah. She said so, you said it goes into the. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

James Gore: Well, I’ll tell you. Like, I live in a place that we have the Russian River valley, so we have Pinot noir, we have Chardonnay that are just coastal influence, like in the fogs down there. Right. We have, dry Creek valley, like in my backyard, which is more Zinfandel and Sirah and kind of those meaty, like, really strong, potent, intense.

That’s kind of like what I drink. Yeah, we have, and then we have Alexander Valley, which is king of Cabernet out there, kind of on the bridge of Napa, Napa and, and Alexander Valley kind of touch together. And between those valleys and like the 16 microclimates, you know, you have huge distinction in one county, but it also is one of the reasons that we have so many disasters, so many, issues, so many, flooding, drought, fires and all these other things because it’s.

David Martin: Like, it’s all right, let’s stay on the one side. how important is is the wine industry to your to your county?

James Gore: I mean, our white wine industry and the ag industry is the backbone right, of my of my community, if you think about it, you know, for our gross kind of metro product as a county, we’re talking about, you know, two thirds of it really being derived not only from the ag industry, but like all of the other tourism, you know, the food, the food and the restaurants, which are all kind of like brought together by this.

Right? So if.

David Martin: You if you go to a restaurant, you order a martini and people stare, you know.

James Gore: Equal opportunity, right? We do spirits. We have great breweries. you know, we have ciders. We’re we’re we’re rolling. I mean, it’s a Bountiful place. Like, it’s a beautiful place in this world.

David Martin: I did not know you were a vintner. Is that fair? Yeah.

James Gore: Yeah, yeah.

David Martin: That’s fair. Say hi to many people. Have some connection to the industry.

James Gore: You know, everybody who is there are not everybody. I mean, let’s just say it like people love it, right? People love the industry. But at the same time is, is that if you really get deep and you don’t just do the high level hospitality side of it. Yeah. And the tasting rooms and the other things is, is that there’s a deep culture there that is just fun and it’s rural.

And, you know, where I live, it’s really the buffer zone in between the population driven Bay area, San Francisco, Oakland and all these other areas. Right. And then the northern wilderness, because up north of me, you go to like Mendocino, Humboldt, del Norte, and that is like sparse, gorgeous, you know, forested countryside. It’s it’s very different.

David Martin: Growing other stuff up.

James Gore: In the Emerald Triangle, right?

David Martin: Yes.

James Gore: I have a brother in the wine business and I have a sister in law, his wife, who has a cannabis business there called the wine and Weed couple, I bet. Yeah, talking about good government.

David Martin: That must be a fun place to go to for dinner.

James Gore: Yeah, absolutely. Right.

David Martin: Good, good, good. All right. Well, I would love to talk wine.

James Gore: I think we can ship that to Brooklyn.

David Martin: No, but we’ll we’ll I will give you my address later. We’ll go talk. I had a I had a Zinfandel last night, so I.

James Gore: Hate this, I like that.

David Martin: yes. You touched on something else. Sonoma. I guess this is, a challenge you have to deal with regularly. Wildfires, forest fires. I gather this is probably one of the chief problems that you have to face. And you don’t know when you’re going to face it.

James Gore: You know, this cycle of fire, flood, drought, fire, flood, drought and the fires that you were talking about are really wind driven storms. These are not just smoldering fires in the countryside like trees that are ready to burn. We’re talking about 50 to 100 mile an hour winds coming east to west. We call them Diablo Wind. Santa Ana winds down south in California and they just burn us out if they come at that time.

And we have totally adapted all of our systems to be a top end class emergency management division, alert and warnings to our community resilience groups in different neighborhoods. But it is a full time job making sure that we stay on top of the climate changes that we’re facing and the resilience that we’re building in our communities.

David Martin: Can you prepare for some of these?

James Gore: So yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s a couple of ways you look at it. One is, is that managing an entire forest for a forest health is a very difficult thing. And really fire is a part of forest health. That’s one of the things that’s difficult. But we have a lot of people who live in the forests. And I’m not just talking hundreds.

I’m talking thousands, right? Yeah. So working with people on home hardening, on defensible space around their their properties. And then for us, who we who runs, we run the Department of Emergency Management. What we’re doing is I mean, we’re neck deep in like evacuations and evacuating entire communities to hold the flank when we have those fires. It’s it’s intense.

David Martin: Are there other folks who live in the forest receptive to suggestions and better ideas?

James Gore: Yeah. Receptive is is is is an absolute. But what strikes an ability for somebody to change as a broad level is usually more than receptive and just information. So what’s happening is a lot of people are having to take action because their insurance plans are being dropped. Okay. Right. Or or in order to do that.

David Martin: Yeah. To do that. Yeah.

James Gore: Well I gotta because it costs a lot of money to do defensible space. It costs a lot of money to do home hardening. You know, you can’t just spend 3 or 4000 bucks. You got to, like, go in and hammer it. So we do things like we offer low interest loans for home hardening that can go on to your property tax rolls, payday loans, other things like that.

We’re always finding ways to incentivize good in our community.

David Martin: Do you have any background in forest prevention or fire prevention or emergency services?

James Gore: You know, I’ll tell you, it’s one of the weird things about this job is that you have to kind of like, you know, trial by fire, pun intended. Right? So so we’ve had five mega fires in this time, and I’m now on like the FEMA National Advisory Council. I was a chair of the resilient counties here. Like like I didn’t know that I was going to get a master’s degree on the fly in disaster management and now be leading a charge, not just in my state, but nationwide, to get more of that money into mitigation, which is really upstream investment preparedness.

And once again, we’re talking about fires, but really we’re talking about dramatic changes in precipitation. We’re talking about atmospheric rivers that dump a lot of water at one time, but don’t really saturate that down into the aquifers. We’re also talking about like, you know, two droughts in ten years that dry out our forest lands and then a ton of rain at one time that will put a lot of, like, vegetation up underneath the trees.

So there there’s there’s a lot of changes that are happening that we don’t get to decide, but we decide how we’re going to respond to it.

David Martin: And can you is you can I live in New York City? Yeah. Don’t have a lot of forest fires where I live now. certainly, you know, I pay attention to what happens, you know, in the national media, but it always seems like we hear about something 2 or 3 days into it when it’s sort of gotten to be a bigger fire.

No. in those first days, are there have you learned that there are steps you can take in?

James Gore: So yes, there are steps we can take. The difficult thing is, is it really depends on what kind of fire it is. If it’s a fire, even in the middle of the summer. We had dry lightning a couple of years ago. Right. And dry lightning. Or after a couple days it will smolder and we’ll find a place where it lights up.

That’s one thing, but what you have, we really watch out for are things that really the partnerships with National Weather Service and others red flag conditions, that’s like hurricane warning, right? High winds, low relative humidity, high temperature. Right. Like if you get those conditions, it’s go time. And you got to make sure that you’re ready to evacuate communities.

You get people out of the way so they can defend homes instead of evacuating you on the fly. So you don’t have, roads fill up with traffic. I mean, so what it is, is it’s having it’s, you know, if you’re if you’re on your heels, just by an iota, you get smoked out by these things. Once again, I’m throwing all the puns at it, but, like, you got to be 3 or 4 steps ahead and make sure you know when those winds are going to come, because the wind driven storms are not just fires.

That’s the equivalent of like a tornado or a hurricane for California just means it brings the fire with it.

David Martin: You’re a county supervisor, which is essentially a county commissioner. Yep. In California. how long you been doing this? What got you into it?

James Gore: Oh, man, I you know what got me into it was I just I just give a damn. And for some reason, it just kind of led me to raise my hand over and over again, and. And then I decided at a certain point, it wasn’t happenstance that I was actually going to have to like, intentional lies and do it.

So I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I, I moved to DC afterwards, and I worked in private business and represented the wine industry. But then I, I missed public service. So I, worked for the secretary of AD and in poverty areas. Wow. Good programs. And then I.

David Martin: What was your Peace Corps? so I’m in.

James Gore: Bolivia, South America.

David Martin: Wow.

James Gore: I was on horseback down in the jungles for two years, met my wife there, had to go to Bolivia to find a blond Texan. I’m crazy. She’s, She’s amazing. And so, And so she and I have, you know, we got an amazing to go.

David Martin: To the place where Butch and Sundance.

James Gore: I tried to find it.

David Martin: I tried to find out.

James Gore: Where they did.

David Martin: And that’s all I know.

James Gore: I love that.

David Martin: You say that.

James Gore: Absolutely not. But Bolivia was crazy, right? I mean, that was a crazy.

David Martin: But we try to do.

James Gore: You know, natural resources and and so, I mean, I built water systems with community and dug trenches for two years while we were chewing coca leaves and like, you know, hang in there.

David Martin: Make you work faster.

James Gore: yeah. But it’s not like, I mean, it’s not a full blown drug. It’s more like chewing tobacco or something here in the U.S., everybody kind of does it while they’re working.

David Martin: Okay. Cultural thing. All right. so, what’s going on in Sonoma? I believe we talked about. Why don’t we talk about disasters? What else is one.

James Gore: In this.

David Martin: Story? last season, I think our first season on so many houses for veterans, I think there were 14 mini houses you built for veterans. I recall it was, I remember one of the people we spoke to said, my house is, I can’t remember, 250ft² of Paradise.

James Gore: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

David Martin: How are the houses doing?

James Gore: They’re doing great. And we’ve expanded it. I mean, it’s not just for veterans. We’ve now expanded. I mean, a big part of our homeless strategy is making sure people are housed in an interim solution so that we can get them to permanent housing, you know, with with homelessness and the overlap, overlapping issues of mental health, substance abuse, you know, other things that we deal with, we have to lean in.

And one of the things is, is you can’t do programs without, placements anymore. Okay. So we have, a new area, low skill ACOs village, which is all these tiny homes that are set up, about 70 strong, 70. We have, we purchased probably, in our county with our cities, six different hotels and motels and retrofitted those into transitional housing.

In other things, partnership with the state stay put in 75% of.

David Martin: Sonoma County is having a homelessness.

James Gore: Oh, yeah. You know the homeless issue. One of the things that you for us, us, me for California specifically is, is that, you know, decades ago there was a decision made to close all the institutions and maybe that was the right decision. But there was no other alternatives. But so just put it all out on the streets. Right.

And ironically, you know, the fact that we have good weather even in the wintertime makes it, you know, very difficult to manage. And so but we realize also that 80% of our homeless population has been in our community for more than ten years. A lot of them have grown up there. Okay. So it’s not just this transient issue of like, what’s going on and I can’t just make it disappear.

Some people think I can just show up like the men in black and like, make everybody forgetting, like, get rid of everything, right? I’m like, no, these are these are our neighbors. Even if they’re homeless, houseless. Right. So I got to find solutions for them because solutions have to be in community, and solutions will piss off my constituents, because it also means that we’re going to be solutions hurt as much as, as much as problems do means you got to put us put, you know, put facilities up.

David Martin: So now that we’ve gotten that conversation out of the way, we’re going to get right to the heart of this. Let’s go. All right. We have our questionnaire here okay. And we’re going to start here. Now, what is good government to you? You’re a county supervisor. And you also had the unique perspective of being past president of county commissioners for the entire state of California.

defined good government results.

James Gore: Results better not perfect. I think the biggest problem that we have in government locally, statewide and nationally is, is that everybody stops doing better because it needs to be perfect for them to be able to vote for it. And so I believe in the get stuff done motto.

David Martin: So how do you hold yourself accountable?

James Gore: You know, at the end of the day, I hold myself accountable by just but by the by my own sense of of of like seeing the results, seeing the roads paved, seeing homeless solutions, seeing those other things in my community, but with my constituents too is as I say, I say, bring it on, hold me accountable.

David Martin: Well, that was my next hold me accountable. How do they hold you accountable?

James Gore: Well, you know, I mean, there’s always an election that happens. Yeah. Right. That’s that’s the biggest accountability.

David Martin: Measure I’ve been elected so far.

James Gore: I just got elected my third time.

David Martin: So right so far I guess.

James Gore: So far we’re doing good. The biggest thing that also my constituents, what I realize is, is that they accept imperfect, relentless progress, which is our mantra coming out of the fire sale. Again, the only real progress in this world is imperfect. Relentless progress.

David Martin: Imperfect. Relentless. Fast.

James Gore: Yeah. Results. I mean, you got to tell people I’m fighting and I can do better, but I can’t make that perfect for you. I mean, you got to bring it back to basics. So, if they see that you’re working your tail off, that your team is working hard, you’re responding, and you’re honest with them about things.

It’s amazing how far that goes. It’s amazing.

David Martin: And you said you said results. are you looking at big results or small results or anything?

James Gore: I mean, you know, you got to you got to be able to deal with the small stuff if you want to be innovative and do the big stuff. I don’t get to try and, create a clean energy future or restore the the the river, the river if I can’t fill potholes in my community. And that’s the stuff that erodes public trust in government is if you can’t fill potholes, if people can’t get a permit.

Right. So, man, I’m neck deep and doing like, internal audits on our permitting department and then, like, driving more funding into, into, road striping and other things. I’m, you know, it’s it’s it’s incremental and it’s big deal.

David Martin: And if people if people aren’t seeing what they think of the results they want, what should they do?

James Gore: They should get active. They should get loud. I mean, I always say that don’t complain if you’re not willing to be a part of the solution, but being a part of the solution doesn’t mean that you have to put time in. It means that you have to vote. It means that you have to, you have to make your voice heard.

I’m like like, bring it on. My my goal is to make things better, right? And,

David Martin: Make it tough when you’re walking around the county in the in the community.

James Gore: Yeah. You know, my wife sometimes, like, won’t let me on the weekend, go to the hardware store because I could be a seven hour constituent meeting. So true. It’s I’m serious. There’s hardware in Hillsboro. I’m not allowed to go there on Saturdays and Sundays. My wife. Yeah, I will all sudden. I just might as well grab a chair and just talk to people about permits, potholes, clean energy, like, you know, so.

David Martin: She says, well, I’ll go get it. She goes and all do.

James Gore: No, no, no, no, I got a hideout. we.

David Martin: Don’t have that kind of time.

James Gore: Yeah, but, but, you know, it’s I, I we work where the rubber meets the road, but but it also means that you get road rash. I mean, like, you know, you get tired of of of of of it being like, every time, if I pave a road and I post on Facebook, we pay Piner Road. You know what happens?

I get 500 comments from people who are like, well, why didn’t you pay my road? Oh, right. But you got to get used to the fact that you don’t do this for the you if you, you got to do it for the service you don’t.

David Martin: Get it was relentless.

James Gore: Imperfect, relentless progress.

David Martin: Okay.

James Gore: You got to do it.

David Martin: For that road. You’re going to get to your. Yeah okay.

James Gore: Yeah.

David Martin: And then you know be receptive to that answer.

James Gore: Somewhat in some art. But like I, you know, I, I kind of switched my mantra from one of saying like, like that our purpose in our office was to serve our community, to our purpose in our office, to serve the greater good. That’s my job is to serve the greater good, which means sometimes I got to have some straight talk with folks or tell them I can’t help them or get to know quick, right?

Yeah. Rather than wasting their time, you know, I gotta I got to prioritize our time and my my team’s time.

David Martin: You may have just answered the question by saying prioritize, but what would you like? What would you like? The people to know about government? As a government insider, what would you like people who aren’t government insiders to know about government?

James Gore: Well, I’ll start with the local level, which is just sad. You know, the majority of people who serve are are good people who do care. And, I really cringe when they’re called politicians, especially local peoples who are on school board, water districts, county commissions, other things. They’re not getting paid a lot. They don’t have a lot of staff.

They get a lot of grief, and they actually are just willing to not scream at their TV or write an op ed, but get involved. So my thing is, is that the world is run by those who show up. So make sure you’re there and realize that, especially those who are operating in the trenches, you know, they’re they’re not.

The divisiveness in the theater that you see out in Congress and in other places, you know, they have to operate in public. They have to balance their budgets. So, and I would just tell the public is, is, don’t be afraid to, to get involved yourself. there’s a lot of people who have very loud voices, but, they don’t show up when it’s time to vote and they don’t show up to, put their name on the ballot.

So be the change you want to see in your community.

David Martin: All right. Here’s an easy question. Yeah. Who’s your hero in government?

James Gore: oh, man. I’ll tell you, I still love I love this guy Teddy Roosevelt from days long gone by Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. You know, why is because I really loved the straight talk stuff. I mean, I think some of my favorite quotes from him are, you know, everything from, like, it’s not the critic who counts. It’s, you know, man or woman in this case, in the arena, covered in blood and sweat and tears.

You know, if you look on the other stuff, I mean, he was kind of a wild card at one point. He was I mean, he was a Republican, but he was also a trust buster, right? Like with big businesses and other things and outdoors and I think that there’s a lot of stuff that we need to look to this.

I’ll say my favorite quote is that he says, don’t talk about rights without responsibilities. Right. Okay. And I think that’s a big thing that our country needs to look back to and look forward to.

David Martin: We could do worse than having Teddy Roosevelt as example, I suppose. All right. You’ve just opened a bottle of wine. Tell me what wine you just open and tell me what you’re happy with it.

James Gore: Oh, well, I was just talking with your colleague here, and he said, Jordan Cabernet from Alexander Valley, and I had some Jordan Cabernet. And John Jordan is a good guy, and his family does great work. And they have their vines are just like on this little bench cut just up above the flood plain and Alexander Valley. So when I open up that one, I think about like kind of the, you know, a summer where it’s going to be 95 degrees, but it starts off at like 62 degrees with the fog kind of pushing away, going back to the ocean.

The vines have slept overnight, right. It got cool enough. It’s not like the Central Valley where they burn out, right. Like they get a chance to mature, not just ripen. And like, you go up to this place and you’re just overlooking Alexander Valley, and you see the difference between, you know, these, these valleys, the foothills in the mountains.

And, and it’s just a reminder that, like, the best grapes are, are grown under stress, kind of like people. And. God.

David Martin: What are you having with that glass of,

James Gore: Oh, man, a rib eye, rib eye, prime cut.

David Martin: Seared. Very good, very happy. Back on the grill at home.

James Gore: Oh, yeah. I can cook a better ribeye than any restaurant.

David Martin: Come out.

James Gore: come on out and visit. I’ll show.

David Martin: You some. Good. Oh, you’re what you’re after. You send me a couple of bottles of. Well, Well, we’ll. That works.

James Gore: Yeah, yeah. There’s no ethics rules that say a politician can’t give you one.

David Martin: Rightly that actually, that, so is is is this something you always aspire to do? To be in politics? To be in government? Were you president of the high school class? Is this something you.

James Gore: Always you know, I was quiet in high school, and then I just kind of, you know, what I did as I, I just raised my hand when I saw something that needed to get done. And so, you know, I started to just kind of become the de facto leader because I was willing to sit up front and be involved.

And so I never had this. I wasn’t giving speeches. I wasn’t there. You wouldn’t see me and be like, you know, back in the day that he was yearning for something like this. Yeah. And, I was a late bloomer, but, but this, this sense of, of, like, you can be a part of changing the world that my mom and my grandma instilled in me.

And, and then realizing, actually, you can if you step up and you get involved small or big, and then things like Peace Corps and other stuff, it, you know, it tasted good. It’s kind of like a good wine. They say they used to have not just tastes, but it needs to have a good need to have a good finish.

Yeah. So like when I would do these kind of experiences the finish felt like like the best thing a good wine, the best finish you want is more more. Right. And so I feel like that was this sense of civic purpose keeps me involved even through the burden of public office.

David Martin: We talked about the expansion of your tiny houses. You talked about some of the, the paved, paved roads. You’ve done, any other examples of good government here in Sonoma?

James Gore: Oh, yeah. I mean, we took over, basically from our utility, the entire procurement for all of our, energy. And we have, some called Sonoma Clean energy, Community choice aggregation. We have 50 million in reserves. We’re lowering people’s bills, and we’ve, by 40%, reduced our carbon footprint in our county. we’ve expanded operations and energy in the geysers.

We have the largest geothermal facility in the world up in our mountains above us. You know, we’re moving heavily on conservation on a Russian river and restoration efforts. And then with mental health in our jail and other things. I mean, I’m, you know, neck deep on, continuing to provide more options so that we don’t just have people come to jail, back out on the streets, come into jail, back out on the streets or jail 50% homeless or 40% homeless, 50% mental health, 25% of that requiring direct intervention.

And that’s normal in this country. So we are we got major stuff that we’re working on that needs to be reformed.

David Martin: Wow.

James Gore: Working our tail.

David Martin: Off, I guess,

James Gore: Each and every day and perfect, relentless progress.

David Martin: Imperfect, relentless progress. Yep. That’s great. great conversation with you, James. Thanks for stopping by. Thank you. David, I look forward to safely doing some doors into this again. And, and, we’ll come out, have a steak. Yeah. Thanks for your time. Thanks for coming by. Thank you.

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That was James Gore, winemaker, wine drinker and county supervisor from Sonoma County, California. As you heard in perfect relentless progress, I like that imperfect, relentless progress. That’s how he moves forward. Not a bad philosophy. So thanks for listening. I’m Dave Martin, and that was a conversation with James Gore. Join us next time for another conversation with another leader in government and a good government show.

The Good Government Show and a conversation with is produced by Valley Park Productions. Jim Ludlow, David Martin, and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our editor and producer is Jason Stershic. This is a good government show. Thanks for listening.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.