On eating Pennsylvania scrapple with Phil Armstrong

Phil Armstrong: When there’s a pothole and somebody calls, they don’t care what party you are. They want the pothole fixed. I wish that every citizen would be aware of every program that is going on in the county that would make, you know, if my wish list, I was a schoolteacher for 40 years and I would always tell my students to be involved, know what’s going on.

A educated voter is the best voter, I think, for the silent majority. They’re not silent on Election Day. They definitely that’s when they’ll let you know if you were doing good or not.

David Martin: Welcome to the Good government show. Hi, I’m your host, Dave Martin. And this is a conversation with and on today’s conversation, we are talking with Phil Armstrong. And he is the county executive for Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Very interesting place. He is based in Allentown, which you may have heard from a Billy Joel song from a few years ago.

But as he explains, it’s all different in Allentown from when Billy Joel sang about it. Real fast growing county sort of in central Pennsylvania. But he’s going to talk about that. We talked about a lot of things. We talk about baseball. We talk about breakfast and we talk about Teddy Roosevelt. So lots to hear, lots to talk about.

And it’s all going to come up. Our interview with Phil Armstrong right after this break.

The good government show is sponsored by NACO. That’s the National Association of Counties County Government. It’s 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 U.S. 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.

Okay, so here we go. This is my conversation with Lehigh County Executive Phil Armstrong.

We always start with the hardest question first. After that, all the questions are easy. If you could just identify yourself, your name, your title, where we are.

Phil Armstrong: Okay. My name is Phillips Armstrong. I am the Lehigh County Executive. And our offices are in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

David Martin: So there’s a lot of folks that may not know exactly, you know, where Allentown is and much about Pennsylvania. Tell me a little bit about Lehigh. Tell me a little bit about Allentown. I think it’s the third largest city in the state, is that correct?

Phil Armstrong: That’s correct. It is the third largest city. It’s the county seat for the county of Lehigh. The interesting fact here is that there are only four counties in the state of Pennsylvania that elect a county executive. This is one of those we are a home rule charter. The other two, well, two of them are in the western part of the state, and the other one is our neighbor, Northampton County.

David Martin: So I was going to ask you about that. Your title is Lehigh County Executive. How does it differ from county commissioners?

Phil Armstrong: We have a board of commissioners. Our form of government is basically kind of like a municipal with the mayor, city council only instead of having, like the other counties in Pennsylvania, have three elected commissioners, we elect a county executive as the executive branch, and then we have nine county commissioners. Five are elected from each. There are five districts in the county and each one of them represents a district, and then four of them are elected at large for the entire county.

So it gives very good representation for all of the citizens in the county. But it’s a it’s a check and balances. It’s a procedure where compromises are worked out. And I think it’s a very efficient way of running the county.

David Martin: Great. So tell me something about Lehigh County and tell the folks who don’t know where you are and what you do, introduce the county to them.

Phil Armstrong: Well, I’m going to say one by one is one of the best places in America to live. Imagine that. And why do I say why do I say that? Is because what we we really brag about is our quality of life. We are third in the state for preserving farmland preservation. We have over 190 miles of trails, two trails.

We have a number of none. Number of parks. We have a zoo. We have a professional triple A baseball team. We have a triple A hockey team. We have a art museum. We have quite a concert area here. We are growing every year for the last ten years where some counties might be shrinking or losing people. Lehigh County has been growing every year in the census.

And again, as we all know, it’s not because people are being born at a better rapid rate, but we have people moving. Why is an ideal location to live where? 90 minutes to New York City. We’re about, oh, an hour from Philadelphia. You can drive to Washington, D.C. and back in the day. In fact, one third of the population of the United States can be reached from Lehigh County in one day.

So it makes us a great site for not only just distribution centers, but what we are really very proud of is our manufacturing base. You know, a lot of people thought of, oh, Bethlehem Steel closed down, but you know, we have now the tall lake. We have Mack Trucks, people, we have Merck. We have all of these medical people here.

So and two of the largest medical facilities in the area, right in Lehigh County.

David Martin: You mentioned something a little while ago, Bethlehem Steel. Some people may only know Allentown from the Billy Joel song, Allentown. How has it changed? How has it changed?

Phil Armstrong: Well, we love to have Billy Joel come back to it. We had we had a news that went through, which was a redevelopment grant, and it pretty much totaled our downtown area. And now, as I said, we have Paul Arena where we have the fliers, triple-A, hockey right here. We have all the large concerts. We now have, oh, more new skyscrapers and upscale.

We can build them fast.

David Martin: So nothing in that song is still accurate anymore?

Phil Armstrong: No, no, absolutely not. In fact, we can’t get. Right now we have a shortage for small manufacturing. We need more spots. And and we’re right now in the process of moving another pretty good sized plant to Allentown. So we’re we’re really because in this area, we have ten colleges. So we’re talking about 45,000 students who are going to school in this area and deciding to stay in the area.

So we have the labor force to meet the needs of these new companies that are coming in.

David Martin: So the Philadelphia Phillies had a very good season. How did the Iron Pigs do? That’s the triple-A baseball team, right?

Phil Armstrong: Yes. And that was a big thing in our area this year. Major League Baseball said to all of the minor league teams they wanted to see upgrades in the stadiums, things like women locker rooms, women training rooms. Even though it was a men’s league. But you had till April of this coming year to have these things completed. Now, this for us was a $10 million upgrade to our stadium.

Now, the thing is, where do like because the county owns the stadium. Okay, where do we come up with it? $10 million. Well, this is where partnerships and this is, again, one of my reasons why I like Lehigh County. We worked across party lines. We got money from the state of Pennsylvania. Actually, we got money from the Iron Pigs ownership the county has put in even our neighboring county, because we all benefit economically from the baseball team, because I didn’t mention they either are one or two in attendance every year.

Wow. Okay. In minor league baseball. So it is one of the big things about the quality of life that we have in this area. So we had a big campaign, Save our Pigs, where everybody really came together. You know, $10 million is quite a large figure. They didn’t make Major League Baseball pulls the team and some stadiums lost their teams.

So we weren’t going to lose our pigs and we saved them.

David Martin: And you get to see very proud of that. And you get to see the major league players who are, you know, just downtown down for rehab. So it’s all.

Phil Armstrong: Absolutely. And a lot of them stay in our local hotels during the season and rent at our local apartments. So we get the financial aspect from it to the consumers that are spending at the stadium. Again, local economy. We’re very, very happy with our having our pigs here.

David Martin: So you did say something earlier that I wanted to ask you about, because this is a story that I’ve sort of I noticed about Lehigh County. Apparently, you have preserved and expanded farmland in the county so that you have like.

Phil Armstrong: Absolute.

David Martin: I think you’re the fourth largest farming county in the state. Is that fair?

Phil Armstrong: It’s I’m not sure if it’s the third or fourth, but what we are and we are the third in preserving farmland. In my budget every year I have put either 2 million or 1 million into preserving farmland is kind of a unique county because, you know, we have the urban area, right, with Allentown and the surrounding areas are very, very much populated.

But then we have the rural area. You know, people talk about Pennsyltucky and the area and we have that in the county with this is why in the last congressional race, I think it was a record. The money was spent to try to elect the Congress person from this area, Republican versus Democrat, because we’re a purple area. You know, we are a good mixture from the far right to the far left, but mostly people in the middle and a lot of money.

A lot of times people come here and spend a lot of time because of being a key political area.

David Martin: So are there are there folks who have left places like Philadelphia and New York and moved out to Lehigh County and started a farm?

Phil Armstrong: Well, we don’t know, actually. The average age of our farmers are 57 years old. We love to see people coming in to start a farm. We have some programs to try to encourage people into farms, and hopefully that’s going to work. And we just started about a year or two ago. And the problem is farming is a tough job.

Sure, it really is. Yeah. Yeah. They make a lot more money on that land for a warehouse or a housing project. So they try to keep them in farming. That’s why we started this farmland preservation program.

David Martin: So what are they growing in? Lehigh?

Phil Armstrong: Well, we grow a lot accord. Hey, you know, that kind of thing. That’s. That’s pretty much. We have a large hog population, if you will. It’s being grown. And dairy cattle. All right. Yeah.

David Martin: So where do you get your bacon and melts? You go to the local farmer and farm market to pick it up?

Phil Armstrong: Absolutely. We have one of the largest farm markets in the state. It’s open every Thursday, Friday and Saturday right here in Allentown. And it’s the same area where they have the great Allentown Fair in the summer that those two weeks they closed the farmer’s market. But I’m a regular there and that’s where I get all that stuff.

David Martin: Are you are you an iron pig season ticket holder there?

Phil Armstrong: No, I’m not a season ticket holder. Now, do you guys being the person who owns the stadium? I don’t usually.

David Martin: Let’s play. But you go. Okay.

Phil Armstrong: But I do. I do get to throw out the first pitch every year. First night.

David Martin: Down.

Phil Armstrong: Yes. And I’ve thrown a strike every year so far.

David Martin: You start to strike every day how hard you practice.

Phil Armstrong: That morning I bring a glove to work and I go out and yell, You know, I’m. And I practiced out more.

David Martin: Throughout 70.

Phil Armstrong: Three. It’s getting a little harder every year, but I’m still doing it.

David Martin: So next year, maybe a step closer off the mound.

Phil Armstrong: Does it maybe, maybe be, Oh, there’s a trick to it and you should aim for the glove. Everybody aims for the glove. Aim for the top of the catcher’s head. If you aim to his head, you’ll get the glove. That’s what I. I found out early. Does the.

David Martin: Trick. Just the coach of the catcher. Just give you a quick word before you have to throw.

Phil Armstrong: Oh, absolutely. And it was them who explained that to me right after. The funny thing was the year of COVID, I wasn’t allowed on the field because. No, no. But so they set me up out in the outfield with a nice young lady and a dunk boot. And it was really cold. And I told her, I said, Don’t worry.

The odds of me hitting that thing is. Well, of course I did. And down she went. And so I lost that vote in the Nationals.

David Martin: Probably what you’re a lot of votes right there. All right. Well, that’s great. Well, you know, Woodrow Wilson used to you know, there’s pictures of him. Throw it up, throw the ball in for the grandstand. So, yes, I know.

Phil Armstrong: And my grandson lets me know about that right before every pitch. Don’t get up.

David Martin: All right. Well, well, that’s that’s good. So you’re contributing and you’re participating. So, listen, we have we have some questions here. And I just like to this is our own questionnaire that we’ve developed. So let me just jump into it with the first question. What is good government to you and from where you sit as county executive, how do you define good government?

Phil Armstrong: Okay. It’s a great question. I would define it by being able to listen to every side of an argument, being able to bring both sides together. You know, there are some issues where people have some pretty firm positions, pretty firm stance. They believe in what they’re saying. So you need to listen to them. You need to take from that and say, well, look, where can we kind of meet in the middle?

But you need people to be able to meet in the middle. I think that’s the great part about why county and local government is really the government, because there are, you know, when there’s a pothole and somebody calls, they don’t care what party you are. They want the pothole fixed. They just want you know, I came to this job from being president of the board of one of the local town.

We never talked about a party. And once I got here in the county, there was definitely there’s the majority party on the commissioners was different than mine. I made sure right in my first year that party was not an issue for good government to take place. You got to get rid of the idea. I’m only going to make this decision based on my party’s background.

You have to base it on what’s the best decision. And sometimes that’s not the most popular, but it’s the right thing to do. And I think you have to be able to stand up and say, I did this because I honestly feel this was the correct thing to do.

David Martin: So listening and meeting in the middle and coming up with a plan.

Phil Armstrong: Absolutely. All right. I most of everything I’ve done has been through compromises.

David Martin: So as an elected official, how do you know if you are being effective and delivering good government for those folks of Lehigh County? How do you hold yourself accountable?

Phil Armstrong: Well, you know, in today’s age, that’s the easiest answer in the world, that there is data available on everything. When we put in a new program to help the homeless, a new program to try to stop opioid addiction, any kind of a program that we put in our housing program, what we then do is look at what is the research showing, Is this working?

Is it money well spent? But again, I jump back to good government. Don’t spend that money till you bring in those people. You have a committee you look at where is the best place to spend it, But then look at the data. That’s that’s the amazing thing we have now. You can find out. And that’s why I think decisions are made more now on data than opinions.

I think that’s the best way to do it. But then you have to look at your results, but you’re going to see your results. There’s no doubt about it. Is crime going down because of a program we put in effect? Are we having a better rapport with our police because we have this program in effect, all of this right now?

I’m putting air quality monitors up throughout the county. We have an air quality problem. But before we can talk about what do we need to fix it, we need to have the data that says, here’s where the problems are, How bad is it now? How can we fix it?

David Martin: That’s how you judge. How do people judge the citizens? How do they know if they’re getting good government and and how how are they holding you accountable? How should they hold you accountable?

Phil Armstrong: Well, that I wish that every citizen would be aware of every program that is going on in the county that would make you know, if my wish list, I was a schoolteacher for 40 years and I would always tell my students, be involved, know what’s going on. A educated voter is the best voter, unfortunately. And I think what is the biggest thing?

You’re not doing a good job if you raise taxes, you are doing a good job. If you don’t raise taxes, that’s in the mind of a lot of voters. I’m proud to say we had it my second year in office, a very tiny tax increase, and that’s it. We’ve been able to manage our budgets and that’s really a major concern with most of your people living in your county is their taxes.

So that has to be something when you do your balanced budget to make sure you keep that by.

David Martin: Looking beyond taxes, looking at the whole picture of your administration and not just you, but the county committee, the board of County commissioners, how should people, the citizens, hold you folks accountable for what you’re doing to make sure that what you’re doing is what the people want? What should they look for? What should they be looking for?

Phil Armstrong: Well, I think they should be looking at how we got them involved in the process to decide what we were going to do. Again, like I said, I have more committees with people in the community. My state of the county address is coming up in two weeks. At that, I’m going to be introducing the head of the Chamber of Commerce, the head of career Link, the head of United Way, the head of the Lehigh Valley Economic Vote, because it’s all these people that make your county work.

If you don’t work with all of them, then you know you’re sitting up on top of the hill all by yourself. You’re going to get thrown off that hill real quick. So that’s why I think you don’t make those decisions too. You involve all of those people and that’s important.

David Martin: So if people feel like they aren’t getting good government, are you saying get involved?

Phil Armstrong: Oh, absolutely get involved. But remember.

David Martin: And what else?

Phil Armstrong: Well, what else is what are you doing to make it better? You know? Okay, what are you doing personally? That you can help us? We have so many boards that I need volunteers for. I always try to get, you know, it’s a very good idea. You know, I just put in to effect a year ago a diversity board, because we did have people coming to our meeting saying, okay, they were complaining about different things.

I said, All right, that’s great. Let’s get people from the community. Let’s create a board. And they’re now working on a resolution they want to take to the board in another month or two to to change some things. So that’s why I said, you listen to these people again, though, you have to consider the majority of the county, right?

If a 1% shows up at the meeting and is yelling and complaining about something, does it mean you really should change it? It is just what is the best? You know, when I was president of the board.

David Martin: Of those other people and that’s the so the people you know, in my experience and I’m sure yours is greater than mine, but the people that show up at those meetings usually have an agenda or are there for a specific topic that’s, you know, the hot topic of the day. How do you get all those other people involved?

Yeah, well, great. So I guess you could call it.

Phil Armstrong: Yeah. The great Ronald Reagan Silent majority, right? It was him in office. Yes. Yeah. And again, I think I’m in office with the silent majority. I, I really think that they, they just are happy that things are going well. Okay. And as long as things are going well, they’re content not, you know, they’re raising families, they’re going to work.

They’ve got a lot on their plate that, you know, usually if you look at who’s the most involved in being elected to government, it’s from your upper middle class. These are people who have the concern but also have free time and have an investment. They’re the ones you know, and I know they kind of say, oh, you should get all white people running.

But the problem is and again, I know when I was a teacher for 40 years, I didn’t have free time to get involved with government. I was totally involved with teaching coaching. And I you just, you know, you get in the time of your life then. Well, now I can and I’d like to help out. But I think for the silent majority, they’re not silent on Election Day.

No, they, they definitely that’s when they’ll let you know if you were doing good or not.

David Martin: Is there anything that you’ve done in your time in office to encourage younger people, younger voters, to get more involved?

Phil Armstrong: Oh, absolutely. Well, number one, I have a what’s called Student Government Day, where I bring kids from all the school districts into the county. I go out to these different schools. In fact, I’m going to a mass high school and another week I talk to their government classes. I’d I’ve got to at least seven or eight different schools This that’s the former teacher of mine, which I have I’ve gone to some of the colleges again, I think it’s really great to know the younger people I think are coming out of school now a little bit more involved.

I was a lobbyist back in 2010 for social studies education in Washington, D.C. when George Bush had the No Child Left Behind exams. Right. There was no social studies exam. There still isn’t. There still isn’t. In the state of Pennsylvania. So what happens is the schools have to create STEM. I want to make STEM with an S, and then social studies to the end.

I think we’re to meet the other areas. We’re leaving civics behind. We’re leaving government behind. And what happens? Well, look at some of the people we’ve elected. You need to say, well, baby, let’s leave it. When you look at what’s happening here, we we need to get government back into schools. We need to have young people involved. So I’m trying my best in my term in office any way might do terms.

David Martin: So government and governing is not easy. As a government insider, what would you like people to know about how government works and you know how government moves forward? What would you like people to know? An insider look at government. You could tell them one thing. Well, why would you tell?

Phil Armstrong: I can only give them from my perspective, of course, I would want them to know that when they elected me, they elected somebody that I think will always try to represent the majority of the people. I think that’s the idea of government to say this is what is good for most of the people. Most of the time, you’re never going to give them all all of the time.

So I think to tell the people what government should be doing is meeting their needs. And that might mean sometimes doing something that isn’t a popular thing, but it’s the right thing. I changed the way the town I was the head of the way we did garbage. Okay. When I did that, I had had to have police at our meetings.

So many people were yelling and screaming at me, but I had somebody cut up a garbage can and throw it into my front yard by somebody yelling at me in church. But in three years we lowered garbage fees 30%. We doubled our recycling was the right thing to do. But when you try to change something, realize that change is good and government wouldn’t want to change it if they didn’t think it was good.

David Martin: So the answer is I’m not going to make everybody happy, but I’m going to make a lot of you happy.

Phil Armstrong: I’m going to try to do the best I can.

David Martin: Yes. All right. So who are your political heroes?

Phil Armstrong: Oh, without a doubt. I’ll always through teaching it all my life, Teddy Roosevelt really? Teddy Roosevelt? Yes, absolutely. I pretty much read every book on Teddy Roosevelt. Okay. He stood up easy. It was the founder of The Progressive movement, not as kind of we look at it today, but to get government back into the hands of the average person, stop the abuses of big business, economic equality.

Those were the three things he fought for. And he did it by reaching out to the common man, which back then, I mean, it was an accident that he became president, without a doubt. If, you know, if he wasn’t shot, he didn’t ever they certainly never wanted him. But then he made sure he did what was right for the people.

And they re they elected him then on his own. And that’s what I found is my hero, Teddy Roosevelt. Okay. And I look but I always say he has, as he said, splendid, good time being president. Well, this right now to me is the best job in the world. Being county executive, I love it. There’s no doubt about it.

There’s not a better job on the planet.

David Martin: Good. All right. Well, that’s it’s good you have it said so. This might go back to some of the farm markets where you are. What’s your favorite dish? What’s your favorite meal in your neighborhood? What’s what’s that? What’s a great Lehigh County dish?

Phil Armstrong: Well, this is funny because I’m also on 21 counties from the United States. We meet twice a year and we just met in Seattle before the Rose Bowl game. Okay. And the county executive from Utah and Penn State was been playing Utah. I said, I’ll tell you what, I will bet you a pound of Scrabble that game. And she had absolutely no idea what a pound of scrapple was.

But that is something I buy every week at the farmer’s market. And that’s my Saturday morning breakfast is a Pennsylvania Dutch thing You won’t see pretty much anywhere else in the United States. But I think scrapple Lebanon baloney. These are the things that we we have normally around here that nobody else does.

David Martin: So you’re going to have to explain what is scrapple.

Phil Armstrong: Well, the Pennsylvania Dutch, which are Pennsylvania German, when they butcher a pig, they’re very frugal. They don’t want to waste anything. Right. So they take the scraps that would have been thrown away, boil it down with.

David Martin: Good reason, perhaps with good.

Phil Armstrong: Reason. Well, again, don’t want you don’t want to read the label of what’s in it, but they take that with cornmeal and starch and some spices and make a loaf out of it. Fry that up with a little maple sirup. I’ve served it to many, many people who come here, never had it before, and they love it. But then they read the ingredients in every way they can.

So one of those.

David Martin: Yes, of Pennsylvania scrapple. So you said you were a teacher. That’s your background. But then you also said this is the best job you ever had growing up as a kid. Did you want to be a politician? Did you want to be president? Were you president of your student council?

Phil Armstrong: Oh, yes, absolutely. Vice president of my student council, Yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, I did. My father was in politics and he was on the local school board and a candidate for mayor and my family. My brother was president of the town council of my hometown, My niece now is on the council in her home town. So, yeah, my other niece is a political consultant in Montana.

We were a political family. Absolutely. And back in the early seventies, I did when I first started teaching run for an office, I lost and then just devoted my 40 years to teaching and coaching and that kind of stuff.

David Martin: So but politics has always been, I guess, in your blood.

Phil Armstrong: Always.

David Martin: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Phil Armstrong: So never saw myself and never saw myself in this job, but here I am.

David Martin: Chris Are there other jobs that you are interested in, in politics and government?

Phil Armstrong: Oh, I’d love I would love. This job is term limited. Okay, so I’ll be out of a job in two and a half more years. All right? And I would love another job in government. I really would. I don’t know what will be there at that point, but yeah, I, I feel very. You’re not done very much alive in this job.

I do.

David Martin: All right. So let me bring it back to you and the work you’ve done in Lehigh County. Give me an example of good government in Lehigh County that you had a head.

Phil Armstrong: Okay. When I first ran for office, the county was considering we have a county home. There are only 22 counties in the state right now that have a county home, you know, a place, a senior home, if you will. Okay. But when people get to the point, they can’t take it. The county this county wanted to sell the county home.

It was a burden. Well, I ran on the if you elect me, I am going to save the county home. It is for the most vulnerable population in our county. Well, I won. We not only saved the home, we are now adding a $50 million four story addition to the home we have a four star rating for our nursing care at the home and we made it through COVID and came out the other side.

Yet are we short nurses? Absolutely. Is everybody? Yes. But I’m very, very proud of the fact that we not only saved the home, we’re expanding the home, and hopefully we’ll be up to 650 patients when everything is up and around and the construction’s completed.

David Martin: And that’s good for everybody. It’s good for the people to live there. It’s good for their families in the neighborhood. It’s good for aging in place, you know, and having having the services that are allows them to stay and stay where they’re from.

Phil Armstrong: And when you go out there, it’s so valuable that we have this because there are so many people, you know, that had great lives were in we’re working at Mack Trucks and things like that and just they lived longer than their money did. Let’s put it this way and you need a place our dementia area, the private homes don’t want these people and I hate to say it just like it is, but they can’t make money out of them.

And private homes are for profit. We’re not. And that I think, is why you need as government to take care of these people.

David Martin: County executives. Lehigh County Executive Phil Armstrong is. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. I look forward to hearing about your first pitch at the Iron Pigs game and maybe it’ll be on a Sunday. You get up, have a little Scrabble, go to the ball game, get a hot dog.

Phil Armstrong: Well, it’s a party. Saturday’s my Scrabble day.

David Martin: Yeah, it is just. All right. Even better.

Phil Armstrong: There’s absolutely.

David Martin: All right. Well, listen, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. So thank you. And thanks for being part of a conversation with a good government chef.

Phil Armstrong: Oh, I’ll. He’s in favor of good government and anything to promote that. Thank you.

David Martin: The good government show is sponsored by our CO. That means our community. Our CO has found a way to make government even more effective. AACo provides a platform that blends in-person and digital interactions and that connects people with their government. Their mobile app transforms meaningful conversations into reliable data, and the result is actionable insights that inspires a positive change.

It’s sort of like having a flagpole. Do you want to know if the community would rather have a dog park or bike trail? Our coach can get you an answer immediately from the folks in your community. With our CO, you can engage your citizens or any group, learn what they want and build programs and policies that advance your county, your job creators and your constituents.

So visit our COCOM. That’s 0urco dot com and learn how they do it. And while you’re there, get a demonstration. Well, that was a really great conversation I had with Phil Armstrong. I learned a lot. I learned that I will never, ever read the ingredients on a box of Scrabble or wherever you get your Scrabble from. Sounds interesting.

I think it’s one of those acquired tastes or something you have to be born into to really enjoy a good tip. If you ever called out to be the opening day pitcher. Good tip from Phil there on that and have fun insight into his thoughts about Teddy Roosevelt. So a really good conversation with Phil Armstrong. That was Phil Armstrong.

This is a conversation with on the good government Show. I’m your host, Dave Martin. Thanks for listening. See you next time on 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 the 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.