CARNY TO CONGRESS EP 11 - Michael Nachef

Presented by Bay Water Boat Club.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Good morning. Welcome to Carney to Congress Podcast brought to you by Baywater Exclusive Boat Club. I'm here today with my great co-host.

SPEAKER_05 0:09

Jake Temuaniel. I have a new camera.

SPEAKER_03 0:11

New camera angle. New angle. New angle there. And we have our guest this time is Michael Nachev, a friend, a club member, and uh a person I've learned a lot from the last six years in politics. So we'll have a lot of fun with that, Michael. Great to be here. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks for coming out. You dressed really nice. We're just getting done with work. Again, this is recorded before, so it's not six six o'clock on a Sunday morning for sure. I'll be slating the shoulder where you. Hopefully your kids will be too. Michael Nacheff uh from Lee Health and just been Southwest Florida. How long have you been here, Mike? How long you been in a club? What do you do? Just kind of give the people a top down and go from there.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I appreciate you asking, Adam. So my my family moved here in the late 90s down to Marco Island. I was pretty young. So I went to school down at uh Tommy Barfield and then the Charter Middle School on Marco, Laley High School, stayed local, went to Florida Gulf Coast, uh met my uh my wife there, uh fell in love. Uh we've now been married for uh over 10 years. We have four kids. We're keeping busy.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Thinking about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

It's amazing. I mean, you you know my kids, they're they have a lot of energy, and so keeping them busy is always fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

And oh yeah, experience that today.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

The club certainly helps with that, right? We we have a good time. Uh, you know, their their age ranges are uh six, uh two, eight-year-olds, and a 20-year-old. So we we've got a big range. Our our oldest daughter is actually uh a junior, where Felicia and I met at Florida Gulf Coast now. And she's much smarter than uh than I think uh I was certainly, and she's advancing quick. And so we're we're super proud of Chloe, and uh she's um uh looks just like her mom and uh sharp wit, uh just like her dad. So she's doing great. Good, good, good. So, how long have you been in the boat club now? It's been we've been members since 2022, I think. Yeah, 21 or 22.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah, so you've you've been in the club for a while. That's funny, Jake. So when I first went to Tallahassee and was just there, I hope that's not connected to anything. It's supposed to be. No, not. So you're gonna go. Jake Jake's working here, Jake's working at the time, right? Um so when I first was elected in Tallahassee and you we were there with COVID and everything like that, uh, there's a there's a there's a a club called the Governor's Club. And it, you know, when you're first as you're elected, you're oh you're not supposed to go there. Don't go there, that's where bad things happen. And and and and I understand, you know, folks that get elected, they're concerned about certain things that can happen, you know, like drinking too late or you know, it's it's politics. And realistically, politics is just people, and some people can't handle certain things. Um, but just from my background and just from business, I was new, you know, a lot of stuff gets done uh after five o'clock, you know, and it's just kind of interesting. So I would show up uh to this place, a couple of us went in there, was Jim Mooney, representative from the Keys, uh Kaylee Tuck, representative from Highlands County, uh a Democratic representative, Dan Daly, uh from Broward, and myself, and we would just show up, and at that time there was uh the minority leader was Bobby DeBoes, representative Bobby DeBoes. And we would just kind of hang out, you know, we kind of come there after, like, oh, let's go have a couple drinks and hang out. And so Michael was in there. And what was great about Michael is you go in there, all right, and he's just full of knowledge, Jake. He's just full of knowledge. And I could just have a drink because I I do talk a lot, but sometimes you just want to kind of just just listen. And Mike can just go off on to some stories and just talk about the history of what happened. And it's amazing. You can just sit there and just nod. And Mike just goes on and you learn a lot, you know. And uh we're gonna talk about a couple of those stories today, if you don't mind. Sure. Remember, we were talking about uh, you know, Garrett Richter, Senator Richter, and the Rick Rick Scott story, which was pretty interesting. And how long were you an aide? How long were you in the in the process? Because you went to FGCU, right? And then you you went right up to DC or where how did you know I'm not to DC, but uh to Allahsee.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Yeah, great question. So uh when I graduated, I had taken the LSAT, I'd done pretty well. I was planning on going to law school. It was 2010, the economy wasn't great. I was fortunate not to have a bunch of student loan debt. So at the time I was applying for law schools, I decided to apply for jobs. One of those jobs uh was to be a legislative aide to state senator Garrett Richter.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

I was great guy.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Fortunate that worked out. Richter is just the best guy in the world to have learned from. And I could spend this whole podcast just telling you stories of his life and what he imparted on me. One of the real important ones uh that he tells everyone is something his father told him. A great recipe for life is to learn, earn, and return. Spend the first two years of your life learning everything you can, then the next two years of your life earning everything you can, and then the rest of your life giving it back, right? And that that was a really great recipe. What I've learned in my own time is that you have to keep doing all of those things continuously. Never stop learning, always try to keep earning and give back every day. And that that really launched me in a big way. Uh, Garrett's Senator Richter's um mentoring of young people really taught me a lot about what it means to give back and invest and broadly stay involved in all the community nonprofits and all of that. And so I worked for Garrett for six years. And in those six years, uh, that was back in the time when the legislative aides could present bills in committee. And so Senator Richter would file between 60 and 80 bills in a legislative session. And in order uh to be able to meet quorum in a number of committees, the members had to have their staff present the bills in the committees that they could not leave to meet quorum. So it gave me the fortunate opportunity to present in committee over a hundred times and really develop a rhetorical style and learn how to uh you know build strength in the moment. So he he imparted a lot of trust in me. He taught me a lot. Uh it helps that I have a fairly strong memory. I retain usually what I see, you know that from my ability to tell stories. And it it's it's been fun. Uh so I I enjoyed every day of that very much. And when uh he turned out in 2016, Senator Pasadomo from Naples took that seat. And uh I'd intended to go do something way outside of the state legislative process, and I ended up being recruited by my current employer, Lee Health, uh, and Jim Nathan, the former CEO. And uh I am really glad I let that happen. So I've been at it for 10 years with Lee Health, and I could not be more blessed every day to go to work for something I really believe in and to advocate for that system.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

And your position now at Lee Health is Chief of Staff. Chief of Staff, COS. Yeah, it's a pretty big deal. It's a big how big is Lee Health now? I've uh largest employer in Lee County, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

That's right, and in in Southwest Florida, we have 17,000 employees at Lee Health Plus. Uh we have over a thousand uh employed physicians and advanced providers. We have more than 4,000 employed nurses, uh, four adult acute care hospitals, two specialty, a children's hospital, and a trauma center. We are really deploying in a large way exceptional care across Southwest Florida. Uh, that's more than three and a half million patient contacts a year, too. So we we have had the very fortunate benefit, you and I, of having worked together on a number of the issues that that supported uh you know local delivery of that great care. Not just not just for Lee Health, but we had some fun uh on a number of those governance issues. But beyond that, uh, you know, you have brought in appropriations back for your district and in the region that have helped support a number of the healthcare institutions. We're very fortunate here in Southwest Florida. Strong delegation and a lot of people working very hard.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Absolutely. You're up there all the time, and unfortunately you're not up there as much as you used to be. But it was uh a lot of fun just uh hanging out there.

SPEAKER_05 8:12

Time it. Look at that. That's good. I almost got it on the camera.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Um but you know it's funny. I was talking to Garrett and he's like, Yeah, you know, the first time I was on that because he was originally in the house, right? He was in the house and he he roomed. Like the the thing is when you go up there to become you know, you become a uh a representative, a lot of you know members kind of bunk up. The guys kind of go into a house, two or three, and I think it's more of a for you know, kind of creating groups and yeah, you know, there's there's races and there's camaraderie and stuff. I was one of like, you know, I've I've lived I I don't live with people, you know. I've got my own place, I'm I'm doing my own thing. I I bought a condo, it worked out, it's been great, you know, you don't have to deal with moving stuff back and forth. But he said he he bunked up with a guy and they made a deal where he would pay for the housing and his his other representative would pay for food and drink. And he said he he made out every every year on that because they would go out and drink and eat quite a bit. So I don't know who that was, but that's the same Garrett Richter you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

So well said so uh Sether Richter, the human being, right? So uh he had uh he would tell the story exponentially better than I could. But here's what I'll tell you. He grew up in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. He went to work as a young man right after high school uh at Mellon Trust Bank in downtown Pittsburgh. He used to ride the bus in, started as a janitor, and then uh he served, he was uh drafted, served in Vietnam with the Army Rangers, uh, awarded a bronze star, came back, worked his way up through Mellon Bank. And uh, like like you, like I, that kind of work ethic every day, just going at it. Doesn't matter if it's before hours, after hours, whether we're uh you know, see knocking on someone's door at 7 a.m. saying, Oh, I haven't had my coffee yet, or uh we're knocking at 7 p.m. and they're just trying to unwind. We're we're gonna put in the work for the people we're working to serve. And Richter uh taught me a great deal of that. I mean, he really uh his whole life. And so when he moved down to Florida in the 80s after that time at Mellon and what he did for him, he opened a bank uh after uh having started with him down in Naples. Not long after that, he opened his own bank and grew it to the largest uh commercial bank uh based in Florida. And then he he ended up selling that, and that was kind of his foray in the politics. Everyone in in Southwest Florida knew him, like yourself, great small business owner. People came to him, they they leaned on him, they listened to him, and he helped everyone he could. And that's the experience for all of us. We all need to be that, right? That that person who can help.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

So, what was this? I remember one time we were talking, and it's like Governor DeSantis has been the best governor we ever had in Florida, you know, and uh there's nobody better. And I don't think you're I don't think we'll ever see somebody like he is, with you. You know, just just the the the like we say, the juice he has is it's pretty good. I mean he's got he's got a lot of power, like with property tax stuff and just everything like that. But what was what would happen with Rick Scott? I remember there was something going on, there was kind of a fight, and you want to talk about that story a little bit and see what what was uh it was pretty it was pretty wild, Jane. It's a pretty good story.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So I I I think we'll we'll save the majority of that story for another day, but what I'll say today is this yeah. Uh there there was a point where Senator Richter, who was a pro-time of the Senate for four years, uh, was working very hard to represent the the Senate president. And uh uh Governor Scott at the time uh fundamentally believed there is a responsibility of um uh the governorship that that he should be doing. And and so the way the story uh will unfold one day is that we'll we'll hear a line that Governor Scott left that uh really imparted on me a good life lesson. And that life lesson was uh there there are a lot of uh very important and powerful people in Florida politics. Uh the important, most important thing I can say is stay loyal and do good. And that's the answer.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Yeah, okay. That's fine. That's you know, it's just crazy, it's just the governor just walking around the building. That was the main thing. And it was uh it's it's kind of crazy how you know certain folks lose sight of that, and it's just a different, different animal. And what happens in politics is certain people get to a certain point and they just don't understand just having a conversation goes a long way. Just walk around the building and say, Hi, how you doing?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

You know, the same is true of politics and business, right? To be seen is to be loved. You need to be in front of people, you need to listen to them, and you need that if you want to drive legitimate results in this world, you have to be willing to to actually compromise, to work with folks and to hear them. And that that's something that that kind of retail politics and business leadership, that's something you're great at, right? I've observed it for many years. We have uh um uh fortunate intersection and and a lot of our work, right? And we we see a lot of the the folks who are are good at that and some who aren't quite as good. And in the end, uh being being genuine, working hard, those things always really drive results here.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Oh yeah. Yeah, and just just don't be a dick. It's just an easy way. Just don't be a dick process, you know. But it's tough, and that that works across aisles, you know. Even even, you know, we have a supermajority in Florida, but just still, just you know, just because I I mean, I don't know how many times I've talked to members and I'm in my sixth year now, and now you kind of have some seniority there. We're coming into seven and eight, so that's when you're at the top of the heap. But just telling people, we won. There's no no reason to dance on the goal line. You know, there's there's no reason to just dance on the grave. It's just not doesn't end well for you. You know, and that happens a a lot, you know, and you get new members in and you know they'll they'll have an idea and and they just wanna just go, you know, no, I don't I don't even have to talk to those people. No, it's probably a good idea just to say hi because there's been situations where I've had bills that come up and it's and it's interesting, it's fun, you know, because you're working the process and these bills don't well, I mean they do pertain to certain folks uh around the state. There's something like we did a credit unions bill versus banks and stuff like that. And that that that's gonna help some local entities, some school districts and stuff like that, because where there was no banks or that they use credit unions. But there's there's times you have to ask somebody like, hey, you know, we're I I know you're against this, and I've had people say, Well, you know, I'm with you, but you know, Adam asked me to be with him, I'm gonna be with him, you know. So that's just kind of an interesting foray into it. But um what do you see um, you know, going on down here in Southwest Florida the next 10 years? What's what's gonna be the big concern, you know, for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Well, I think growth is still uh the name of the game, right? We're seeing it across Lee County and Collier, Charlotte, and even Hendry. Right. So I you know, Lee County has about 888,000 people as of today. If you talk to the Economic Development Office, 888,000 full-time residents. We're gonna be at a million people very soon, full-time Lee County residents. Collier has about 425,000, so it's about half the size, growing uh at a little bit um slower of a rate, but still growing. Charlotte County growing at a fast pace, uh, a little bit under 300,000 people, and then Hendry County, uh a little bit under 60,000 people, but growing at the fastest pace of all those counties.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Why is that? Is that just affordable housing or what?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Well, I think part of it is it shapes uh it is shaped by uh commerce and behavior, and so and you know, part of it's the the storms that we've experienced, right? So some folks have moved further inland. We've we've seen that as we've been rebuilding the coastline and uh you know, more is moving. Sit kits is doing pretty good. Babcock Ranch is another great uh, you know, that's southeastern Charlotte County leading into Lee. We're seeing they have more than 10,000 homes in Babcock Ranch now, and and as you see the growth uh in North Fort Myers, Cape Coral, uh Lehigh Acres, and and then heading out east towards LaBelle, and then even that Southeast Corridor off Corkscrew Road where 82 meets it and then heading towards Amokley. It's like and then State Road 29 goes north from Amokley back to Labelle. So you're seeing all of this growth in less traditionally uh dense areas, and I think and meeting the demands of that growth is gonna be the name of the game for all of us, right? There, those folks are gonna need roads to drive on, schools to send their kids, healthcare access. We're at Lee, we're working very hard at the healthcare access, but it's it's much broader than that, right? People need places to get their groceries and and everything else. So I I'm still seeing, you know, as as the market, even though it's slowed down a bit, we're still seeing growth. And we want to do everything we can to foster bringing people here and giving them uh something that the be part of and proud of when they get here. And we we have we just have a lot of things to look forward to. We really do.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Absolutely. All right, switching back to when you were in the legislature, what stories do you want to share that you think were kind of be good for what you remember? Like just some some like just kind of crazy ones or whatever you whatever you think. I mean, well, I I I think as we're not inside of a bar drinking, so this is a little different air.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

So as a young person, uh when you get in engaged in the process, you you learn you're around uh a wide array of people, right? The experience sets that you get are off the charts. And so what I would say is uh uh, you know, the old adage, you have two ears and one mouth, listen twice as much as you talk. If you can if you can learn and you can take your time and you can build a reputation for delivering, people will rise in the process. They really will. Young people will, and they they can stick with it. In my time as an aide, I saw a lot of really talented people that that didn't end up sticking around in that process because they they either uh were really eager to move fast, or they just you know, so lack of patience to be able to the uh listen more than they were talking, or um they just wanted to earn faster. And so you you just have to be able to stick with it. One of the the stories that I I think I'll tell that I really uh learned a lot from myself uh was uh I was humbled pretty well. So in a in a committee, a criminals uh sub-uh committee, we had a bill uh for you were presenting for Senator Richter. I was presenting the bill for Senator Richter, and it had to do with increasing the penalties uh for committing a felony against a senior citizen in the state of Florida, a third-degree felony, and increasing the uh dollar threshold on the limit by which a third-degree felony becomes a second-degree felony. And um the the committee didn't have all the members in the committee, right? So quorum was close and the vote was tight. Uh, Sether Ricker was in the Judiciary Committee at the time, so they could meet quorum. And so I went to present the bill, and the minority leader was in the committee, and he had some strong thoughts about that bill. Uh, at the time, it was Representative Pasadomo's bill in the House, the future Senate president, and she was very passionate about the bill was much broader than this one topic. But the debate that went on over this single topic uh was interesting because the members started to feel the tide shift when they realized that the minority party was really strong on that issue. And because two Republicans weren't there in the committee, they realized that they may have the vote. And so they they were pushing it hard. And as a staffer, you have to remain, you know, of understanding that those are members duly elected by their constituents. You have to be mindful of how you're presenting that bill, remaining respectful, and trying to present the case for the member that sent you there to do it without uh you know overstepping. So uh, and that was the first time that I ran into a moment where I wasn't able to advance the bill, but fortunately, because I knew the rules of procedures, I was able to temporarily postpone the bill. And so I asked for the bill to be TP, the committee chair granted me that. I went to the uh uh judiciary committee to get Santa Richter. I I told him what happened. He came down to the committee while it was still going on because uh judiciary gets out and he he goes to the committee chair and he tells him, he talked to the minority member, and uh he goes to the podium and he effectively led with, well, what what my aides said. And they ended up taking the bill and they passed it. So he it it was it was a good lesson for me in learning that humility, but also back to the the loyalty component. And that bill uh ultimately that year didn't get across the finish line, but the next year it did. And that gets back to the long game, right? Of of if you're doing the right thing, take your time and get it done.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

No, it takes time to get bills done. We worked on a couple of bills together. That took a couple years and it was fun. Uh, do you wanna you wanna jump down that bill at all a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Or yeah, we we had had that's a great uh a great point. So we had a governance change bill uh that we worked on for Lee Health, and Lee Health had been an independent special district uh created in 1968. The health system's as old as 1916, so entering its 110th year. Uh in 1968, the Florida legislature made it public, but it didn't give it taxing authority. The largest public district in the United States when it converted, but didn't collect a tax. So from 68 to 2024, it was public. And then starting in 2024, private nonprofit mission agreement with Lee County. It took a three-year window to get that legislative um proposal in the right posture to be able to pass the legislature. Initially, what we thought is they would like to see us change the the structural authority of the public districts. Uh, and eventually, what we understood based on all the stakeholders, including the committee staff and uh the other health districts, and uh even some of the opposition to the bill, is that they would have preferred to see a uh a university. Of government uh go away. And so we we worked with our own board of directors and all the internal stakeholders and ensuring that we could deliver that mission. And it took uh four total years, and you passed that bill twice, and we got it done.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Larry with the the back flow from I don't know what it is. It's a backfire. Shout out, Larry, or the turbo. Well, that that was that was uh that was a lot of fun. I remember we were there and just dealing with staff, and you know, it was uh you know, it was just I remember we were there, I remember we were there, Jake. It was kind of funny. And it's it's staff has to do their job, right? And you have lobbyists doing their job and you have the members doing their job. I remember we were there and we had a meeting, it was probably like 8 30 in the morning or something. And it was a 30-minute meeting, we got till nine, and I remember one of the staffers go, Representative, it's nine o'clock, is there anywhere you need to be? Are you are you okay? And I said, Well, we can stay here as long as it takes to we figure out something. And it's funny when that happened, the staff kind of changed. And I remember the staff director saying, Well, you know, you're kind of between a rock and a hard place. I mean, she could have said that at the beginning, but she did, you know, and it just went down there. And I remember walking out with Michael after, and I'm like, well, why don't we just do X? Why don't we just do it for make it, you know, just make a general bill. Just do it general for the whole state. Yeah, and that was kind of for one hospital, but generally. And there was a couple districts that got excited about it. So we did it as a general bill, and it passed. Like we got it passed as a general bill, and it was passed in the Senate. So when you have a regular bill, you have to have it one in the House, one in the Senate, got it passed. And it passed, and it got vetoed by the governor. It got vetoed by the governor. Um, but then we came back the next year and we walked right. I mean, we didn't have I mean we had some other lobbyists that were fighting against it because there's uh there's an issue that happened in Florida. Rick Scott, where he got rid of certificate of need. So whenever a hospital had to be built, you had to go get a certificate of need. And I you want to explain that a little bit? Yeah, sure. But a certificate of need, yeah. Is there like a board? Yeah, or what you know, kind of like so the I don't even know what that means, but that's why I knew that.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I knew that part, but I knew the the certificate of need was the Department of Health had to approve whether or not there was a need for a health care service. So, for instance, a hospital and acute care facility, if you're gonna build a new hospital, you have to go to the Department of Health in the state of Florida and ask for approval to build it. They would look at all of the discharge codes for a particular area and say, there are enough people in this zip code utilizing hospital services that are having to travel far enough that that makes sense, right? But yes, you can build it. The reason they did that is because they didn't want an over-proliferation of hospitals because they're expensive, right? We're, you know, I can tell you we're building one right now that's gonna fall just short of a billion dollar investment because that's how much it costs to build a hospital under today's practical standard of what must be in the room, who must be providing the care, how much space you need to have between the floors for Ethernet, like all that stuff. So when you think about the way they were doing it, it it certainly made sense. They still do it for trauma centers, for hospice, for nursing homes, right? But when they they repealed it for hospitals in 2019, that sort of changed the dynamic. What it meant was any private nonprofit or any private for-profit could build a hospital anywhere in the state without restriction. But the public hospitals were geographically landlocked. They were like a municipality. You're subject to staying within the borders of what you are. And so Lee Health without a tax had to make the decision. Does it make sense? Can we keep the mission without having to be this governance structure? And do we fundamentally believe we can? And we we got there thanks to great advocates and uh to yourself and and the members of the delegation.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Yeah, because otherwise at the end of the day, it was gonna come on our back because there's enough hospitals that are gonna come here, simply put. More hospitals are moving into our area and they're cherry-picking the stuff that makes money. So then you're just stuck with this hospital, and now then we're stuck with uh tax, right? And it was crazy is it it got passed, and we had to fight, you know, some other hospitals because they didn't want it. They wanted to kind of let something die in the vine and buy it cheaper later. And uh then we we got through the process, got it signed by the governor, everything was good. And then Michael had to well, uh Lee Health had to kind of put this whole process because you you had to you had to you what is the transmissional, what would you call it? You had to transition, I guess, to uh to a uh a non-for-profit. And uh while this was all going, you know, there was a certain time because there's a lot of stuff that comes down from DC where we were talking federal dollars, because it's the safety net hospital. And Jake, one'd you know there happened to be a hurricane coming right as this was because there was a certain date that it had to be done, because there was like a three-minute clock, three-month clock or something. Or it was something like along those three, a month a clock a clock that had to be stuck, and when you know it struck 12, it had to be done. Well, here comes a hurricane. And it had to go to the county commission because the county commission, because the alleged Lee uh entirely Lee County owned this hospital. So then there were some folks on the county commission that were kind of like, uh we have some we have some concerns. Well, there was there was stuff, there was entities that were interested in it. And you know, the county's like, well, we we're taking uh, you know, we're not gonna vote on this because we've got too much going on, hurricanes coming, all that. So actually the governor had to get involved. Do you you want to you want to touch on that a little bit? Yeah, it's kind of yeah, it's kind of like a perfect storm of stuff, and it hits it's like checkers, right? And there's there's always parts that are moving. Uh, but yeah, you want to touch on that.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Well, just real quick, we'll have to clarify Lee County never owned the hospital, so we'll have to cut that part. Yeah. But the the part where they did have to vote, so the law created a timeline and it said from when your board votes to start until the end, there's a 420-day specific period of time and three uh sub-points. And by each point, you have to make the next vote, next decision. And then when you get to the end, your board and the county commission have to vote to accept the mission agreement. So we a little bit more than three months. Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

So it took it took a little over, a little over a year from start to finish. But we, you know, not long after the the authority was created, the board decided to explore it. And then after a study, uh three-month study was conducted uh by um Kaufman Hall, the the results of the study said, uh we believe it's in the best interest of Lee Health and the patients they serve to make this conversion. So then the next three months were spent in terms of building the structure to do it, and then the next three months were spent in negotiating with the county and building that mission agreement to see if it could be done. But of course, to your point, when you get to the end and there is a deadline and then a hurricane's bearing down, and the county closed for that the week that the vote was set for. So uh we had uh reached out to the governor and the director of emergency management, uh, Mr. Guthrie, and and we asked for some assistance because there was no the law didn't contemplate a pause. It would have necessitated starting over that 420-day process. So they they looked at it and they said, it's clear what the intent was that the process finished, how they vote is up to them, but we're we're gonna give you the time to finish it. So the governor uh threw uh Director Guthrie in an executive order and an emergency order of the authority created under the hurricane. Uh, they extended the clock, and uh in that extended clock, we got the it got it up for a vote, and the county commission ended up passing it unanimously.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

It's politics. It's politics, Jake. It's all this is kind of like a people would be like, this is so boring. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. It's kind of interesting. It's just an interesting look at inside. Like, this is how we could be there at the bar and just talking and just listening for a lot of a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

So, but uh a lot of well, something you said earlier too, right? Like just talking about that history. Uh you talked about how Governor DeSantis is a great governor. We and that's true, and we've been fortunate for the the last several cycles. Uh, you know, we've had some strong governors, right? As we're watching the storm brewing behind us.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Same same as last week, too. Yeah, they were by the end of it, my hair was just blowing.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

So it and with with these governors, we've seen the modern governorship in Florida really develop into something that it wasn't prior to uh let's say the 1980s. And as each, you know, from Governor Martinez on, you've seen each governor get a little bit stronger in the way they exercise the office. And they they've all had their own spin on it, right? But in the recent, in the last uh handful between Governor Bush and uh, you know, even Governor Christ to degree, Governor uh Scott, and now Governor DeSantis, all of them have put their stamp on what they think the office uh should be in response to the needs of the state. Florida, think about it, now has over 24 million residents as of today, right? We we the growth has been unbelievable. It's uh it's something to really applaud. And so now we have a state that is millions larger than the state of New York. New York's state budget is twice the size. New York City's budget is about $9 billion larger than the entire state of Florida's. The governor just signed a $117.5 billion budget, right? State of New York, I think, just or the city of New York just passed a $126 billion budget. So crazy. When you when you think about, you know, it's it's uh it's efficient, we we always there's always more to do. We always have more people to help, without a doubt. But I I really I you know if if I were were betting, I would bet on Florida. This is a great place to live.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

I was talking to Airbnb, some uh representatives from Airbnb this past week. I think the number one country for Airbnb, like if it's uh like just if you went down to it, France is number one, number two is Florida, and then like three is I think Italy or something, and four is California. You know, it's just it's that's how it compares just the amount of people that use uh this stuff. It's like the world, you know, the World Cup. Everybody comes here like, oh my god, this is amazing. This is you know crazy. But yeah, Florida, Florida's definitely booming.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Speaking of the World Cup, we got a game tonight too, right? So we're playing Bosnia-Herzegovina. We've the United States has to, you know, that's right, yeah. Go USA.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

That's that's I you know, I never I mean, I remember a World Cup when it was here like in '94, right? I was 10. I remember, you know, seeing it a little bit, but man, it's like crazy now. These people are are insane. Uh, but it's it's a great, you know. I love seeing all the videos where people come here from you know out of the country, like, this is amazing. You get a free real fill on your coke, you just you just just take it up there and they bring you more. This is so good. And then you have the funny ones where the guy's going back into, you know, France and he goes, This doesn't look like your passport. I've been in the US for you know three weeks, and he's ginormous, you know. It's kind of this is not you. No, no, no, it's me. I've been in the US for three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

So well, that's you know, there's something really good about what you're saying there. It's experiencing the United States. It's it's hard not to love it when you get a taste for that that freedom, that ability to uh, you know, engage in the world as you see fit. And that's that that is the liberty. We're coming up on America 250, right? Today's July 1st or July 2nd. Yeah, we have two days before we're celebrating the 250th anniversary.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Yeah, well, yeah, pretty close.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

All right. So we have uh wait, wait, hold on, hold on. So this would be the first, yeah, yeah. All right, my bad.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

So all right, when this airs, it'll be the fifth. But yeah, so so come coming up on it. We have we're about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, right? A celebration of the United States. And in that, as we're sitting here in Southwest Florida and the state that Europeans reached first and colonized, and that, you know, in the 1830s became a state, we're here in this moment in time, and we are we are the lineage by which has to carry the United States forward. We we all have a part of it. And so every it's Abraham Lincoln who said, uh, you know, wherever you decide to stand, plant your feet and stand firm, right? Be great at whatever it is you decide to do, and that's your contribution to to what is a marriage.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

Yeah, no, it's it's crazy. I did some traveling this past week and I was coming back from Boston, and uh we were there and and I was talking to a guy who was just sitting next to me and he was a Paraguayan. I think they actually won that cup, which was you know, that game, which was crazy. And he's from Paraguay, and he's he's traveled around and he now he works for um I think it was Univision. And when when I were sitting up playing, people were taking pictures and I was like, all right, this guy must be somebody. So usually you don't talk until you land, then you get the quick two minutes, you know. And he said it was amazing. Like he came here 20 years ago, went to Chicago, but now he's flying all over the country. He's based in Miami, but he had to go to California Los Angeles twice, then he went to San Francisco, then he went to Houston, and he goes, These stadiums here are so amazing. He goes, you know, everybody says, Can America handle this? These stadiums are amazing. He goes, I'm in Houston and it's hot. You know, and you go in this building and you go in the stadium and it's cold, you know, and you have 80,000, 70,000 people in there. And he says, You don't see any empty seats. I mean, these seats are going for two and three thousand dollars a piece, and they're just selling out, you know, it's it's it's crazy. So, you know, it it's gonna be hard for anywhere else to uh compete. I mean, to go with these things. I mean, they do this, and I think nor it's North America, right? So they do play some in Mexico, they do play a little bit in uh Canada. So uh it's pretty wild for sure.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

So it's been it's been fun to watch. And uh, you know, I'll tell you, putting on my uh nonprofit uh service hat for a second. So I you know I I do San Bell Captiva Chamber of Commerce, and we're partnering with Greater Fort Myers Chamber and the FRLA, and that you know, the more we do to bring people in, we've noticed that that spores certainly help with that. And the off-season, whereas we're bringing people down and keeping them on the beaches and showing them how great this area of the world is. Like what what the the Europeans traveling across the United States are experiencing is exactly what a lot of people feel like even even residents of the US, when they come here to Southwest Florida, when they realize just how great it is, they want to stay and be a part of it. And so that's that's certainly our goal.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

And the thing is, it was crazy. He goes, you know what, you know what it's and this is a guy that's from Paraguay. He goes, Paraguay, I don't think they have that many people. It's a pretty small country, right? They beat Germany, which was crazy. He goes, in this country, you can have beer, you can drink in the stands. Paraguay, we could never do that. You know, and he goes, you go to other events around the world, like you go to Europe. If you're a German uh supporter, you go to your side. You're English, you go to your side. There's no it's like against the law to sit with the other because they have so many fights and there's arguments. He goes, here, you see everybody, you see everybody just sitting together. He's like, this would never happen anywhere else. Like, and then he says, everybody's happy. You know, everybody's hanging out and talking, and you know, they're taking pictures, and it's just uh it's just a cool, cool experience.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

We we don't fear the debate here in the United States, right? We celebrate the difference, and that's that's part of what makes us great. Sure, it's uh it's a little rough and tumble sometimes, right? Oh, but yeah, we we would take this form of government over anything else.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Yeah, I would do it, Jake. You worried at all or are we good, buddy? Yeah, we we did this last time. Okay, very good. We didn't get blown away yet, so we're doing alright. Let's see what how much time we got left.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Oh yeah. We'll probably get some weight on us a little bit, you know. Blow blow the hair around. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

Um, so I mean yeah, that's talking about the two three, all right. I mean, it's gonna be great in DC, but it's everywhere. What do you guys want to do? Well, this is Arizona uh Sunday. What do you guys win on the front Saturday for the fourth with our kids? We're just gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Uh we're we're gonna head out to Sanibel for the parade in the morning, and we're gonna do a golf cart parade out on uh uh then uh we're probably gonna be out on a boat here. And uh yeah, we're gonna head out hopefully to uh Lover Ski and uh either New Pass or Big Carlos Pass. That's where we like to go. And then uh we'll spend some time uh enjoying uh sparklers and fireworks and and just stuff for the little so they really enjoy it. And I really want them to remember this.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

Welcome back, folks. Um a little bit of rain. We had to move in here, change the pace uh back in here. So we're in our soon-to-be ship store. So we're gonna have drinks and and shirts, and we finally got the permitting done, so it's gonna be good. I told the kids when they come back there's gonna be ice cream, they're like ice cream. I was like, yes, you know, families are gonna love Felicia. Felicia's like, no. I was like, who wants a cookie? You know, who wants hot chocolate?

SPEAKER_01 38:49

That's called market intelligence.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Well done, yeah. You know, so we're doing that. But I don't know where we left off with a storm, but you can see it's starting to come out there. So I think it was a good idea that Jake's behind the scene here now, uh, keeping an eye on everything and making sure we're good to go. So I don't know where we left out.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

We were talking about um bringing people to Southwest Florida as it was growing, kind of a launch off the World Cup discussion and what that meant and why it was important. Uh and and I think it, you know, along with all the great things we do that make it easier, the the move here and live here, we have to be good stewards of that, right? Uh, you know, you you're uh both as a legislator and on the water as a business leader, uh you you've taken a lot of uh of your time, effort, and energy in making sure we're protecting the water. And I think that's something that that impacts, you know, health, wellness, traveling, uh, quality of life here. It's certainly uh there's a a good deal of conservatism in that kind of environmental stewardship, and all that's been um uh very important, but we also have to manage it with growth, right? We we can't shut Southwest Florida down. People are moving in, and and we have to be here with them to grow together.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

That's a great point. You know, I don't know if we were talking about it. I don't think I talked about this in the podcast last week, but it's getting time towards election season, right? Elections are coming up, you have the primaries coming up here. We're gonna have a uh a primary for the for Congress, which is gonna be interesting. There's a ton of people running. Um, and people are like, you endorse anybody, I was like, no, endorsement. I learned a long time ago, endorsements don't mean crap unless they're from the president or the governor, right? And I'm neither of those. So, you know, I I always tell people just get out there and work, you know, get out there and work. And there are a lot of people working, but it was interesting, you know, just seeing what's happening here locally, but just trying to figure out you know what you can do for our area. And as far as you you work with the chamber, the chamber of Fort Myers.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Uh so I'm I'm the chair of the Sanabou Captiva Chamber of Commerce. We recently partnered with the Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce, of which our CEO is a CEO of both. And we just announced the inclusion of the FRLA, the local chapter, that we're now going to be governing that too.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Yeah, and that's that's a perfect example where you have all these duplicating entities, right? And if you can kind of come there together, which is interesting. So, you know, our big thing with these newspapers are reaching out, even the chambers, like what can you do about you know, affordable housing in Florida? Well, we've done a lot in legislature with Live Local, a lot of stuff like that. But the thing I feel that we need to work on better here is more roads. And that was the thing. I had an employee, and I tell this to people all the time, I had an employee who lived in Lehigh. He spent two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening going to and from he never left Lee County, which is crazy, right? Uh a couple years ago I tried to put a study together. I did it, I learned this is how you learn the stuff, right? I stuck it on one bill, like let's let's do a study to merge Lee, Collier, and Charlotte County. Okay. Bill died, didn't work out. Didn't do it for years. So last year, I put it in four different bills, Michael. Four different bills where the study where one bill would die, I pop it over to another one, and another bill would die, and I pop it over in another one, and I would amend onto this and then onto that. And what this does is the Metropolitan Planning Organization for each county, you know, comes up with an idea of what we need to do for roads in our area. And what I see down here, what happens is I'm not quite sure these numbers, but I'm pretty sure it's 70% of Lehigh works in Collier County. You know, a lot of those folks that live up there come down down one road, you know, 75 or 41, right, to get down there. And the traffic's just terrible. You know, so I finally got this this study in there. We put in four bills, all the bills died, and I got it in the budget. So I I put it in the implementing language. And no, and so what this does is says, I need to know a study that starts right after the bill was signed for for the budget. I need to know in six months, you know, what this comes out with. And I was talking to DOT, and they say, You understand, usually this takes 15 years to get done to merge, you know, to look at this. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna come up with this uh you know, idea and say, all right, let's take a look, a regional look at what we can do with our roads here, because it's a big problem. And now I'm not talking about building four more 75s. What I would like to see from north to south is maybe a limited access road. By limited access, I mean a toll road. You know, something that comes by the airport and comes down into Lee County and comes down into Collier and just makes it easy access to get down there, you know, and then they have the opportunity to still take 75 if they don't want to pay a toll road. You know, but I I think we really need to look at that because number one for safety. You know, how hard it was it to get out of here if there was a hurricane? You know, you remember it took my folks like five hours just to get to Tampa, you know, which is insane. So I mean the keys has a 24-hour roll, you know, so there's certain things that we need to work on. So I mean that's something that we're gonna work on. I think that's something, you know, I mean, as far as in the all these newspapers, like, what do you do about affordable housing? I think we just need to make it easier for folks where it's affordable to live to get to their job.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

So I I think we've taken a lot of bites at the apple. And you're educating me as it relates to the MPOs, right? That's all yeah, you're you're good.

SPEAKER_03 43:50

This is good. I get to educate Michael Natchez.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

This is great. Hey, I appreciate the learning opportunity that uh you you and I both know what it's like to travel all across this region, right? And we certainly have limits to north, south, east, west. So to the to Lee County's credit on the extension of Liko Road going out to State Road 82, that gives you one more east-west. So when you think about the way 82 itself lends in the MLK from downtown and then comes all the way down towards Corkscrew Road and then eventually runs in the State Road 29 at that intersection of Lee and Collier counties. So they're going to have Corkscrew Road, the furthest south one that goes east-west. Then they'll have Aleco Road, then Daniels Parkway, Colonial, and then 82 itself. That that helps, but we just talked about a million people being in Lee County. And to a large degree, much of the workforce is living uh in Lee High Acres or in Cape Coral or in unincorporated Lee County, and they're traveling to areas uh like the one we're in now in Benita Springs or in the Naples.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Like if you're looking to buy a house, folks, buy in East Naples and work in four Myers because you're going the opposite way of the traffic. You know, it makes your life a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

So that's part of the consideration, right? Is people have to think about it's it's not just where the best schools or you know, where's the best health care or where can I get my food or what do I like to be around? They have to think about what is my commute going to be like. We can't build underground here. There, there's not going to be uh mass transit in in this area like there are in some others. Uh, you know, there's there's looks at alleviation through things like uh, you know, more bike trails, things like that, making it easier for people that live within geographic radius to take a bike to work, uh, wider sidewalks, uh, more walkable streets in some of the traditional downtowns. Benita's doing a great job right around that kind of sugar shack area in uh old uh old 41 access. Fort Myers is doing a lot of work in their area, so too is Cape Coral. So you're seeing some of those things that um, you know, keeping people close to where they are so less folks are on the road, that's part of the solution. Deciding where the move, so you're going the opposite way of traffic, that's part of what people are doing. I think that uh, you know, more east-west is gonna help. Um, and you know, as we see advancements in technology, I I was driving back from Orlando the other day. Uh, not that uh I'm suggesting people do this, but I saw uh and um to my right side on I-4, I saw uh a young lady in a Tesla, uh full car. Uh the Tesla was doing all of the driving. I know that because she was never looking at the road, not once.

SPEAKER_03 46:27

Just like me on my phone right now.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

But I I mean, so that the question becomes is technology advances, does it improve the existing infrastructure and make that sort of flow happen easier?

SPEAKER_03 46:39

Great point. Like, does is there a way we can work on the lights where everything just goes, you know, instead of having two cycle, you know, go two cycles north to move stuff further? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not an engineer, but there's gotta be some stuff there that makes more sense.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

So asking the right questions and and and sort of letting, you know, the the free market tends to solve things better than government, right? We we've seen that time and again. And so as technology advances, government does need to create the guardrails around it. So it becomes as accessible as possible, as fast as possible, and so that everyone can benefit from those advancements, but that also where they're not competing. Uh, you know, in the early 1900s, you know, only very rich people had a car, everyone else had a horse. By uh, you know, 2010, only very rich people had a horse, everyone else had a car, right? And so when you think about the way that society flipped in and that modem, where are we going to be 30 years from now?

SPEAKER_03 47:37

Jolby, the the the the the the the the air taxis or whatever, which is actually kind of interesting, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

And and putting our our faith in those systems. And so we we all have direct responsibility. You're you know, yours is a business leader is a legislator, my you know, mine as a health system administrator and an advocate, and uh, you know, husband and father, right? Looking at at what is important for my family. I I can tell you this as technology advances and we see more people coming here. Uh I love Southwest Florida and and we just want to be here for it. That was a good flash of lightning.

SPEAKER_03 48:11

Yes, it was not not bad at all. Uh yeah, so I mean there's a lot of great stuff coming. I got a little thunder. Uh there's a lot of great things coming to Southwest Florida, but I mean people I've realized that a lot of people want to live here. I mean, that's just the where it is. And we have a lot of folks saying, you know, well, I move here now, I don't want anybody to move behind. You know, it's it's tough. It's always a tough animal. But you know, we just have to really look at some hard stuff here and say, hey, we gotta make some decisions. And you know, I'm not saying more growth, but we do need to have some more roads that are gonna be, and that's where that limited access comes in. We are not having a bunch of off-ramps or more development. This is just gonna be that. I mean, there's a pre there's a reason we're here. There's a reason we're not Hollywood, Florida, or Fort Lauderdale, or you know, Miami, and it will never be that. You know, maybe you know, a hundred or two hundred years from now, probably, but not in our entire future, you know. I mean, this is gonna be a different animal. I remember talking to the the MPO board. We're talking about, you know, well, I go, well, do you want your grandkids sitting in traffic all the time? Because we're all gonna, you're all gonna be gone by the time we talk about this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

So well, okay, so to that point, think about like Duval County, Jacksonville, right? I I think we are on the precipice of being like a Jacksonville. That's that's the size and scope of what's happening here in Lee County. But they're a single government entity, effectively, right? And you know, the city is the county, and vice versa. And so when you look at the size, scale, and scope of what that county is is being deployed like, and you think about what's happening here regionally between the five counties in Southwest Florida, coordination's a good thing. Making sure we do it right in respect to the law and the people that are working on it absolutely matters, important. But it's okay to ask tough questions to see if we're doing it right. I mean, we are we just we talked about this earlier with Lee Health Nor Governance Change that you know, that's asking a publicly elected board to vote itself out of existence to help the people it serves, right? Oh, yeah, it was fun. And so that's you know, to a large degree, when you're asking the stakeholders, is there a way of doing this better than how we're doing it today? They have to sometimes envision a world where it's you know it's not centered around what they do each day. And so we as we continue to ask those questions in advance, the the center of all of it is what is best for the people we're all trying to serve.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, uh there's a lot of great things coming here, and I'm excited to be here and excited for these next two years. So make sure you vote, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Uh what do you what do you want to see more from a uh we talk about this for recruitment of young physicians and and nurses all the time. Uh I'll I'll jokingly say more sugar shacks, right? More what we need is more places for families to kind of congregate around and enjoy the time together, multi-generational, you know, from the young kids to older adults, uh, family-friendly, uh drivable, walkable, and and you know, something for everyone. So, what like how do we encourage more of that kind of development? I mean, the you know, the boat club here is a good example of a business that draws people out from all walks of life and AV.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

We have so many boats here, and you're, you know, you don't have, and we have, you know, 550, you don't have 500 boats out there. So this is a a a different way to get out there and utilize everything on the water and just have the fun. You've had all the fun without the hassle, right? Right. You know, because it's a big investment to buy a boat. So you're talking to buy a decent boat right now, you're talking $100,000. Just just just right out the door, you know, boom. That's what it is, you know. And what's tough for you, right? I mean, you're you're a dad and you have kids and you have three kids, four kids, and they're all busy. You know, and the thing is what happens to a lot of these folks is what happens is they buy that boat and they're out there every weekend because I put a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, we're going on a boat this weekend. And what happens to the kids, they get burnt out. You've seen it already with just just having you got boats with slides, and your kids still get burnt out. Yeah, you know, and they're and they're young. They will appreciate it later in life, definitely. But it's just that kind of mentality, you know, they're just like, eh, you know.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

I uh there is nothing that will humble you more than uh than being a uh a husband and father, right? So Richter used to say to me all the time, you know, Mike, you gotta go home to get the disrespect you deserve. At at work here in the legislature, everyone will tell you you're the you're the smartest, you're the tallest, you're the funniest, you're the best looking. Go home and your wife will remind you exactly where you stand in this world. And that's a good thing, right? Yeah. We we should all be reminded that um everyone's an audience of one, right? And and we, you know, that that exercise and and um just living to be in that moment with those people around you. And you know, no matter how broad of a scale we work on, every day I go to work and get to do amazing and big things, and I still try to be home every day to make dinner, right? Or or to just be there with my kids for homework or or whatever else. Uh I'm able to do that because my wife's amazing. She's a great mom and and just the best. Uh I I do a lot of community service and probably, you know, I'm always trying to make my way home.

SPEAKER_03 53:13

You are at a lot. I mean, you had a week off this week, so that's that's probably great for you. You're enjoying it?

SPEAKER_01 53:19

We are, yeah. We uh we did we did a little bit of uh time in Orlando. I told you about Discovery Cove, and then we're back and doing the boat. But even even in that time off, uh, you know, it's we're always on, right? So how many phone calls, emails, uh we're we're always accessible in this world. And so that just we talk about the balance too, right? Everyone wants a shot at balance. My uh my version of balance, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for everyone, is uh I'm on 24-7, and who knows how long uh that can last. It works for me, I'm energized by it. I love helping people. I I'm never worried about what comes from that. I just help the next person and do the most good. But if my wife calls me at 3 p.m., I'll answer if I'm at work. If if my CEO calls me at 3 a.m., I'll answer. And that's sort of the point, right? That's my version of balance because I feel like I'm accessible to everyone who needs me and uh it works for me. Now, for our for others, I wouldn't say answer the phone at 3 a.m. What I'd say is uh find what works for you and don't let someone else shape that.

SPEAKER_03 54:26

1080-10. I remember you always said that, so for sure. Uh we'll come to the end of the show here. What's your favorite thing to do on a boat when you're in a boat club? What's your like what's your go-to day?

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Great question.

SPEAKER_03 54:37

Uh so besides forgetting lunch today. We're not gonna think of that bad.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

So yeah, I that's a good point. So we we love going out usually around 10:30, 11. And we'll so we'll go over lunch, we'll head out to somewhere around Lovers Key. My kids love those beaches, big Carlos Pass, you know, just running up the slide boat on the beach. They'll uh you know, we'll have lunch on the beach, they'll play in the sand, they'll play in the water, they'll go down the slide. We have run in the friends constantly, right? Like kids, uh my my kids' friends just from school, like their parents all of a sudden they're on the beach with them, or like friends, adult friends that we know, and and without calling anyone, people just show up, and all of a sudden you're having what feels like these small block beach parties where everyone's just enjoying each other's company, getting the chance to connect.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

You can't you can't create that, it just has to happen naturally in a boat. Organic. Well, Michael Natchef, thank you very much for uh coming into the podcast. It was a lot of fun. A lot of a lot of stuff we learned here, so we'll have you back for sure. Uh Baywater Sousa Boat Club, thanks for tuning in. We'll be here next week, uh every uh Sunday morning, six to seven, right, Jay? Where can they find it?

SPEAKER_05 55:44

Uh you can find it anywhere. Anyways. Just Google Carney to Congress podcast, uh, sponsored by Baywater Boat Club. Also, you can either go to uh Apple to subscribe for the podcast and go to YouTube, everything. Uh Adam is sporadically posting shorts on Instagram and on Facebook for the Bawater page. So um the best way to find it is go to the website carny to to commerce dot com.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

And folks, thank you very much. We'll see you next weekend. Thanks to Baywater Exclusive Boat Club, the exclusive club of Southwest Florida.