I'm Jacqueline Stewart, host of the Academy Museum podcast.

This season, we'll explore the history of the job of casting director,

one of the most essential, but underappreciated roles in filmmaking.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

If you like Dream Town, the story of Adelante,

and want access to early ad-free episodes, join Friends of the Pod,

Crooked's new subscription community at crooked.com slash friends.

Now, if you forget what happened the last time I don't blame you,

main thing to remember is this, a guy named Bug rolled in the town and ran for a seat on the City

Council. He had a big plan. He was going to save the city of Adelante by legalizing

marijuana, growing it, that is. Well, he won, and so did a new mayor,

got by the name of Rich Kerr. Oh, I can't wait to see how this all goes.

Soon after Bug won a seat on the City Council, he was interviewed on a local television show

called California Edition. The host, Brad Palmerance, opened the segment by referring to the

recent election where all three incumbents had been defeated as an insurgents.

Bug and the new majority on the Council brought with them a lot of fresh ideas

about how to save the struggling city. They also brought a lot of chaos.

When reporter Shay Johnson first started covering the Adelante City Council meetings,

they were a bit of a snooze fest. Yeah, so Adelante Council meetings were really

sort of these mundane government meetings in a city that's really sort of a dusty outpost

of the high desert. And never really paid attention to city hall, city council,

politics here in the city. Growing up in Adelante, Devana Evans never thought much about local

...