There's gift I've ever received has to be a bike when I was younger, a pedal bike.

It was a sort of slick little road bike and I remember it was all like it was so it was all wrapped up

but it was so obvious what it was obviously because nothing shaped like a bike and had a little ribbon on it

and I was so guest. For that was a life changer and I'm still sort of big on cycling around my area now

so for that one change me a little.

Join in every sip with red cups now back at Starbucks.

So you know what we're just gonna we're in we're in it we are in because you already done you set the set the

set. So we're welcome welcome to an episode of small doses podcast. We have mayoral candidate Karen weaver of foot Michigan in the building and we were so happy to hear from y'all

because I really would love this podcast to not only continue to lighten and just like inspire and empower people and make them laugh

but it's the teaching part particularly as it relates to government because I feel like so much of our particularly black folks but so much of just the American public is really disenfranchised in our ignorance of how much of a role we really can play in the government reflecting our wants and our desires.

You know I think a lot of us are looking at a very right is not even that's a generous word like at a very.

Crystal fascist government like coming into play and we look at the mega of things and I think a lot of us feel like well how do we challenge that like what is that but what that is is that that base the the politicians of that base found a way to connect to those

people and make them feel seen and make them feel engaged right right and I feel like you know for those of us who are on the opposite side of that spectrum you know a side of common sense and of decency and of actual

actual you know civic duty etc we are looking to find out how do we find how do we get politicians and how do we get people public servants that reflect our wants but I think the thing that's missing for a lot of us.

Is like how does that happen and so I'm so happy to have you here because as we say the beginning like I think for a lot of us we don't even know what a mayor is expected to do I think a lot of us think of a mayor we just think of shaking hands and kissing babies and like showing a press conference is exactly and that it yeah absolutely right on so many fronts a lot of people don't know what mayors do and depending on what kind of mayor you have.

That's what determines it so in Flint we have a strong mayor form of government so we are not part of the council they don't put you say okay we're about decide who is the mayor we are selected by the people and so so that's one of the differences is a strong mayor form of government but you know what you were talking about something and it made me think because you were saying people felt heard and that's what made you know made that so strong.

And sometimes we a lot of times we don't feel heard I mean you think about it in in Flint in Michigan you can look and see what happened in Michigan all of our urban cities our black cities Flint Detroit Benton Harbor Pontiac

Muskegon prop I think in stir I'm leaving some out I'm sure we're taken over by an emergency management system where our voice and our vote didn't matter you know the people elected someone to be their mayor they elected people to be their council people and we voted against an emergency

manager coming because we knew that was a dictator form of government well guess what they overruled what the voters put in place how and so when those kinds of things happen yeah that's what we said how did that happen but it was during a lane

duck you know the governor was going out a new governor elected but that's what they put in place and they overturned what the people had voted for and that's why people become so disengaged and disenchanted with government because you're like okay we do come out and vote here's what we vote for and there's still a loophole for this to be overturned and so what happened in Flint was it was overturned and the government came in the state the governor came in and said that the

mayor and the city council the people that were elected to represent the the city had no power they had no power and so you have a dictator form of government is what happened in Flint

that's that's how and this is on the heels and this is on the heels of the of the water crisis what this is what this is where the water crisis that's what so we had an emergency manager for six years when I got into office wow there it been an emergency

...