How much of this is, you know, malign, you know, people just screwing up with good intentions? And when does actual, you know, what we call corruption come into play?

No, I think that's really a pivotal question about sort of the whole scene that we're facing right now in this country, which is you can certainly argue that there are a lot of fine people in government and, you know, frankly, in the federal government.

bureaucracy too, but that at the state level and at the local level, they are routinely underfunded.

We can start with that.

Some of that is going to get worse right now because of all the cutoffs of reductions in federal money that's going to the states is going to ripple down to, you know, your school, your clean water, whatever.

So they're already, they have a tough fight to begin with because they're already underfunded.

And I think it's It's getting worse right now because of this change in the way Washington is operating.

So how does that play out at the local and state level? Yeah.

Can you just give us a little of that story?

Yeah.

So the book is about five different communities and five different people of all walks of life who discover problems in their community and learn to crack the code of secrecy, basically.

So in Alabama, in a community called Uniontown, which is a couple thousand people, it's small.

It is a historically black community.

People are the relative, the descendants of slaves, sharecroppers, etc., And it's not a very affluent community at all.

There are some pockets of, I wouldn't call it affluence, but middle class.

Will you do whatever I ask under any and every circumstance? And now with the Ellisons moving in, who are obviously pro-Trump, and people like Barry Weiss, what happens? What do we do if these revered institutions fall under the power structure of these billionaires that are...

But, um, just further thoughts on, on, on this example with Richard, uh, as well as specifically that battle in, in, in, um, trying to unearth from the government information and the government using laws, uh, to prevent that.

Yeah.

That, that's a, to me, one of the, one of the most interesting cases in a way because I think it's something that does happen in every community, just like you said.

You know, they want a stop sign on the corner or, uh, the school bus needs to take a different route that's safer or, you know, something like that.

And what this was is a- actually right outside of Washington, DC.

It's in Bethesda, Maryland, and it's, um, a s- but it's a state road, uh, a divided road, four lanes divided with a median.

And what was going on was that there is a back entrance to the local high school, and kids were, young drivers, you know, very inexperienced drivers are being forced to make a left turn to get into this back entrance where there's extra unregulated parking, which is probably part of the motive for why they're going that way.

And so, uh, yeah, if you wanna just tell us about, a, a bit about, um, this story and your thoughts there.

Right.

Right.... a- anyway, they, the community people and this, you know, guy who, uh, Richard Boltok, who was leading the effort, did get some data from Montgomery County, which is where this road is.

And they were able to get some accident reports, which are managed by the local police, even though it's a state road (laughs), that whole complication.

And so, and then, the state did give them a little bit of information, and they'd cross-checked the data that they did get, which was about local accidents at that intersection, with the state data, and came to realize the state did not have all the information included in their reports.

So they were making, they were turning down this request for this left turning light maybe with incomplete data, uh, which is (laughs), you know, another dimension to this.

But that's why peo- the public needs to get this information.

It can actually help the government do a better job.

Are there special interests that we should know about, I dare ask?