Guest Host: Rob Stevens (8am Hour), Guest: Brian Hamman

Investment advisory service is offered through Township Advisory Partners LLC. It registered investment advisor in Florida. Hey, it's me Jason Jay Jones from 925 Fox News. You know, a lot of people think if they've done well financially, retirement should be simple. But the reality is today is more complex than ever. Taxes, income, risk, and legacy, all of it is connected. And when those pieces aren't coordinated, even smart people can make decisions, they later question. That's why I recommend Alfie Townsend, and his team of Advantage Wealth Partners, right here in Southwest Florida. Alvey's a certified financial planner professional and a fiduciary. But what really sets him apart is his strategy. He helps people simplify complex decisions to see the big picture before making big moves. If you've built real wealth and want a clear or more confident path forward, start with a private 15-minute strategy conversation. Just text 15. That's right, 15 to 239-747-1041. Again, text 15 to 239-747-1041. A vantage wealth partners. Experience the Advantage Difference. This is Daybreak with Jason Jay Jones on 925 Fox News. 8.6 a.m. I'm Rob Stevens, in for Jason Jay Jones on Daybreak with Jason Jay Jones. You guys know me as producer Rob. But I am happy to be here this morning. And yeah, it's been an interesting morning thus far with all sorts of fun radio stuff. As you know, when we're live, obviously things can come around. But let's get into this story here. Now, the city of Cape Coral has... started to take some proactive action to respond to potentially a loss of revenue. For example, if the Florida homestead property tax exemption gets the 60% support on the ballot that it needs, then obviously governments are going to be forced to make some changes. So Cape Coral leaders have effectively slammed the brakes on hiring for... for lack of a better term, quality of life jobs amid uncertainty over statewide property tax reform. And they're trying to respond to this. So while public safety hiring continues, so for the critics that are like, well, I don't want to lose service to the police, I don't want to lose fire, I don't want to lose any of that. Services like that, public safety hiring is still happening. And city staff are already floating millions in cuts to parks, recreation events, and other non-essential services to keep the fiscal year 2027 budget balanced. So this is obviously fiscal prudence in action. I don't understand why every government can't approach this. What a novel concept. Tighten the belt and be responsible with the money you're entrusted with. This is public money. It's taxpayer dollars. You're elected officials. You are elected to be stewards of our cities, states, and our tax dollars. These are not yours to have. These are yours to manage. We've given you the privilege to manage this. And just like our government expects of us, how we have to tighten our belts if we need to pay our bills, you know, unexpected bills come up, car repairs, credit card interest, whatever it is.

We have to pay it. We have to tighten our own belts. But, you know, governments, cities, they can just go ahead and write a blank check and get whatever they want done. Well. While facing potential revenue constraints from property tax reform, the city of Cape Coral is taking the path of restraint, and I respect this. They're freezing non-safety hires, and they're identifying $12.9 million in possible reductions. The biggest hits to this are going to be, obviously, you know, when there's cuts, there's going to be impacts, but hopefully they shouldn't be painful. But the biggest hits that we will see is to development services, public works, parks and rec. and the city manager's office, which Mike Ilchisen, friend of the show, is the city manager of Cape Coral. And even though this maybe puts a tighter hold on his job, I think if I asked him today, if he supported this, he would be like, yeah, absolutely 100%. We need to be more fiscally responsible. That's why I like Mike, because Mike is that conservative. And I feel like that's how he would answer that question for me. So this is obviously putting taxpayers first. Options on the table include millage rate tweaks, higher assessments, spending cuts, but the emphasis on trimming the periphery rather than reflexively hiking taxes on hardworking residents like you is the key focus here. So they're trying to take a balanced approach in order to find the solution. Well, where can we make some changes in our budget? Where can we tighten the belt? where our residents aren't going to feel the pinch as hard. None of us want to compromise police and fire safety, medical help. We don't want to compromise on infrastructure. And it does kind of suck to say you have to make cuts to parks and rec because I use open spaces. I ride an electric unicycle. So open spaces are very, very valuable to me. But if that's one of those things that has to be, you know, sliced, then I guess that's just what we have to do. The police are more important than a park. And I know that some would disagree with that. And that's not as black and white as it seems. But I love that that we're taking this approach of what are the needs versus the nice to haves. What are the nice to have? What are the things that are a luxury? You know, it's the same ad, you know, I was told when I was, when I was poor and broke, that I had champagne taste on a boon's farm budget. And that might have been one of the best pieces of advice that I had received because my eyes were much bigger than my wallet was. And so I wanted to get more than I actually could afford. So I had to tighten my belt. I had to save money. I had to do what I had to do to prioritize what I wanted to do for that. So I think it's perfectly reasonable for us to ask our city and government officials to do the same. You are stewards of our money. You are stewards of a lot of money.

We elected you to go in there and manage it properly. It's time to do that. But, you know, Cape Coral is one of Florida's fastest growing cities. And that could maybe impact this one way or another. You know, if you have more people moving into the city of Cape Coral, then you're going to have more ability to generate revenue from taxes and stuff locally. You're going to have to, you'll be able to get more people into businesses. And that's what we like. You know, we like that there's growth in Cape Coral. Cape Coral's rapid expansion doesn't necessarily justify endless bureaucracy. So just because it's growing doesn't mean the government needs to grow with it, right? No, government should shrink. It should be a government for the people. And that's the approach that Cape Coral is taking. They are saying, yeah, we are growing. We've got to watch our budget because we may be impacted by this. If this changes, if this passes, we are. See, I love this because this means that if that property tax measure does pass and as it gets implemented, Cape Coral is going to be ahead of the curve. While everyone else is chasing, Cape Coral is going to be leading. And they're going to be like, well, you know, you should have did this a year ago when we did. Because people are going to, there are going to be other governments and consultants that come to the city of Cape Coral and be like, okay, what was your approach here that worked? That, of course, assuming it gets passed. But even if it doesn't get past, I think it's great that Cape Coral is taking action to shrink the size of their government anyways. I mean, that's good news for conservatives. That's good news for us. This is our city, our government, saying we want to shrink. That never happens, ever. Like we should embrace this and we should promote this. And we should encourage other cities to follow suit. I would love it if Fort Myers and Naples and Benita and all of them started taking similar approaches, saying, okay, what are the non-essentials that we can cut here? So this is smart, preemptive conservatism here. And they're preparing for potentially. lower property tax burdens that empower homeowners instead of city hall. And they realize that that's what's on the ballot. You have the ability to take power away from your government by way of the pocketbook, by way of the wallet, that checkbook. You, in Southwest Florida, have the ability to take that money back if you're a homeowner. So I think that this counters the progressive instinct to protect every program at taxpayer expense. They always talk about safety nets. Well, we want a social safety net. How do we protect it? Well, cut back. Find private funding. That's how you protect those. There are ways to do. I mean, come on, guys. We put up the tallest flag in Florida without a penny of taxpayer dollars. That's what you did, Southwest Florida, in Cape Coral. You made that happen. So don't look at the radio and shout back at me and say, well, what does my vote matter? I don't have any power. You absolutely have power. You have the power to take money back from the government, from the state. That's in your hands this November to take that money back. And maybe with that money, you can do something that will be more beneficial to your family or to your community or your church or your preferred charity.

You know, why give the government that $3,000 when, you know, maybe there's a charity or a church that you'd like to support? Food pantry, something. You have the ability to make the donation of your own money supporting the causes that you want to support. So while Cape Coral is doing some early stage budget workshops, I don't think they're waiting for the outcome here. They're acting responsibly. And they are modeling how cities should respond to this issue moving forward, I think. I've got Lee County Commissioner Brian Hammond coming up next. On 925, Fox News, after that, the 5 at 835. I am Rob Stevens in for Jason Jay Jones this Friday morning on 925 Fox News, Wright, all along. Details. Live, laugh, yell. You're yelling through me, not at me, right? The Glenn Beck program, mornings at 9, after daybreak with Jason Jay Jones. On 92-5, Fox News. 92-5 Fox News, daybreak with Jason Jay Jones. I'm Rob Stevens in for Jason Jay Jones this morning, this Friday morning, this beautiful Friday morning. Well, it might be stormy, depending upon where you are. According to Zach Malak, but I am inside this beautifully cool and dry studio here in Gateway. And joining us now on the program is Lee County Commissioner Brian Hammond. Commissioner Hammond, good morning, sir. How are you? Hey, good morning, Rob. Great to be on the show. You're doing a great job filling in, by the way. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. It's been a very interesting morning, to say the least. So there's some really exciting stuff happening in Fort Myers. From what I understand, this week, we started construction of the new pier, didn't we? Yeah, that's right. You know, after, you know, a long, two years worth of battling with the Army Corps of Engineers to get the permitting finished for the Fort Myers Beach pier rebuilt. We finally were able to start construction this week. We got the permit right at the end of last month. And now the great news is we believe this pier will be finished in 13 months, and it'll be open before the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Ian. And listen, I'm born and raised here. To me, that's way too long, but... The federal bureaucracy is an amazing machine. As you've been talking about bureaucracy all morning long, it's amazing how slow it was to get through the permitting process. But we got it done, and we went to Washington, D.C., we went to the Pentagon. We talked to the Army Corps directly face-to-face, and we got it done. And now we're going to get this thing built. Awesome. And for that, I thank you guys. You guys have done, you've had some great wins over the last few weeks. And obviously getting the permitting ready for the Fort Myers Pier was a big one. But there's also a new bridge to Fort Myers Beach, is there not? Yeah, that's right. Well, it's the big Carlos Pass bridge is what it's called. And yes, there was an old draw bridge that had basically outlived its engineered life and everything like that. It was still safe. Of course, we always inspect them and make sure they stay safe. But it was time to replace it. And so we replaced it with a new bridge. And we had to be really fiscally responsible with this new bridge. So if we would have gone back with a draw bridge.

it would have cost another $81 million to taxpayers over the life of the bridge to maintain a drawbridge. So we went with a fixed span bridge that's taller. It's about 60 feet tall. You can get boats underneath it. The Coast Guard allowed for the navigation of boats underneath it without a draw bridge. But we just thought it was the right decision. We didn't want to load people down with an extra 81 million of costs. So we did a fixed bridge, and it's beautiful. It's got the bike lanes and the multi-use paths on either side so people can use it. And then underneath what we're going to do, before the construction, this beach underneath the bridge was actually one of the most popular beaches. is people would stop by because it's right at lover's key. They would stop by and just set up there for the day. So we're going to put in parking underneath the bridge. We're going to put a bathroom trailer out there. We're going to restore it back to what people used to use it for. That's fantastic. Yeah, and I imagine having a fixed-length bridge that's higher will just be great for traffic on both sides because maintaining a draw bridge is not only strenuous for anybody that's sailing on the water, but also for drivers that have to stop and wait five to ten minutes for that cycle to happen. So obviously I imagine you guys are building the bridge or getting that bridge up high enough that all shipping traffic will be able to go on unhindered, correct? That's right. Yep, absolutely. That's right. That's what we did. And, you know, the thing about the Matlishe Bridge out heading from Cape Coral to Pine Island, it has a drawbridge. And that drawbridge, we're still working to get it completely repaired even after the hurricane. It takes a long time to get these parts. A lot of them are custom ordered for the bridge and that kind of stuff. And so with the big Carlos Pass Bridge now being a fixed span, you're not going to have to worry about that motor or anything like that. Yeah, that's fantastic, too. So are there any other projects in Lee County that you're working on right now, Commissioner? Yeah, next year is going to be a big year on Fort Myers Beach. If you just start at the north end of Fort Myers Beach, those Boutage Point bathrooms in that beach area, they've also been destroyed since Hurricane. We finally got the clearance and the approval that we need to get that rebuilt. And so those are under construction. They should be open by 2027. We're hoping by spring of 2027 that those are going to be open. We had to rebuild the boardwalk and everything out there. Then if you go down the beach to Lynn Hall Memorial Park, that's basically that big parking lot at Times Square on Fort Myers Beach, right when you come off the bridge onto the beach. Those bathrooms, you'll remember, were completely wiped out by Hurricane Inn. And so we are under construction. We're driving the piling for those right now. Those bathrooms should be open right around the same time that the pier opens up next year. So that'll be great to have all of that back. And then finally, there's a place called Crescent Beach Family Park. It's right next to Margaritaville on Fort Myers Beach. That should be opening much sooner.

We're going to turn that into, and it's already under construction, an event space for the people of Fort Myers Beach. They planted some nice grassy areas as well as sunset bench, they're calling it, where people can sit and watch the sunset as well. They also put some shade structures so you can have like, you know, little picnics and things like that out there. They're going to put the bathroom trailers out there. They're going to go with those nice modern bathroom trailers. It's going to be open. Fort Myers Beach is coming back. You know, we know that that's one of our top tourist destinations, and we need to keep it looking good and in good shape for all the people who visit and all the businesses who count on those tourists. Absolutely. Now, I believe that there was just a food truck park or something that had opened in Fort Myers Beach, too. So obviously with all of these projects in the works and all these wins that happen, Lee County and Fort Myers are going to look very different a year from today as all of these projects start to come together and come full circle and bring the culmination to the end of the treachery that was Hurricane Ian, Commissioner Hammond. I think you guys are doing a great job with this. Is there anything that we... we should be aware of this weekend going on in Fort Myers before I let you go, sir. No, I mean, I think you've got it all under control. You know, we're excited in August, the county commission, you might want to keep an eye on that. We'll set the tax rate for the upcoming budget year. You know, we've always either lowered the tax rate or at least kept it the same. This year, property values countywide actually came down. So we're working on what they call flat budgets. We're keeping the budgets flat. We're making sure that we... are prepared for a year where it's going to be lean. I like hearing that. I like hearing that, Commissioner Hammond. You know, I know Lean makes it a little trickier to work, but I love that you guys are taking the time and really trying to hone in on what matters, what's the necessities, and then what's the pluses and what's the quality of life stuff that we can maneuver. So Commissioner Brian Hammond, Lee County, thank you so much for joining us this morning. I hope you have a fabulous weekend, sir. Thanks, Rob. Talk to you later. Bye-bye. Thank you. Commissioner Brian Hammond talking about winds in Fort Myers, the Fort Myers Beach Pier construction getting started on there. The Commissioner telling us in 13 months before we hit that fifth anniversary of Hurricane Ian, the pier should be open. I think that whole area is just going to be stunning when it's done with all the new infrastructure. And you know, they're building this thing to withstand the next Cat 5. So hopefully we won't have to go through this again any time real soon. Coming up next on the show, we've got the 5 at 835. There's some interesting stuff here. We will get back into President Trump speech because I know that there's still a lot to unpack there. And we'll hear more from you. Phone calls 239-479-55-92. Rob Stevens in for Jason Jay Jones on Daybreak. 92-5 Fox News. Right. All along.

Naples airport noise, child's play. Trey Radle, Category 5, Truth Storm. The drive afternoons at 5 on 925 Fox News. Right, all along. 925, Fox News. It's daybreak with Jason Jay Jones. I'm Rob Stevens filling in for Jason Jay Jones. It's 837. The 5 at 835 is presented by Southwest Florida, oral and facial surgery, specializing in excellent care. Number five. I'm sickly tired of reading about how the administration's lost their guts with, you know, mass deportations. Do you know June last month, I arrested more aliens than any month in the history of the agency. Tom Homan, DHS secretary, chiming in on deportations, criticizing the news and media for saying that the administration has gone soft on deportations. So, I mean, okay, you can say that, but honestly, the less coverage of these deportations, the better as we go into an election season, I say just keep operating, keep running, keep deporting, stay out of the news. Number four. People keep asking me if I'm running for president. And I don't know, I might. I'm serious. I don't know. I might because people keep asking me to do it or if I'm going to do it. And I look around, you know, and I see the folks who are, you know, possibly in the running. And some of them are impressive. Many of them, most of them are not. I actually think I would be a really good president of the United States. So if a bunch of people asked you to jump off the bridge, Don Lemon, would you do it? Oh, a bunch of people. A bunch of people are telling me I should do it. I should jump off the bridge. I should just take the dive. That was, of course, Don Lemon saying that people want him to run for president and that he would be a great president. I think he'd be a terrible president. I'm sure most of this audience would agree. But the fact that he's just like, he's so arrogant in his statement for one. But the fact of the matter, like, the funny part of this is just, well, you know, people just tell me, tell me I should run. People tell me I should run. You know what? I've had people tell me I should be a politician. You think I want to get into politics? No, I'm close enough where I'm at right now. Number three. Some of those first articles, they would always start. She was wearing a purple sheath and she had on this pair of shoes. It wouldn't matter what I said, Kiki. The article would start with what I had on. Wow. And I realized, oh, this is how they do women in politics. Did you follow that? Could you follow that, Roger? I don't know. She just went right over my head. She lost me at Kiki. That was Michael Obama complaining, as usual. No, Michelle, you know, Michael is my little poke. We know it's a man. It's a man, baby.

if you wanted to consume it on CNN. CBS carried it live, but anchor Tony Dockapool. I think that's how you said. DokuPill. I'm sorry. Wow. He was there anchoring the whole thing, and he was rebutting claims up front, cutting away early to fact check. So CBS did not actually really deliver the speech to you. But Fox News, the cable network Fox News, aired it in its entirety. Trump respond to this, obviously, accusing the non-airing networks being a part of the plot. And, you know, this is where he opens his mouth and he gets in trouble. This is the kind of stuff that he does that I don't like. Because this just completely takes away from anything and everything positive that maybe he delivered here. But he's calling for the revocation of their licenses and, you know, all of that. You can't, I'm sorry, but you can't, as being a member of the media, I'm not okay with you punishing the media because they don't want to carry something. It's that we're going back to the Stephen Corp. whole bear thing all over again. We're going back to the Jimmy Kimmel thing all over again. No, we don't like him. I don't like him either at all. Wow, now you can see me on TV. I don't like it either. And so we have to push back when even our president says, Well, they should have their licenses revoked. They should be taken off air. They don't, you know, just because they're not going to carry me doesn't mean that. Seriously, we know that they're adversaries. We know. I mean, people in this audience are smart enough to know not to believe everything that ABC, NBC, CNN. And I would even give this audience the credit that they know not to believe everything that Fox and Fox News tells them. because our audience is discerning and they're informed. But not everybody is like that. But you can't, you can't condone. pressuring the media, encouraging censorship because they do something or carry something that you don't like. Now, yes, there are standards. And we're over the last year since Charlie Kirk got assassinated, we've been kind of navigating, you know, the gray area. What's acceptable? What's not acceptable? And that sort of thing, too. But you can't just go out and straight up censor media outlets. That's what the Biden administration did. They censored voices on the right. They hindered, they throttled. We can't be the ones calling to do the same thing, guys. We're wrong. If we're calling for ABC and CNN to be pulled off air, then we're wrong. We are on the wrong side of the issue. We should be for free speech. We're constitutionalists, right? We support the Constitution, the right to free speech? Yeah, the media's full of crap. Of course they are. But you're smart enough to know.

You're smart enough to discern and decide for yourself. Go find the information. The fact that these two networks didn't carry it, yeah, it's like, okay, they don't want President Trump to get their air. That's fine. There's other places that you can find it. But it is a part of their resistance campaign. We know that. So this obviously occurs amidst the FCC scrutiny of Disney and Comcast and Trump administration actions on the media. Democratic pressure to deny airtime, aka Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that whole thing. And the midterms loom large here, right? We are ramping up into election season. We've got about another week or two where we can kind of take a nice deep breath before we get full force into primary season and have to be paying attention because it's almost time to vote. And yes, your vote matters this year. And so does your neighbors. So get out there and talk to them. So mainstream outlet's decision risks confirming suspicions of biased. Okay. So we know they're biased. I mean, that's not really much of a surprise. But when public interest in election security is high, I think it just points to the fact that ABC and NBC are perhaps proponents of fraudulent elections, not tightening that up. Being a part of the narrative, propelling the leftist propaganda, empowering the socialists, empowering the communists. People will get mad at us and yell at us for calling them socialist when they're communists. I think there's a combination of both. I'd love to hear from you, 239, 479, 55, 92 on the president's speech before we wrap up today's show. There is a little bit more to go before Glenn Beck comes up at 9. I'm Rob Stevens in for Jason Jay Jones on Daybreak, 925 Fox News, right all along.

Listen to 92-5 Fox News. Now you can watch. Daybreak is live on Southwest Florida's CW. Start your morning with daybreak with Jason Jay Jones. Live from the 92-5 Fox News studio. Watch the drive with Trey Radell starting at five. Mornings with Jason, afternoons with Trey. Same shows, same conversations. Now on TV. Keep listening on 92-5 Fox News. Start watching on Southwest Florida's CW. Daybreak with Jason Jay Jones. Rob Stevens in for Jason Jay Jones on 925 Fox News. We're talking about the president's speech and the angle that CBS had pre-rebutted it in that NBC, ABC, and CNN didn't carry it other than outside of their small media channels. And boy, were there some colorful text messages that came in from this? Listen, guys, look, you are advocating. for censorship. You are advocating for the very thing that the Biden administration tried to do to our side. Now, hear me out. I understand that China is a threat. I understand that. But it doesn't mean that you can't go and find the president's speech here. Now, this is what I think. I think that you need to let the Democrats talk. Because if you just let him go, they're going to bury themselves. They always do. And if you remember, back in, it was a few months ago, I had went to one of these No Kings protests, and I had some of the best audio that I probably could have gotten in the field at that time where I asked Democrats at this rally a very simple question. Very simple. What's the top issue for you on the ballot this year? And all I got was, uh, uh, um, uh, uh, and it was just that. I had another lady that compared modern-day America to the handmaid's tale. Like, you have to, you let them bury themselves. They're so bad at it. They're so bad. And you, being the conservative that you are, we being the conservatives that we are, we have to go out and we have to combat this propaganda. We have to tell them to pay attention. We have to share with them other news sources. Obviously, people are going to go and they're going to find their source where they want to find their source. But you can't advocate for censorship, guys. As soon as the Democrats get back in power, it's going to be the same thing. They're going to try and fight censorship. I'm sorry, they're going to try and fight for censorship, not against it. They're going to come after conservative media outlets like this one to try and silence our voices, to try and silence your voice. They will. The Democrats, if they gain power again and they get into the Senate, they will kill the filibuster, they will impeach President Trump, and they will get it through the Senate, and they will keep doing it and doing it and doing it because they play dirty and everybody sees it. They are saying the quiet part out loud. You have to let the socialists talk. You have to let the communists talk. Yeah, that message is resonating. They're doing a better job at offering a solution to affordability than we are, at least communicating it. That's on us, guys. How do we solve affordability? Well, we better come up with a better idea than free, free, free because you know what? For uninformed voters, that's what's going to resonate. We have to step up. We have to make sure that the socialists can be heard so that we can refute their claims, that we can rebut their claims, that we can challenge them.

And where they say, well, socialism is going to work and we're going to have government grocery stores and government housing and all that stuff. Let them. Let them talk. Let them tell that story. Let them tell us what they intend to do. Because they will. They are saying the quiet part out loud. They are telling you exactly what they intend to do. Why would we want to... Not make that out there for us to rebut so that they can just work in their private inner channels and somehow some way fixate and find power again and completely destroy the fabric of this country. You cannot advocate for censorship. And I'm sorry, not sorry, but I'm a believer in the Constitution and the right to free speech. I believe the media. I can do whatever I want. That's right. I believe the media has the ability to be able to carry the content they want. And Americans will respond with their wallets when it comes to streaming, when it comes to the channels that they tune into. I mean, I'm sorry, the four networks are not the only place that you can get information these days. Everybody has a supercomputer in their pocket more powerful than the Apollo rocket that got man to the moon. Everybody has that in their pocket. There's ways to get the story. You don't want to fight for censorship. Because as soon as you lose power, they're going to come right after you. All right. I'm going to get off of my soapbox here. Roger. What are you doing this weekend, bro? Well, that's a good question. My daughter just spent some time up north with some family, and she's finally back. So I'm definitely going to hang out with her a little bit. My friends host a movie night at their place in Benita Springs. I may do that as well. Fantastic. Hey, that sounds like a good time, like a good weekend, dude. And what's your plans? Oh, riding my electric unicycle, baby. Oh, yeah. Now, we've got some friends coming into town, and we're going to hang out with them. We'll play some board games. games and go do some rides and that sort of thing too, but it should be good. But yeah, Raj, thanks for your work this morning. It's been kind of an interesting morning. It has been. Thank you, Rob. Yeah. We both could probably use some decompression. Oh, you're not kidding there. So if you need a little positive vibes like we do, make sure you check out our sister station positively 99. 99.9.3. It'll definitely lighten the mood after the kind of day that we've started with. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. I am Rob Stevens in for Jason Jay Jones on Daybreak with Jason Jay Jones 925 Fox News right all along.