Human Up Season 2 Ep 7: A Human Up Conversation in Las Vegas: Community, AI, Safety & More
This is a transcript of Human Up Podcast Season 2, Episode 7 with Lamont Wade & JD which you can watch and listen to here:
Dave: Hello and welcome to the Human Up Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Marlon, and I'm very happy today to have both Lamont and JD joining me. Welcome to the two of you!
Lamont: Dave. How's it going? Thanks for having us.
JD: Appreciate it.
Dave: Good, good, great. Now, are you guys related? What's the connection between you two?
Lamont: We've been friends for a little past a decade, right?
JD: Yeah, about 13 years now.
Lamont: Yeah. Funny. So we met on the football field playing flag football.
Dave: Ah, was that a city league?
Lamont: No, it was just kind of a recreational league here in the valley. So I worked with a gentleman named Martin at UPS when I first started. And one day he was like, "Hey, you should come join football with us since you don't have anything to do on the weekends." And so I went out, did it, I enjoyed it. And from there, maybe I earned about 10 good friends. We've been friends ever since then. And JD's one of them.
Dave: Oh, that's beautiful. I played soccer in the city of Las Vegas Soccer League for 30 years. And it's funny, the amount of friends that I have, it's like we're on a different level when I'll run into them out at the supermarket or the streets or whatever. And to me, my friends that I've played competitive ball with for years were on a different level. So I respect both that friendship and the fact that you had to sign up some constructor of recreational time to compete.
Lamont: Yep. It's needed.
Dave: Yeah. Go off some
Lamont: Steam sometimes.
Dave: Yeah, agreed. Now, did you have positions in flag football or did everybody just pretty much be a floater?
JD: We have positions. I was wide receiver.
Lamont: Yeah. And I played running back and sometimes corner as well.
Dave: Okay. All right. So JD's got hands and Lamont's got a cut on him. You could cut.
Lamont: Yeah. I don't know about that now. I done pin on about 35 pounds, so that cut might be a little bit slow now, but yeah.
Dave: Oh, to me there was-
JD: My cuts for work.
Dave: To me, there was nothing better than being on the field and doing a juke or a cut and seeing the defender fall for it and be able to blow by him. To me, that used to give me euphoria. And I agree with you as I get older and I got less and less of that in the tank, it's kind of something I got to wrestle with.
Lamont: Yeah, you might have about one good cut in you. That's about it. Take about a week to recover after that.
Dave: Nice. Now, you guys both work for unions. How long have you each been union members?
JD: This October will be 10 years for me, working in law enforcement and being part of the union that we have there.
Dave: Awesome.
Lamont: How about
Dave: You, Lamont?
Lamont: St. Patrick's Day was the 12th year.
Dave: 12 years.
Lamont: Yeah.
Dave:
Right on. You guys know that I'm running for city council and I was grateful that you guys care about our community to the point where we came up and we got to meet at one of my campaign events. And to me- Yes, we did. Yeah, no, and I really appreciate that because our new social media world seems to be pushing people to stay in their own little silos or just stay in your house or your apartment and communicate through the internet by staring at these darn phones. So the fact that you guys are willing to come out, meet new people at a coffee shop, see what's going on in the city, see what people are working on or what are proposed change. To me, that's a beautiful thing that should be applauded. So before we even get started, I want to say thank you both for caring and coming out to hear about new ideas and new perspectives.
So thank you. Yeah. And thank you for running.
JD: Thanks for hosting an event like that.
Dave: Yeah. And I do them every month. It's nice to get out.
JD: And meet the people that are supposed to be representing us. So it's always a good thing.
Dave: Well, thank you
Lamont: I'll add, Dave, I appreciate the fact that you had an open round table. It still blows my mind. I was like, man, I haven't seen it. I've been to three other people's little events. No one's come close so far.
Dave: Well, thank you. I just was meeting with this couple, the Brinkleys, who they've also ran for legislator in my ward. And we just had a nice discussion, but we talked about how through having discussions, that's really how we learn. That I could think, "Oh, this is what the Teamsters, this is what I imagine the Teamsters would want. " I could imagine that, but until I sit down and I talk to a Teamster, that's when I really grow in knowledge and perspective. One of the questions I'm wondering about is there's all this push for autonomous vehicles. Matter of fact, I've been really concerned because Amazon built a bunch of gigantic warehouses in Vegas and I work at Vegas stronger. So I help people get off the streets, get off drugs, address mental illnesses, and I'm fine doing that, but until I can help them get out of poverty, I don't really solve all their problems.
But when I knew I could send them over to Amazon, they could get a $23 an hour job or even better, when I could get them into an apprenticeship program at one of the unions, to me, then I know we've set that person on a good path to be able to have a good life and have a livable wage. Well, back to Amazon, one of those giant warehouses in the last year, they moved it to fully autonomous. So that whole warehouse now is all robots and I get it for Amazon. They're thinking, "Wow, we could now work twenty four seven and we don't have to pay people. " So I get it that they're thinking that that's going to be cost effective, but as a community member, I'm really concerned about where people are going to work. So I'm going to ask my first question to Lamont, if Amazon or UPS or one of these companies start using autonomous vehicles to make deliveries, what does that mean?
I'm going to ask two things. What does that mean to us as a community and what does that mean to us as Teamsters?
Lamont: Well, it's funny you say that because one of our warehouses, they just remodeled and it's more autonomous now than it was. So a lot of companies are moving in that direction. And it's scary because it reminds me of watching the movie like Hunger Games and Divergent where you had all these people living together and there was no jobs and there were factions. I believe we're moving in that direction. And if we don't get a grip on it and put some bylaws into place for the unions and et cetera, we're going to be screwed because just one Amazon warehouse probably employs two to 4,000 people, just one.
Dave: Right.
Lamont: Can You imagine if that one warehouse just went fully autonomous and now what? They have maybe 10 to 20 employees, where the other one's going to work and it's going to ... We can't sustain that way as a society.
Dave: I agree.
Lamont: And me being in the delivery world, driving trucks myself, it will put me out of business.
Dave: So what are these bylaws and what's the solution?
Lamont: Well, the solution would be to minimize. So I don't think that companies should be able to make their entire warehouse fully autonomous. They should be able to put into the bylaws to say, "You guys still need to hold X amount of employees, humans, to kind of keep a gauge on things, to keep people employed and keep them being able to take care of their families." I don't know exactly what, I'm not that far to the union yet. I think I'm getting ready to be a union steward to start putting my hands on things and getting involved. But yeah, we got to do something as a community, as a state, as a country, because if not, it's going to be like iRobot.
Dave: Yeah, I agree. And I spent a lot of time thinking about this and reading about it because I run a clinic and I have 130 employees that work here and most of my staff are clinicians, people who meet with people and engage in therapy. And I recently started piloting this AI program, which has this, what do they call a figure? They had the movie with the green people. What do you call those figures that are on the computer?
JD: Talking about just the green screen?
Dave: Not the green screen, like the actual person. There's a fancy name for it, but this program that we're using says, "Hi, everybody. I'm your clinician. What's going on today?" It receives the information and then it runs a tape based on what the group is feeling and saying, "Oh, you guys are thinking about having a recurrence or relapse of drugs." And then it goes into what's the evidence-based treatment to help address that. So to me, even in the most human industry of counseling, they're already starting to come up with ways to replace us. Now, we know there's autonomous vehicles and we realize you're a driver. So to me, there is a mountain of pressure that is coming and that what we can do is we could put some, you called them bylaws, we could put some stop gaps to slow that transition so we could appropriately transition people to new or different jobs, but we certainly can't cancel all the drivers in a two-year period of time because we now have autonomous vehicle purchase or capability without some guardrails to be able to have us alternatively train and alternatively place people into other jobs.
So I agree that's a big threat. And I think in addition to bylaws, some things we can do is I think there should be a tax that if you as an employer want to reduce some jobs, I think having a tax of something maybe greater than the cost of having the employee should be put on the company. So the math works in the companies to be able to help maintain jobs, especially as Las Vegas is number one in urban unemployment right now.
So this is a massive issue.
Lamont: So in other words, you want to make it where the companies are almost incentivized to hire someone.
Dave: Right. And keep people at work.
Lamont: That makes sense. A good idea.
Dave: Yeah. For a harmonious and functioning society. And
JD: If they don't choose to opt in for that tax, then there should be something that helps the consumer by, instead of the company seeing all that profit, prices should decrease on like, let's say, shipping and things like that if it's not costing them as much to pay actual bodies to be there.
Dave: Oh, that's true as well. If it becomes more efficient, in theory, those efficiencies should be passed off to the consumer.
Lamont: Yes. That's one of my biggest gripes with envy energy.
Dave: Oh,
Lamont: Boy.That's probably another story for another day.
Dave: Yeah, no, no, that's a really interesting one because I have an economics degree and the fact that this municipality, NV Energy, has a monopoly that if you want to turn on your podcast or charge your phone or anything else, you have to buy it from one provider and that they get to determine how much they charge for their price. I mean, by definition, as they have savings, they're never going to offer refunds, especially because somehow this monopoly is now owned by Berkshire Hathaway, which is a for- profit corporation. So that's a fundamental mismatch of incentives.
Lamont: My biggest issue is when they raise the rates and they say, "Oh, well, it's because we need to do this so that the grid doesn't fail." Or for example, they make all these solar farms. The solar farms are supposed to make it more efficient for us so that the prices are more reasonable. But they never went down. They keep going up. And I'm like, "Well, what's the point?
Dave: Let me switch gears to ... I want to pick on JD for a second. There was this bill that my friend, who I love, Kevin McMahill, tried to get past last year and he wanted traffic light cameras so we could record things that are happening all over the street. And he told me about it and said, "We're going to try to get it through the legislature." And he asked me, "Dave, what do you think? " And I said, "I am 100% opposed to it. " And he said, "But it'll make it way easier for us to do our jobs and we'll have higher conviction rates. We could reduce crime. We could have our streets be safer. Dave, shouldn't we do it? " And I said, "Here's the problem." And it's the same problem with these lovely autonomous vehicles. We start by having these cameras that record everything we do.
And what I recognize is that at the end of the day, it's reducing the freedoms that we all have and we all become almost twenty four seven under the watchful eye of the government. And to me, I was like, "Kevin, you're asking me to balance freedom versus being able to do better police work." And I get it. And I love police work and I love police and I love Kevin, but to me, I sit on that specific vote, freedom was a bigger, a higher order for me. JD, what do you think about that?
JD: Yeah. So it's a very good question because being in my profession, I see it from both ends, right? Because I've seen it actually work and help with what cameras are available to solve some crimes, to catch the bad guys, which is what we always want to do.
Dave: Yeah.
JD: But I also see how, yes, it can also be viewed as intrusive, where it feels like you'd never have a private moment in your life, right? It kind of makes you think about movies like Enemy of the State or Eagle Eye. I don't know if you've seen either of those, but those come to mind when you think of, man, if they have access to all these cameras constantly viewing you, I mean, you can't even scratch your butt on public without a camera zooming in on you. So it is a little bit intrusive, but I do see it from both ends. Me personally, I think if we add too many, then we're going to start looking at other states where they're like, "Okay, well, now we're going to start using these cameras to issue citations like California does at red lights if people run red lights." To me, that's a little too much.
Dave: Then they're going to not need police officers because the computer program could just do it by monitoring the cameras. Yeah.
JD: I mean, there's only so much you could do without having police actually present, but I get what you're going with.
Dave: Yeah. And I mean, I could see it reducing the need for police. We still need them to tackle bad guys, of course. I think the computer can't do that.
JD: Well, not to cut you off, but even with all the cameras that we currently do have, we're still shorthanded. So no matter how much technology you add, it's not going to take away the fact that we still don't have enough bodies in the valley working to stop crime.
Dave: I agree. It's why I've been a big proponent of getting a substation up in Ward six. The fact that, not to pick on Kevin again, but if I was the sheriff and I was in charge of deploying police officers around the valley, I'd be sending hardly any to Ward six because most of the crime is down along Rancho along that corridor, but we want to make sure Ward six is safe. And even though it's a residential area, I really want to have an adequately staffed substation in Ward six where police can get to know our neighbors, our neighborhood, engage in community oriented policing to be able to address problems that are happening in our valley because on Maslow's hierarchy, safety is our number one critical need as humans.
Lamont: Yeah, I agree. And good job on that.
Dave: Yeah, thanks. There's an issue I just had talking with the Brinkleys that I'm going to ask you guys about. They implemented a hotline when they lived in Stockton, California, and they said, "We will pay anybody $100 if they call the hotline and report somebody who's driving under the influence." And all they have to do is if the police stop them and make an arrest, then you immediately get $100 for notifying. Now, we talked about this idea of a new ordinance because it helps get way more eyes on the street. We certainly don't want people driving under the influence, but I recognize since I've been on a bunch of ride alongs, the last thing we want doing a ride along is a whole bunch more calls showing up on the screen that the officers who are on patrol need to help a gauge.
Lamont: Yeah. Yeah.
JD: So I mean, there's already enough calls to come in about, "Oh, this person is driving recklessly." But I mean, to specifically sit there and say, "Oh yeah, they're under the influence." Well, how do you know it's not a medical episode? How do you know they're not having a seizure? How do you know there wasn't a bug in the car and they were swapping it away and lost control for a second? There's so many things that could make that almost pointless at times. And by the time an officer even gets to those type of calls, that car's gone. So to me, I don't know. To me, that just seems like that's not necessary to say. Or
Dave: Police do their work.
Lamont: Yeah. Or on the petty level, you might cut someone off and they might call just despite you and waste reasons.
JD: Yeah. So even if you're not arrested, you're still getting harassed or pulled over. Exactly
Lamont: Because they're mad.
Dave: Right. Or you're mad at your boyfriend or girlfriend.
Lamont: Yeah.
Dave: Call that line so they get pulled over and harassed.
Lamont: Right.
JD: Yeah. Yeah. And all in all, it's a misdemeanor crime, right? So let's say if an officer does get behind that car and that car is all of a sudden driving perfectly fine, they don't witness them actually doing anything. Well, the officer won't have a reason to even pull that car over just because somebody said, "Oh, they were driving crazy." It's a misdemeanor, so it has to be committed in an officer's presence for them to be able to take enforcement action.
Dave: Yes. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you for that. Now, there's a big issue facing Ward six where the three of us all live right now, and that is there's a company called Olympia who the BLM has taken a giant swath of land, sold it to Olympia, and Olympia is getting ready to put thousands of houses up attached to Ward six. To me, it's a bit of a fate to complete. It's absolutely happening, but what can we do or what are issues that need to be addressed if thousands of houses are coming?
JD: Well, I mean, if there's thousands, we got to look at, do we have enough schools?
Dave: Do we have enough police?
JD: Police.
Dave: Fire. I mean,
JD: That's a lot of electrical, a lot of water to be ran for fire and housing and gas. There's a lot of extra things that would have to go into play, I'd imagine.
Dave: That's also a lot of jobs. So to me, it's good news because we need jobs for people. And I am thrilled that a large scale development's happening, which can employ a lot of Nevadans, because as I said, we're number one in unemployment, and I really want to make sure we're able to put people to work.
Lamont: That's true. Olympia is the company that did Southern Highlands, right?
Dave: Yeah. And I probably shouldn't even mention them. The issue is really a development question, not an Olympia question.
Lamont: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's going to bring more jobs, but it's also going to bring more traffic, but the jobs are more important. So it just kind of baffles me how the valley's always saying we don't have water, but we're constantly building. So it kind of contradicts itself. It's kind of
Dave: Confusing to me. There's a statistic that I heard which still baffles me, and that is that in the last 20 years, we've added three quarters of a million new homes to Las Vegas. However, we use less water today than we used 20 years ago. So the fact that we're more conservative, there's less lawns, there's less wasted water, and we're more efficient because when we flush our toilets and they go ... Most of that water ends up going through the health department, the water district, and gets reclaimed, and we get the credit going back into Lake Mead after it's been treated. And it's not net zero, but there's very little water being used because we've become very efficient at utilizing the water. So my understanding is that the housing growth isn't really the big drain on the water. There's some industrial uses that are heavy. There's obviously the golf courses which use a ton because it evaporates.
Lamont: Right. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense now. Thanks for that.
JD: I mean, I don't know how accurate it is, but I could have sworn I've read a report somewhere where we're like at 97% as far as reclamation for water that we use. So that's a pretty
Dave: High up there if it's. That's fantastic. And Las Vegas wins all kinds of wards at using renewable energy and being efficient as a city, so that wouldn't surprise me. At the same time, one of the things that I want to get done as a city council person is we all know that Lake Mead is lowering. And in the 37 years that I've been in Las Vegas, Lake Mead is down a hundred feet. That's a tremendous amount of acreage of water. And to me, it's critical that we began a study to figure out a solution to our long-term water issues. Now, I know of five proposals that all seem crazy, but we have to start looking at, are we going to run a pipe to the sea of Cortez and a solar powered desalinization plant going to be able to get water being pumped in from the south?
I've seen a nuclear proposal from the Pacific Ocean, and are we going to use desalinization based on nuclear power coming in from the Pacific? I've seen a proposal to run a pipeline from
The Columbia River in Oregon, which pours a ton of fresh water into the ocean. Could we pull a straw and send that down to Vegas? I've even seen one which says, "We'll pump from the Mississippi River all the way across to be able to get us some water." Because the bottom line is we need a long-term solution to water and trying to be more and more efficient while the water ... While Lake Mead just keeps going down, I mean, that's one thing. I think it's time for us to pay, and I don't know how many millions to do a study with a bunch of engineers. Let's figure out what are all the possibilities, what's the most cost effective, and then let's get all the municipalities and the Feds together to be like, "We need a real long-term solution. And even if it's going to be a 10-year build, let's start building so we have a long-term plan for Las Vegas."
Lamont: Yeah, that's a good idea. And quick question, where does the water go from Mount Charleston when the snow melts? Do you know?
Dave: That's a good question. I'm not sure. I hope somehow it makes it into Las Vegas and the water that gets into Las Vegas goes down into the wash, which essentially ends up back in the Colorado or Lake Mead. So I guess half the mountain comes to us. I'm not sure where the other half goes.
Lamont: Yeah. But you're right about trying to funnel water down from the Midwest because as a trucker for a period of time, I did drive out to Chicago every week and driving through Oklahoma and Missouri where it rains a lot, I saw just piles of water. Even in Arizona by, what is it? It's off the 40 freeway by the ski resort. When the water melts off of the ski resort, it used to come down and just sit in this huge prairie and it would be there for weeks and just slowly evaporating. There's just water sitting there evaporating.
Dave: How did they channel that?
Lamont: Yeah. I was like, why don't they channel that
Dave: Somewhere?That's a good question. I think while we're spending all these resources on computers running cameras and autonomous vehicles, we got to start using some of that technology to channel our water resources so we have a sustainable future. That's true. Do either of you guys have kids?
Lamont: Yeah, I have two. We both do.
Dave: I got three. You have three and two. Yeah. I asked because I have two and the most important job that I have, regardless of me running for city council or running a clinic, the most important job I have is being a dad. Yeah. And I take my job very seriously. How are your kids doing?
Lamont: They're good. I have a 17-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. So my son's getting ready for prom, which is next week. And then my daughter actually just finally passed her driving test today, so she got her license, so that's a big step.
Dave: A big step and kind of terrifying.
Lamont: Yes, they're both.
Dave: I don't know if your daughter-
Lamont: And you haven't even seen her drive yet.
Dave: Both my boys, as soon as I got in there like, "Daddy, I got it, " and started driving. And I realized very quickly They did not have it.
Lamont: Right. My daughter did something.
JD: I got three girls. One's 16, one's 12, or about to be 12, and then one's five. Oh,
Lamont: Wow.
JD: And I'm done. All three girls, I'm done. I can't do no more. Three strikes, I'm out. Three strikes, I'm out.
Dave: So you have three girls, and have any of them brought a boy home to meet daddy yet?
JD: No. Not yet.
Dave: Daddy's a police officer.
Lamont: He don't want that. We're going to be a bad girl.
JD: They're going to get a good interrogation. I'll tell you what.
Dave: I just had two boys, and I'm protective and I hold them and I love both of them so much. But to me, girls, I can't imagine. It's
Lamont: Tough. It's tough.
JD: You did all right. Yeah. Once I get the studio redone and I have you over to do our podcast, you'll see why I have everything set up the way I do. There's a reason for everything.
Dave: Well, I'm looking forward to it. I hope I get to meet them.
JD: Yeah.
Dave: I'm going to ask you guys a last question. The name of my podcast is Human Up. And I'm going to start with you, JD. What does human up mean to you?
JD: To me, it sounds like it just means being kind, being truthful, and helping the next person get up to where you're at. Helping each other climb.
Dave: Good answer. Lamont, what's human up?
Lamont: I would say uplifting humanity.
Dave: Yeah. Amen. I don't know if I've told you guys, but I'm an alcoholic. I drank and used drugs and I couldn't stop. Now, I happened to be 20 years clean and sober, and I'm grateful for that. But I remember when I couldn't stop, some people would tell me, say, "Dave, you should man up." And to me, even though I wanted to, I couldn't stop. It wasn't until I got outside help that I realized that with help, I was able to stop and recognize that it was actually my thinking that was wrong. And I recognized that it wasn't a gender thing like man up or female up. It was really human up and that I learned that with my skillset, I could help people. And it really became my calling in life, which helps me stay clean and sober because I stay focused on helping other people.
So in my mind at least, I think human up, that's actually the answer to life for all of us, that all of us should be helping other humans up.
Lamont: Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree. Congratulations for being 20 years sober, man. Yeah,
Dave: Thanks.
Lamont: Big deal, man. It's a big deal.
Dave: I tell my friends a long time without a cold beer.
Lamont: It's all right. You ain't missing anything.
Dave: To me, I've gained. I've gained so much since I've stopped using illegal drugs or drinking alcohol and I'm grateful for it. I appreciate you both being cool guests. I can't wait to come onto your podcast. Save those tough questions because I want them.
Lamont: All right. I got you.
JD: We'll line them up for you. Thanks for having us.
Dave: Thank you both. All right.