Pod Insights The Moneywise Guys 7/10/25 From 401(k)s to Community Vitality: Building a Brighter Future About this episode The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Thursday, July 10th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guests: BPD Lt. Nicole Anderberg & Jamie Achterberg , Assistant to the City Manager website: www.bakersfieldcity.us/1184/Community-Vitality phone: 661-326-3737
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 From the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise.
0:06 Speaker 01 Call or text into the show 24/7 at 396-1000.
0:39 Speaker 00 Here is Money Wise. Money, money, money, money. That's right, this is the Money Wise Show. Thank you very much for joining us today. And we are in the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway for not all that much longer. If you're listening anywhere in the United States, Stockdale Highway may not mean a lot for you. We've been here for a while, making the plans to make the move. I'm sure you've heard about the Woolsworth Project here in Bakersfield, revamping a historic building for Bakersfield, California. And that's around the corner, on top of everything else going on. It's been a little eventful summer here at Money Wise, doing what we
1:20 Speaker 00 do for our clients and trying to keep this radio show, podcast, as entertaining and educational as possible for our listeners. So, thank you for making it what it is. You can call or text the show, 661-396-1000. Your questions and comments are what make it good because we can answer what's on your mind, or what you're hearing out there in the community. In the world of news and finance, it's overwhelming, a lot of stuff going on. So, I'm Chris Pelster, your host today with...
1:49 Speaker 01 Seth Perry. So happy to be here on a Thursday, July...
1:54 Speaker 01 Nine.
1:55 Speaker 00 Took you second.
1:56 Speaker 01 Ten.
1:57 Speaker 00 Ten. Ten. Hey! Someone's working so hard, doesn't even know what day of the week it is. He just gets up and goes to work.
2:03 Speaker 01 Just grinding.
2:04 Speaker 00 And pulls away for a little bit to jump on the show to make it great. So before we jump into too much, we are gonna have wonderful guests today. If you have not heard here locally in Bakersfield, we have a program called Community Vitality, which is trying to address and have solutions and stuff going on for homelessness, which is affecting many cities across the nation, especially a lot in California. We're seeing the uptick of it. Political reasons abound as far as what people think is causing it and all these different things. Regardless, it is an issue and it's trying to be dealt with. And one of the things that we've been doing is called Community Vitality. So we're gonna have
2:49 Speaker 00 the two folks in charge of that, kind of come in and talk about that a little bit. So even if you're not from our local community, you can at least hear what's going on. And who knows, maybe it could change your community if it's something that's not in place so far. But before we go into that, and also some other financial concepts, because we do have some questions come in, we did want to go over the markets a little bit. So with everything going on, some of the chaos, some of the questions about different things, inflation, what are the feds gonna do with interest rates? Tariffs.
3:22 Speaker 01 Fifty percent tariff on Brazil.
3:24 Speaker 00 Yeah. All over the place. The S and P 500 year to date is still up over about 7% year to date. Over the last one year, it's up about 11 and a half percent. You went around, that means 12% over the last 12 months. And just today, the market was up a quarter percent, at least the S and P 500. There's a couple of different indexes that we talk about and follow. If you've listened to the show for a while, hopefully you're educated on those and why we call some the dumb Dow. 30 companies, price weighted. So it is one thing that people have looked at for a long, long time. Kind of a little sneak peek into some things that if that's moving and some of the parts of that index are moving, people are thinking, oh, you know what, things are going
4:08 Speaker 00 to be going in the right direction. Meaning like Caterpillar, big equipment company, you know, if, if those are being sold and being moved or being bought, earth's moving. If earth's moving, houses are being built, houses are being built, stuff's going on, right? That's kind of the concept behind it. But it's only 30 companies. And so you can have five companies in that Dow that are down. And so it makes it look like everything's down, or you could have five companies in that Dow that are big, huge companies and they're up. And so it looks like, hey, man, everything's going good. When in all actuality, all other 25 other stocks are down. So it's not the best barometer, but it is one that many, many people have known and followed, and the Dow is slipping slightly, even though
4:50 Speaker 00 the S and P 500 is up a little bit in positive territory and the NASDAQ and S and P 500 are both hitting fresh records. NASDAQ again is the more tech-heavy index. So anything else you see going on there?
5:05 Speaker 01 Not just Nvidia. I mean, the, the star of the show, valuation topped $4 trillion today.
5:13 Speaker 00 Little company.
5:14 Speaker 01 That's a big company, man. It's pretty crazy.
5:16 Speaker 00 It's gonna have to start at, like, what is it? Mega, mega cap? There's like, you know, cap. By the way, if you hear the word cap, it's just talking about capitalization. It's how much money is in the stock, how much value it fluctuates on a daily basis. But you're talking about small cap, mid cap, large cap, different capitalizations, different sizes of how much stock is kind of tied up, stock value, I guess I should say, is tied up on those stocks. And some of these are entering new orbits.
5:45 Speaker 01 And you take, if you're curious, want to nerd out the capitalization, all it is, is the price of the stock multiplied by the number of outstanding shares. So there you have it. So you could take the share price for Nvidia. Well, divide divide four trillion by the share price. That's going to tell you how many shares are outstanding, or you could just Google it.
6:05 Speaker 00 There you go. So, big names in that world, also Apple, Microsoft, all leading the charge with strong gains. Eyes on the feds is what continues to be the story. What are they going to do with the inflation numbers and interest rates? Is a cut on the table? Many people are saying, holy moly, it seems like it already should have been started. It should have been eased up, but we have not seen that yet. And unfortunately, here locally and across the country, oil eases up. So crude prices have dropped, which could help cool inflation. But obviously, it hurts, you know, that industry and some of the folks in that world. But it does give consumers a little bit of a relief at the gas pump. So it's a little bit of a,
6:48 Speaker 00 you know, if you couldn't do that summer trip and all of a sudden your gas, your gasoline bill for your cars or diesels goes down, and you get an extra three.
6:57 Speaker 01 The new taxes, I know it was July 1st. Did they, did the law become effective? Or did the taxes already hit? Because I haven't noticed a big difference at the pump.
7:05 Speaker 00 Well, you just drive back and forth to work, dude. So have you even had to?
7:11 Speaker 01 I got about a mile commute to work. So maybe I haven't had to fill up since July 1st. That could be why.
7:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, go, go take a, go take a spin this afternoon. Fill up your gas tank and see, see if it's hit. But anyways, that's, that's a little story there on, on oil. So.
7:27 Speaker 01 Got some good questions.
7:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, let's, let's jump into one of these. One of them says, good afternoon. With home values going up here in Kern County, a lot of us are starting to feel that $10,000 cap on SALT deduction. We'll go into that a little bit, what that means. Are you seeing more local clients hitting that limit? And if someone, someone's property taxes are already taking up most of that, how do you help them make the most of other tax breaks out there? Hope my message makes sense. LOL.
7:56 Speaker 01 Pretty salty question, but we'll address it.
7:58 Speaker 00 Salty.
7:59 Speaker 01 Mm hmm. So, let's see here.
8:03 Speaker 00 Yeah. So it is a great question. Kern County, uh, home values are rising and a lot of people are hitting that $10,000 cap, state and local. Um, SALT stands for state and local taxes. You know, it sounds all fancy or whatever, but it's literally capital S A L T, SALT, state and local taxes.
8:21 Speaker 01 Property taxes being a big one. What about if you, if you go buy a new car?
8:25 Speaker 00 I don't know.
8:26 Speaker 01 I don't either. I don't know. Would that count for state and local taxes? Could that count towards your salt?
8:32 Speaker 00 I don't know. Maybe. Maybe we should do some research. So when that, uh, when, when you hit that, actually for most people, even in Kern County with, you know, I don't, what is average home price now?
8:44 Speaker 01 I just looked at that. It is 392, 480 as of June 25, 3.3% increase year over year.
8:53 Speaker 00 I think California is over, it's like 500 and something.
8:55 Speaker 01 Brother, you're way off, dude. I, I used to share those with, with my students all the time and I share it with clients. Guess, what is the median?
9:04 Speaker 00 Home price.
9:05 Speaker 01 Home price in CA.
9:07 Speaker 00 Well, yeah.
9:07 Speaker 01 It just topped a big number.
9:09 Speaker 00 Well, now, now you're talking about, cause you have to account for like, I mean, there's, there's literally houses on the water that are worth $35 million. So.
9:16 Speaker 01 But you got.
9:17 Speaker 00 We'll say 900,000.
9:18 Speaker 01 That's exactly what it is, Chris.
9:20 Speaker 00 Oh, look at that.
9:22 Speaker 01 Steven. Very nice. Steven tell you.
9:23 Speaker 00 Steven's up there. No, he wasn't.
9:25 Speaker 01 I wasn't throwing up a night.
9:27 Speaker 00 That was right out of the brain, dude.
9:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:28 Speaker 00 Right out of the brain.
9:29 Speaker 01 I just saw that it topped overnight. There's a couple of different firms that track it, but I, I did see that it, it just topped over. Cause my daughter, you know, she's wanting to get out of Bakersfield and, you know, I encourage her and her success, but I'm, you know, a little wake up call. Love, do you know what property is and the cost of living? And so we had a good, good conversation about that.
9:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, dad, you guys are silly. Why don't you live over at the beach?
9:48 Speaker 01 Bakersfield's lame.
9:49 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah. But so anyways, even in Bakersfield, a lot of folks with, with property taxes and stuff are pushing up there to that $10,000 limit. So, I mean, one of the things that you start to focus on when that limit is hit, you maximize retirement contributions. Remember, you can put money into a, either an IRA if you qualify, if your company offers a simple IRA or a 401k, 403B plan that you can do through your payroll, you can do even much higher amounts than that. And then those are straight up tax deductions, right? So a great way to do that. Another way is claiming credits like the child tax credit,
10:28 Speaker 00 deducting mortgage interest. We also look at charitable donations and even health savings accounts, if able to do that. So, I mean, at the end of the day, once SALT cap kicks in, it's about using all these other deductions and credits if you can still use them. I mean, some of them, if you're participating in a retirement plan, you know, and you want to do even more with an IRA, there's some income restrictions and stuff that might limit you. But yeah, we try to look for any ways we can to get as many tax deductions as possible. So, yeah.
11:01 Speaker 01 Still blows my mind. Some people still aren't participating in their 401k.
11:05 Speaker 00 Yeah.
11:06 Speaker 01 Taking that free match from their employer. Typically, it kind of averages 4%. It's what I see the most.
11:10 Speaker 00 Yeah. And I do, I do equate a lot of that to, so when somebody starts to get into thinking about finances, they go to say like Yahoo Finance or some of these websites. And 401ks are such a common, it's probably, you know, it's the most popular retirement account that you might have access to through an employer. And there are so many articles that highlight the problems with 401ks. They're not perfect, you know, or, or different things. And there are issues with them, fees, and different things that you have to understand. And so there's like this, and I think the reason that so many articles highlight this is remember, all these websites are just trying to get you to click
11:54 Speaker 00 on the website, click on the article, open it up. Wanting to sell advertisements to advertisers and low and behold, they probably get a lot of clicks on the reasons why you shouldn't put money in a 401k or the problem with the modern 401k. And it bums me out because there's not really a better tool for most people to be able to systematically have money coming out of their paycheck, going in and buying a mix of investments. If you're getting a match, it's a 100% return up to the
12:27 Speaker 01 Money.
12:27 Speaker 00 It's free money.
12:28 Speaker 01 Hundred percent.
12:28 Speaker 00 And you're never, I mean, it's just
12:30 Speaker 01 I think it's because they don't see it. So they don't realize what's actually happening. But it's the equivalent of, you know, walking out with a hundred dollar bill and laying it on the ground and then poof, another hundred dollar bill were to show up, it's just free money and then $200 gets invested. You know, you put in a hundred, 200 goes in or whatever the case may be.
12:46 Speaker 00 And it's tough too, because one of the most beautiful things of investing and trying to build wealth over time is compound interest. And compound interest by nature takes time.
12:59 Speaker 01 The eighth wonder of the world.
13:00 Speaker 00 It's, and it's, it's slow. It's like watching grass grow and, and so many times people only get really serious about saving for retirement for 10 or 15 years. And in 10 or 15 years, it's still a good thing to do, but you're still not going to see some of that power of compound interest. The money that you put away 30, 35 years ago and what it's doing is you enter into your 60s and are wanting to create income for yourself for retirement. And it's just, it's a bummer because even if you're not going to get compounding interest, it's still a tax write-off and you're still going to get a you know, a return on your investments based on how you pick your investments inside of your 401k. But man, uh, I, I see it all the time because for the first 10 or 15 years of putting money away, it is like watching grass grow and you're like,
13:45 Speaker 00 well, you know, I'm, I'm not getting to do this and I'm not getting to do that and I'm doing without this and that and it's a struggle and I'm putting money into this account. It doesn't seem like it's doing anything. And man, just stick with it.
13:54 Speaker 01 It's even harder for kids. If you haven't saved a ton of money, then you know, educate your kids, educate your grandkids. If you have saved a lot, look at maybe repurposing that money and, and putting those dollars to work for your kiddos if they have because compound interest formula. I don't have it memorized, but the exponent, like if you took two to the second power, two to the third power, two to the fourth, it just exponentially goes up, right?
14:15 Speaker 00 Right.
14:15 Speaker 01 The exponent in the compound interest formula is, one of the two is time. So it's all about the years and it makes a huge difference. The more time you have, oh man, thirty, forty years of saving and investing versus ten makes a big difference.
14:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, and I tell people, I mean, on a, on a large scale, it's when you look at somebody like Warren Buffett, who's nine, you know, I don't even know how old he is, ninety something year, you know, and he started when he was fifteen. So yes, he's been a genius investor, but he also has not sold a bunch of investments and used it to live off of, or to buy jet skis and boats. And he's just let that money roll and he's, you know, made good investments with it. But even if he wasn't like above average returns, he still would have gobs of money just because of time, just because of compound interest. Even if he was just getting average returns, his net worth would still be humongous.
15:07 Speaker 00 But obviously after doing it for all these years, he made some large stakes in some good companies, GEICO, Coca-Cola, bought a couple of train companies when everybody thought trains were outdated. Like, guy was like playing real life, you know, like Christmas train set.
15:24 Speaker 01 Hundred and forty-four B, that is his net worth, a hundred and forty-four Billy.
15:27 Speaker 00 I thought you were gonna say he was a hundred and forty-four years old. And then I was gonna say, see, I mean, that's.
15:31 Speaker 01 No, that's just George Soros. That's George Soros. But we won't get political here. Um, there was a thing I was gonna say, I was working on a presentation yesterday and one of my slides I have, it says, a, a study was done. Eight out of ten millionaires, when asked, they attribute their millionaire status to their 401K.
15:48 Speaker 00 Yeah.
15:48 Speaker 01 It wasn't some fancy stock pick. It was that, that slow, steady, consistent time, time, time, time, invest, invest, invest every month.
15:55 Speaker 00 Right.
15:55 Speaker 01 That's what made them millionaires.
15:57 Speaker 00 Yeah, Dave Ramsey, Dave Ramsey has a whole lot on that too. And, you know, the, the thing sometimes is you'll talk to people and it's boring and they wanna, you know, go do this with real estate, or they wanna go, and, and I'm not saying you can't do that, but why not do both? Or why not, you know, have a balanced approach or plan to where if, if you try to go in on flipping houses or doing something else, and it crashes, you're still have a steady stream of planning and preparing.
16:23 Speaker 01 Pulled up a couple of interesting facts. Uh, millionaires on, from some of these studies, millionaires often save 20% or more of their income.
16:31 Speaker 00 Yeah.
16:32 Speaker 01 So, look where you're at, listeners. You know, you're saving 2% or 3%, you know, this is what millionaires do, right? This is really cool. Studies show they spend five hours per month, learning about money, investing, or self-improvement. That's one thing I always remind my clients, a lot of people will spend more time per year, planning their vacations.
16:48 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
16:49 Speaker 01 Than looking at their financial plan.
16:50 Speaker 00 There you go. Steven, do we have our guest at the half?
16:55 Speaker 02 Whenever you want, they're here.
16:56 Speaker 00 Well, I was gonna say, we have one more comment that came in about the child tax credit. So, let's come back after the break, uh, real quick. We'll talk about that. We'll go over that real fast, and then we'll have them come in right after that. So, stick around. We're gonna be talking about community vitality.
17:20 Speaker 01 Bro, is he?
17:22 Speaker 02 Hootie. Hootie, that's right.
17:25 Speaker 00 You see, uh, the Simpsons, when he's performing on a concert, and everybody keeps calling him Hootie? And he's like, "I'm not Hootie." Darius Ruckus play country.
17:38 Speaker 01 Country now, right?
17:39 Speaker 00 Yeah.
17:39 Speaker 01 Yep.
17:39 Speaker 00 Anyways.
17:40 Speaker 01 Boss.
17:41 Speaker 00 So, yeah, there you go.
17:43 Speaker 01 Sure, he gets that everywhere.
17:46 Speaker 00 So, in that song, though, saying time was not being kind, but in the world of investments and long-term planning.
17:53 Speaker 01 Oh, I see what you guys did there. Steven.
17:55 Speaker 00 Steven is.
17:55 Speaker 01 Steven Jack.
17:56 Speaker 02 That's OKP right there.
17:57 Speaker 01 Oh, my goodness.
17:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, but time can be your friend. When it comes to investments, it seems overwhelming. It seems like you're sacrificing now, and you're not seeing the benefits. Stick with it. Uh, that is one of the benefits of being a financial advisor. I see people at the finish line. I see people in retirement. I even see people entering the final finish line, and able to leave assets, uh, to, to family, to charities, to whatever was most important to them. It, it can be done. You can win. It's possible.
18:28 Speaker 01 Speaking of time, I heard a crazy story about AI. I have not verified it, but they are able to take a person's likeness, everything about them, all their pictures, their voice, everything. And when someone passes away, it can generate basically a copy of that person that can live on. Now that's
18:46 Speaker 00 Yeah.
18:46 Speaker 01 That's crazy. It doesn't relate to the show in any way.
18:49 Speaker 00 Yeah. And I hope our listeners now can still have a good rest of their day that you have just dropped an absolute
18:54 Speaker 01 AI bomb.
18:55 Speaker 00 AI bomb.
18:57 Speaker 02 I've seen that, that they have, you can have conversations with past loved ones.
19:01 Speaker 00 Yeah.
19:02 Speaker 02 Just like talking to your, your echo or whatever.
19:04 Speaker 01 What if you get a conversation with your past self? All right, let's move on to the question.
19:07 Speaker 00 Here's what I was gonna say real quick. I looked it up. As we just mentioned earlier, that, that S and P 500, NASDAQ are reaching all time highs again. You start to see the rise of 401k millionaires, right? So, um, you know, I don't know exactly how many millionaires are out there, but according to a Q4 study, right before the end of this, uh, or the start of this year, we already saw a rise of about 27% last year to about 537,000. This is Fidelity Investments that was looking into this. One of the biggest 401k providers out there to employers. 537,000 401k created millionaires from $422,000. When the market goes down, that number, some of them drop below a million, but,
19:52 Speaker 00 you know, depending on people's situations, some of them are, but think about that. 537,000 people out there were hitting 401k millionaire status. Hopefully they have some other resources and money elsewhere. They're building up equity in their home and paying down their debt. I mean, you can be one of those folks. And even if you don't have access to a 401k, you can still come up with a game plan uh, to save money. So anyways, just wanted to throw out some of that data.
20:17 Speaker 01 Here's a quick question. Uh, hey guys, do you happen to know anything about this young child credit in California and how it works? Like who calls qualifies for it? We did a little bit of homework for you and basically you can get up to 1154 back.
20:32 Speaker 00 1,154.
20:34 Speaker 01 1,154 per return, not per child. This is if you have a child under the age of six. And it is geared toward low-income families and by this definition, the California Earned Income Tax Credit, that is for families earning less than or equal to $32,000. That's that.
20:53 Speaker 00 Yep, must have at least one child under the age of six. Uh, filers are also eligible that file ITINs, which would be my understanding that would be, um, documented workers, uh, that don't have a social security number. So even they can get this chunk of money, um, 1,154 dollars. And, uh, there you go. So hopefully there's no other.
21:16 Speaker 01 Great questions.
21:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, great question. Sweet. Well, um, I was gonna go back into a couple of things. Local news before we even talk about this, saw here that, uh, the tug of war that has been going on, the VA clinic gets greenlit for Bakersfield. So there's going to be a Veterans Affairs Clinic. Um, it's been going back and forth, I guess, in legal battles and just in the last couple of days, uh, we got the green light that there is going to be a VA clinic here. So hopefully that will, uh, you know, improve, um, access to, uh, services, uh, for a veteran community here locally.
22:01 Speaker 00 Obviously something that I've talked about before that's near and dear to my heart. And, uh, speaking of, we have an open house tonight at Wounded Heroes, uh, Fund. So you can search that online if you want to go check out our facilities there. Uh, might even be able to talk about, uh, this a little bit, or at least see the, uh, facilities we have there with Wounded Heroes. And so we just thought about opening up the doors and having a little, um, open house for folks if they were interested. Two things that I saw that are in the sports world, uh, that, that bring up a couple of thoughts real quick before we get into our talk with Community Vitality and, uh, the folks that are running that here in our community regarding homelessness.
22:44 Speaker 00 Uh, Vikings Dallas Turner scammed out of $240,000 in a bank fraud case.
22:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, that one's crazy.
22:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, and one of the.
22:53 Speaker 02 Scam alert.
22:54 Speaker 00 Huh?
22:55 Speaker 02 Scam alert. Scan alert.
22:57 Speaker 00 The reason I wanted to bring this up is because even somebody like that you would think like has money and all these different things has fallen prey to scams. And what we just talked about earlier with AI and some of these new technologies and the way that they can copy voices. We all have to be that much more diligent with companies that are supposedly calling out and asking for information or hey, your account is frozen, you need to do this or that. We all have to be that much more diligent because the scam, the scams are out there and they're getting more and more intense and more and more realistic. And if you have parents, which you may not think your parents are super old, but parents
23:40 Speaker 00 and especially grandparents, you know, they are falling victim and prey to this. That's why it is continuing to increase as far as what our people are doing. So please take your due diligence. If something doesn't sound right, hang up and call the company back.
23:55 Speaker 01 This was Rashad Jones you guys were talking about?
23:57 Speaker 02 No, this was the Dallas Turner one. This, the Dallas Turner one was, he was getting calls from what he thought was his JP Morgan Chase account. And they, they talked him into going and paying 100 and I believe 120 or 125.
24:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, 120,000 each.
24:15 Speaker 02 Each. So he, he lost 240 grand just on two scams. And like I said on the morning show is Money Wise taught me a long time ago, your bank is not going to call and ask you for money.
24:28 Speaker 00 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's annoying because you're thinking, oh man, this person's calling me for this or that. This guy was only 22 years old. So, you know, maybe even though he's got a lot of money because he's a professional athlete, but it's just one of those things. If something doesn't sound right or whatever, just say, I'm not comfortable right now doing anything. Hang up and call, call your actual bank back and say, is this legit? Was this something that was needed? Because you don't have to settle it right then. Rarely ever would you ever have to like, you can't get off the phone. If they're acting like you can't get off the phone, that should have major, major red flags. The one you're talking about.
25:04 Speaker 01 Rashad Jones?
25:04 Speaker 00 Yes. $2 million stolen from ex Pro Bowler Rashad Jones from a financial advisor. So as a financial advisor, I wanted to bring this up because man.
25:16 Speaker 01 Via checks and Zelle for personal luxuries, this financial advisor, Merrill Lynch, who will remain nameless. Like, does he bought designer goods, travel, parties, and his own legal fees? Isn't that ironic?
25:28 Speaker 00 Yeah.
25:29 Speaker 01 He was stealing money to pay his own legal fees.
25:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, so there you go. You know, you have to be diligent in both scam and scam type behaviors from different companies or people calling you. Be diligent, and then if you're gonna talk to a financial advisor or work with a financial advisor, there is a level of trust. I take that trust very seriously. We take that trust very, very seriously. And what's actually annoying is like, we've been going through some changes here at MoneyWise, and there's paperwork that gets sent out, and there's all these hoops that you have to jump through and different things, and it sometimes can be annoying. But at the same time, if you're doing everything legit and everything right, you know, there's legality to our industry. Like, you've hired me, there's paperwork that has to be in place and different things.
26:13 Speaker 00 And, you know, we try to handle everything in the least impactful way possible to our clients, but we're making sure to check all the boxes, especially as fiduciaries. And being able to manage people's accounts and make trades inside of their accounts without their permission, well, the permission is given in the sense of an advisory relationship.
26:32 Speaker 01 If you've been listening to MoneyWise over the years, and you have your reservations about working with an advisor, come on down. Our office has been in two locations, but basically in the same spot for over 20 years, and we have offices. You can come in and sit in our office and look us in the eye and, you know, work face to face with someone and build that trust. And, you know, we'd love to have you in. Give us a call.
26:53 Speaker 00 There you go. So let's go ahead and get to a break. Like I said, when we come back, we're going to be joined with the wonderful folks running Community Vitality. We're going to talk a little bit about that program and what it's doing for our community.
27:02 Speaker 02 MoneyWise Wealth Management is the only locally owned, independent firm that uses a comprehensive wealth, tax, and estate approach. Working closely with a highly trusted CPA and attorney. For information on how MoneyWise can help you invest and plan for your future, call 661-847-1000. That's 661-847-1000.
27:30 Speaker 00 Welcome back. This is the Money Wise Show and like mentioned before, we are joined with some wonderful guests. We're going to be talking about Community Vitality and a program that started in 2023. So we'll jump into that with Lieutenant Nicole Anderberg and Jamie Aterberg. So why don't you guys introduce yourselves, maybe share what you do. Obviously, Lieutenant gives a little, little hint in there. So how are you guys doing?
27:57 Speaker 03 Good. Thanks for having us today.
27:59 Speaker 04 Yes, thank you very much.
28:00 Speaker 00 Yeah. And so you're a lieutenant with the Bakersfield Police Department?
28:03 Speaker 04 Yes, sir, I am.
28:04 Speaker 00 And so now your assignment is what?
28:06 Speaker 04 So I currently manage our impact unit and I'll talk about that a little bit in depth in a second. I also manage animal control and co-manage Community Vitality with my partner, Jamie Octberg.
28:19 Speaker 00 Yeah. And Jamie, what do you, what do you do?
28:21 Speaker 03 So I'm an assistant to the city manager. I work in the city manager's office and a lot of high level city initiatives. My biggest area of focus being Community Vitality. So that's what we're here to talk about today.
28:32 Speaker 00 Okay. Awesome. So why don't you talk a little bit about kind of the, the, the start of Community Vitality, what it was born out of. Obviously, a, a need was, was there. So talk a little bit about what its purpose is and maybe kind of how it came about.
28:46 Speaker 03 Yeah. So the purpose of Community Vitality really is to be a hub or a one-stop-shop for all issues related to homelessness. And it was really born out of an issue that was identified that multiple city departments were responding to calls for service related to a variety of homelessness-related issues. And we found that we were duplicating efforts. And so really, it was created as a way to funnel those calls into one place, dispatch the appropriate resources, be more effective, more efficient, and probably most importantly, alleviate the Bakersfield Police Department from having to respond to calls for service that are not of an emergent nature.
29:24 Speaker 00 Yeah. Cause we joked about it like, oh, like quit calling 911 possibly for, for homeless situations, which some people don't maybe know what number to call. And then, and it's even a different number then than obviously the non-emergency police, police line as well, right?
29:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, it is. It's 661-326-3442.
29:43 Speaker 00 There you go.
29:44 Speaker 03 I'm sorry, 3737.
29:46 Speaker 00 Wait. Let's get it down.
29:48 Speaker 03 661-326-3737.
29:51 Speaker 00 There it is. 3737.
29:54 Speaker 03 That's it.
29:54 Speaker 00 So yeah, man, everybody put those in your... Yeah, put those in the cellphone and know what number to call if you see. So what are some issues that... What are some of the calls that kind of come in? And you're saying that they were going to different places. So people were calling maybe even 911 or maybe the non-emergency police line, which ties up what could be a more pressing issue than maybe a homelessness issue? What are some of the calls that are coming in? And how you guys are dealing with that process now?
30:21 Speaker 03 Yeah, so we're getting calls for service for encampments, trespassing on private property, loitering in parks or alleys. We get a lot of calls for trash, debris, hazardous human waste. And then, of course, outreach for individuals who are unhoused. And I will let Lieutenant Anderberg jump in to answer the second part of your question.
30:43 Speaker 04 What was the second?
30:43 Speaker 00 Which was?
30:46 Speaker 01 Put it on the spot.
30:47 Speaker 00 Which was, I guess, how the resources are sent out to deal with those?
30:51 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
30:52 Speaker 01 Who goes out? Who responds?
30:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, so let's say a concern goes into community vitality from there. Our operations support specialists are going to evaluate each issue individually. And they're going to determine which team, which city department is most appropriate to respond to that issue. So let's say it's a subject that there's no crime being committed. They're concerned that this person may need help. Really, really nothing criminal going on. No need for a police officer to respond. We're going to directly call our outreach providers, Flood Ministries, and they're going to come out and do outreach services. They're going to try to get them into shelter, provide them anything, any kind of help that they can get.
31:39 Speaker 04 Let's say there's a situation where somebody is trespassing. They're refusing to leave. There might be a concern. Maybe there's a weapon scene or something like that. Then that's when we want to send police officers. So if that comes into community vitality, the officers will get that call. They'll go out and handle that. To the best of their abilities, if there's a criminal act going on, then they'll either issue a citation, or they'll take somebody to jail if need be. We always use that time with that person to also offer services and remind them that there are services here in Bakersfield. So if they do go to jail, they hopefully have that in mind too, when they get out and they can reach out and get those services.
32:21 Speaker 04 So there's a lot of other ways that we would connect other city departments. If it's a large encampment that might need some additional resources, like code enforcement, we also work with our rapid response teams. Then that's when we start coordinating with the different departments. We start, there's sometimes a need for a larger operation. We'll have to have like lots of machinery and everything because sometimes there's a lot of trash to pick up.
32:44 Speaker 01 Encampments can get pretty big, I've seen on the news.
32:46 Speaker 04 Yes, so we'll coordinate a response with them. One other department that we work very closely with is animal control because we've encountered a lot of encampments that have a huge amount of dogs and they're just having puppies. And so if we do do a large encampment cleanup, we'll take animal control with us out there. And if somebody does go to jail, we'll take the dog for them and put them in the animal shelter so that when they get released, they can come out, come back and get their dog out. But we also use it as an opportunity to offer spay and neuter services while their dog is at our city animal shelter.
33:30 Speaker 04 So we're trying to check that off and so we can hopefully.
33:33 Speaker 00 Minimize the growth of that area.
33:36 Speaker 04 Yes.
33:37 Speaker 00 Meaning more dogs down the road.
33:39 Speaker 04 Right, yeah. So we also work very closely with the arson department. So if there's a concern where there's somebody starting a lot of fires or something like that, then now we're bringing arson investigators in with us and really collaborating and solving a lot of cases because we're now working together as opposed to siloing all of the information.
34:01 Speaker 00 Yeah, so I imagine the arson investigation is the 326-3737 number.
34:09 Speaker 00 But if you actually see a fire, you might want to call a different number.
34:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, yes. We can definitely, uh, uh, we don't want to take away from arson, you know, uh, main line for their, uh, those types of needs, but if it is a homeless related issue and there was some evidence of a fire, it's not going ongoing, you can call 326-3737. Let us know and then we will send that over to arson. We don't, what we really are trying to avoid is the citizen having to figure out, okay, which department am I calling? Am I calling code enforcement? Am I calling streets? Am I calling arson? Call us.
34:42 Speaker 01 So what's your, what's your plan to, I know you're here on the radio with us today. It's awesome, but what's your plan to get the word out? Cause this is great. This is great information.
34:50 Speaker 04 Well, we've been sort of on a press tour of sorts. Trying to get the word, word out with, um, obviously here with you all and, uh, with local community groups. Uh, Lieutenant Nanderberg does a lot of speaking engagements with groups downtown and elsewhere. And, um, really just trying to put together some formal marketing and just keep getting the word out.
35:09 Speaker 00 Yeah, you know, it's, it's, we've been, we've been doing this radio show for a long, long time and people are very opinionated and political and different things. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard people talk about government inefficiencies and, uh, the homeless issue here in our community. And everybody talks about it, complains about it. And it's like, the effort's being made. I love the fact that there's this effort to, to, to put synergy together. There's resources out there, but a lot of times it's hard to get everybody to communicate. You guys are doing the work. So out there as listeners, understand that this stuff is going on and you can play a role by even just mentioning it to anybody and everybody out there. If you see issues, you can mention the fact that there is a dedicated phone line
35:52 Speaker 00 that you can call so that the right resources will get put in place. And then that way we're not tying up a police officer or taking a police officer out of, uh, maybe something that could be more important or more pressing and different things. Like this is the effort to address some of the things that I've, we've all heard complaints about. So try to take advantage of it. Try to get the word out there. I always love hearing feedback of like, you know, I've had people that like, were so upset that some major, uh, tagging went on and like, we have the, we have a, a. To have tagging taken care of here in town and it's very quick and effective and it gets taken out of there and and it's like these things are out there, but we do have to play our role as community members and get the word out there as well, so.
36:31 Speaker 01 So how can listeners support? Is this a government funded volunteer or a mixture of both? Sounds like maybe.
36:36 Speaker 04 Yes, it is funded through the city. So this is a city funded program. I know a lot of Measure, Measure N covers a lot of these programs. So yeah, that's where we got that. There was another component to community vitality. My partner works a lot on, Jamie, do you want to talk about the intensive case management?
36:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, so we recently added to our sort of bucket of services, some state funded Prop 47 initiatives which entail intensive case management for our chronically homeless population. So those individuals who are out there causing the most problems for the police department, they're repeat offenders, as well as a second group of individuals, which would be those paroling into Kern County. And so what we're doing is we're providing these individuals with individualized intensive case management. We're not taking no for an answer. We're giving them someone who they have access to all the time to get help with whatever their barriers are to getting housing or to stop breaking the law.
37:40 Speaker 04 Our motto in the office is relentless pursuit.
37:44 Speaker 03 Relentless pursuit.
37:45 Speaker 00 Yeah. It's one of those things where it's so overwhelming because, you know, I've heard it said, you know, like homelessness isn't a crime, but it's like it's an issue. And then all these different things. Is there any guidelines like from the state or something as far as how this is being handled? And I know that sometimes like these higher level restrictions are put down, but then it's like the nuts and bolts of how it actually affects your community. So like, what is the guidelines that you guys have to follow? As you guys try to implement these or is it kind of the wild, wild west of just trying to come up with these strategies? I mean, how do you, how do you, how do you get some guidelines?
38:23 Speaker 03 Well, the state does issue guidelines and best practices and I think in terms of case management and helping people on an individual level, we're looking at what other people are doing. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel. There are things out there that work and we're just trying to get as many resources that we can to be able to implement those here. So Prop 47 is a great example of that. We didn't create this program. This is something that people are doing kind of all over the place and we just have an opportunity now to give these people very individualized care that they otherwise wouldn't receive. And a lot of the care that they may have otherwise received, you know, they might get contacted once a month or once every six months and that's just not sustainable. You really have to keep on. In terms of like the operational side of that, I don't know
39:08 Speaker 03 if you want to speak to?
39:10 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. So I would say a lot of the guidance that's come from the state, we have already been implementing on an operational side. So a lot of it is clean up the encampments and, you know, make a difference in that realm. And ever since I've been a part of IMPACT and really with the police department, we've always, of course, followed all of the appropriate laws and Supreme Court rulings and all that. But we have been very active in making sure that we are cleaning up encampments as much as we can. We're offering services. We're doing it compassionately, but we're also recognizing that there's an impact on our community members that are dealing with a lot of the effects that come from homelessness.
39:54 Speaker 04 And so I really think that's why you don't see a lot of like our huge encampments like you do maybe in some other cities in the state.
40:02 Speaker 01 You guys are doing a great job in that respect. You drive through LA and it's just like cities, tent cities.
40:07 Speaker 04 Yes. And I really think it's a lot of that has to do with the co-response model that we've built. So like I mentioned earlier, I manage the IMPACT team. It's 26 officers. There's four teams that work throughout the week. We have coverage from Monday through Sunday from 6:00 AM to 1:00 AM. And each team has a mental health professional that rides with one officer and then we have- Code enforcement officer that rides with the another officer. Each team also has a dedicated rapid response. Uh, team and those are the uh, city workers with the grappling trailers and the big. Trash bins and and all that. So if.
40:48 Speaker 04 And uh, let's say a call comes into community vitality of an encampment in an area, then our impact team will go out. And if there's a large encampment that maybe we missed. Then they'll call our rapid response team right then and there they're cleaning it up. So it's extremely efficient and quick and we've. Uh, just the collaboration, um, just over last month, we, we gathered some response times for our teams. If you were to call community vitality. Impact will likely respond within or our response times last month were three hours and thirty minutes for a police officer. Our code enforcement co-response is about one and a half days, which those can be a little bit more uh, complex investigation. So that's um, it sounds like a, a long time, but there's a lot.
41:32 Speaker 01 You're limited on your resources. We're limited with.
41:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
41:35 Speaker 01 You know, officers.
41:36 Speaker 04 Yes. And then uh, flood ministries are, are contracted outreach providers. They will, they responded within thirty seven minutes of getting a call last month.
41:44 Speaker 01 Nice.
41:45 Speaker 04 There, we're, we're very quick.
41:46 Speaker 01 Is it just me or, or the last four, five, six years? It, it seems like it's grown to a much bigger problem. I've heard rumors. That some of the, some of the larger. Politics aside, hyper liberal cities have actually bust people here. I don't know if that's just a rumor. And then fentanyl, how can you speak to the crazy growth in the homeless population?
42:07 Speaker 04 Yes, I've, I've heard the rumors that, that there are people being bust in, but I have no evidence of that. I don't know that. But um, as far as.
42:15 Speaker 00 People, people come here for the great weather.
42:17 Speaker 01 That's what I was thinking.
42:18 Speaker 00 Yeah, they, they actually from the coast, they're like, you know what? I heard about this little paradise.
42:23 Speaker 01 The view.
42:23 Speaker 00 The San Juan Valley. That three times a year you can see. No, I'm just kidding. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
42:28 Speaker 04 That's okay. Um, I definitely believe that the ease of obtaining uh, drugs, hard drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine. One hundred percent uh, leads to an increase in homelessness. So a lot of the people that we are arresting right now out on the streets are. Uh, arrested with paraphernalia or they have drugs. Um, our officers have identified people who are dealing drugs to our homeless encampments. So absolutely, I think that that is.
42:56 Speaker 01 And this is partly due to changes in, in making them uh.
43:03 Speaker 01 Miscreants, right? Were there some big changes there that the government threw down here for us?
43:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, several years ago, they made it a misdemeanor for hard drugs like methamphetamine to go from felony to misdemeanor. But that's since changed now with Prop 36. There's a couple of chances and then you can be booked for a felony. And definitely have seen a change in the environment now that we're able to actually book somebody in jail for a drug-related felony. And so, you know, the word is out that there are more consequences for that.
43:42 Speaker 00 Real quick, we had a message come in and I want to 100% agree with it. It says, "The dynamic duo, go get them, girls." So, kudos to whoever's listening to you.
43:50 Speaker 04 Thank you so much.
43:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, get the word out there. They're doing a fantastic job answering and dealing with some very tough realities of our community. Things that are all probably thinking about, worrying about, talking about, and they're doing it. Another one came in that I think had to do with our last topic. We were talking about a financial advisor that was unfortunately stealing money from his professional athlete clients. So it says, "How does an advisor get away from stealing all that type of money? Crazy." But the last one that came in said, "Thank you for what you guys do in the community. I will say, living downtown, I've not seen as much of the unhoused people, but see more of the panhandlers everywhere. Is there certain times that people can volunteer to help with cleanups?"
44:30 Speaker 01 Good question.
44:31 Speaker 04 Wow. There are a lot of organizations that will accept volunteers and all that. We don't really have a volunteer unit. However, the Bakersfield Police Department actually has a citizens volunteer unit. And so I would encourage, if you're really interested in doing something like that, absolutely.
44:51 Speaker 01 Out on the bike path, right? Weren't there some volunteers hopping on the mountain bikes?
44:54 Speaker 04 They're everywhere. They are all over the place.
44:57 Speaker 00 There was a group there this morning. I don't know if that's what they were out there doing, but yeah. What about, and I know nobody here is representing Flood Ministries, but they might also have some volunteer work that you might be able to participate there. And they're obviously working in conjunction with- This wonderful program, Community Vitality, that we're talking about now. So that might be another way that you can get out there. And you know what? Another way is start something yourself. If you see some opportunity out there to get out there and clean things up, you definitely can go do that. So thank you for even throwing that out there or being interested. So thank you guys so much for what you're doing for our community. Hopefully, the word continues to get out there. 661-326-3737 is the phone line to call.
45:40 Speaker 01 Save it in your phone.
45:41 Speaker 00 Yep, save it in your phone. And if you see anything that you think has to do with homelessness or whatever, they will dispatch the right resources in a efficient way, right? That's what we want. We want efficiency, and that is exactly what Lieutenant Anderberg and Jamie Actberg was.
46:01 Speaker 01 These are tough last names you guys brought us.
46:02 Speaker 00 They did. I actually wanted to do it because they brought it in. And it was like, it's the challenge for a podcast MC guy to try to throw them out there. Because I'm like, wait, that's the same. That's the same. Nope, it's not. But anyways, Community Vitality. So you've been around since 2023. What kind of numbers is the phone line seeing? Is it a daily thing? Like, like, what kind of, like, is it upticking? Are we getting some traction there? What kind of numbers are we getting as far as calls?
46:28 Speaker 04 I do, yes. In May of 2025, we, we were at 1,294. So let's see if we can hit 1,300 for June.
46:37 Speaker 00 There you go.
46:38 Speaker 01 Our show's so popular, you're probably going to see those numbers.
46:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's going to skyrocket. You guys get ready.
46:41 Speaker 01 It's coming.
46:43 Speaker 04 We're ready, yes.
46:44 Speaker 01 Buckle down.
46:45 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you guys again for what you do. Listeners, community members, make it happen. It is a wonderful program that's trying to get those resources out in the right way and keep our police officers out there focusing on what they need to. So thanks again for joining us. And thank you, listeners, for making the show what it is today. And most importantly, be smart, be safe, and be money wise.
47:14 Speaker 05 Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.
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