12 episodes
Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto Crooked Media
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- Society & Culture
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4.4 • 228 Ratings
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What happens when a city on the verge of collapse tries to reinvent itself? How much will it cost? Who will pay the price? Reporter David Weinberg spent years following one city in California’s Mojave desert as it tried to transform itself from a city of prisons to a city of pot. And it worked…for a while. Until it, spectacularly, didn’t. From Crooked Media, this is Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto. Coming June 7th wherever you get your podcasts.
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Introducing Radio Diaries: The Unmarked Graveyard
This is the first episode in Radio Diaries’ new series The Unmarked Graveyard, untangling mysteries from America’s largest public cemetery. Each week, they’re bringing you stories of how people ended up on Hart Island, the lives they lived and the people they left behind.
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Chapter 8: Sometimes You Win
Stevevonna announces her candidacy for mayor, challenging a former ally for the top spot on the city council. But as the election nears, a new issue takes center stage – not weed – but the city’s water supply.
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Chapter 7: The Joy of Politics
Stevevonna Evans’ former friends in the city council have turned against her. But a trip to Sacramento and conversations with an unlikely ally convince her to take a big career swing.
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Chapter 6: Ring of Truth
Stevevonna Evans is charting a new path for Adelanto and attempting to put an era of corruption in the past. But just a few months into her term, she finds herself caught up in her own scandal and discovers that in Adelanto it’s difficult to govern without making a mess.
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Chapter 5: The Audit
Stevevonna Evans, now on the city council, discovers multiple millions of dollars are missing from the city budget. She begins to investigate, and with every rock she turns over she learns another bonkers secret about what went down while Mayor Kerr, Jermaine Wright and Bug Woodard were in power.
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Chapter 4: Stevevonna’s Run
With City Hall imploding in scandal, a local resident, Stevevonna Evans, takes it upon herself to run for office, unseat Bug, and clean up the mess he’s left behind. But Evans’ sudden interest in politics isn’t just about solving corruption. She has another, more personal reason for entering the race.
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Customer Reviews
What It’s Like When Monty Python Runs Your Town
One of the first California desert communities to welcome large scale cannabis cultivation, the comedy of errors that ensues (including failing to collect the taxes that were supposed to save the town) is an object lesson in what NOT to do if you’re counting on cannabis to save the day.
Told with a mixture of in-person interviews with elected officials charged with cleaning up the mess of the previous administration and residents who are understandably disgruntled this podcast just never disappoints.
It’s also a fascinating meditation on what happens to citizens when circumstances compel them to take up the role of legislator because the previous regime has screwed up so monumentally as to be beyond inept.
Highly recommended.
Great premise but…
Fails to deliver. It ends up telling a pretty narrow story of the failed political career of a local activist who is naive and demonstrates very poor judgement. The most compelling character bows out after episode 2 only to reappear as a footnote in the epilogue. Waste of time unless you’re from the area.
I lived this
I lived this for a year. When your vice mayor doesn’t wear shoes to work, you know you have a problem. You can’t fix stupid!