I entered this nationwide keyword on our website. Okay, that's hey, enter
it now. Bill Cunningham, the Great America looking forward to my next vacation.
You can't get much better than that. I need a little bit of
time off. The wars at talk radio continue to be brutal. But until
then, I see with great interest in Amy Murray and Charlie Luken and Paul
Musing and others in their possession. I think in about eight weeks one point
six billion dollars and that's real money about the Norfolk Southern Sale. What's happening
with that? They're in the mid trust of picking the person to manage that
money. Was like five finalists. Don't know what's going to happen down the
road. Of course, Amy can't prejudiced the case by talking about which one
looks more favorable. But until then, Amy Murray, welcome to the Bill
Cunningham Show. And Amy, how are you good? How are you really?
Happy? New Year? Happy new to year? And all that entails.
I see that the other four members of the board, of which you're
the more and ethical head, is talking about who to give the one point
six billion dollars to kind of tell the American people this day after Martin Luther
King Junior holiday, What is happening with the one point six and how's the
board doing? Where's the money going to go, when will it be picked,
how will the money be spent? And all those issues please go absolutely
So, as you know, this went through the election in November, so
it has approved to pass. We will receive the money on March fifteenth,
and so right now the five members of the board were conducting interviews to see
who will be the money manager. We sent out a request for proposal and
had seventeen really great companies apply to manage the money. And just to be
clear to people, this is managing the money, growing the money. It's
not spending the money. That is that money will go to the city and
the city will use it on infrastructure like they have in the past. So
what we're talking about is making sure that we are protecting this asset so that
it will continue to grow for the next generations. And I noticed March fifteenth
is when Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate, and I'm
thinking, will there be some coup where Charlie Luken will go down? Hard
is a March fifteenth. Why is that date magical? Why pick that date?
You know what, that's the date that was set when we were doing
the negotiations. It gave us enough time after the election ended for us to
get everything in order. We want to be able to have our money manager
set and be able to give the money to them at that time and invest
it properly. And as you mentioned, Charlie Luken's on the board, Paul
Muthene, we also have Mark Mallory and Paul Selvester and really this is a
board I think how boards really are supposed to run. You know, three
of us have been political in our past lives, really know the city.
All of us love the city a lot, and really feel like this is
a huge legacy that we were leaving to the city. And this board really
works well together. So I'm not expecting any coup. We all, you
know, from day one, have worked for the same cause and saying reason
and there's not a lot of politics involved. So that is so nice.
So if the five of you get together with the nine members of council and
they got robes on and they got sharp instruments under their dresses, don't go
to the meeting. The eyes of March. Maybe there'll be some assassination attempt
of Julius Caesar that we don't have to worry about that that half tab pair
ofval Augustus will arise and seize the money and run away with it. That's
not gonna happen. Okay. You know what is so funny though, is
my one acting debut. I was like in sixth grade and I played brudis
there you go? I'm worry. I'm worried. I'm sorry, there's gonna
be aless coup. And it's so funny because it was not that great and
my mom still remembers it and we'll bring it up and said that was such
a great acting debut. So now now we might be worried, Willie,
I don't it would be because you know, half tam pure of all is
very aggressive and he wants the money. He needs the money. Now let's
talk about, let's quote having so much fun. Let's not do that anymore.
Now. As far as some people are concerned, like Tony Bender,
that the money is going to be used for the street car to go up
the hill, which is it's great to have where there's no fee to get
on the street car. You know, it's for free, so they talk
about the ridership is up. It doesn't cost anything. It's costing a freaking
fortune. Any chance this money could be used to extend the streetcar up they
held into Clifton after all, that is infrastructure, well it is, and
so anything that the money could have been used to for before the sale,
it can be used for after the sale. So the sale does not make
any difference what the city can use the money for. It has to be
ongoing infrastructure, so you know, it might be a fight for someone.
I don't think it can be a new street car. I think it could
be if there were issues with the current rails and doing something like that.
But it's got to be current infrastructure upgrades and maintenance. And so we are
giving the money to the city like we always have some we really keep a
separation of church and state. We're responsible for the money. When we received
it from Northfolk Southern, we gave that money to the city and they spend
it on the infrastructure. The city right now really has I think four hundred
million dollars worth of past infrastructure needs, so I think that they have plenty
to use this money for. And with us being able to hopefully give them,
you know, almost double of what they're receiving now. Hopefully we'll get
more roads paved, police stations, upgraded fire stations, things like that.
But you know, they don't come to our meetings, so we don't have
the mayor at our meetings. They don't have their finger on the scale of
who we're going to pick for this. It's the five members and likewise,
we give them the money and you know, based on how much we have
and how much we've received an interest that year. We give them that money
based on our decisions, not what the city needs, but what we are
able to give so that we can keep that fund growing. And you know,
we'll add money back into the fund hopefully every year and you know,
keep it growing for quite a while now, Amy Murray, one of the
trap doors in this deal might be the ability of counsel and or the mayor
to appoint the members of the board. Whoever controls the board controls the money.
Is there any whispering in your ear, whether mew Thing or Lucan or
you or Mallory whatever, saying I kind of want you to do this,
kind of want you to do that. And since the American appoints. You
can't the mayor let you go if you don't dance to his music. So
we have not heard anything like that from this city at all, and so
you know, that really makes me feel positive about that. Also, on
the board, really it can only be three members from one party. So
the good news is they'll always be two members from another party, from the
Republican Party on the board. And so I think if people were planning to
do something, whoever those two members are, if it's an hour in twenty
years, you know, would raise the issue if there's something untoward going on,
which I don't foresee. Also, if we give blow twenty five percent
of our principle, then we are not able to give any money to the
city until we bring that up. So it doesn't behoove the city or anyone
to try and spend the money or spend out of the principle, because then
we would have to legally. This was part of Dewaines bill, stop giving
them money until it's built back up. So you know, we try to
put in every safe to measure that we can. I know it's really hard.
I know people often don't trust government or politics, but we are doing.
You know, we try to put every safeguard in place so that this
money will continue to grow and that you know, the situation you talk about
can't happen in about two months. You're going to get one point six billion.
You have it down to the last five. What are the two or
three parameters as far as the money manager. You have to pick someone in
the next few days or a few weeks. But what are give me two
or three of the parameters. Yeah, So we actually have our meeting tomorrow
and we'll have the five finalists come in and we'll have interviews with them and
discuss different issues. All of us brings something different to the party as well
as we have Davenport, which is a manager consulting group that does this all
the time. And then we have two volunteer people from the Cincinnati area,
car Is Shure and Bob Sido, that have a lot of hands on expertise
on this in the Cincinnati area, so they are helping us with their financial
expertise. What we're looking though, for is the firm background, qualifications,
experience. You know, really an important thing is cybersecurity. We want to
make sure that the money's in there and that it's safe and that there won't
be any issues. We're looking at their proposed approach to the funds, the
performance measurements and how they'll evaluate it. Any special advantages the firm has,
of course they're fees, so those are some of the main things we're looking
at. Of course, you know, inclusion is one of those that's listed,
is one of the guidelines also, so we're looking at a variety of
things to make sure that we have the best group to manage this money.
What does inclusiveness mean? What is it? Well, I think that that
what what it means is that the firm that we're using, they're going to
look at different fund managers to manage different parts of the fund. So that
you know, the city is fifty percent African American, and we want to
make sure that of the one point six billion that you know, some parts
of the fund will have that opportunity. And I know, you know this
is really important to Mark Mallory and and you know obviously the mayor and folks
like that, So we just want to make sure that you know, there's
some different groups so it will be part of the smaller amount of managing the
funds. Well, it's not about you know, about black or white.
It's not about blue or red. It's about competency. It's got to be
about who's the best. How come skin color counts for something as opposed to
simply worried about the green. Yeah, well, the main thing is we
are worried about the green. And I think all five of the funds we
have are very representative of great funds. And I think the reason that that
was added in on the inclusion part. It's a smaller part of it,
but I think it's important to some members in Cincinnati that you know, when
they use the one point six billion, you know, one hundred million might
go to one fund, ten thousand to another or whatever, and that at
least there's looking at that. And that's not going to be the main point
at all, Willie. It's going to be that we get a return on
our investment. I mean, that's the absolute main thing that we are looking
at. We want to get the return and uh, you know, be
able to grow this for the city. Let's see what happens there. You
know, I'm all about merit, not so much about races and picking people
by the color of their skin or the kind of sex they enjoy. It's
kind of the way things are today. But let's worry about merit. Well.
And really I agree with you because if you remember when I was on
council, one of my biggest concerns is on council they were looking at like
the pension fund and what would go into that. And you know, we
started having council members say things like, well, if a company deals with
this other company that we don't agree with, or we don't want to invest
in them, and you know, we we shut that down right away.
And because for the pension fund and for this, it's not based on these
things. It has to be based on what's bringing the best return for the
city. Stay focused on that. I would not go ahead, go ahead,
oh no. And so you know, so we've made it crystal clear
that is us five members. You know, that's what we're looking at,
is the return for the city. Yeah. I don't care if they're all
black, all white, all brown, all gay, all straight. I
just want competency. And that's the way it is. But and the money
comes in March, as I understand that the first year or two there's no
money dispersed at all to build up a little bit of reserve. Is that
correct? There's no money spent on infrastructure the first couple of years, Well,
that's up to the city. We are looking right now because obviously we're
getting it in March and normally we get our least money from Norfolk and Southern
so we're working with the city so that we can disperse money to them.
In the first year or two. It's just probably going to be a little
different than it's going to look after we've been into a full year and we
have money and we have returns. And lastly, what's happened to the Amy
Murray's and the List Keatings Because I look at you two as competent who happen
to be female, but you make sense, you have accomplishments, you care
And now the List Keatings in the Amy Murray's cannot get elected as city Council.
They're all in the same political stripe. And looking into the future,
there's a little chance I think City Council is going to become a Republican anytime
soon. In fact, as you said to begin this, the five members
of this board are diverse, and they get together and they work, and
they're Democrats and Republicans and one eye is keeping the other one checking things out.
But none of that's happening on city council now. They all speak with
one voice. All the votes are nine zip. There's no watchdog. And
what happened to Amy Murray and Liz Katy, well really, I mean that
is a huge problem for our city and I think everyone needs to be really
aware of it. I mean, Liz Keating was a wonderful candidate. And
you know, we used to have twenty five people run for city council,
and because now the Democrats have such a strong hold, last time we only
had ten. And so it's really the Democratic Committee in Cincinnati that's picking who's
going to be the next city council member. It's not really the election,
it's whoever they put on the sample ballot. And you know, we have
a lot of Republicans within the city, so with fair representation, we should
have two or three people on council. So problem you need to have the
loyal opposition. You need to have people that bring up issues when it happens.
I know that's role I played a lot on council, and Liz did.
If there were things that went on that we felt were uncomfortable of letting
other people know, alerting the media, stopping it, bringing other viewpoints to
our colleagues. So I think having one of all party is not good for
the city at all. It really worries me and Bill. I don't know
who's going to run as a Republican no one. This point not worth it.
You know we will the next selection be nine Democrats are already incumbents runing.
It's sad for the city. Yeah, Liz had the most money,
the most competency. You ran a great campaign, didn't get a sniff,
finished tenth by like two thousand votes, not even close. Well, Amy
Murray, good luck, and we'll see what happens in the future. And
to beware of the eyes of March. And if you're called to a meeting
with a f tab pirival, have them go through a metal detector. Okay,
you take care of Willie, all right, Amy Murray, thank you
very much. Let's continue with more if the line becomes available. Five one,
three, seven, four, nine seven. Bill Cunningham, the Great
American, loud, proud and sassy, all on news Radio seven hundred WLW.
Meanwhile, in Geppetto's workshop, the Blue Faery suddenly appears really, I
never thought i'd find this place. Are you here to turn Pinocchio from a
poppet into a boy? Are you kidding? Do you know what kind of
trouble you get into? Smoking, drinking, gambling? And what are you
doing here? I want to listen to Eddie and Rocky and Geopetto's got some
kickass woofers. Eddie and Rocky, Yeah they make me laugh. Now shut
up so I can hear the show. Sorry, Eddie and Rocky, give
your day a fairy tale and Eddie and rock This afternoon to three on seven
hundred WLW. Draftking Sportsbook and official sports betting partner in the NFL playoffs is
bringing you an offer that's gonna