Speaker 1: Seven oh five here at fifty five care CD talk station.
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, Eve to you. Pardon me that came out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. I have a cough button, couldn't get to
Speaker 1: it in time. But I am looking across the table
Speaker 1: at a man that I truly appreciate it, man that
Speaker 1: thankfully has too much time in his retirement because he's
Speaker 1: got nothing better to do than be the Inspector General
Speaker 1: for the Generals Greater of the Cincinnati Residence, City of
Speaker 1: Sincinnia Residence. Welcome back to the fifty five care Morning
Speaker 1: Carose Morning Show, host of the Citizen Watchdog podcast Get
Speaker 1: in Touch with It. Todd Zen's are good to have
Speaker 1: you in.
Speaker 2: Man, Thanks Brian, good to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it took the time to come in this studio.
Speaker 1: It's great having you in and talking with you about
Speaker 1: all these things that you follow. So let us start.
Speaker 1: We were touch talking about this. Let's stick with the
Speaker 1: topic of i'm gun violence. Generally speaking, they had a
Speaker 1: ryl Long city manager. She Chief Fiji was there yesterday.
Speaker 1: The mayor was there. He didn't have a whole lot
Speaker 1: to say, though from what I gathered from the reporting,
Speaker 1: you can fill in the details on that, but apparently
Speaker 1: red bikes, So we're going to take the red bikes
Speaker 1: away from folks tomorrow and Saturday overnight. They did that
Speaker 1: over the fourth of July or Independence Day weekend. Apparently
Speaker 1: it had some positive impact, or at least it suggested
Speaker 1: or they suggested it did. So. I didn't realize bikes
Speaker 1: and e scooters were really at the core of the
Speaker 1: crime wave going on in the city Cincinnati, But I
Speaker 1: suppose when you're trying to come up with solutions, every
Speaker 1: little bit counts.
Speaker 2: That's right, every little bit counts. But they've got they've
Speaker 2: got big, big problems.
Speaker 1: Well, they argued that violent crime and murders or gun
Speaker 1: crime specifically were down, at least that's what was reported.
Speaker 2: Well, it was what I took away from the news
Speaker 2: conference was that, yeah, things are getting better, but they
Speaker 2: have a perception problem that the public doesn't perceive that
Speaker 2: things are getting better. So they're really battling a bad
Speaker 2: perception rather than the bad data.
Speaker 1: Well, you believe if you live in any of the
Speaker 1: given neighborhoods in the city and you see it with
Speaker 1: your own eyes, and it is widely reported that one
Speaker 1: of the bigger problems we've got downtown? Are these roving
Speaker 1: gangs of teenagers? I mean it's like cockroaches in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. They all gather. As soon as
Speaker 1: you turn the light on, these scurry and multiple different directions.
Speaker 1: You can't get them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, your friend Jim Kiefer raised a good point
Speaker 2: yesterday when I was speaking with them about this Blue
Speaker 2: Ash issue where you had these hundreds of kids up there.
Speaker 2: How do they get there? And what's the signal? How
Speaker 2: do they communicate with each other? To do everybody know
Speaker 2: to go to this one?
Speaker 1: Look, now, the easy answer to that one is we
Speaker 1: live in an internet society. Now. You know, the old days,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to get a whole bunch of people together,
Speaker 1: what did you print flyers up? You mailed things to people.
Speaker 1: I mean there was no one stop shop for your
Speaker 1: causes website like we've got. Now, Hey, we're all going
Speaker 1: to eat in Blue Ash and you know, shoot fireworks
Speaker 1: for people just to be a nuisance. You know, you
Speaker 1: can have a house party in like five seconds. Now
Speaker 1: you put it online, house party, It filling the black address.
Speaker 1: The next thing, you knowl four hundred people showed up.
Speaker 2: Well, the other thing that I noted in the press
Speaker 2: conference was Cheryl Long finally did start talking about this
Speaker 2: program that they started back in January called AC for Sincy.
Speaker 2: And the mayor was on Cincinnati edition last week and
Speaker 2: never said a word about Act for Sincy. And it
Speaker 2: was launched in January as a holistic approach to reducing
Speaker 2: gun violence, and they never said anything about it.
Speaker 1: Well, that doesn't make any sense, is that because of marketing,
Speaker 1: we need to have this new program because we have
Speaker 1: a problem with gun violence, which of course confirms what
Speaker 1: everybody out there in the real world suspects. Anyway, Well,
Speaker 1: the marketing thing here, you know, the terrible murder of
Speaker 1: mister Herringer. Oh yeah, and the response from his widow
Speaker 1: she summed it up in three words. It's optics over outcomes, right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of the things that this city council
Speaker 1: and this mayor are doing are really for optics. And
Speaker 1: you can go through program after program, and they put
Speaker 1: a little bit of money in all of these programs,
Speaker 1: and then when somebody says, what are you doing about this,
Speaker 1: they say, we have a program for that. And even
Speaker 1: if they funded at like ten thousand or twenty five thousand.
Speaker 1: You know, I was at a meeting in bond Hill
Speaker 1: about connected communities with the Vice Mayor and Scottie Johnson,
Speaker 1: and it was about how we can improve connected communities
Speaker 1: if that's even possible. And somebody got up and said, well,
Speaker 1: what about property taxes? Our property taxes are too high,
Speaker 1: and the Vice mayor said, well, we have a program
Speaker 1: for that. They have a Well, no, they don't.
Speaker 2: Have a program. Their program is to help people pay
Speaker 2: the Property Act property taxes that they owe in back
Speaker 2: taxes their debt. That's what the city has a program for.
Speaker 1: But not to address the broader problem of the property
Speaker 1: taxes going through the root exactly, and people who have
Speaker 1: to pay them or otherwise end up perhaps losing their property.
Speaker 1: They're on the hook for the money they paid it.
Speaker 1: So there's no relief for the folks with higher property
Speaker 1: tax bills. There's only relief for folks who didn't pay
Speaker 1: the property tax bills because they were too high.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, so that's problem solved.
Speaker 2: But optics over outcomes is it really sums up this
Speaker 2: mayor in this city council.
Speaker 1: But you can't cover up the fact that week after
Speaker 1: week after week we have all this hoorific criminal activity
Speaker 1: that's going on. I mean, even as little as local
Speaker 1: reporting we have, we do hear about it, we do
Speaker 1: see it. So you can't hide behind you can't hide
Speaker 1: the news from people. And then there's the other component.
Speaker 1: You talked to Ken favor of us and say FOP president,
Speaker 1: and Ken will tell you that they know, like for example,
Speaker 1: enforcing curfew. There is a curfew, Yes, but they don't
Speaker 1: bother even dealing with it because they catch the teenager
Speaker 1: who's violating curfew, they're not going to be dealt with
Speaker 1: by the judicial component of the criminal justice system. The
Speaker 1: judges will let them out. Happens all the time, so
Speaker 1: much show that it's not even worth issuing a citation.
Speaker 2: Well, there was a question. I couldn't hear it very well.
Speaker 2: But I think one of the reporters yesterday at the
Speaker 2: news conference was asking about twenty twenty Auburn, the juvenile
Speaker 2: center or detention center whatever they call it, and that
Speaker 2: the police were being turned away when they tried to
Speaker 2: bring people up to twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Yes, so you know they have a capacity ken. Ken
Speaker 1: said that specifically, Yeah.
Speaker 2: They have a capacity issue there, So what do they
Speaker 2: do about it?
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Maybe there isn't a program for that.
Speaker 1: They need a program for that, another building, another place
Speaker 1: to take I tell.
Speaker 2: You this, five million dollars they want to spend on
Speaker 2: a day center for the homeless. That's controversial because there
Speaker 2: are existing programs that think they could handle you know,
Speaker 2: the requirement or the need. But the city, for some
Speaker 2: other reason wants to spend five million on this building.
Speaker 2: Maybe they ought to turn the building into a detention center.
Speaker 1: Well I like that idea. I mean, if there's not
Speaker 1: room enough to deal with the folks that are violating
Speaker 1: the law, then you need a place to put them.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't well, I question a prioritization.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, That's exactly right, Brian.
Speaker 1: And without enforcement, without the penalty component. I say this
Speaker 1: all the time. The criminal justice system, the deterrence element
Speaker 1: is one of the key principles on it. If you
Speaker 1: do something in violation of the law, there will be
Speaker 1: con sequences. That's a message. It's not only to punish
Speaker 1: the person who was dominough to violate the law, but
Speaker 1: it's a message to every kid out there or everybody
Speaker 1: else out there, this is what's going to happen to you,
Speaker 1: and get rid of that, and it's like, well, wait
Speaker 1: a second, h nothing's going to happen to me, so
Speaker 1: why bother obeying the law?
Speaker 2: That's right, this whole act for sincey, this holistic approach
Speaker 2: to reducing gun violence. They had a three million dollar
Speaker 2: budget and it went to all of these nonprofits. And
Speaker 2: that's what this is all about, external organizations. And there's
Speaker 2: no way to measure whether anything they're doing has any
Speaker 2: impact on reducing gun violence. But it's they give away
Speaker 2: all this money.
Speaker 1: Well and they can say something like we have a
Speaker 1: program for that and we have already addressed that and
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, again, this is kind of like USAID.
Speaker 1: It's a local versus USA. The money goes out into
Speaker 1: the world, and you know, at least on a federal level,
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars to on various programs around
Speaker 1: the globe. We don't know if that work was even done.
Speaker 1: No one's following the money, No one knows where it goes.
Speaker 1: What the salaries are being paid within these nonprofit organizational structures,
Speaker 1: and they all get pretty handsome salaries. Just because you're
Speaker 1: nonprofit doesn't mean your CEO isn't making three hundred four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Yet that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So that's what's happening locally. Then, Oh, we're a non
Speaker 1: violence we have a holistic approach to getting kids off
Speaker 1: the streets and getting them to play hockey at night
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: But when the mayor showed up on the radio program
Speaker 2: and started talking about all the things they're doing to
Speaker 2: reduce gun violence, he never said a single word about
Speaker 2: this act. For Cincy, they have a program where they're
Speaker 2: basically paying people not to commit crimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we can dive into a few more of
Speaker 1: the details for that. And again, why didn't he announce
Speaker 1: it out loud early on? If it's such a great
Speaker 1: thing for the city of Cincinnati, we'll bring Todd Zinzer back.
Speaker 1: We have him for the full hour here in the
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Speaker 3: This is fifty five KRC and iHeartRadio station our iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Here's your channel nine, first one and one forecast sunny
Speaker 1: day to day. I do have a possible shower of
Speaker 1: thunderstorm showing up later this afternoon at some point, maybe
Speaker 1: though eighty six of the high clear of a night
Speaker 1: time to seventy it's going to be sunny hot NEMA tomorrow,
Speaker 1: Isolated rain in the afternoons, a possibility ninety for the
Speaker 1: high muggy and seventy one overnight with clear skies, and
Speaker 1: a high end ninety one on Saturday with a decent
Speaker 1: chance for rain. They say seventy one right now. Let's
Speaker 1: get an update on traffic.
Speaker 3: From the u See Health Traffic Center. You See Health
Speaker 3: has expert traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting
Speaker 3: long term recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you see
Speaker 3: health dot com. Traffic is slow this morning, and I
Speaker 3: seventy five southbound between Ronald Reagan Highway and Paddock Road.
Speaker 3: You're slow seventy five northbound between Buttermilk Pike and Twelfth Street,
Speaker 3: and there's a stall seventy five northbound at two seventy
Speaker 3: five on the left shoulder. I'm Heather Pasco on fifty
Speaker 3: five krc the talk.
Speaker 1: Station seven nineteen to fifty five KRCD Talk Station. Brian
Speaker 1: Tommouth with Citizen Watchdog Todd Zenzer get his podcasts and
Speaker 1: Watchdog and maybe you become friends of them on Facebook.
Speaker 1: He's always pointing posting things related to maybe corruption, fraud,
Speaker 1: ways to abuse, inaction, outright stupidity with regard to what
Speaker 1: the city of Cincinnati's doing dealing with its relative or
Speaker 1: various rather challenges. We were talking about this Act for
Speaker 1: Sincy program to or a blueprint for violence production that
Speaker 1: says on the cover of the materials achieving change together.
Speaker 1: This came out in January. You mentioned, without any fanfare,
Speaker 1: without any formal notice, that here were implementing this program.
Speaker 1: But as you just got done explaining, it funds a
Speaker 1: bunch of non governmental organization outside groups who claim to
Speaker 1: have the solution on various levels for the problem with
Speaker 1: violence and the system or in err in the system.
Speaker 1: What type of if you know, if any, what type
Speaker 1: of vetting goes on before any given NGO accepts money
Speaker 1: from the city to achieve their purported goal. There's got
Speaker 1: to be some presentation to someone, Someone has to add
Speaker 1: them to the limitless list of NGOs out there with
Speaker 1: their hand hopefully in the cookie jar. So what process
Speaker 1: do they go through to find out whether these proposals
Speaker 1: are going to have any impact or effect and then
Speaker 1: get the award to the exclusion of other NGOs we
Speaker 1: already know. There's no follow up on whether the programs
Speaker 1: work after the money's awarded, but the lead up, how
Speaker 1: do you get on the list of people with their
Speaker 1: hand in the cookie jar.
Speaker 2: Well, there's so many of these programs. I've counted so far,
Speaker 2: over two hundred NGOs getting money or nonprofits or NGOs
Speaker 2: getting money from the city, ranging from you know, fifteen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars to a quarter of a million dollars or
Speaker 2: actually I think the highest I know of is like
Speaker 2: three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. And there's there
Speaker 2: is a program or a process for what they call
Speaker 2: leverage support, which is what many of these organizations they
Speaker 2: make application for those moneies, and that's that's become an
Speaker 2: annual thing and during budget season they all go down
Speaker 2: in a congo line and request money from the city council.
Speaker 1: And not all of them get it.
Speaker 2: No, That's what's surprising is how many organizations apply for
Speaker 2: this money they don't get it.
Speaker 1: So see, that's always wanted to emphasize that because again
Speaker 1: there's always a limitless number of people that want some
Speaker 1: money from government. Now the question is how do you
Speaker 1: how do you weed through Let's say a thousand groups
Speaker 1: show up and there's only you know, one hundred different
Speaker 1: one hundred allocations that they have money for. High Who wins.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. The city council. They pick winners
Speaker 2: and losers when it comes to that. And the city
Speaker 2: manager has an application process for at least leverage support
Speaker 2: and probably for all these others. And they tell they
Speaker 2: tell the organization what they're looking for, for example, reducing
Speaker 2: gun violence, and all of a sudden, all these NGOs
Speaker 2: that before now we're worried about climate change or whatever,
Speaker 2: are now worried about gun violence. And their proposals they
Speaker 2: just switched some keywords in there about how their work
Speaker 2: is going to reduce gun violence. Even the Art Academy,
Speaker 2: for example, they showed up many at many meetings requesting
Speaker 2: money and they've been getting funding for years and years,
Speaker 2: but the city council is going to cut them back.
Speaker 2: And they made the case that their work at the
Speaker 2: Art Academy contributes to a reduction of violence and they
Speaker 2: believe that, and all these groups that are working in
Speaker 2: this area think that if they do a good job
Speaker 2: that violence will be reduced.
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose one could lean on the argument that, well,
Speaker 1: if the kids here in an art class for two hours,
Speaker 1: then he can't be out committing crime. Air go it
Speaker 1: reduces crime.
Speaker 2: Yes, some kind of logic chain like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to laugh. This is so sad and pathetic.
Speaker 1: This really doesn't call for laughter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the normal person or the regular Cincinnatian will have
Speaker 2: trouble connecting dance lessons to reducing violence. That's just not
Speaker 2: Most people can't connect that in their own minds.
Speaker 1: No, but I think that's a logical and reasonable inability. Yes,
Speaker 1: the connection isn't there. So how could people possibly connect
Speaker 1: it unless they fall back on the argument that they
Speaker 1: just made well the kids in a dace lesson for
Speaker 1: a couple hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, the way I looked at it, a lot
Speaker 2: of these programs that they're funding, it seems more like
Speaker 2: we're trying to help the community kind of thrive or
Speaker 2: to live despite all the violence. These types of programs
Speaker 2: help them, you know, survive.
Speaker 1: They fuel the economic engine of the city by putting
Speaker 1: dollars out there. Two organizations that maybe don't accomplish anything.
Speaker 1: At least the money's out there, and presumably those organizations
Speaker 1: will spend it on something, even if it's just going
Speaker 1: out to dinner at a restaurant.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's that's the government, that's the city government
Speaker 2: we have.
Speaker 1: I think we've put hit the nail on the head,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what Todd ends Aer done. It does
Speaker 1: all the time. I understand we also have a pension problem.
Speaker 1: Not as bad as Chicago and Illinois, but we got
Speaker 1: a pension problem. We're gonna talk about that with Todd. Zenzer.
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Speaker 1: Fifty five KRC the talk station, Oh HC, here's your
Speaker 1: Chanel nine first one to Wether forecasts a sunny day
Speaker 1: for the most part, q Isolated showers. Storms are a
Speaker 1: possibility later today eighty six for the high it's gonna
Speaker 1: be clear and mild over night seventy to low ninety
Speaker 1: hour high Tomorrow. It will be also be humid and
Speaker 1: a possible isolated shower in the afternoon, clear over. Friday
Speaker 1: night muddy as well, with a low seventy one and
Speaker 1: decent chance of rain on Saturday. They're saying, and it's
Speaker 1: going to go all the way up to ninety one
Speaker 1: seventy one degrees. Right now, it is time for traffic
Speaker 1: from the.
Speaker 3: U SEE Health Traffic Center. You see Health has expert
Speaker 3: traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting long term
Speaker 3: recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you see health dot com.
Speaker 3: You're heavy in slow in pockets seventy five southbound between
Speaker 3: the Ronald Reagan Highway and Paddock Road. Also with the
Speaker 3: stall seventy five northbound at two seventy five on the
Speaker 3: left shoulder, that will have you a little slow as well.
Speaker 3: I'm Heather Pasco on fifty five KRC is the talk station.
Speaker 1: It's seven twenty nine. Bright time was here with Todd
Speaker 1: Sinzer and studio going over City of Cincinnati issues. So
Speaker 1: we whatever the gun violence and the violence and the
Speaker 1: problem generally speaking in the proposal from the city which
Speaker 1: basically are funding a bunch of outside non governmental organizations
Speaker 1: with zero to very little accountability. Let us move on
Speaker 1: over to another area that's been a real problem for
Speaker 1: a very long time since they's pension problems underfunded. Is
Speaker 1: that a reasonable word to slap on the situation?
Speaker 2: Yes, very much so.
Speaker 1: And for how long has this been festering?
Speaker 2: Well, the pension liability was the subject of a civil complaint,
Speaker 2: federal complaint back in twenty fifteen, and there was a
Speaker 2: settlement that is now governing the pension liability and they
Speaker 2: are required by twenty forty five, so that the settlement
Speaker 2: gives them thirty years to get the thing up to
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. But the thing is it was settled
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen, so ten years ago, and they look
Speaker 2: at the funding ratio, which is how much of the
Speaker 2: liability do they need do they need to fix by
Speaker 2: a certain date. So they're supposed to be one hundred
Speaker 2: percent funded by twenty forty five, right, And when this
Speaker 2: when the agreement was finalized, they were at seventy seven
Speaker 2: percent that ten years ago.
Speaker 1: There. Ten years ago, seventy seven percent funded.
Speaker 2: This year sixty eight percent.
Speaker 1: Oh, hey, going to the right direction.
Speaker 2: It's gone down every every year.
Speaker 1: And well we'll fix it later. Is that the attitude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this seems like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the social welfare
Speaker 1: safety net programs that are all scheduled to be belly
Speaker 1: up by a certain date. Well, in Congress never does anything.
Speaker 2: It is exactly the same. So with respect to with
Speaker 2: respect to Congress, when it gets when when it gets
Speaker 2: to the point where they can't kick the can down
Speaker 2: the road anymore, they just they just print the money.
Speaker 1: Print the money, or tell you're not going to get
Speaker 1: as much as we promise.
Speaker 2: That's right. Cincinnati can't do that exactly. So the Futures
Speaker 2: Commission said the pension liability was the number one concern
Speaker 2: in the city and this council, and that was two
Speaker 2: years ago. Now that they the or was it two
Speaker 2: years or one year the Futures Commission issued its report.
Speaker 2: They're not. They have done very little different and it's
Speaker 2: not that difficult. So the reason that I talked about
Speaker 2: it recently on my podcast is because at the end
Speaker 2: of the the last meeting before the summer break, that
Speaker 2: the the city manager slipped in the annual report from
Speaker 2: the pension from the pension uh outfit and It has
Speaker 2: five recommendations in it. Four of them are totally unacceptable,
Speaker 2: you know, reduce, reduce benefits. One of them is the
Speaker 2: The thing that the Future Commission wants to do is
Speaker 2: they want to regionalize the waterworks and monetize that, take
Speaker 2: that money, put it into the pension and make the
Speaker 2: pension attractive for the state pension system to take it over. Well,
Speaker 2: that that's going to do that, No, that's not going
Speaker 2: to happen. It's a long shot at best. It requires
Speaker 2: a referendum to get rid of the water works. So
Speaker 2: the only thing they're left with is to put more
Speaker 2: money into the pension fund.
Speaker 1: That's the solution to the problem.
Speaker 2: And if you look at their recommendation, it would require
Speaker 2: an extra I mean they're making a contribution now, it's
Speaker 2: about I think it's up into sixty million or sixty
Speaker 2: four million dollars a year they put into the pension
Speaker 2: liability or the pension fund. The pension fund. They have
Speaker 2: more people taking out than they have putting in. And
Speaker 2: according to this recommendation from the trustees, it would take
Speaker 2: whatever the city's putting in now put in an extra
Speaker 2: two million dollars every year, year after year, on top
Speaker 2: of that, and they are projecting that if the city
Speaker 2: does that, it will be one hundred percent by twenty
Speaker 2: forty five, like those settlement requires. And why we're looking
Speaker 2: at all these other options and all this other stuff,
Speaker 2: I don't get that. Just put the money in. It
Speaker 2: stays spoll.
Speaker 1: If you take it and put it into the pension system.
Speaker 1: That means there's fewer non government organizations out there in
Speaker 1: the world that are going to get funded because they
Speaker 1: don't have enough money to go around.
Speaker 2: That is my exact concern. We're going to keep spending
Speaker 2: money trying to save people and they may not save
Speaker 2: the city.
Speaker 1: Well, and the practical and correct me if I'm wrong
Speaker 1: on this, The practical effect of that is the worst.
Speaker 1: The pension problem is the worst. Are bond rating.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, it has definitely have implications like that, which.
Speaker 1: Means if they ever want to borrow money for a
Speaker 1: big project, they're going to pay alf a lot more
Speaker 1: money and interest on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, they have no problem borrowing money, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Lord Almighty. That's an easy fix, too, Todd, Well, it
Speaker 1: really is. It's just like, okay, we must allocate primary
Speaker 1: first and foremost. Here's the money we need to put
Speaker 1: in the pension system to keep it alive and to
Speaker 1: comply with the settlement agreement. We only have a window
Speaker 1: of opportunity here and it's quickly running out, and it,
Speaker 1: lily is getting worse. So here's the money done, what's
Speaker 1: left over right right? Absolutely, and then we'll divide that
Speaker 1: up among maybe infrastructure, repairing roads and keeping bridges together,
Speaker 1: and the fleet which is falling apart apparently got to
Speaker 1: have more money allocated to that and some other issues
Speaker 1: we'll talk about with Todd. Censor, Well, do you have
Speaker 1: any good news to talk about with what's going on
Speaker 1: the city today? Todd pause, seven thirty five. Right now,
Speaker 1: if you have KC detox station, get rid of your pain,
Speaker 1: it is a possibility. QC kinetics. If you've been dealing
Speaker 1: with your doc and doing the steroid shots, you know
Speaker 1: hip pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, the arthritic pain that
Speaker 1: you're struggling with, and maybe you've talked about surgery with
Speaker 1: your doctor and you're not all excited about that. A
Speaker 1: lot of downtime, a lot of question marks, and of
Speaker 1: course the issues that go along with surgery generally speaking. Well,
Speaker 1: have you considered an alternative, and there is an alternative
Speaker 1: out there. It's the folks at QC Kinetics, leaders in
Speaker 1: regenerative of medicine. These treatments like advanced cellular therapy and
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Speaker 1: Huge patient satisfaction reports. QC says about ninety two percent
Speaker 1: of their patient reports satisfaction with the results. And that
Speaker 1: you know, of course, leads me over to why not
Speaker 1: ask them if these treatments might solve your problem? And
Speaker 1: do that by taking them up on their offer of
Speaker 1: a free consultation. Love that word free. So the licensed
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Speaker 1: with you and look into whether or not they're work
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Speaker 1: zero one.
Speaker 2: Nine fifty five KRC.
Speaker 1: SHODNA nine says the following about the weather. Sunny sky
Speaker 1: is today, maybe a few isolated showers are stormed, possible
Speaker 1: later this afternoon eighty six for the high clear of
Speaker 1: night seventy tomorrow, high in ninety with humidity and another
Speaker 1: chance of isolated rain in the afternoon. Clear skies every night,
Speaker 1: muggy in seventy one, and a decent chance of rain
Speaker 1: on Saturday. They're saying it's also going to be hot,
Speaker 1: going up to ninety one degrees. Seventy one degrees right now,
Speaker 1: let's get a traffic updates from.
Speaker 3: The u SEE Health Traffic Center. You See Health has
Speaker 3: expert traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting long
Speaker 3: term recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you see health
Speaker 3: dot com. I'm seeing the fog clearing outs in a
Speaker 3: little bit of sunshine this morning. An earlier Stall seventy
Speaker 3: five northbounded I two seventy one I is just cleared
Speaker 3: from the left shoulders. You moving a bit better here,
Speaker 3: but do you have some pockets of heavy traffic like
Speaker 3: an I seventy five south one Gaalworth Road to Paddock Road.
Speaker 3: I'm Heather Pasco in fifty five krcing the talk.
Speaker 1: Station seven on a Thursday. Brian Thomas here with Citizen
Speaker 1: Watchdog todds In's or check out his podcast. Citizen Watchdog
Speaker 1: deals with a lot of the issues that we're going
Speaker 1: through this morning. City Cincinnati focused issues. We talked earlier
Speaker 1: about violence, We talked about the pension problem. We've got
Speaker 1: a simple problem to solve. You just need to allocate
Speaker 1: the money up front and sufficient quantities that you'll be
Speaker 1: able to replenish the pension pursuing to the settlement agreement
Speaker 1: from twenty fifteen by calendar year twenty forty five. I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you have forever to do this, but
Speaker 1: it only gets worse. Still blows my mind now, which
Speaker 1: leads me to the question before we get to mismanagement
Speaker 1: and lack of accounty, lack of accountability from city leaders
Speaker 1: on a variety of other areas, including like the fleet
Speaker 1: fifty percent of which I guess is out of service,
Speaker 1: maintenance up key prepares. Some of it needs to be replaced.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons we had problem with snow removal,
Speaker 1: fire trucks, all that kind of stuff. That's right so
Speaker 1: another simple you know, yeah, gotta take care of it. Maintenance, upkeep,
Speaker 1: and replacement is a simple function of government. It's a
Speaker 1: known entity. Do you get the impression. And I asked
Speaker 1: you this specifically, are they just asleep at the wheel
Speaker 1: or are they dealing with something else that's a higher
Speaker 1: priority for I mean from from their perspective for the
Speaker 1: use of the city taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the the agenda that that they carry out
Speaker 2: is very progressive, all of these programs for you know,
Speaker 2: the social programs, et cetera. They have a financial freedom
Speaker 2: blueprint that I'm looking into that is just a variety
Speaker 2: of things that they're funding. I think I think I
Speaker 2: counted like eleven million dollars going into their financial freedom program.
Speaker 1: What the hell is financial freedom program?
Speaker 2: You It's it's hard to it's hard hard to believe.
Speaker 2: But they have, like I don't know, twenty different things
Speaker 2: they're working on to promote financial freedom of you know,
Speaker 2: various segments of the population. What does that even mean?
Speaker 2: Financial freedom? For example, they have appropriated money to give
Speaker 2: to kids for savings accounts, right, they do things like that,
Speaker 2: and I don't have the list with me, but it's
Speaker 2: well wait a minute, I do have the list with me.
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example, okay, all right, it's launch
Speaker 2: a program to prevent eviction by supporting tenants with legal
Speaker 2: services and emergency assistants. They're going to fund that at
Speaker 2: a million dollars. That was a couple of years ago. Okay,
Speaker 2: So those are those are the kind of things that
Speaker 2: they do. They give. It's it. It follows a very
Speaker 2: detailed analysis of you know, how the underserved populations be
Speaker 2: came underserved, and how they're going to work out of that.
Speaker 1: All right, let me just walk through this logically if
Speaker 1: I can. So you're out there in the world, you're
Speaker 1: having a problem paying the rent. City of Cincinnati will
Speaker 1: give you money to cover the hole you're in, So
Speaker 1: you get your rent paid? Yes, then what about next month?
Speaker 1: Unless you change that person's circumstance to where they have
Speaker 1: a job and can afford to make enough money to
Speaker 1: cover rent, then the problem is never going to go away.
Speaker 1: You're just constantly providing handouts to folks who are dealing
Speaker 1: with that circumstance.
Speaker 2: Right, And I don't really know exactly how they administer
Speaker 2: the program, but.
Speaker 1: Oh like going back to the other programs, you don't
Speaker 1: know how they administer.
Speaker 2: But they have a lot going on in that regard.
Speaker 2: They have a lot going on with the financial freedom,
Speaker 2: they have a lot going on with the Green Cincinnati Plan,
Speaker 2: they have a lot going on with this alternative to
Speaker 2: respond to a response.
Speaker 1: Crisis, rethink the police component.
Speaker 2: And that's all related to this Act for since And
Speaker 2: they have all of these things going on, and you
Speaker 2: really have to wonder whether any of them are working.
Speaker 2: And they don't have the thing that bothers me the
Speaker 2: most that there's no oversight in the city whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Right, there's no inspector general.
Speaker 2: Right, they have an internal audit manager, and I think
Speaker 2: she's issued some a few good reports, but I also
Speaker 2: don't think that the city council reads the reports and
Speaker 2: the fleet the fleet audit, the audit of the city's
Speaker 2: fleet is a prime example. She issued her audit on
Speaker 2: the problems with the fleet in January of twenty four,
Speaker 2: a year before this winter storm Blair, and had the
Speaker 2: city council read the report or even this, I don't
Speaker 2: even know if the city manager reads the report. Maybe
Speaker 2: they could have taken care of some of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm a little suspect on your conclusion, it is
Speaker 1: maybe they could have taken care of this, and any
Speaker 1: responsible elected official would have. But going back to their
Speaker 1: you know, the settlement of the pension program, I mean
Speaker 1: that is a settlement. There is an obligation, legal obligation
Speaker 1: to fund it. They didn't do that, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're all aware of that. So priorities. I think there's
Speaker 1: a failure of priorities here on the Council. Seven forty
Speaker 1: five one more with Todd Zenzer, with Ivan a few
Speaker 1: more of these related issues after I mentioned Affordable imaging services.
Speaker 1: Affordable men Imaging dot com is where you find them online.
Speaker 1: It's where you get Echo cardogram's, MRIs, CT scans and
Speaker 1: ultrasounds for thousands less, I mean thousands of dollars, saving
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars for the exact same service hospital imaging
Speaker 1: department will charge you, like to say, for a CT
Speaker 1: scan five grand and climbing maybe you get a separate
Speaker 1: bill for the radiologist report. No, I've done my set
Speaker 1: the scans at Affordable Imaging Services four hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: with no contrast six hundred with the contrast, and those
Speaker 1: low prices come with the Board certified radiology support included,
Speaker 1: so I've never had a problem. My doctor has never complained.
Speaker 1: The images are again exactly like the hospital, just that
Speaker 1: there's low overhead, and by keeping the overhead low, they
Speaker 1: passed along these massive savings to you. Jeff, you're out there.
Speaker 1: I know it. Every time I mentioned affordable imaging, he
Speaker 1: sends me three smiley faces in an email because he
Speaker 1: saved thirty one hundred dollars compared to the hospital imaging
Speaker 1: department when he got his CT scan. So get it,
Speaker 1: get a scan, Get it. Affordable Imaging Services. You have
Speaker 1: an exercise, give a right to exercise your choice, So
Speaker 1: exercise it five one three seven five three eight thousand,
Speaker 1: seven five three eight thousand. Online you'll find them at
Speaker 1: Affordable Medimaging dot com.
Speaker 2: Fifty five KRC.
Speaker 1: Chane nine first on one. Forecast sunny skyes today if
Speaker 1: you isolated showers and storms may pop up later today.
Speaker 1: Eighty six will be our highest mandy overnight with clear
Speaker 1: skies ninety to height. Tomorrow it'll also be very humid
Speaker 1: and a chance of isolated rain in the afternoon. Clear overnight,
Speaker 1: muggy and seventy one and a good chance of rain.
Speaker 1: They say for Saturday, it's going all the way up
Speaker 1: to ninety one on Saturday. Right now, it's seventy one
Speaker 1: in ty for traffic from the.
Speaker 3: U See Health Traffic Center. You See Health has expert
Speaker 3: traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting long term
Speaker 3: recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you seehealth dot com.
Speaker 3: Traffic is heavy and slow. We've got some backups on
Speaker 3: I seventy five northbound between Buttermill Pike and Twelfth Street.
Speaker 3: It's also slow on I four seventy one northbound between
Speaker 3: Bellevue and I seventy one. I'm Heather Pasco on fifty
Speaker 3: five krc.
Speaker 2: The talk station.
Speaker 1: Seven fifty fifty five KRCB talk station speaking of crime
Speaker 1: in the Greaterston Saidy area. Aaron Winer is going to
Speaker 1: He's the Clifton Community Council, also running for council as
Speaker 1: a charter Right about the street takeover incident that's going
Speaker 1: to take place. After the top of the R News,
Speaker 1: then we'll hear from Jay Ratliff, closed out in a
Speaker 1: real positive note with our iHeartMedia aviation expert. Nothing positive
Speaker 1: on our discussion and all the discussion has been a
Speaker 1: wonderfully enlightening one Todd Zenzer in studio. He's our citizen
Speaker 1: watchdog going through what I would argue failure of priorities
Speaker 1: by the decision making on council and the mayor went
Speaker 1: through quite a few of these. You mentioned the sidewalk repair. Yes,
Speaker 1: obviously we have a huge infrastructure problem in the city.
Speaker 1: I had the railway wave. Money was supposed to generate
Speaker 1: sufficient revenue to handle the roads and existing infrastructure. We
Speaker 1: still have a pothole problem. I don't know they've ever
Speaker 1: repaved Sunset had to get that in there. But sidewalk
Speaker 1: repair now is sidewalk repair. This is something that they
Speaker 1: allocated money for.
Speaker 2: Yes, they've started a pilot program on sidewalk repair, funded
Speaker 2: at one hundred thousand dollars, which and again the way
Speaker 2: that the way it works is people calling to complain
Speaker 2: about their neighbor's sidewalks, right, and the city goes out
Speaker 2: and evaluates and they give it a grade of good, fair,
Speaker 2: and condemned. Right, So if you're fair, you need to
Speaker 2: fix it, but we're not going to order you to
Speaker 2: fix it. But if it's condemned, you're ordered by the
Speaker 2: city to fix it.
Speaker 1: The sidewalk is the property owner's responsibility.
Speaker 2: That's that's the way the municipal code reads right now.
Speaker 1: Yes, interesting, even though the property owner didn't build the
Speaker 1: sidewalk in the first place, the city built it.
Speaker 2: That's that's right.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you got to pay for it yourself.
Speaker 2: That's right. And so I guess one of the members
Speaker 2: of council got complaints or somebody gave her a good
Speaker 2: idea to use railway money to fix the sidewalks. So
Speaker 2: that's what she wants to do. And then the Vice
Speaker 2: mayor jumps in and she joins the UH. She joins
Speaker 2: the effort, but for only for the rising fifteen neighborhoods,
Speaker 2: So this is going to be limited to the to
Speaker 2: seven neighborhoods identified by the UH. The DOTE the Department
Speaker 2: of Transportation. And the thing is that that the department
Speaker 2: already has a sidewalk repair program and it's they they
Speaker 2: you know, they do take care of like the gutters
Speaker 2: and the and the curves and things like that, and
Speaker 2: the property owner takes care of the sidewalks themselves. So
Speaker 2: it's a kind of a joint effort. And if you
Speaker 2: go back and look at the list of the four
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars in deferred maintenance that the city generated
Speaker 2: during the campaign. Although I've never seen four hundred million.
Speaker 2: I've seen two hundred and fifty. Residential sidewalks are not
Speaker 2: on that list. So we have another four hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars worth of infrastructure to take care of. Why would
Speaker 2: we add to that by taking on the responsibilities that's right?
Speaker 1: Now, Well, it's the same thing as paying rent for
Speaker 1: people who can't pay the rent. Right, Yes, if I
Speaker 1: can't pay the rent, I'm sure as hell can't afford
Speaker 1: to pay, they have my sidewalk replaced.
Speaker 2: That's right. So it, as you mentioned, it's a matter
Speaker 2: of priorities. But it seems to me that we should
Speaker 2: be tackling that four hundred million dollars before we take
Speaker 2: on additional and it would it would be about two
Speaker 2: million dollars if we were to fix If the city
Speaker 2: were to fix every condemned sidewalk in the city, which
Speaker 2: they say is about seven hundred and fifty a year,
Speaker 2: it'd be about two million dollars a year. The average
Speaker 2: cost they say for repairing sidewalks is twenty five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: All right, Let I mean, I guess a couple of
Speaker 1: questions on that. They also have hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 1: road miles that they're supposed to be repairing each and
Speaker 1: every year. They have the money that's supposed to be
Speaker 1: allocated for that, but they don't stay on top of it.
Speaker 1: They keep getting further and further behind. So even if
Speaker 1: they said, all right, here's two million dollars we're going
Speaker 1: to allocate toward repairing the sidewalks, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they are actually going to get repaired in any given
Speaker 1: calendar year.
Speaker 2: That's right, Just like the extra money that we're going
Speaker 2: to get for the rail sale, there's no guarantee that
Speaker 2: they're going to have the capacity to spend it. I mean,
Speaker 2: the city staff is only so big. They're contracting capabilities
Speaker 2: or only so much. They can only do so much
Speaker 2: in a period of time, and so the city council
Speaker 2: member she wants to come in and add to their workload.
Speaker 2: Even the city manager, she wrote a memo about all this,
Speaker 2: even she pointed out that, well, you know, if we
Speaker 2: do this sidewalk repair program that these council members are
Speaker 2: talking about, we're not going to be able to do
Speaker 2: the other part of our program or it's going to
Speaker 2: impact our ability to do that, but the council members
Speaker 2: don't care. They think that we have limited staff resources,
Speaker 2: and they just pile it on.
Speaker 1: Todd Zenzer shining a bright light on the I would
Speaker 1: argue dysfunction since a city council and the mayor. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to solve all these problems today, but
Speaker 1: thankfully Todd has been identifying them. It seems to be
Speaker 1: that some of them are rather easy to ident or
Speaker 1: to fix if they prioritize properly and put aside their
Speaker 1: pet projects behind the scenes that they seem to be
Speaker 1: more broadly focused on. Todd, You're a blessing to our community.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for the work that you
Speaker 1: do watching out for these things and reporting regularly on
Speaker 1: your Facebook page and your Citizen Watchdog podcast. Folks, bookmark
Speaker 1: that one and make sure you check out what Todd
Speaker 1: has to say. Todd, I'll look forward to having you
Speaker 1: back in studio soon.
Speaker 2: I'd love to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I know you're going to have another unlimited list of
Speaker 1: things to talk about. Seven fifty five fifty five kr
Speaker 1: S the talk station we're in here from Aaron Winer
Speaker 1: from the Clifton Community Council on the street takeover incident.
Speaker 1: He'll join the program after the news, follow by Jay Ratliffe.
Speaker 1: I sure hope he can stick around. Still be called
Speaker 1: the twelve Day War. I suppose that's what we were
Speaker 1: nicknaming it already. Another update at the top of the hour,
Speaker 1: the use of military force fifty five Karez the talk station.
Speaker 2: This report is sponsored