Speaker 1: Hi, friend, Thomas. Happy to welcome to the Pick About
Speaker 1: Taisy Morning Show and congratulations. So the Cincinna acquires Scott
Speaker 1: Whartman taking over. Do you rad your big shoes of
Speaker 1: Sharon Coolidge and Scott. That's not to suggest Sharon has
Speaker 1: big feet, but she's been around covering since my local
Speaker 1: politics council and the shenanigans that goes on with the
Speaker 1: county commissioners for a lot of time, and she's been
Speaker 1: on the morning show, you know, passing along what she's
Speaker 1: learned and what she stayed on top of. So it's
Speaker 1: an important position and one that we all value very much, Scott,
Speaker 1: because we really truly need to know what's going on
Speaker 1: with city and county politics, and there's so very little
Speaker 1: reporting on it. So Cincinnati dot com is where youre
Speaker 1: going to read what Scott writes about local politics. So
Speaker 1: you're excited about the job, Scott.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm very excited. It is daunting, though, because she
Speaker 2: did set a high bar and everybody knows her and
Speaker 2: if anything was happening in the city, I mean, that's
Speaker 2: that you've heard it first from her, and that's what
Speaker 2: I hope to provide that level of deep coverage, but
Speaker 2: I also, you know, I want to get into a
Speaker 2: lot of the I grew up here in the Cincinnati
Speaker 2: area on the West side, went to Elder and I
Speaker 2: want to be able to tell a lot of the
Speaker 2: neighborhood stories. A city has a great, interesting history, and
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about, you know, taking on this beat.
Speaker 2: But it is it's going to be a challenge.
Speaker 1: Well it is, and responsible reporting is a challenge, and
Speaker 1: I know we can expect responsible reporting from you. But
Speaker 1: I like the idea that it's not just going to
Speaker 1: be all you know, heady, gloom and doom topic politics.
Speaker 1: If you're going to get out into the world and
Speaker 1: talk about some of the finer aspects of this city,
Speaker 1: I think we could all use a really healthy injection
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Oh. I agree, And there are a lot of great
Speaker 2: stories to tell in the neighborhoods. I've been covering the
Speaker 2: County Commission and like local congressional politics for the last
Speaker 2: seven or eight years, and before that I was covering
Speaker 2: the river cities in northern Kentucky. So I'm kind of
Speaker 2: excited to get back to more like local city reporting
Speaker 2: and what's going on here back at home rather than
Speaker 2: the national scene, which is like NonStop news.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've Yeah, I'm aware of that, Scott,
Speaker 1: painfully aware of it that every single day of my
Speaker 1: life it's covering those stories, and you know, it becomes
Speaker 1: overwhelming for me. But moving back, this is an exciting
Speaker 1: year to be playing this role, Scott Wortman, because we've
Speaker 1: got a mayoral race and Corey Bowman looks like he
Speaker 1: may get some traction in a city that's voted all
Speaker 1: Democrats for such a long time, a lot of people
Speaker 1: a little dissatisfied with the direction of the city's going
Speaker 1: and have connected communities, got the folks in Hyde Park
Speaker 1: rubbing the wrong way. Corey Bowman may end up getting
Speaker 1: some support from some otherwise pretty die hard blue voters.
Speaker 1: You're looking forward to covering that race and what's your
Speaker 1: perception of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because I mean, Cincinnati hasn't had a
Speaker 2: Republican candidate since two thousand and nine when Brad wensch
Speaker 2: Strip ran for mayor. I don't know. At this point,
Speaker 2: I can't handicap his chances. I don't know, because I
Speaker 2: mean every office in the city is held by a Democrat,
Speaker 2: so I mean it is an uphill battle, but it
Speaker 2: is ostensibly a nonpartisan race, so the party doesn't appear
Speaker 2: on the ballot, So it'll be interesting to see how
Speaker 2: much how much noise he can make.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, with Sharon covering, since I politics for
Speaker 1: such a long time, I know she had established I
Speaker 1: don't know whether they were good or bad, but she
Speaker 1: at least had access to and had good established relationships
Speaker 1: with the elected officials. Have you got your foot in
Speaker 1: the door on that element of it? Scott?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I know the people that are in office,
Speaker 2: I've dealt with them before, and definitely from a county perspective,
Speaker 2: I have good contacts there and I think that I
Speaker 2: don't think that should be too much of an issue.
Speaker 2: I'm not going into this completely blind.
Speaker 1: No, And you're going to go into it having to
Speaker 1: attend a lot of city council meetings, aren't you?
Speaker 2: That That is the one the one downside. Because I've
Speaker 2: been with covering the congressional politics and the county Commission,
Speaker 2: I haven't had to necessarily go to a lot of
Speaker 2: municipal meetings, but that's kind of how I cut my
Speaker 2: teeth in the business, going to late nights and at least,
Speaker 2: they're reasonably timed, you know, there in the afternoon, so
Speaker 2: I won't be there till midnight or something like that.
Speaker 1: True that now, in terms of the County commission, you're
Speaker 1: still going to have some you be doing coverage for
Speaker 1: the commissioners because you know, this is an exciting time
Speaker 1: for that one. Because we of course have this stadium
Speaker 1: negotiation thing going on, and.
Speaker 2: That was something with Sherry we kind of tag teamed
Speaker 2: because that is going to be the big story in
Speaker 2: the next year or two years if the deal gets
Speaker 2: done and what that will look like. At this point,
Speaker 2: the progress is very slow, but there is a deadline
Speaker 2: in June. The Bengals have to decide whether they're going
Speaker 2: to extend the least for another two years, and they
Speaker 2: can do that by themselves, they don't need county or
Speaker 2: taxpayer approval. So we should be hearing something in the
Speaker 2: next couple months, and yes, I will be monitoring that.
Speaker 2: We will have a county reporter coming on board sometime
Speaker 2: in the next month month and a half. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that is also that's going to be other than the
Speaker 2: mayor's race, that's going to maybe even more so. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's going to be the big story locally, what happens
Speaker 2: with that stadium. Well, at this point, no one knows.
Speaker 1: No one knows, and I'm hoping we find out that
Speaker 1: there is someone on the opposite side of the table
Speaker 1: of the Brown family as opposed to being on the
Speaker 1: same side of the table as the original agreement was negotiated,
Speaker 1: because I don't think there's a human out there. And
Speaker 1: I mean, we have made national attention on how terrible
Speaker 1: that stadium deal was for the taxpayers here in Hamilton County.
Speaker 1: I think we're looking for a little bit more love
Speaker 1: from the Brown family this time around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're playing their cards close to the vest.
Speaker 2: But I mean I can say the county and the
Speaker 2: elected officials they're they're not really making friends with the
Speaker 2: Bengals are And it's been very adversarial so far, a
Speaker 2: lot of brinksmanship. I don't know how much of that
Speaker 2: is also playing out behind the scenes, but it does
Speaker 2: seem actually, I mean a lot of the emails that
Speaker 2: I've gotten between county officials and the team, it's been
Speaker 2: pretty acrimonious. So there is a lot of pushback from
Speaker 2: elected officials on what they want from this lease.
Speaker 1: Well, Scott Ortman will find you at Cincinnati dot com.
Speaker 1: I reckon my listeners. I go ahead and bookmark that
Speaker 1: and get yourself a subscription so you can get your
Speaker 1: popcorn out. And what Scott's going to be writing about.
Speaker 1: Lots of interesting topics for you to cover this year, Scott,
Speaker 1: and I wish you all the best of luck in
Speaker 1: the new role. And I appreciate you coming on the
Speaker 1: program and sharing your time with my listeners and me,
Speaker 1: and you have an open invitation here in the fifty
Speaker 1: five Carcy Morning Show to give us an update on
Speaker 1: the exciting stuff that you're covering.
Speaker 2: Brian, I appreciate it, and I look forward to it,
Speaker 2: and I hope I don't fiss the point.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you won't. Good luck, Scott, and thanks for
Speaker 1: again for coming on