Speaker 1: Promises cat politicians won't join us in the chat.
Speaker 2: Host out a politician and I.
Speaker 3: Love it fifty five KRZ the Talk Station.
Speaker 1: It's a seven oh five at fifty five kr See
Speaker 1: the Talk Station Extra special Tuesday. Here coming up in
Speaker 1: an hour Insights Scoop with Bright Bart, reporter Randy Clark
Speaker 1: on the Border and Daniel Davis Deep Dive with the
Speaker 1: latest on Ukrain Russia. That will take place at eight thirty.
Speaker 1: In the meantime in studio, Todd Zinzer, former Inspector General
Speaker 1: and hosts of the Citizen Watchdog podcast. Good to have
Speaker 1: you back in Todd. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Brian, good morning man. He's got his fingers on the pulse.
Speaker 1: What's going on all around the area, including the city
Speaker 1: of Cincinnati. We've got some interesting things to talk about
Speaker 1: in the city of Cincinnati. First off, how's the Citizen
Speaker 1: Watchdog podcast going?
Speaker 4: Oh, it's going, it's going great. I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Great. I bet you do. You get talked for a
Speaker 1: full hour or whatever on you know when.
Speaker 4: I try to keep it to about ten minutes or so.
Speaker 4: Oh no, kidding, yeah, So people don't have to listen
Speaker 4: to me for that.
Speaker 1: Oh, come on, man, you're interesting, and again you have
Speaker 1: all the facts. Let's start with this, since at council
Speaker 1: meeting yesterday apparently they had a million three laying around
Speaker 1: that wasn't used from last year the capital Project fund.
Speaker 1: You watched this whole council meeting on this, this debate
Speaker 1: over where to use that money.
Speaker 4: Yes, I did yesterday and the ultimate.
Speaker 1: Vote was to buy a couple of dump trucks to
Speaker 1: try to better manage the snow removal, but also spend
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars on the Camp Washington skate park project.
Speaker 1: Something I had no idea about. Is there a skate
Speaker 1: park lobby out there or something.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of enthusiasts for skates and BMX
Speaker 4: bikes and things like that, and they have organized and
Speaker 4: for the last I'm not sure exactly how long, but
Speaker 4: it's a million dollars skate park.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: That f TA have Purvol mayor of Purvol kind of
Speaker 4: took on as a project and they needed this three
Speaker 4: hundred thousand to finish the project. And it's probably going
Speaker 4: to be done right around the time where they need
Speaker 4: some ribbon cutting for the campaign.
Speaker 1: Of of course it will be now the question is
Speaker 1: do they have money for maintenance and upkeep of the
Speaker 1: aforementioned skatepark once it's built.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think that's currently in the budgets.
Speaker 1: They'll talk about that, no, okay, because they're supposed to
Speaker 1: have money to fix the roads, and I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people are having some problems with the fact
Speaker 1: that the roads haven't been fixed and have been quite
Speaker 1: neglected for years and years. That's right, yep, huh, okay,
Speaker 1: ignore what you've built and build something else so you
Speaker 1: can have a ribbon cutting ceremony. Now, I'll acknowledge I
Speaker 1: would much rather have a kid ride around a BMX
Speaker 1: bikes or skateboarding outdoors in the sunshine than sitting in
Speaker 1: his basement watching our video games and drinking mountain dew
Speaker 1: code red. I mean, the health benefits cannot be ignored.
Speaker 1: But see going back, Yes, we want this, that and
Speaker 1: the other thing. We have a list of things we
Speaker 1: want from the city, including a skate park. But if
Speaker 1: the city can't afford or neglects everything it already is
Speaker 1: responsible for, then I'm the kind of person that would
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, we need to deal with what
Speaker 1: we've got already, and once we find ourselves in a
Speaker 1: budgetary position where we can say we fixed that already.
Speaker 1: We've taken care of the infrastructure, We've dealt with the
Speaker 1: whole broken windows concept. Now let's entertain ideas about where
Speaker 1: this is, where the next capital expenditure is going to be.
Speaker 1: Who's got ideas? One hand's going to be raised saying
Speaker 1: we need a skateboard park, and there'll be a multitude
Speaker 1: of other hands that get raised saying no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we want this, and no, no, no, we want that.
Speaker 1: For example, I know there were hands raised in terms
Speaker 1: of where to spend this money because Vice Mayor Jan
Speaker 1: Michelle lemon Kearney wanted this money to go to the
Speaker 1: Clifton Cultural Arts Center headquarters and Artworks Creative Campus Art Park.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of those, and why would she want
Speaker 1: money to go there as opposed to say, this skate
Speaker 1: park or buying the dump trucks to deal with the
Speaker 1: snow removal. Do you know anything about these organizations? Tod
Speaker 1: Z insert well Artworks. Artworks is one, pig Works is
Speaker 1: a second one. Oh, and then I think the Cultural
Speaker 1: Center is a third one. And they were basically all
Speaker 1: trying to tap into this one point three million. Pig
Speaker 1: Works is the group that promotes or operates the Fine
Speaker 1: Pig Marathon and all the associated events, and the head
Speaker 1: of Pigworks actually is the I think he is the
Speaker 1: editor of the Business Courier. But they came in looking
Speaker 1: for money to finish what some brick and mortar brick
Speaker 1: and mortar headquarters up in Walna Hills, I believe, really,
Speaker 1: And in his testimony he said that they generate like
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars worth of economic activity as a result
Speaker 1: of the marathon, and I don't think Artworks had quite
Speaker 1: the same economic story. But these are groups that fall
Speaker 1: into this leverage support category that we talked about last time,
Speaker 1: and you actually had a caller yesterday who talked about it.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing he I think I met him
Speaker 1: at the budget hearing that was held up in Price
Speaker 1: Hill a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 4: And these are this is a prime example of how
Speaker 4: the Democrats have gotten support in the community. They have
Speaker 4: numerous nonprofits NGOs, et cetera that they distribute about twenty
Speaker 4: million dollars to and they have this relationship where they
Speaker 4: feed off each other.
Speaker 1: So the city taxpayer dollars go to these outside organizations
Speaker 1: for the serving whatever purpose, and then presumably the outside
Speaker 1: organizations then beyond what they are structured or built to
Speaker 1: do and accomplish, like run the Flying Pig Marathon, also
Speaker 1: serve as a political wining to help the council people
Speaker 1: and the mayor and the vice mayor get re elected.
Speaker 4: Yes, there's actually there's actually a word for it, Brian.
Speaker 4: It's called client teleism. Oh really, yes, you can look
Speaker 4: it up. It's called client teleism. And I do have
Speaker 4: a podcast on it and where I read a couple
Speaker 4: of definitions, and it's exactly what's going on. The groups
Speaker 4: and the politicians form this relationship where it's, you know,
Speaker 4: they help each other out.
Speaker 1: Well, I yeah, it sort of sounds like what PG
Speaker 1: Sittenfolde got in trouble for. I mean, can I say
Speaker 1: that out loud? I mean it sounds very analogous.
Speaker 4: Well, exactly. And the the protections that are necessary to
Speaker 4: make sure that all these are arm's length, it's very
Speaker 4: very important. I don't really think they exist. Here's here's
Speaker 4: on this leverage support. The city manager has a like
Speaker 4: a process for people to apply and they go through
Speaker 4: and they fill out an application, etc. They justify their request.
Speaker 4: But then somehow, after the city manager makes her recommendation,
Speaker 4: the mayor gets to provide extra money to whoever he
Speaker 4: wants there, and then the city council gets to add
Speaker 4: money to whatever they want. And last year, the city
Speaker 4: manager came in with a recommendation for like four million
Speaker 4: for a certain list, and by the time they were done,
Speaker 4: it was raised one point five million dollars. Because of
Speaker 4: what this mayor wanted and what the council wanted. The
Speaker 4: mayor gave an extra two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 4: to one group just with the stroke of a penanty.
Speaker 4: I don't know how he does it, that's how it
Speaker 4: looks anyway, And I did talk about that at the
Speaker 4: budget hearing. I had two things I thought they should
Speaker 4: do at the budget hearing. One was be more transparent
Speaker 4: about how that works. But the other one was I
Speaker 4: think they should have something in the budget about what
Speaker 4: the mandatory costs are, what are the requirements by the
Speaker 4: federal government, the state government, the city charter, what must
Speaker 4: we spend money on, and break it out into mandatory
Speaker 4: versus discretionary and all of these.
Speaker 1: Like the federal government has mandatory and discretionary.
Speaker 4: Exactly so that when we start giving money around, we
Speaker 4: have to make sure that we provide sufficient funds for
Speaker 4: those things that we must do.
Speaker 1: Well in a certain respect. And I mean this with
Speaker 1: the highest praise. You're kind of the powerless Elon Musk
Speaker 1: in the situation because you're raising this whole like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we got a litany of multi billion dollar
Speaker 1: programs that we're now finding out about that no one
Speaker 1: knew about, that our taxpayer dollars are funding, and that
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is bringing it to our attention. This is
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that needs to be brought to
Speaker 1: the City of Cincinnati taxpayer's attention because they may be
Speaker 1: looking at their front door to road that hasn't been
Speaker 1: touched in twenty years, it's got potholes in it, and
Speaker 1: they're frustrated as hell. And then we find out that
Speaker 1: somebody's got their hand in the cookie jar and have
Speaker 1: to have purvalls decide how much money they're going to get, yeah,
Speaker 1: for political purposes.
Speaker 4: I actually looked into the internal audit function for the
Speaker 4: city and on their website, for example, they say that
Speaker 4: what they do, they say a bi annual risk assessment,
Speaker 4: which seems a little too frequent, But so I put
Speaker 4: in a records request to see the risk assessments. Well,
Speaker 4: they actually don't do risk assessments. So when you have
Speaker 4: situations like a fleet of snow removal vehicles that can't
Speaker 4: remove snow that should be picked up in a risk assessment,
Speaker 4: how they are operable exactly, but they don't do risk assessments.
Speaker 4: Apparently makes they say they didn't have the resources to
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 1: Let's pause. Well, of course, spending an hour with Todds
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Speaker 1: Seven nineteen I fift about KIRCD talk station eye opening
Speaker 1: conversations so far right into the gate with Todd Zendler.
Speaker 1: You can find his podcast Citizen Watchdog and learn about
Speaker 1: this kind of thing all the time. And we all
Speaker 1: learned a new word this morning. At least I did
Speaker 1: CLIENTELESM and I mentioned PG Sittinfeld because we had this
Speaker 1: project and PG essentially was convicted of the quid pro
Speaker 1: quoll concept right where he said, ah, you line my
Speaker 1: political action committee with some money and we'll get this
Speaker 1: project approved. That's pretty much it. That's right now with
Speaker 1: these these outside organization, these non governmental nonprofits that have
Speaker 1: their hand in the city taxpayer dollars cookie jar and
Speaker 1: are rewarded with apparently random arbitrary decision making by on
Speaker 1: the part of the mayor and others to get money.
Speaker 1: As you pointed out, that their proposals are submitted to
Speaker 1: the city manager. The city manager hands over the her
Speaker 1: recommendations and then he arbitrarily can raise them. As you
Speaker 1: mentioned last time, he raised it, what a half million
Speaker 1: dollars in an original four million dollar ask, right, but
Speaker 1: no discussion or anything, right.
Speaker 4: Nothing in the budget about that, nothing.
Speaker 1: In the budget. Clientileism here's the definition, is a political
Speaker 1: system where goods or services are exchanged for political support. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's a quid pro coo relationship where politicians and voters,
Speaker 1: voter or groups groups politicians or political elites provide benefits
Speaker 1: individuals like jobs, grants, or public services in exchange for
Speaker 1: electoral support or loyalty. That's the quid pro quo. It's
Speaker 1: not them handing money in order to get a project done.
Speaker 1: It's the city randomly and without oversight, handing money out
Speaker 1: to these groups knowing that they will get those groups members.
Speaker 1: And you know, people work in the streets form spreading
Speaker 1: the information regular election exactly? Is that not equally corrupt?
Speaker 1: Is it that not an exchange of value for value?
Speaker 1: Even though it doesn't involve them handing money to the politician,
Speaker 1: it just works the other way around.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's in a gray area, to be sure, Brian.
Speaker 1: You're so yeah, you're so delicate. Todd Zenzer, Well, I'm
Speaker 1: calling it out. It should be a federal probe in that.
Speaker 1: I mean, they looked into PG Sentinfeld, didn't they.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, Cincinnati is kind of the perfect size for
Speaker 4: this type of environment because it's not that big, and
Speaker 4: the politicians are still close enough to these nonprofits and
Speaker 4: local groups that this can flourish.
Speaker 1: Okay, did they did they speak at this meeting yesterday?
Speaker 1: These groups?
Speaker 4: Yes, they did they. In fact, Artworks had several witnesses
Speaker 4: and the Pig Works had several witnesses. I'm not sure
Speaker 4: about the Cultural Center. There was definitely somebody there speaking
Speaker 4: on his behalf. But so did the So did the
Speaker 4: local ask me a rep come in and thank them
Speaker 4: for the support for the equipment for the fleet?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I said that. That one quote kind of cracked me
Speaker 1: up from the union head, which was which was pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Because clearly one of the discussion points was this is
Speaker 1: not going to solve our problems and so far as
Speaker 1: dealing with snow removal in the future. It was a
Speaker 1: Jeremy mccleesh the Union Local Union two forty representative quote.
Speaker 1: While it seems like it's a minute drop in the bucket,
Speaker 1: meaning these two dump trucks, at least it's something in
Speaker 1: that bucket. So it didn't solve the problem. It's one
Speaker 1: baby step toward getting a fleet that actually works and
Speaker 1: conserve the needs of the city. So you can make
Speaker 1: an argument that at least that expenditure of capital was
Speaker 1: is going to provide something for the residents, as opposed
Speaker 1: to these other organizations which are merely going to provide
Speaker 1: political support for the elected officials there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, these groups do provide services, but it's all
Speaker 4: tied into the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what of all the other groups that provide
Speaker 1: services that all also asked for money, but this didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily get it.
Speaker 4: Well that's a good point because last year there were
Speaker 4: over ninety groups that made application for these funds, and
Speaker 4: there were thirty five in that group that got funded,
Speaker 4: So about a third of the groups that apply got money.
Speaker 4: The other thing that to remember about yesterday's meeting is
Speaker 4: Seth Walsh basically said, well maybe we can borrow money,
Speaker 4: yeah for the fleet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so bond.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's it never ends, it never ends. This is just
Speaker 1: actually consider this quite disturbing. And you mentioned about the
Speaker 1: oversight pursu into what federal guidelines dominate this or.
Speaker 4: Well, the auditors go in and they look at certain
Speaker 4: operations in the city and they have to follow or
Speaker 4: they say they follow the government audit standards that generally
Speaker 4: accepted government audit standards, and that basically talks to the
Speaker 4: level of evidence you need to make a finding and
Speaker 4: kind of how you have to go about planning your
Speaker 4: work and the right steps for conducting an audit right,
Speaker 4: those types of things. So they say that they do
Speaker 4: their work according to those standards, but part of those
Speaker 4: standards is to get your operation reviewed by another audit group.
Speaker 3: They don't do that.
Speaker 4: So they say they do their work according to audit standards,
Speaker 4: but they never have anybody come in and check and
Speaker 4: verify to tell people, yes, they do their work by
Speaker 4: the standards.
Speaker 1: And let me guess they don't do that step as
Speaker 1: critical as it is, because they claim they don't have
Speaker 1: the money to do it.
Speaker 4: That's what they told me.
Speaker 1: Yes, well they just found one point three million dollars
Speaker 1: yesterday that would kind of fund that effort several years.
Speaker 4: Anyhow, I'm not going to argue with you, that's for sure.
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Speaker 1: be a sunny day to day with the highest seventy
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Speaker 1: Seven thirty here fifty five R See the talk station
Speaker 1: A very Happy Tuesday to Todd's Inzer, a former spector
Speaker 1: General Citizens watch Dogs podcast. Let's I'm just appalled at
Speaker 1: what we just got done talking about Todd, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if anything can be done about it, but
Speaker 1: it just seems like it's a system built on corruption. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's a boiled down a thing that I can conclude.
Speaker 1: Let's move over to connect the communities and what's going
Speaker 1: on in Hyde Park and Hyde Park's going to have
Speaker 1: none of it. Their citizens are standing up to this
Speaker 1: redesigned redevelopment proposal. The buildings are too big that their
Speaker 1: planning is going to change the character of the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: They don't have a sufficient parking factored in. Other small
Speaker 1: businesses are worried because they need the parking spaces that
Speaker 1: are up there, and if they're flooded with a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of humanity without parking spaces, it's going to disrupt business.
Speaker 1: So it's a I want to say it's nimby, but
Speaker 1: there their complaints sound justified. But the whole project in
Speaker 1: the remaking of Hyde Parks where was built on this
Speaker 1: connected communities idea right where they got rid of and
Speaker 1: changed the zoning laws.
Speaker 4: Well there's the the issue with connected communities is that
Speaker 4: the city just rezoned connected communities would just pass last July. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Now this developers coming in is very influential developers coming
Speaker 4: in and once a variance from that basically, oh.
Speaker 1: Is that is that it? I thought the zoning, the
Speaker 1: change in zoning was what brought about this concept.
Speaker 4: No, this what the what the people in Hyde park
Speaker 4: are saying is hey, you just fooled with the zoning rules.
Speaker 4: Why don't we just keep to what the current zoning
Speaker 4: rule says. And the developer wants to construct a boutique
Speaker 4: hotel and wants it to be three stories higher, yeah,
Speaker 4: than any other building around, and they say they need
Speaker 4: to do that to make the hotel profitable. But there
Speaker 4: was testimony from one of the witnesses that spoke that
Speaker 4: their analysis was that this hotel's not going to be profitable.
Speaker 4: So there's some discrepancy there between the developer and one
Speaker 4: of the citizens who came and spoke, but there's no
Speaker 4: effort to reconcile those kind of things. The hearing was Friday,
Speaker 4: five and a half hours and at the end of
Speaker 4: five and a half hours, the members of the commission
Speaker 4: those that chose to show up. There were three members
Speaker 4: of that planning commission that were absent, which is highly irregular.
Speaker 4: But at the end of five and a half hours
Speaker 4: of forty and fifty people talking or speaking, they had
Speaker 4: a fifteen hundred page a meeting packet. They had seven
Speaker 4: hundred letters that came in opposing this. But at the
Speaker 4: end of five and a half hours, I think they
Speaker 4: took maybe ten or ten minutes each. The remaining commissioners
Speaker 4: took about ten minutes to make a decision. So it's
Speaker 4: it's really a joke of a process and the absentee members.
Speaker 4: If you understand who the developer is, they're very influential
Speaker 4: in the city.
Speaker 1: Yeah, high watched onto those words very influential the first
Speaker 1: time you said it. Yeah, very influential.
Speaker 4: So why did these three planning commissioners fail to show up?
Speaker 4: When was the last time three commissioners didn't show up
Speaker 4: for the same meeting? Is because they knew they were
Speaker 4: going to upset the citizens by voting for the project,
Speaker 4: or they were going to upset the developer for voting
Speaker 4: against it, and they just couldn't show up. I don't
Speaker 4: really know, but I think I think that's highly irregular.
Speaker 4: I wrote to the mayor and the city council and
Speaker 4: I thought that those commissioners should be replaced. They ought
Speaker 4: to get rid of them, put some new people in
Speaker 4: that are going to represent the citizens.
Speaker 1: Hull, or put people in there that represented the very
Speaker 1: influential developer.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's the problem. I think that influential
Speaker 4: developer already has some people on the commission that are
Speaker 4: very very helpful to them.
Speaker 1: So what is the status of the project.
Speaker 4: Well, the developer has purchased the property that they need
Speaker 4: to purchase, but this issue is it passed three to
Speaker 4: one in the Planning Commission to go forward on the project.
Speaker 4: So now it goes to a committee of the City
Speaker 4: Council and it needs to pass through that committee to
Speaker 4: go to City Council. But the way the City Council
Speaker 4: operates is every member of the City Council are also
Speaker 4: members of every committee. So once this issue goes to
Speaker 4: the committee, and I'm not sure when it's scheduled, that'll
Speaker 4: be it they'll get. It'll be either approved or not
Speaker 4: approved at that meeting.
Speaker 1: Going back to your point that this is is a
Speaker 1: very influential developer. I think we can see the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall, can't we.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And and what's what's really bothersome is we went
Speaker 4: through this in connected communities. There there's a community in
Speaker 4: bond Hill that went through this. They put the public
Speaker 4: through these sarades of community engagement and input. Uh. And
Speaker 4: it's like Charlie Brown in the football. Every time the
Speaker 4: community comes forward thinking they're going to be able to
Speaker 4: kick the football, the city takes it away at the end,
Speaker 4: and it's it's a pattern that just recurs through all
Speaker 4: these all these planning commission issues.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to observe as we move into a
Speaker 1: break here that if the if the citizen who made
Speaker 1: the comment that the project will not be profitable, the
Speaker 1: hotel then won't be just a dose of healthy shot
Speaker 1: in Florida for all of us to enjoy and watch
Speaker 1: the thing just tank under its own weight.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, if it goes forward, I guess, but you
Speaker 4: just don't want to get there. And the only thing
Speaker 4: the developer said in response to that was, oh, well,
Speaker 4: we have two insurance companies that said that it will
Speaker 4: be profitable or that it's a good application or something
Speaker 4: like that. But how after five and a half hours,
Speaker 4: and that's not the only discrepancy in the testimony, can't
Speaker 4: how can the Planning Commission just not decide to look
Speaker 4: further into those discrepancies? Take a recess, go back, look
Speaker 4: through the record. You've got the thing on tape, watch
Speaker 4: the hearing again, and then come back and articulate your decision.
Speaker 1: Bar with Todd Zenzer after these freef started with but
Speaker 1: Herbert Motors, I love those folks. Thank you. I loved
Speaker 1: Westside Jim Keefer for referring me to butt Overmotors after
Speaker 1: my terrible box store experience trying to get a push
Speaker 1: mower here. I thought it was doing the right thing,
Speaker 1: you know, load it up yourself, take it home on
Speaker 1: box it, put it together, and it doesn't work. So
Speaker 1: back you go to the box store because they don't
Speaker 1: sell the best equipment like Butterbermotors does. Keefer's like this,
Speaker 1: Do you call Bud Herbert Motors Like No, I didn't
Speaker 1: do that, So to the phone I went, and the
Speaker 1: next day delivered to my door by Honda professional level
Speaker 1: push More, which I was told will be the last
Speaker 1: Pushmorrow I'll ever have to buy. And I believe them
Speaker 1: all day long. It's Bud Herbert Motors. You're dealing with
Speaker 1: Herbert family member, and they've been at this for fifth
Speaker 1: generation seventy five, more than seventy five years, so ring
Speaker 1: them up. You're dealing with a Herbert family member. They
Speaker 1: are proud of what they do, and they have a
Speaker 1: reputation to a poll, which means they really care about you,
Speaker 1: the customer. That's why they're only going to put you
Speaker 1: and hook you up with the best equipment out there.
Speaker 1: You got your John Deere, your ex Mark Steel, and
Speaker 1: Honda power equipment. They service everything they sell as well.
Speaker 1: I've had them out to my house to service my
Speaker 1: lawnmower and it's always in top running order. Thanks to
Speaker 1: the good people at but Herbert Motors. They will definitely
Speaker 1: treat you right online. Butdheerbertmotors dot com. That's easy, Bud
Speaker 1: Herbert Motors dot com. When you do call them, tell
Speaker 1: whatever Herbert family member you're dealing with it. Brian said, Hi,
Speaker 1: five one three five four one thirty two ninety one.
Speaker 1: That's five one three five four one thirty two ninety one.
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Speaker 1: on Thursday.
Speaker 2: With of seventy five, it's forty six. Now let's get
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Speaker 1: Amen to that, Brother todds Ends are calling at Shenanigan's
Speaker 1: and revealing the seemingly corrupt nature of city government Former
Speaker 1: Inspector General todds Enzer spending enlightening conversation and disheartening as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean talking about the you know, these handout to
Speaker 1: friends are going to work on campaigns ultimately, and it's
Speaker 1: all city taxpayer money and it's just really heartbreaking. And
Speaker 1: the development of Hyde Park also seems, you know, just
Speaker 1: built in corruption as well. Let's move over to the
Speaker 1: alternative response crisis and we can continue the Shenanigans declarations
Speaker 1: on all this give us a reminder about the ARC program,
Speaker 1: would it. Well?
Speaker 4: ARC stands for Alternative Response to Crises and the mayor
Speaker 4: and the city manager started this as a pilot program
Speaker 4: back in twenty two, twenty two, and it is essentially
Speaker 4: an effort to send non police to certain police service
Speaker 4: calls nine to one one calls where somebody, I guess
Speaker 4: it's the computer system, a combination of the computer system
Speaker 4: at dispatch and dispatcher's deciding whether they should have a
Speaker 4: police officer respond or a non police officer respond.
Speaker 1: And these are calls into nine one one. Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: Well that immediately to me suggests a need for a
Speaker 1: police officer. But I know that there are certain times
Speaker 1: people call nine one one in a non emergency situation.
Speaker 1: But this is for psychological breakdown kind of things.
Speaker 4: Or well that's how it was sold. Back many many
Speaker 4: years ago, certain cities started what they call co responder programs.
Speaker 1: CO as in a police officer plus.
Speaker 4: Correct that we're there to support the police when there
Speaker 4: were mental health issues in a situation or in a call.
Speaker 4: And after George Floyd, that co responder program kind of
Speaker 4: shifted to a alternative to police objectively, a defund the police. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that was kind of a big part of the defund
Speaker 4: the police is to have more calls answered by non
Speaker 4: police officers.
Speaker 1: These are not trained officers, and these are people who
Speaker 1: are not armed, correct.
Speaker 4: That's correct. And I'm not really sure what type of
Speaker 4: training they go through or what their background is. Personally,
Speaker 4: I don't have a problem with trying to support the
Speaker 4: police when they have situations where there's a mental health crisis.
Speaker 1: Right, but that would require a trained mental health professional, right.
Speaker 4: But they should be associated or aligned with the police,
Speaker 4: not with the city manager's office.
Speaker 1: And this group is aligned with the city manager's office.
Speaker 4: Yeah. They actually work for the Emergency Communications Center, which
Speaker 4: the city manager last year, I believe, moved that emergency
Speaker 4: communications center into her immediate office. So yeah, the ARC
Speaker 4: program resports to the city manager or the head of
Speaker 4: the emergency contact center.
Speaker 1: And they are funded.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, they're a big part of the city manager's budget.
Speaker 4: And see here, here's here's the thing. There's no way
Speaker 4: in the world if I if I were running that
Speaker 4: police department, I've got background in law enforcement, not police necessarily,
Speaker 4: there's no way I would let another operation working in
Speaker 4: my same environment. You're setting up conflict, turf wars, all
Speaker 4: the rest of that. There's no way I would allow
Speaker 4: that to happen.
Speaker 1: Well, and if the situation deteriorates, you got one of
Speaker 1: these ARC folks showing up and the situation goes from
Speaker 1: non violent into a violent situation, which I'm sure any
Speaker 1: police officer will tell you can happen from time to time.
Speaker 1: They're not in a position to help to deal with
Speaker 1: that crisis.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, for example, when you look at the when
Speaker 4: you look at the data, the uh, the ARC program
Speaker 4: only responded to like a miniscule.
Speaker 1: I saw your editorial on that was point zero zero
Speaker 1: six percent of the total calls that came in.
Speaker 4: Right, But contrast that thirty eight percent of the calls
Speaker 4: were for trespassing, which last time I checked, was a crime. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but apparently it is more towards homeless people trespassing on.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's basically don't arrest people for breaking
Speaker 1: the law kind of program. We don't want to give
Speaker 1: these people a record, don't we need less policing. We
Speaker 1: just need to like show what emotion or something along
Speaker 1: those lines.
Speaker 4: I think that's I think you're putting your finger on it, Brian.
Speaker 1: All right, and with two hundred police officers needed to
Speaker 1: make the full compliment of the city police department, let
Speaker 1: me guess they have aspirations to take that money that
Speaker 1: would otherwise go to fund the police department to get
Speaker 1: more of these arc folks out into the world rather
Speaker 1: than police officers.
Speaker 4: Well, that's what I think. That the the ARC program,
Speaker 4: the people that work for the our program are much
Speaker 4: less expensive than a police officer, that's for sure. But
Speaker 4: just just knowing how I operated with my budget, if
Speaker 4: I had vacancies, I was concerned that I would lose
Speaker 4: some money down the road if they say, you're not
Speaker 4: using your money for what you're supposed to be using
Speaker 4: it for, so we're going to use it for something else.
Speaker 4: And I don't want the police department to get into
Speaker 4: that situation now.
Speaker 1: But the problem with the police department isn't for you
Speaker 1: know that they've got these spaces that they intentionally are
Speaker 1: not filling. It's they need a compliment of trained police officers,
Speaker 1: people from the world who want to choose this as
Speaker 1: a career after having been demonized for so long. A
Speaker 1: lot of people who otherwise would have become law enforcement
Speaker 1: officers aren't going to the academy or signing up for
Speaker 1: the job.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I'm very concerned that Cincinnati may have a reputation is
Speaker 4: not a good place to be a law enforcement officer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I know that to be a fact because I
Speaker 1: have lots of friends in the Since a police department
Speaker 1: now is low, that's got to be fixed.
Speaker 4: I mean, if Corey Bowman gets in there, that's one
Speaker 4: of the first things he needs to fix is what's
Speaker 4: going on with law enforcement in the city.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up Corey Bowman. Maybe we can
Speaker 1: have a word or two with that. Final words from
Speaker 1: Toddzen's are coming up after I mentioned affordable imaging. Imaging
Speaker 1: is not affordable to the hospital. Bottom line is it's
Speaker 1: really expensive. I personally think four thousand, five thousand, thirty
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars for an echo cardiogram mri CT scan
Speaker 1: ultrasound is expensive because I know it is when you
Speaker 1: compare to affordable imaging services, where those are all less
Speaker 1: than a thousand. I think the most expensive image you
Speaker 1: can get affordable imaging services is it's an echo cartogram
Speaker 1: with enhancement which is still eight hundred dollars compared to
Speaker 1: like four grand at a hospital, and they can get
Speaker 1: you right into. Hospitals are known for lag time, like,
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Speaker 3: Com fifty five KRC is your retirement Jederal.
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Speaker 1: a highest seventy five with sunny skies, tonight clear and
Speaker 1: forty two Tomorrow's sunny again to the highest seventy five
Speaker 1: overnight forty five with clouds and a cloudy Thursday, seventy five,
Speaker 1: forty seven right now for the five k c talk
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Speaker 2: From the UCL Trianffhics Center. When it comes to stroke,
Speaker 2: every second count. So that's why the UC Health Comprehensive
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Speaker 2: Learn more at u seehealth dot com. Inbound seventy four
Speaker 2: is crawling from before north Bend to an accident in Montana.
Speaker 2: Right lane is blocked up at the end of the ramp.
Speaker 2: Southbound seventy five slows through lock on northbound seventy five
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Speaker 1: Seven fifty two five karos talk station at top of
Speaker 1: the our news, the inside scoop of bright bart News,
Speaker 1: plus the Damn Davis Deep Dive at eight thirty. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, you got a couple more minutes with Todd Zenzer.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the election coming up in November we
Speaker 1: obviously have a one Republican candidate option, at least one
Speaker 1: that seems actually to be a Republican And you mentioned
Speaker 1: him in the last segment, Corey Bowman, I mean, just
Speaker 1: given the topics you talked about this morning in this hour,
Speaker 1: I mean, I wish Corey all the luck in the world.
Speaker 1: I just think I don't think he knows what he's
Speaker 1: getting into. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, on the surface, the incumbent administration tries to make
Speaker 4: it look like everything's going great. But if you start
Speaker 4: looking below the surface, yeah, there are a lot a
Speaker 4: lot of ishs.
Speaker 1: But a lot of issues that deserve a different set
Speaker 1: of eyes. Yeah, exactly, So a worthy endeavor to go with,
Speaker 1: Corey Bowman. And I asked you about the Charter Rights
Speaker 1: off air. They seem to have lost a profile at
Speaker 1: all in the city. They used to have a really
Speaker 1: good showing and they always had Charter Right members or council.
Speaker 1: They're a good governance kind of run party.
Speaker 4: That's right. Their values are good government. There are members
Speaker 4: of the Charter Committee from both sides of the aisle, yeah, across.
Speaker 1: You describe them off air as an eclectic group. Yes,
Speaker 1: I like that. So Europe on the board.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was recently asked to be on the board.
Speaker 1: So are we going to see some Charter Ight candidates
Speaker 1: coming out this fall?
Speaker 4: Well, I think they're talking about that, so we'll see
Speaker 4: what happens.
Speaker 1: Well, but maybe they'll have to form a coalition government
Speaker 1: because of Corey Bowman. Actually, at least maybe kind of
Speaker 1: having to a possibility at this given the kind of
Speaker 1: things you're talking about the failure of this administration and
Speaker 1: the last several administrations to deal with the problems that
Speaker 1: all Cincinnatians face, like crumbling infrastructure and there woke ideology
Speaker 1: and throwing money at every kind of pet project that's
Speaker 1: that that comes their way. Heck, you might get some
Speaker 1: Republicans elected. Liz Keating was the most recent Republican elected,
Speaker 1: so it can be done. Maybe you get some Charter rights,
Speaker 1: some Republicans, and of course there'll be Democrats as well.
Speaker 1: You'll have to form a coalition government.
Speaker 4: Yes, that would I think that would be helpful.
Speaker 1: It certainly would, because it would at least involve the
Speaker 1: exchange of different ideas. And usually when you have an
Speaker 1: open discussion and an exchange of ideas from different sides
Speaker 1: of the ledger, quite often the best plan forward emerges
Speaker 1: and is followed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can see that. Up until recently, the city
Speaker 4: council was very homogeneous and there was no dissenting votes
Speaker 4: or anything. But lately I've seen several cases where there
Speaker 4: is some cracks in the in the coalition up there
Speaker 4: on a city council.
Speaker 1: Well, like yesterday, for example, in the vote on what
Speaker 1: to do with this one point three million dollars exactly. Huh. Well,
Speaker 1: it did provide a wonderful springboard for you to bring
Speaker 1: to our attention what seems to be a quid pro
Speaker 1: quot thing going out there in the world with money
Speaker 1: coming from the city and going out to these non
Speaker 1: government organization.
Speaker 4: I think that's a big area of concern.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's worthy to look into further. I would
Speaker 1: just suggest I cannot thank you Todd zenzer On behalf
Speaker 1: of everybody that lives in the city of Cincinnati, for
Speaker 1: being a watchdog and for looking into this and for
Speaker 1: providing just a wonderful explanation for the problems that they're
Speaker 1: facing and the potential for corruption which clearly exists based
Speaker 1: upon the way you've described it. It's just a wonderful
Speaker 1: service you're providing and I know you don't get paid
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 4: Well, it's funny, Brian. You know I'm on a federal pension,
Speaker 4: so in my mind it's your tax dollars at work.
Speaker 1: Well, God bless you for doing it, Todd Zinzer. I
Speaker 1: love having you on the program and I look forward
Speaker 1: to doing it again. In the meantime. Tune into Citizen
Speaker 1: Watchdog at Todd's podcast. How often you do it? Did we? Oh?
Speaker 4: I tried to. Well, I've only started last month and
Speaker 4: I've got eight episodes.
Speaker 1: Great, well, we'll look forward to another one. Check it
Speaker 1: out where you get your podcast. Citizen Watchdog. Todd's been wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, and don't go away, folks. We get the
Speaker 1: inside scoop coming up with Brightbart reporter Randy Clark, who's
Speaker 1: going to be talking about the border.
Speaker 3: News happens fast, stay up to date at the top
Speaker 3: of the hour, not going to be complicated. It's going
Speaker 3: to go very fast. Fifty five KRC the talkstation. This
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