Speaker 1: Do you want to be an American idiot? It's only dunbound.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred will held up to the news yesterday of
Speaker 2: the Hamlin County commissioned. It is the topic that keeps
Speaker 2: on giving. The property tax rebid in Hamlin County. Commissions
Speaker 2: are proving four and a half percent for next year,
Speaker 2: and that, of course, way far away from the thirty
Speaker 2: percent promise. When voters approved the half cent tax levy
Speaker 2: and the tax increase in ninety six to fund stadium construction.
Speaker 2: The vote was two to one, and the no vote
Speaker 2: on it, of course, is from our good front Commissioner
Speaker 2: Alicia Reese, who joins the show this morning on seven
Speaker 2: hundred w ALW. Madam Commissioner, glad to speak with you.
Speaker 3: Good, good to be heard this, Yeah, I gotcha.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So we've taught we I think we've talked this a lot.
Speaker 2: You know, one year we had the thirty percent, got
Speaker 2: that back promised. Okay, now it's four and a half percent.
Speaker 2: The approved rate of four and a half percent. If
Speaker 2: given it'd be like thirty two million. This is just
Speaker 2: five million. And I look at the numbers and you
Speaker 2: have been the loan dissenting void of on this one too.
Speaker 2: Two years ago. I think it was the full thirty
Speaker 2: percent we got that back. What changed in the last
Speaker 2: couple of years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, let me just say that, you know, when
Speaker 4: I ran this my sex time being re elected. But
Speaker 4: when I ran, I got down there, they were at
Speaker 4: single digits, which is where they're at now on the
Speaker 4: property tax rollback that was promised to the voters. And
Speaker 4: I had said that, you know, I came on your
Speaker 4: show and your listeners and we were able to get
Speaker 4: the thirty percent had never been really introduced, and we
Speaker 4: had the thirty percent because we have to do it
Speaker 4: every single year. One of the things that I saw
Speaker 4: was that it was a promise made to the taxpayers,
Speaker 4: but they never wanted to put it in writing, and
Speaker 4: they were hoping that the taxpayers would not be paying attention.
Speaker 4: And so I think what makes this one significant is
Speaker 4: that when we started looking at the biggles, when we
Speaker 4: start going to the Bengal negotiations, that's when this particular
Speaker 4: county commission board they.
Speaker 3: Wrote the taxpayers out.
Speaker 4: They voted for something to go against what the taxpayers
Speaker 4: were promised. Because as you could see in the Business Courier,
Speaker 4: the headline with County property tax rebate looks to take
Speaker 4: a major hits new Bengals lease is the factor, and
Speaker 4: that's the factor we keep in the promise to the stadiums,
Speaker 4: but not the promise to the over two hundred thousand homeowners.
Speaker 3: We've got two sets of talking points. Long one.
Speaker 4: When it comes to the taxpayers and homeowners. They bring
Speaker 4: out a set of talking points from the administrators and
Speaker 4: my colleagues and they say, hey, we can't do this.
Speaker 4: It's fiscally irresponsible. We don't have any money. They brought
Speaker 4: a chart out I'd never seen chart. It's going downward
Speaker 4: and we might go bankrupt. My colleague Disease three House
Speaker 4: have put in the paper that because we went with
Speaker 4: thirty percent, which she voted against, a tax break for
Speaker 4: the homeowners and thirty percent because of that, we we
Speaker 4: just can't do it and we're going bankrupt. Then they
Speaker 4: got another set of talking points when the Bengals lease came, Oh,
Speaker 4: this is a great thing.
Speaker 3: We got to do it.
Speaker 4: Over three hundred and fifty million dollars and an eight
Speaker 4: hundred million dollar deal with interest, nothing for the taxpayers.
Speaker 3: They were toasting it up.
Speaker 4: We did it, We did it, and we and we
Speaker 4: screwed the Hamilton County taxpayers. That's not irresponsible. They didn't
Speaker 4: say it was irresponsible when it's a fund that does
Speaker 4: sales tax and the Bengals were exempt from sales tax.
Speaker 4: Maybe that reason why the fund is going down. But
Speaker 4: they got to set another set. And then just the
Speaker 4: other day they had some talking points and they said, oh,
Speaker 4: we've got to do this redevelopment again of the banks,
Speaker 4: which is eight hundred million dollars with some tables and
Speaker 4: chairs and some spaces where people can hear free music.
Speaker 3: They went to.
Speaker 4: Clap it and we got the money. When we wanted
Speaker 4: to do sundance and I supported someday, but we didn't
Speaker 4: get it. We came up the administrator says, I got
Speaker 4: a rabbit out of the hat. Here's another two million dollars.
Speaker 4: We can do it. Well, we were going to do
Speaker 4: another thing that we needed. He went into the rabbit
Speaker 4: in the hat.
Speaker 3: We can do it.
Speaker 4: So it's a magic show down at the county that
Speaker 4: I have observed since i've been there. And then it
Speaker 4: was said that my colleague said, well, maybe if we
Speaker 4: don't do the thirty percent and we'll keep collecting, we'll
Speaker 4: be able to do more in the future. Well, we've
Speaker 4: done this for thirty years. Twenty four of those years
Speaker 4: I wasn't even there. So where was this collection? Because
Speaker 4: for twenty four years we've been in single digits. Twenty
Speaker 4: four years, we haven't done the thirty percent, So where
Speaker 4: is this collection of money that they're referring to. We
Speaker 4: gave them twenty four years. I gave them twenty four
Speaker 4: years before I got there, and then I introduced the
Speaker 4: thirty percent. And now all of sudden you say that
Speaker 4: because of the homeowners getting a break, we're bankrupting the fund.
Speaker 4: So there's two sets of talking points. It's a every
Speaker 4: time we get ready for this season, as you know song,
Speaker 4: it's a magic show the administrator. When certain people want something,
Speaker 4: my colleagues come out and jump. We found the money
Speaker 4: for the Bengals. If we didn't have the money, maybe
Speaker 4: we should have got a different deal.
Speaker 3: If the fund was going.
Speaker 4: Bankrupt, maybe we should have said, no, Bengals, you cannot
Speaker 4: be exempt from sales tax because we use sales tax
Speaker 4: to fund the stadium. Maybe we should have said no,
Speaker 4: we need a deal like Denver, where less public money.
Speaker 4: They almost have no public money going in and they're
Speaker 4: going to have a brand new stadium. So to say
Speaker 4: that it's the homeowner's fault, we got to penalize the homeowners.
Speaker 4: We can't help the homeowners. The other argument that they
Speaker 4: said was a thirty percent. I mean, you're not getting
Speaker 4: that much money back, sloans. If Kroger's, I've seen Krogers
Speaker 4: say we're gonna have five and ten percent off, and
Speaker 4: people bust the door down to get that five and
Speaker 4: ten percent. You use that little card because you want
Speaker 4: to get a percentage off on your gas. People are
Speaker 4: looking for affordability break, and any break we can give
Speaker 4: them is important. Right now now Sloans. Just yesterday they
Speaker 4: went with not giving the homeowners the full thirty percent rebate,
Speaker 4: right and then they're getting ready to vote on a
Speaker 4: budget that will increase your sewer bill. So now we're
Speaker 4: gonna that's that's adding another four percent. They added four
Speaker 4: percent last year.
Speaker 3: I disagreed. I voted no.
Speaker 4: So that's eight percent. You almost had to ten percent
Speaker 4: in two years where your bill is going up. So
Speaker 4: we're gonna make the bill go up. We're not gonna
Speaker 4: give you the break that we that you were promised.
Speaker 4: We're gonna keep the promise to the Bengals, but all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, no promise to the homeowners. We have
Speaker 4: to pay for this. It's two hundred thousand homeowners that
Speaker 4: need to break. And then we also the administrator has
Speaker 4: proposed in his budget and it might go I'm gonna
Speaker 4: fight against it. Now we also want to add to
Speaker 4: the closing costs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the property transfer tax.
Speaker 2: I was going to bring that up as well, and
Speaker 2: I'll fold in you know, you know, and again it's
Speaker 2: a probably not fair to bring this up, but I
Speaker 2: think it's the headline about more taxes, right, the one
Speaker 2: percent tax around the Convention Center district for food and bars.
Speaker 1: If you partake in that kind of stuff. So it it.
Speaker 2: And you know that's outside of the scope too, because
Speaker 2: that's a choice. It's not mandatory like animals you've got
Speaker 2: to buy stuff every But at the same time, I mean,
Speaker 2: we add up, we add all that up stuff, we
Speaker 2: add it all together. Right, It but still a fee
Speaker 2: that people are going to pay.
Speaker 4: No, wait a minute, well that's a good points you made.
Speaker 4: You're gonna add a one percent tax if you eat
Speaker 4: around a certain area. They have it in other areas.
Speaker 3: But it's at a.
Speaker 4: Property that the county before I got there.
Speaker 3: Now they voted.
Speaker 4: It's there as a fifty two million dollars Millennium hotel
Speaker 4: was there. It's fifty two million dollars it cost to
Speaker 4: get rid of it and tear it down, and then
Speaker 4: you're replacing it with something that you're not making any money.
Speaker 4: This one percent doesn't go to the county.
Speaker 3: This is going to three CDC. You don't get no
Speaker 3: money back.
Speaker 4: Fifty two million dollars down the two and you put
Speaker 4: something there that doesn't make any money.
Speaker 2: That'll make money though, because you're going to bring people
Speaker 2: from out of town to spend money and pay those taxes.
Speaker 1: That's that's why they're doing it. Makes sense.
Speaker 4: Well wait a minute, hold that, Okay, fifty If the
Speaker 4: taxpayers put out fifty two million, then we're not getting
Speaker 4: anything from that that goes to the developers, so we
Speaker 4: get zero. That's what I'm saying. What I said on
Speaker 4: your show, and I broke in first with you, was
Speaker 4: that I told the administrator, I said, why don't we
Speaker 4: get the liquor license down there so that we can
Speaker 4: get the funding back to the county. Coffer and he's
Speaker 4: supposed to be looking at it. But anytime I say
Speaker 4: something of that magnitude, he's looking at it, and he's
Speaker 4: looking at it Like I said, it's a magic show.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a movie out called Now You see Me?
Speaker 4: Now you don't. That's what's happening down at the county.
Speaker 4: One minute. If you have an idea to bring money
Speaker 4: in to help the taxpayers, that all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: we can't do it. If you want to give the
Speaker 4: homeowners a break, you can't do it. If you want
Speaker 4: to get a taxpayers a break, you can't do it.
Speaker 4: Then all of a sudden, over here, like you just
Speaker 4: say it, there's a tax but we're not benefiting for him,
Speaker 4: and the homeowner's not benefiting from it. Nothing is going
Speaker 4: back to help us get a break. Is going to
Speaker 4: a developer. All of a sudden, it's a great idea,
Speaker 4: we're moving in the wrong direction. And also there's a
Speaker 4: lot of funds down there at the county. I'm trying
Speaker 4: to get my hands around it, because all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I said, give me, where are all the funds, where's
Speaker 4: our money?
Speaker 3: What's in here? They don't give it to me.
Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden, when certain people call
Speaker 4: there's a rabbit out of the hat.
Speaker 3: We can do it, bigs, Okay.
Speaker 4: Don't worry about this.
Speaker 3: Well, Denise, we can't do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Denise Threehouse said that. By the way,
Speaker 2: Alisha Reesa on the show this morning of the property
Speaker 2: tax we bit, she said, I think called the last
Speaker 2: time we did the full three thirty one thirty two
Speaker 2: million dollars rebate irresponsible. It is irresponsible Black and THEYR
Speaker 2: responsible now and quoted some figures that they fund the
Speaker 2: reserve fund. Is that forty seven percent of maximum at
Speaker 2: MAXI manual debt service the recommended numbers eighty five percent?
Speaker 2: Uh so, who's if you're somebod who listen to this
Speaker 2: right now and you're in the county Hamlin, County, Lisha Reese,
Speaker 2: you're looking at going, who am I supposed to believe
Speaker 2: on this?
Speaker 1: Either we have the money or we don't have the money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's well onness. Me and her have a
Speaker 4: difference of opinion. I am not for raising taxes, so
Speaker 4: we're gonna always disagree. She voted against giving the homeowners
Speaker 4: the break last time. She was the one vote that
Speaker 4: voted against it. But to put up that is irresponsible,
Speaker 4: is disingenuous. Her and the administrator are together. Every time
Speaker 4: you hear the administrator is almost like an extension of
Speaker 4: the staff.
Speaker 3: Because, by the way, where was.
Speaker 4: The chart when you look at that fund, you got
Speaker 4: to look at the stadium. So before you do a
Speaker 4: stadium deal, you got to put all the chips on
Speaker 4: the table.
Speaker 3: So it was.
Speaker 4: Irresponsible to do a stadium deal knowing that you wouldn't
Speaker 4: be able to give a break to the homeowners. That's
Speaker 4: why I wanted to take it to the ballot. It's
Speaker 4: not about who should have taxpayers believe. I'm for putting
Speaker 4: it to the taxpayers and letting them have a say.
Speaker 4: If you take the taxpayers off the ballot and not
Speaker 4: have a say, now you just turn it over down
Speaker 4: to the administration. Now, I'll be honest with you. When
Speaker 4: I came in, I came in. I'm the newest member
Speaker 4: of the three, and I came in because people said
Speaker 4: they wanted me to shake it up, open up the process,
Speaker 4: and fight for the taxpayers first. And so that's where
Speaker 4: I'm coming from. So we all got differences of who
Speaker 4: we you know, what we believe and so forth. But
Speaker 4: I'm looking at the numbers. The Bengals deal, and the
Speaker 4: headline was right in the courier is the reason the
Speaker 4: fund is going the way it's going. The fact that
Speaker 4: they're not paying any sales tax themselves is the reason
Speaker 4: that the fund is going bankrupt. So her belief is
Speaker 4: blame the homeowners. Mine is, let's look at who's getting
Speaker 4: who's benefiting from the fund, and it's not the homeowners.
Speaker 4: And I believe that we could have done both if
Speaker 4: we would have gotten a better deal. But if you
Speaker 4: don't get a whole house away, and now you come
Speaker 4: back to the people who elected us and you tell
Speaker 4: them we can't do it. We can't keep your promise,
Speaker 4: but we can keep the famis to the Bengals. I
Speaker 4: think from the voters that voted for me the two
Speaker 4: hundred eighteen thousand, they're saying, that's a bunch of crap,
Speaker 4: and then to come back on the same thing and
Speaker 4: pile on and say now we're going to go up
Speaker 4: on your stewer rate. The people that voted for me
Speaker 4: two underd eighteen thousand said that's a bunch of bull
Speaker 4: and then to come back and say, now we're going
Speaker 4: to balance the budget by now even adding this real
Speaker 4: estate transfer fee. You know, the realators, the investors, real
Speaker 4: estate investors, the real estate homeowners, all of them have
Speaker 4: come out over seventy five two hundred members. And they
Speaker 4: didn't even get the courtesy of even being talked.
Speaker 3: To the Board of Realtors.
Speaker 4: They didn't even get the home Builders Association, they didn't
Speaker 4: even get the courtesy of getting a phone call. And
Speaker 4: so they have come out. So the experts who are
Speaker 4: in this have come out and said this is going
Speaker 4: to hurt us as a county because people will now
Speaker 4: move to other counties. The people who do this every
Speaker 4: day for living and also pay taxes have said that
Speaker 4: rent will go up because the landlord's now got to
Speaker 4: pass this this property tax on to somebody, and they're
Speaker 4: going to pass it on. And then, as you know, Sloan,
Speaker 4: there was articles that the in Choir is doing on
Speaker 4: these senior citizens, and they had one of them that
Speaker 4: I brought up. Gentlemen seventy three years old, always worked
Speaker 4: his whole life, painted bills, had his home and now
Speaker 4: getting ready to lose his home because the property tax
Speaker 4: has jumped up triple and after his Social Security check
Speaker 4: he only has he pays that right the property tax.
Speaker 4: He only has forty dollars left to pay for medicine, gas,
Speaker 4: and electric et cetera.
Speaker 2: The state is the states working on a plan to
Speaker 2: help folks like that, which is a good thing. Finally,
Speaker 2: Alisia Reese, Oh, you also started to change that ORG
Speaker 2: petition for residents of voice. Does that really carry that
Speaker 2: much weight? I mean it changed that ORG. It doesn't
Speaker 2: really influence it then, does it.
Speaker 4: Well, what we want to do is every year we
Speaker 4: have to vote on this, and it always comes at
Speaker 4: the last second, so people might can't get down there.
Speaker 4: I want to start now and hear from the people directly,
Speaker 4: and so therefore that's why we put the petition out there,
Speaker 4: so we could hear from the people directly. I'm hearing
Speaker 4: from them, am I out in the community, But I
Speaker 4: want to make sure they understand my colleagues. They may say, oh,
Speaker 4: it's two to one. No, it's not two to one.
Speaker 4: I got two hundred and eighteen thousand voters. But now
Speaker 4: let's hear from the I'm trying to let them hear
Speaker 4: from the homeowners themselves. And so this petition will it
Speaker 4: won't stop to thirty percent this time, but we would
Speaker 4: be prepared next time. But secondly, it can also impact
Speaker 4: the budget that we're getting ready to do with the
Speaker 4: additional feed for the transfer tax, and so we'll be
Speaker 4: fighting for that. So the reason we're doing this is
Speaker 4: to try to give the people a chance to be heard,
Speaker 4: and then we'll be prepared so when we go in
Speaker 4: they say, hey, here's what the people are saying. And
Speaker 4: I do think it can make a difference because Sloan,
Speaker 4: they didn't. They told me we could never get thirty percent.
Speaker 4: I came on here and we fought, like hell, we
Speaker 4: got it my first year. We came on here, we
Speaker 4: fought like hell, we got it another year, and so
Speaker 4: we just got to keep fighting. But if you get quiet,
Speaker 4: they're hoping you get quiet.
Speaker 3: They're hoping you don't know.
Speaker 4: We're hoping that you only a few people know what's
Speaker 4: going on, and then by the time you get your bill,
Speaker 4: it's too late because the vote has already been tanged.
Speaker 2: She is, she's preaching the gods with the lead show reason.
Speaker 2: I know you had a health scare and I wasn't
Speaker 2: aware of that, but I'm so glad that unfortunately got
Speaker 2: great treatment, great healthcare. You see, and you're doing much
Speaker 2: much better. So it's good to have you back in
Speaker 2: the game and speaking truth of powers.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got great health care mercy Jews. Yeah, the
Speaker 4: nurses and the doctors, and my doctor said it could
Speaker 4: have been fatal. So I just wanted to be very spiritual.
Speaker 4: I want to thank God, but I want to take
Speaker 4: those doctors and nurses. And while I was there, what
Speaker 4: are nurses? That came on the TV. They didn't know
Speaker 4: who I was, and the property tax came on and
Speaker 4: she says, oh, man, I me and my husband we
Speaker 4: can't afford to go up. And so that's why I
Speaker 4: went to the meeting yesterday, even though you're.
Speaker 1: Not supposed to be doing it. Will you get shut
Speaker 1: the hell up and get some rest? Would you go?
Speaker 4: I'll go lay down down, put your.
Speaker 2: Feed up, elevate, get get the coughs on your ear
Speaker 2: legs to keep the DVT away, and uh live to
Speaker 2: fight another day. God bless you, Alicia, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2: Thank you take care of it's a Scott Slum show.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite all time guests. Right there, Alicia,
Speaker 2: she just she just spits. Man, she just goes well,
Speaker 2: say hi, and man, I can go get coffee. Come
Speaker 2: on back, she's still talking. She's the best right there.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: Scott Slung Show, seven hundred w ald