Speaker 1: All right, now, Billy Cunningham, the Great America from the
Speaker 1: Double Wide and Naples and New Year, I'm back.
Speaker 2: My little week's.
Speaker 1: Vacation was wonderful. It was a stay vacation. I monitored
Speaker 1: five nine twelve nineteen our newsroom. I read the Inquiry
Speaker 1: every day. I talked to Tony Bender at least three
Speaker 1: times a day, which is half the time I talked
Speaker 1: to Joe Dieters. So it was a wonderful week off.
Speaker 1: But now I'm back at it. And while I monitor everything,
Speaker 1: you have to point out to Tony Tony Pike, remember
Speaker 1: that guy.
Speaker 3: He's back.
Speaker 1: Tony Pike is in the Hall of Fame with UC.
Speaker 1: We got the UC Bearcats tied for first place in
Speaker 1: the Big twelve, the Big eleven, the Big fourteen. Then
Speaker 1: we have the Ben Galley's of course on Sunday against
Speaker 1: the Lowly Jets, and that we could have a quarterback controversy.
Speaker 1: If Wacko Flacco keeps playing like this when Joe's ready
Speaker 1: to come back Burrow, he may not get his old
Speaker 1: job back. But that's another matter. Joining you and I
Speaker 1: now is the Great Brian Hambrick of the Power of
Speaker 1: Five and Brian Hamrick Welcome to the Bill cunning A Show.
Speaker 1: My first guest after a week off from my double
Speaker 1: wide and near Naples. Welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. Brian,
Speaker 1: how are you good?
Speaker 2: Thanks for getting mister Cunningham.
Speaker 1: Well, I was there monitoring events. There was a classic
Speaker 1: scene I had from your newsroom when you're running down
Speaker 1: the hallway of eight to one Plump Street trying to
Speaker 1: chase down share along. She was morphing into various objects,
Speaker 1: and you got close to her, she became a chair,
Speaker 1: and then when you walked away, she suddenly popped up.
Speaker 1: It came like a water cooler, and then you moved
Speaker 1: a little bit, she became a door. In other words,
Speaker 1: she avoided you like you had the plague or you
Speaker 1: had COVID and you were chasing Charey along eight of
Speaker 1: one Plump Street for what reason? In the hallways she
Speaker 1: ignored you completely explained that.
Speaker 2: One well, you know, I mean James Round didn't have
Speaker 2: better moves sometimes.
Speaker 3: You know, I feel good, I feel good, or.
Speaker 4: Any one of them to try and get out of
Speaker 4: the way of the questioning. I mean, Walter Payton could
Speaker 4: have not moved more swiftly, agilely.
Speaker 2: It was unbelievable. You know, people think maybe, you know,
Speaker 2: we get a kick out of this. You know, was
Speaker 2: much easier for me if they just come out and
Speaker 2: tell us what they're doing.
Speaker 5: You know, we don't choose to walk them down like this.
Speaker 5: But the reality is we have been trying over and
Speaker 5: over and over to talk to anybody in the city
Speaker 5: managers and mostly the city managers.
Speaker 2: That's what everybody wants to hear from. She is at
Speaker 2: the center of this entire event. Good batter indifferent might
Speaker 2: be the greatest thing that ever happened, But that's the
Speaker 2: person that you need to talk to because everybody else
Speaker 2: can just debate this thing. We can all talk about, well,
Speaker 2: you know, this city councilman wants to do it this
Speaker 2: where he likes it, or he doesn't like it, or
Speaker 2: he's not sure what it's about. The mayor is not
Speaker 2: sure what it's about. Nobody knows. She's the only one
Speaker 2: who has the information. We got to go to the
Speaker 2: person with the information. Now, you know, on their side,
Speaker 2: their side of it is, it's a personnel matter, it's
Speaker 2: an ongoing investigation. We can't tell you anything. Well, that's
Speaker 2: that's just not enough. I mean, there are things. You
Speaker 2: can tell us. I mean, you can tell us. There
Speaker 2: is no reason why you can't give us a basic
Speaker 2: understanding of what the investigation is about. You know, there's
Speaker 2: no information on that. So we go down to City
Speaker 2: Hall and I had already prepared that this is what
Speaker 2: it was going to be. Like, I knew she was
Speaker 2: coming into this. It was a with some sort of
Speaker 2: a pressor. Now, if you don't want to see me
Speaker 2: or any of the other TV stations, why would you
Speaker 2: hold a press conference on a very It was like
Speaker 2: she was getting an award for hiring folks with disabilities
Speaker 2: or something. Why would you hold that press conference that day?
Speaker 2: Put it off until next week, you know, do something
Speaker 2: else you don't you don't put up press go who
Speaker 2: do you think is going to show up? We're all
Speaker 2: showing up. We all want to know the same thing.
Speaker 2: So I go up there coming, Yeah, so I think
Speaker 2: I show up. Yet the chief wants to know, you know,
Speaker 2: apparently she's not even sure the folks her attorney said,
Speaker 2: they have no idea why they fire or didn't fire,
Speaker 2: but they put her on this administrative leave. They fire,
Speaker 2: they haven't yet. Well here's the thing, there's two different Uh, Uh,
Speaker 2: there's two different ways of looking like at this. Apparently
Speaker 2: under the charter there's one set of rules and if
Speaker 2: she if uh, if they have her under the charter,
Speaker 2: there's one set of rules. And if she is a
Speaker 2: contract employees, there's a second set of rules. Under the contract,
Speaker 2: they can just fire her. So if they're looking at
Speaker 2: like she's under the contract, then they need to just
Speaker 2: fire her.
Speaker 1: Right, she serves for the pleasure of the city manager
Speaker 1: and if you're not giving me pleasure. And until she
Speaker 1: was fired, ill used the term fire discharge. She was
Speaker 1: the greatest thing since sliced bread. I've seen all the news.
Speaker 1: We're all on the same page. Thinks she's doing a
Speaker 1: great job. July twenty six, she kind of went after
Speaker 1: the media thing. You shouldn't be publicizing what happened to
Speaker 1: Holly in July twenty six. She's doing a great job.
Speaker 1: But let's go down history's hallway just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to Cheryl Long, who was the assistant
Speaker 1: city manager at North College Hill, the home.
Speaker 3: Of the Trojans.
Speaker 1: Assistant city manager making little or no money, and at
Speaker 1: that point and North College Hill was in financial and
Speaker 1: physical emergency. There were gunshots fired to the football field
Speaker 1: a couple times. North College Jaill shall always say, is
Speaker 1: not well run. And so the city gets together this
Speaker 1: huge after they paid off the last guy millions of
Speaker 1: dollars to a search committee to find the thirty seven
Speaker 1: best candidates in America to be the city manager of
Speaker 1: the City of Cincinnati, and the search form one of
Speaker 1: the background of all the candidates and loan hold I
Speaker 1: think after Peeroval whispered in the ear of somebody and
Speaker 1: the search committee said, we want Cheryl long a DEI
Speaker 1: higher from North College Hill, and they bring her in.
Speaker 1: Then within a week it surfaces that she'd filed personal bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: had numerous tax liens, and then Aftip Peer of all
Speaker 1: diverted to the search committee saying, well, why didn't you
Speaker 1: tell us this? They couldn't find an information out and
Speaker 1: then Seth Walsh and others are saying, now, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: do we want someone who's filed bankruptcy with numerous tax
Speaker 1: liens to run the city of five hundred million dollar operation?
Speaker 1: If she's the most qualified, the mayor said, of those
Speaker 1: thirty seven candidates, I want to see the qualifications of
Speaker 1: the other thirty six.
Speaker 3: Are they in drunk tank somewhere. I'm thinking, how in
Speaker 3: the hell was this the most wodified? Explain that one
Speaker 3: to me and then let me continue. And then one
Speaker 3: of the first things she.
Speaker 1: Does is fire the police chief, a guy named Washington,
Speaker 1: and he came up through the ranks and he was
Speaker 1: fired allegedly for not promoting enough minorities. And he is
Speaker 1: a black guy. He was fired. He files the lawsuit
Speaker 1: and now we're going to pay. We're gonna pay him
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. So they find this guy named McKinley
Speaker 1: from Dallas. McKinley's the new fire chief. The first thing
Speaker 1: he does is take an extended leave of absence. He
Speaker 1: leaves and then comes back a couple months later. Then
Speaker 1: over the next several months, coding the inquirer, he took
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars of wrongful money and fictitious overtime. And
Speaker 1: when he was caught, instead of giving it to the
Speaker 1: county prosecutor, what they did was say to say to
Speaker 1: the new fire chief, McKinley, you pay us back. He's out,
Speaker 1: I don't have the money. They then say, we got
Speaker 1: to garnishe your wages? And that's the fire chief now
Speaker 1: let's move on to Fiji. For God's sakes.
Speaker 3: And I'm looking at this.
Speaker 1: Let's put us put some canvas top on top of
Speaker 1: the shirt.
Speaker 2: Hit halftime there.
Speaker 3: Look what the hell's going on around this place? Can
Speaker 3: you explain any of.
Speaker 2: This to the mayor long list? But then there was,
Speaker 2: you know, quite a bit more to go.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, okay, And then you're trying to find out
Speaker 1: why Fiji, who come up through the ranks, did exactly
Speaker 1: what the mayor told her to do every time he
Speaker 1: stood next to her and patted her on the back.
Speaker 1: You're doing a great job. Keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. Then she gets fired what she serves in
Speaker 1: the pleasure of the city manager. You can get fired
Speaker 1: for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason.
Speaker 1: But the mayor doesn't want that. It looks bad, so
Speaker 1: he wants to hire a big time law firm to
Speaker 1: spend millions of dollars more to find out why I
Speaker 1: fired her? What you haven't, guy?
Speaker 2: That fired? Right?
Speaker 3: Can you smell when I'm cooking?
Speaker 2: It is? But these are all the things, and this
Speaker 2: is the reason why we felt like it was very
Speaker 2: important to try and get something, get some answers from
Speaker 2: the city manager. You know, but as you saw there,
Speaker 2: if you watch that, there is no intention what's over.
Speaker 2: In fact, when we came into the first sip of
Speaker 2: the hallway there at the bottom of the stairs when
Speaker 2: you go into city Hall, there were the mayor's offices
Speaker 2: to the left, and so she was apparently in there,
Speaker 2: and I see all of her staff out in front.
Speaker 2: I'm standing out there waiting for me because I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: we'll just ask her. If she comes out, maybe she'll
Speaker 2: stop and talk to us. They go inside and then
Speaker 2: circumvent and try and go around the way that we weren't.
Speaker 2: And that's when we caught up with her in the hall.
Speaker 2: And if you watch that carefully, she puts the she
Speaker 2: puts the folder she's holding over her face like like
Speaker 2: I'm like, what is that about? Well, I'm looking at it,
Speaker 2: going why is she doing that?
Speaker 3: I'm hiding. I'm hiding to hide my folder, like.
Speaker 2: We don't know who she is. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: I couldn't understand it. And you know, if I thought, well,
Speaker 2: maybe she thought the lights were bright, you know, or something,
Speaker 2: but she put it down pretty quick and the lights
Speaker 2: were even more bright, so I couldn't explain why it
Speaker 2: went down like that. But then she comes through. I
Speaker 2: had two or three questions. I knew I would have
Speaker 2: a short time to just ask her quickly the top
Speaker 2: of mind things. You know, is she being made a
Speaker 2: stek goat that's.
Speaker 3: Yes or a no?
Speaker 2: That has nothing to do with with personnel at her.
Speaker 2: I couldn't see it. You see, I had my sunglasses on.
Speaker 2: I couldn't see the prescription glasses. I had to put
Speaker 2: them on because I want to make sure I was,
Speaker 2: you know, finding the right person. Here she is coming
Speaker 2: down the hall.
Speaker 3: Behind her folder.
Speaker 2: Oh, walking behind and and trying to get like. She's
Speaker 2: got some of her staff over there running interference. I
Speaker 2: mean it looked like a screenplay, is what it looked like.
Speaker 2: You know, you put all those guys out in front
Speaker 2: and there trying to knock off the people and they're
Speaker 2: answering for you. She has to go to a press conference.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was it was absurd, and she'd never
Speaker 2: come to that. It was bizarre. So then she goes
Speaker 2: into the press conference, gives a little dog and pony
Speaker 2: show about whatever that press conference was about. So we're waiting,
Speaker 2: we'll say, well, well said again. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be disruptive in the press conference. It was her moment
Speaker 2: with some award, so I didn't even ask the question.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'll wait till she comes back out. I'll
Speaker 2: try again. Maybe she'll think, well, it's probably better for her.
Speaker 2: It would have been one hundred times better. She's gone. You
Speaker 2: know what here, Look, here's what I got to say.
Speaker 2: We are working and doing everything we can to fight
Speaker 2: crime in this city, and sometimes we got to make
Speaker 2: hard decisions. And that's what we're doing here. That's all
Speaker 2: I've got to say. Stay tuned. We got the boom.
Speaker 2: She left, and you know what, I wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: able to use any of that. I wouldn't have used
Speaker 2: one second of me trying to ask her questions. It
Speaker 2: would have gone away and she would have had that
Speaker 2: as the sound bite that everybody would have used. Everybody.
Speaker 2: But you know what they did. They didn't come out.
Speaker 2: She went straight to the back. There's another room in
Speaker 2: that room. Once fifteen there.
Speaker 3: In the.
Speaker 2: In the city building. They found and I even asked
Speaker 2: God janitor there who said, no, no, there's no other
Speaker 2: way out of there. They found a way out. There's
Speaker 2: a trap door. A rat hole. There's something, and you
Speaker 2: can go and circumvent everybody. And they ran out the back.
Speaker 2: They ran out the back and we never saw them
Speaker 2: after that. My lord, I mean this, would you do that?
Speaker 2: That is a bad look for anybody.
Speaker 4: Just come on.
Speaker 2: You know. I worked at in public relations to University
Speaker 2: of Oklahoma, and there were some folks there that had
Speaker 2: the same theory. The theory is if you don't say anything,
Speaker 2: you can't say anything wrong. So just don't tell anybody anything.
Speaker 2: And this was many, many years ago, and I was
Speaker 2: there and I remember some of the looks I got.
Speaker 2: So I know in public, sometimes in public the public forum,
Speaker 2: people don't want to do this. But I said, listen,
Speaker 2: we're reasonable people, we make reasonable decisions. Why don't we
Speaker 2: just go out and tell them why we made the
Speaker 2: decision we made.
Speaker 6: Not everybody's going to agree with you. You're gonna you'll tell
Speaker 6: them what you did and why you did it. I mean,
Speaker 6: look to take somebody who does that and you can
Speaker 6: agree with despise, love him, hate him, but Sheriff Jones guy,
Speaker 6: he will do what he does and then he stands
Speaker 6: there and tells you what he did. And that's what
Speaker 6: that'sody previously agreed.
Speaker 3: Trump's the same way. He'll tell you he's gonna he's
Speaker 3: gonna be.
Speaker 1: Trump's gonna be kind of it's gonna demolish the White House,
Speaker 1: he says, I'm not gonna ask permission within two days.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna do it. Yeah, you don't do it
Speaker 2: what he did right there when you when you ask
Speaker 2: and when you ask somebody like that about it, though
Speaker 2: usually they double down on it if they're you know,
Speaker 2: if they're happy with what they did, or they believe
Speaker 2: in what they did, you know, hiding and running and
Speaker 2: not answering questions and hideing behind you know, really flimsy. Well,
Speaker 2: it's under investigation. And what investigation are you going to
Speaker 2: circumvent by saying we're fighting crime in this city? There's none, it's.
Speaker 1: Made up, well, you know, Brian, Brian Hemry Channel five.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of for to watch this show,
Speaker 1: and it's happening because of the election, which is about
Speaker 1: ten twelve days away. We're going to find out if
Speaker 1: the city wants to take a different turn, which politically,
Speaker 1: all my political friends tell me republican democratic. Otherwise the
Speaker 1: city's not going to go some different direction. It is
Speaker 1: simply holding the status quotes after the election. It is
Speaker 1: absurd to think that if Charel Long indeed and the
Speaker 1: mayor work closely with Thiji Chief Fiji for not just months,
Speaker 1: but two or three years, then knew the ins and
Speaker 1: the out. She did exactly what they told her to do,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, if they say that she's
Speaker 1: doing a bad job, do a one to eighty of
Speaker 1: the opposite direction. All you got to do is call
Speaker 1: her and say, look, things aren't going the right way.
Speaker 1: We have to let you go, and you get full
Speaker 1: pension for the rest of her life. She makes like
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand bucks a year, she'll make that for
Speaker 1: the rest of her life. She got thirty some years
Speaker 1: and she's in the drop program for cops. And you
Speaker 1: don't hang her out to dry and make it look
Speaker 1: as if she did something so wrong and so disgusting.
Speaker 3: That we knew nothing about that.
Speaker 1: We got to fire her and keep keep this under
Speaker 1: control until November the fourth and fifth, when the votes
Speaker 1: are announced. At that point we're going to know. And
Speaker 1: so they're hanging out to dry is to dirty her up.
Speaker 1: The mission is the dirty up Thiji right now because
Speaker 1: we were so incompetent. We can't manage the city. We
Speaker 1: can't manage the cops. We screwed up the fire department.
Speaker 1: We screwed up the police. We can't fill the potholes,
Speaker 1: we can't shovel the snow. Someone's going to take the fall,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be Thiji. And they want to
Speaker 1: hire a firm to come up with all the dirt
Speaker 1: on her, and then they'll go to her and say,
Speaker 1: look at all this dirt we found about you. We
Speaker 1: we'll pay you two million dollars to go away if
Speaker 1: you sign the NDA. They want the NDA to be signed.
Speaker 1: That's what's behind this, That's what they want.
Speaker 2: They want something that whenever she walks out of that building,
Speaker 2: she cannot say a word about what she knows.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: And you know, there are a lot of people who
Speaker 2: believe she knows a lot. And if she's able, if
Speaker 2: they just went and fired her, she'd be able to
Speaker 2: walk right out. And I can guarantee you I would
Speaker 2: and had to walk her down. No, he would have
Speaker 2: stopped and talk.
Speaker 3: Let's talk.
Speaker 2: She been finer on the spot. Yeah, yeah, we'll be
Speaker 2: glad you wait. Wait, I think I see some other
Speaker 2: stations a half mile down the road. He'll be here
Speaker 2: in a minute. We'll do it all, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So that's what's happening. They're going this is that's the
Speaker 2: bottom line. They want a deal where she can't say
Speaker 2: anything when she leaves, because you know, some people believe
Speaker 2: she knows where all the skeletons are buried.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, and they want to keep the lid onto
Speaker 1: after the election. Get the law firm to give him
Speaker 1: some dirt on her.
Speaker 3: Call her in.
Speaker 1: You're a good woman, You've been here a long time.
Speaker 1: You'd exactly what we told you to do, and it failed.
Speaker 1: We can't take blame ourselves. You got to blame you.
Speaker 1: Here's two or three million dollars. Sign this, you'll be
Speaker 1: rich and away you go. Well, we got to run,
Speaker 1: Brian Hemrick. But one of the best things I saw
Speaker 1: the last few days was you chasing down a folder
Speaker 1: named Cheryl Long MS folder who is talking about nothing
Speaker 1: except hiring the disabled, which probably ways a great idea,
Speaker 1: but nonetheless, Uh, Brian Hemrick, thanks for coming on the
Speaker 1: Bill Cunningham Show, and may you continue to have great
Speaker 1: success in what you do.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 2: I've got that folder filed under bizarre. Thanks again, mister Cunningham.
Speaker 3: Thanks again, Brian Hemrick of the Power of five. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, Let's continue with more folder running, city hall, bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: tax leans, unexcused absences, garnishing wages. Let's get dirt on
Speaker 1: Thiji to put on top of that pile of crap.
Speaker 1: News Radio seven hundred ww