Speaker 1: News Radio seven hundred WLW Mike Allen and Saturday midday,
Speaker 1: how about cold Saturday morning. Well, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: election time is here. Of course, Tuesday is the election date.
Speaker 1: People have been voting by mail gosh, I guess in
Speaker 1: some cases for about thirty days. But the big races
Speaker 1: here in the City of Cincinnati, of course, is the
Speaker 1: Mayor's race and the council races. So today I'm going
Speaker 1: to do things a little bit differently. Today we are
Speaker 1: going to speak with some of the candidates that are
Speaker 1: running for City of Cincinnati Council, the ones that I
Speaker 1: think have the best shot at punching through perhaps. And
Speaker 1: at ten thirty we're going to talk to Corey Bowman,
Speaker 1: who is a candidate for mayor, and Billy. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what, if ever there was one you would love
Speaker 1: to see an upset in that race. Of course, Corey
Speaker 1: running against the incumbent in that matter, in that whole thing, and.
Speaker 2: Mister Pureval, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you got a city that's votes three
Speaker 1: to one Democrat, it's an uphill battle.
Speaker 2: But you know, this year's different. I mean, it just is.
Speaker 1: With the downtown beat down, in the situation with the
Speaker 1: Chief of Police driving it, so we shall see. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, Liz Keating will lead it off at
Speaker 1: nine point thirty. At ten o'clock we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to Steve Gooden, a ten thirty Corey Bowman candidate for mayor,
Speaker 1: as I said, And at eleven o'clock we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to Judge Josh Berkowitz, and he is running to
Speaker 1: keep his seat on the Hamilton County Municipal Court. And
Speaker 1: we're going to conclude at eleven thirty with Christopher Smitheman.
Speaker 1: The only problem with all this is I'm probably not
Speaker 1: going to have time to take calls. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you feel compelled and something that you really want to
Speaker 1: get off your chest, you know, go ahead and call
Speaker 1: seven point nine seven thousand, one eight hundred the big
Speaker 1: one and I'll try to work you in.
Speaker 2: But no guarantees.
Speaker 1: Again, I just think it's important that we hear from
Speaker 1: these candidates on three days out from the election. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, I wanted to talk to you about
Speaker 1: something in the rant here, about something I saw this
Speaker 1: week which just really kind of knocked me on my
Speaker 1: butt in a good way. Let me explain it.
Speaker 3: To you.
Speaker 1: It was about an article in this relatively new I
Speaker 1: think publication named Semaphore. I've got it open here on
Speaker 1: my computer, and you know, I looked at it this
Speaker 1: week and it looks like it's pretty fair right straight
Speaker 1: down the line as far as reporting. Looks like it's
Speaker 1: all political stuff. But that's where this article was. That's
Speaker 1: where I found that. It's a new for profit global
Speaker 1: news network. They have a really interesting website. As I said,
Speaker 1: if you want to check it out. This story in
Speaker 1: Semaphore is getting a lot of play. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: They reported this week that a group called Welcome, which
Speaker 1: is being labeled as a centrist Democrat group, which I
Speaker 1: didn't know there are any more of them left, they consulted.
Speaker 1: This isn't a poll. This is a study. They consulted
Speaker 1: with hundreds of thousands of voters in the past six months,
Speaker 1: and they also spoke with a lot of Democratic legislators.
Speaker 1: And again, it's more than a poll. It's a comprehensive study.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what. The results are shocking, but
Speaker 1: really shouldn't be, not really that surprising, but man, it
Speaker 1: just shows you where the Democrat Party is at this
Speaker 1: point in time. Here's the introduction to the report from
Speaker 1: this group called Welcome that you can see in Semaphore.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of paragraphs here. Then we're going to
Speaker 1: get down to the gritty. Democrats have badly weakened their
Speaker 1: party with left leaning ideas and rhetoric growing only the
Speaker 1: party growing only with self described white liberals, while losing
Speaker 1: ground with other voters. Yeah, you know, normal people. According
Speaker 1: to a new center left group's report that was shared
Speaker 1: with Semaphore, the group called Welcome consulted hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of voters over six months for its broad findings, including
Speaker 1: listen to this one. If there's any bombshell in this
Speaker 1: or although it really shouldn't be, it's this, seventy percent
Speaker 1: of voters think the Democratic Party is out of touch.
Speaker 1: Seventy percent. That's not seventy percent of Republicans. That's not
Speaker 1: seventy percent of conservatives. That's seventy percent of voters who
Speaker 1: think that the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Is out of touch.
Speaker 1: Now we all know that it is, but to get
Speaker 1: that big of a number, I think is a is
Speaker 1: something that's important and noteworthy.
Speaker 2: Goes on.
Speaker 1: Most voters, the group found believe the party the Democrat
Speaker 1: party over prioritizes issues like are you ready protecting the
Speaker 1: rights of LGBTQ plus you got to put that plus
Speaker 1: in there, plus Americans and fighting climate change while not
Speaker 1: caring about securing the border or lowering the rate of crime. Okay,
Speaker 1: they looked at the rise in Democrat lawmakers. Now keep
Speaker 1: in mind this is Democrat lawmakers. They looked at their
Speaker 1: support for radical legislation. Here's just some examples. In twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: only one percent of Democrat lawmakers supported a study to
Speaker 1: determine if reparations there it is reparations should be awarded
Speaker 1: to African Americans. Only one percent in twenty thirteen. Check
Speaker 1: this out in twenty twenty four, eleven years later, that
Speaker 1: new number is fifty seven percent. So they go from
Speaker 1: one percent of Democrat leaders lawmakers that think that we
Speaker 1: should look at reparations all the way to fifty seven percent.
Speaker 1: Okay and twenty thirteen. Also twenty thirteen, only four percent
Speaker 1: of Democrat lawmakers supported inmate voting rights, which is a
Speaker 1: burning issue for most of the Democrat party. Four percent
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen supported of Democrat lawmakers supported inmate voting rights.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, that number is now forty one percent.
Speaker 1: So you can see the way that the Democrat Party
Speaker 1: is going. And support among Democratic lawmakers for an assault weapons.
Speaker 2: Ban grew from in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: To now actually twenty twenty four, eighty eight percent of
Speaker 1: Democrat lawmakers favor that. Again, you can see the drift.
Speaker 1: You can see the drift leftward, drifting so much that
Speaker 1: they just go over the edge on this thing. In
Speaker 1: talking about the shift, this report went on to say
Speaker 1: that the defeat or retirement of some conservative Democrats.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to stop here.
Speaker 1: I have not seen a conservative Democrat on the national
Speaker 1: level for god knows how many years. The last one
Speaker 1: I remember is Scoop Jackson, who was a Democrat senator.
Speaker 1: I forget what state. He was very conservative on defense
Speaker 1: matters and other matters as well. I defy anyone to
Speaker 1: give me the name of a Democrat nationally who could
Speaker 1: be considered a conservative and on the local level, last
Speaker 1: time you saw a conservative Democrat. The last one that
Speaker 1: comes to my mind is somebody who I think is
Speaker 1: a great man, Dusty Rhodes. You know, since Dusty, they're
Speaker 1: just non existent. But at any rate, to get back
Speaker 1: to the report, the defeat or retirement of some conservative
Speaker 1: Democrats explained some of the shift, but not all of it.
Speaker 1: The Report Study of National Democratic Party Platforms from the convention.
Speaker 1: You always have a party platform at the convention. They
Speaker 1: used to be really important. Not so much anymore. But
Speaker 1: the report Study of National Democratic Party Platforms from twenty
Speaker 1: twelve to twenty twenty four found a surge in language
Speaker 1: about specific racial groups. That's up eight hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: eight percent. About environmental justice, whatever the hell that is
Speaker 1: it is up three hundred and thirty three percent. And
Speaker 1: about LGBTQ you know what, they didn't put the plus here,
Speaker 1: And about LGBTQ plus rights up one thousand and forty
Speaker 1: four percent. Mentions of men fell by sixty three percent,
Speaker 1: and mentions of fathers by one hundred percent, and mentions
Speaker 1: of the concept of responsibility.
Speaker 2: Eighty three percent.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty and twenty twenty four party platform
Speaker 1: began with listen to this. This just gives you a
Speaker 1: perfect example where the Democrat Party is. In twenty twenty
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, the party platform Democrat Platform began with
Speaker 1: land acknowledgments for the Native American tribes that have previously
Speaker 1: inhabited their convention sites. Who the hell cares Native Americans?
Speaker 1: From everything that I've read, they couldn't care less about
Speaker 1: this stuff. Only the in the Democrat Party do well.
Speaker 1: The report kind of winds up by saying those shifts
Speaker 1: that I just read up there don't win votes. The
Speaker 1: reports analysis of voter data from a thing called Catalyst,
Speaker 1: which is a Democrat data firm, showed Democrats losing some
Speaker 1: ground with non college educated white voters. You think since
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, but this is even better for us far
Speaker 1: more with non white voters, meaning African American voters meeting
Speaker 1: Hispanic voters.
Speaker 2: They're losing.
Speaker 1: The Democrats are losing voters in those two groups and
Speaker 1: we're gaining. And the closes just to say that those voters,
Speaker 1: no matter what their education level is, and it ends
Speaker 1: by saying progressive language and politics meant to win those
Speaker 1: non white voters simply didn't work.
Speaker 2: So there you go, kind of in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: Democrat Party is in the year twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: This is getting down to the nitty gritty, and it's
Speaker 1: just my opinion. This report is it appears to me
Speaker 1: to be very well researched and very well reported. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying that. I did a pretty deep
Speaker 1: dive this week into it. But it's all going to
Speaker 1: go over like the proverbial lead balloon among the so
Speaker 1: called leaders of the Democratic Party, the Chucky Schumers, the Aocs,
Speaker 1: the Jasmine Crocketts, YadA, YadA, YadA. You think those people
Speaker 1: are going to embrace this study, There's no way, even
Speaker 1: if they wanted to, they can't because they are held
Speaker 1: captive by the radical leftist wing of the Democrat Party.
Speaker 1: It is as simple as that. And again, I mean,
Speaker 1: why is it going to go over like a lead balloon?
Speaker 1: As we all know, and I think I mentioned this
Speaker 1: on the first show about twenty six, twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Years ago, just kidding about eight years ago.
Speaker 1: What is the main trait of a liberal or liberalism?
Speaker 1: What is the main trait? If you don't know it
Speaker 1: by now, I'll tell you again. It's arrogance, absolute unabashed arrogance.
Speaker 1: They're right, no matter what, will never ever consider another
Speaker 1: point of view. They're right, and if you don't agree
Speaker 1: with them, you're canceled, you're out of here. You know,
Speaker 1: they could never be wrong in their mind and any
Speaker 1: dissent from this radical narrative will be stomped down. And
Speaker 1: guess what that only helps us. So wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know about that study again. It's in the online
Speaker 1: publication Calledaphore. You can get it pretty easily now. The
Speaker 1: one thing is I'm playing around with it.
Speaker 2: This always happens.
Speaker 1: After a while, something pops up and says, hey, you
Speaker 1: got one more visit left, and then we're gonna charge you.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much it is, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have to do that, but you know what I might,
Speaker 1: if it's reasonable, just plunk down a little bit of
Speaker 1: money because I think it's very good. But it gives
Speaker 1: you an idea where they're going. They can have all
Speaker 1: these studies. Carville was a part of this study. They
Speaker 1: can have all these studies. But if they're not, if
Speaker 1: the downcats, I'm going to pay attention to it, more
Speaker 1: power to them. Man, they're running themselves into the ground
Speaker 1: real quickly.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: I wanted to let you know this is no surprise here,
Speaker 1: or shouldn't be. We also learned this week that the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice is finally investigating the sanctified Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter organization. They're investigating the outright theft of millions and
Speaker 1: millions of dollars that Corporate America threw at them Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter in the wake of the George Floyd killing,
Speaker 1: and we talked about that at the time, and Corporate
Speaker 1: America threw money at them like you wouldn't believe. While
Speaker 1: they're throwing money at BLM, they're throwing the cops under
Speaker 1: the bus.
Speaker 2: It's one of the things.
Speaker 1: That urinated me off the most since I've been on
Speaker 1: this show. Story in Fox News just a little bit
Speaker 1: of it, because we're running out of time here. Federal
Speaker 1: prosecutors are investigating whether senior leaders of the BLM organization
Speaker 1: defrauded donors who contributed tens of millions of dollars during
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty protest mostly peaceful protests. Remember while the
Speaker 1: reporter said it was mostly peaceful, while something's burning, a
Speaker 1: car's burning behind him. Will always remember that. The AP
Speaker 1: reported that the Justice Department's ongoing in query is based
Speaker 1: on the foundation's handling of donations collected in the wake,
Speaker 1: As I said, of the George Floyd killing, when the
Speaker 1: groups saw a surge of more than ninety million dollars
Speaker 1: in contributions. I think it's much more than that, and
Speaker 1: the probe is being led by the US Attorney's Office
Speaker 1: for the Central District of California. According to the apd
Speaker 1: investigation began during the Biden administration. Now that surprised me,
Speaker 1: but has received renewed attention, you think under the new
Speaker 1: Trump administration. The ap also reported that the inquiry extends
Speaker 1: to other black led advocacy groups that gained prominence during
Speaker 1: the nationwide demonstrations. Okay, so they go to BLM to
Speaker 1: get a comment. They told Fox News, quote, Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter Global Network Foundation is not a target of any
Speaker 1: federal criminal investigation.
Speaker 2: Blatant, flat out.
Speaker 1: They know that, and it goes on their statement BLM,
Speaker 1: we remain committed to full transparency, accountability, and the responsible
Speaker 1: stewardship of resources dedicated to building a better future for
Speaker 1: black communities. That, my friends, is a bald face, out
Speaker 1: and out lie. They've known about this all along. You
Speaker 1: may recall a couple of years ago we talked about
Speaker 1: on this show, Patrice Colors cullrs her she spent millions
Speaker 1: of dollars buying high end homes and condominiums for We
Speaker 1: never did find out who it was for I saw
Speaker 1: one of them. They said, Wow, we're using that as
Speaker 1: our headquarters. Just outright theft. Well, they go on in
Speaker 1: the statement we are surprised at some of the incredulity
Speaker 1: and our calculations. I'm sorry, that's not a statement from
Speaker 1: this is so too. After that, so too is BLM,
Speaker 1: which suggests that if objections to wealth transfers of the
Speaker 1: scale are rooted in are you ready white supremacy and
Speaker 1: a pathology that black organizations didn't don't deserve to be funded?
Speaker 1: Close quote, you can boil it all down and they're
Speaker 1: blaming it on are you ready racism? What else could
Speaker 1: it be other than racism? Trot that thing out when
Speaker 1: you don't have anything else. But at any rate, I
Speaker 1: really do hope that DOJ puts the pedal to the
Speaker 1: metal on this thing.
Speaker 2: Hey, we got to take a break from the news.
Speaker 3: Butt.
Speaker 1: When we get back, we're going to talk to I
Speaker 1: believe the last Republican elected the city council, and that's
Speaker 1: Liz Keating. We'll do that when we get back. Mike
Speaker 1: Allen Saturday midday. Hey, we're back, Mike Allen, Saturday mid day.
Speaker 1: Tell you what that kind of Rocks.
Speaker 2: Who is that?
Speaker 1: Liam blink two blink one eight two blink one eighty two.
Speaker 2: I knew that. No, I didn't at any rate. As
Speaker 2: I said all morning.
Speaker 1: This morning, we are going to be talking about the
Speaker 1: city election coming up, council members and the mayor and
Speaker 1: leading it off is the last Republican. She was the
Speaker 1: last Republican on Cincinnati City Council. Talking of course about
Speaker 1: Liz Keating. She served on Cincinnati City Council from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty twenty twenty four. Political philosophy, she will listen to
Speaker 1: all sides, ask many questions, drive productive debate, and then
Speaker 1: work to find the best possible solution, which sounds to
Speaker 1: me like it was how she did it in her
Speaker 1: last council term because she was the only Republican. Kating,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Saturday mid Day. It's great to have you.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you something, Liz, and you got into
Speaker 1: it a little bit later than some of the others.
Speaker 2: Why did you decide to run again this year?
Speaker 5: Honestly because I'm just fed up with everything that's going on.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's almost been two years since I have
Speaker 5: been off council. I finished in January twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: and during that entire time, I still fielded calls from
Speaker 5: dozens of residents because they weren't getting their trash picked up,
Speaker 5: They litter, what everywhere wasn't getting cleaned up. They weren't
Speaker 5: hearing from the city. When we had that snowstorm, you know,
Speaker 5: the street sparn't.
Speaker 4: Cloud, schools couldn't open.
Speaker 5: When they reached out about concerns about crime, they weren't
Speaker 5: getting any response from city council.
Speaker 4: And so they're calling me for help.
Speaker 5: And you shouldn't have to know somebody who knows somebody
Speaker 5: to get help at city Hall. This is the job
Speaker 5: that city council was elected to do, and they are failing.
Speaker 4: They are failing.
Speaker 5: They are not responding to the resident and I am
Speaker 5: just tired of it, and it's hurting the reputation of
Speaker 5: the city. And so I decided to jump in because
Speaker 5: something needs, something needs to change, It needs to be fixed,
Speaker 5: and I want Cincinnati back on track.
Speaker 1: You know, I take it from what you're saying that
Speaker 1: you're not in favor of city council getting involved in
Speaker 1: issues like immigration and other things that have absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the daily operations of the City of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: Is that a fair and accurate statement.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot of things that councils should be doing.
Speaker 5: You know, there are issues that do impact Cincinnati immigration.
Speaker 4: In some ways. But if you're just debating.
Speaker 5: The national level politics of it and policies, that's not
Speaker 5: responding to the residents. Well, you know what you can do.
Speaker 5: You can work on workforce development because we actually have
Speaker 5: more jobs in Cincinnati than we have people to fill them.
Speaker 5: We have money coming in from the Railroad Trust for
Speaker 5: infrastructure projects, and guess what, the city's not spending it
Speaker 5: to pay your roads because they haven't figured out how
Speaker 5: to deploy it. We could use a lot more people
Speaker 5: getting trained to be able to fill those jobs and
Speaker 5: actually pave the roads. But if you're not focused on
Speaker 5: actual productive debate and getting things done in Cince, nowive
Speaker 5: that actually helped the residents. And all you're doing is
Speaker 5: complaining about people at the federal level who you disagree with.
Speaker 5: No one benefits, no one benefits. You have to focus
Speaker 5: on actual solutions here.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And based on what you said, I didn't realize this.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that from that railroad money none of
Speaker 1: it has been spent spent yet on infrastructure, because I
Speaker 1: mean that's one of the ways they sold this thing.
Speaker 4: Not none of it. Very little has been spent.
Speaker 5: They appropriated so much money through paving roads and there
Speaker 5: was a report last month that said only four percent
Speaker 5: of it had actually been deployed on actual projects. If
Speaker 5: you can't get the money out the door, there is
Speaker 5: a problem. And guess what, no the one on council
Speaker 5: has been figuring out what that problem is to actually
Speaker 5: deploy the money. That's a huge, huge problem. I mean,
Speaker 5: our roads and Cincinematic are an absolute mess. This should
Speaker 5: be something that you're focused on because this is something
Speaker 5: that impacts our residents. And right now we are not
Speaker 5: getting any productive debate from our council members. They're all
Speaker 5: over the place on things. They're saying everything is being
Speaker 5: run smoothly, and it's not. Residents know that residents are
Speaker 5: feeling the pain. And as we've been out on the
Speaker 5: campaign trail the last nine weeks, that's all we hear
Speaker 5: from people is they are frustrated and they're set up
Speaker 5: and they're not hearing from their council members. And that
Speaker 5: is what council members are supposed to do. They're supposed
Speaker 5: to be responsive to the constituents that they represent.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and you mentioned road paving. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: Well, with respect to snow removal, you can always tell Liz,
Speaker 1: I live just outside the city now, but you know,
Speaker 1: the townships, the county, others, they do a pretty good
Speaker 1: job of it.
Speaker 2: But when you enter the city.
Speaker 1: Of Cincinnati, you can tell you don't need a sign
Speaker 1: that says corporation line. And one thing this is, I
Speaker 1: guess kind of personal paving road. Will you, because I
Speaker 1: know you'll get a handle on it, will you please
Speaker 1: have them look in to paving Sunset Avenue as you
Speaker 1: turn left off a Queen City.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. It's like a battlefield there.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's just an example of what you're
Speaker 1: seeing throughout the city.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I mean, in sometime is one that has come
Speaker 5: up time and time again as we're out talking to voters,
Speaker 5: and I mean something like that that shouldn't be that
Speaker 5: hard to get done. There is so much money now
Speaker 5: coming in. There's money coming in from the federal government
Speaker 5: to other infrastructure projects, things like the Western Hills viaducts
Speaker 5: and in the new Brunt Spence Bridge, Like there are
Speaker 5: so many jobs and so much money, tens of millions
Speaker 5: of dollars actually one hundreds of millions of dollars coming
Speaker 5: in to do these projects. There is no reason that
Speaker 5: we should not be prepared to fill those jobs in
Speaker 5: to start paving roads, especially in this kind of economy
Speaker 5: where people are hurting. We should get people in those shops,
Speaker 5: get those paychecks going home, support families, and take care
Speaker 5: of the roads. We can do it if we have
Speaker 5: a council that is paying attention and actually figuring out
Speaker 5: how to implement and implementary quickly so that you can
Speaker 5: take care of the residents' needs.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, there something I got to ask you this question.
Speaker 2: I think I know the answer, but I'm going to ask.
Speaker 1: You what do you feel is keating is the most
Speaker 1: important issue facing Cincinnati City Council, and if elected, what
Speaker 1: will you do to help alleviate that problem?
Speaker 4: Right now? It's crime.
Speaker 5: Crime is what we are hearing the top issue, top
Speaker 5: concern from everyone. And it's not just crime, but it's
Speaker 5: also the perception of safety too. And right now we're
Speaker 5: consistently hearing from council members that, oh, crime's going down,
Speaker 5: crimes going down. Everything is fine, Everything is working.
Speaker 4: But if you're hearing.
Speaker 5: From voters everywhere in the city that they are concerned
Speaker 5: about crime, they're concerned about public safety, they don't want
Speaker 5: to go places because they don't feel safe, you should
Speaker 5: be paying attention to that. We need elected officials who
Speaker 5: are responding to constituent concerns and are working relentlessly to
Speaker 5: get that crime number to zero. You should not be
Speaker 5: satisfied until that number is zero. And it's not just
Speaker 5: being tough on crime where you're you're getting you know,
Speaker 5: you're filling the recruit classes, helping with retention to get
Speaker 5: more officers walking the beats and making the neighborhood safe,
Speaker 5: but you also need to be tough on the causes
Speaker 5: of crime because if you can help prevent it, then
Speaker 5: you don't need to worry about things and you're not
Speaker 5: going to run into a problem when you are short
Speaker 5: with officers. And there's so many programs that we can
Speaker 5: do that I did before on counsel and we'll do again,
Speaker 5: and that things like youth jobs that's expending expanding rec
Speaker 5: center hours, and programs for kids that's you know, making
Speaker 5: sure that we are implementing childcare programs so we have
Speaker 5: safe places for kids. That's making sure that you know,
Speaker 5: we're looking at housing and housing affordability to create more
Speaker 5: stabilization for families. That's working with CPS to be able
Speaker 5: to make sure our kids and most at risk youth
Speaker 5: are taken care of. There's so many things to do,
Speaker 5: fighting the crime and fighting the causes of crime, but
Speaker 5: we need council members who actually care about that and
Speaker 5: don't just point to data that looks good for them
Speaker 5: to say we're doing.
Speaker 4: A good job.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, and I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: everyone this. Do you feel that ch Fiji was treated
Speaker 1: fairly in this latest thing, the.
Speaker 2: What I call the downtown beat down? And I guess
Speaker 2: just overall, do you think she's been treated fairly? Lis Keating?
Speaker 4: No, this is absolutely terrible.
Speaker 5: You know what's happening. Your tax dollers are being wasted
Speaker 5: on this because they asked her to resign. If she
Speaker 5: didn't resign, and then all of a sudden, you have
Speaker 5: to bring in a law firm spend fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 5: to investigate to be able to figure something out. That
Speaker 5: is a waste of taxpayer money. There are so many
Speaker 5: things in the city that we need to spend money on,
Speaker 5: and we are short on money when it comes to
Speaker 5: the operation side, and you're going to spend the money
Speaker 5: on trying to find a reason to fire her. Do
Speaker 5: you get into this mess? And yes, this is a
Speaker 5: city manager's decision, but you know what, Council plays a
Speaker 5: role because council appropriates the dollars. It takes two members
Speaker 5: of council to call a special meeting, and not one
Speaker 5: of them has teamed up with someone to call a
Speaker 5: special meeting.
Speaker 4: They can call a special.
Speaker 5: Meeting and put the administration on the hot seat and
Speaker 5: ask questions so that the public can better understand what
Speaker 5: they're doing and why. And you know what, if counsel
Speaker 5: disagrees with them at that point, when they actually ask
Speaker 5: questions and better understand what's going on, they can say,
Speaker 5: you know what, we don't agree with the fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: We're not going to spend it. We're not going to
Speaker 5: allow you to spend it. Council can step in and
Speaker 5: stop this witch hunt right now, and they haven't done it.
Speaker 5: They're hiding from this, they're not responding to anything, and
Speaker 5: this is the job of counsel and they're failing right now.
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing. Let me ask you this. It is a
Speaker 1: little bit off the cuff, but not really. In the
Speaker 1: year two thousand and I know you weren't on city
Speaker 1: council then Issue five that was on the ballot. It
Speaker 1: was an issue to remove the Chief of Police, the
Speaker 1: fire chief, and I think several other positions within high
Speaker 1: positions within city government, to remove civil service protection for
Speaker 1: those people.
Speaker 2: And it passed.
Speaker 1: It was a fifty two to forty eight vote. I
Speaker 1: was one of the ones working hard to make sure
Speaker 1: it didn't pass. Well, it did. You're familiar with the issue,
Speaker 1: I would suppose, Liz, aren't you?
Speaker 5: Yes, huh, yep?
Speaker 2: Would you?
Speaker 5: I think it's a great debate to come back. Oh yeah, sorry,
Speaker 5: go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say, would you do what you
Speaker 1: could do? I guess it's got to be a vote
Speaker 1: to change the charter back, but would you do whatever
Speaker 1: you could do to see that that thing gets on
Speaker 1: the ballot and then work to pass it because if
Speaker 1: we had that, it's my humble opinion, none of as
Speaker 1: garbage would have happened with the chief.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's a there's a really strong argument
Speaker 5: to bring that back and to require and look at
Speaker 5: it different way, not just the protections that were there before,
Speaker 5: but the possibility of requiring vote of council and maybe
Speaker 5: a super majority vote of council to approve the firing,
Speaker 5: because then you have those protections in place, a little
Speaker 5: bit more balance of power.
Speaker 4: But what it does is that would give.
Speaker 5: Our leaders, like the police chief, like the fire chief,
Speaker 5: maybe even potentially a city manager and others a little
Speaker 5: bit more room to not get caught up in the
Speaker 5: politics and.
Speaker 4: Actually do their jobs.
Speaker 5: These professionals, they are experts in their field. Politicians are not,
Speaker 5: and that gives them so much space to be able
Speaker 5: to maneuver and make the right decisions, particularly in times
Speaker 5: of crises, and not worry about the politics a bet
Speaker 5: are at play and potentially losing their jobs. It gives
Speaker 5: a lot more room, and I think there's a really
Speaker 5: strong argument for it, and I think it is absolutely
Speaker 5: worth bringing that debate back and understanding which scenario and
Speaker 5: if you're going to revisit that, and what's the greatest
Speaker 5: outcome to bring it back, and council members can do that.
Speaker 4: Council members can put.
Speaker 5: Something like that on the ballot with a major or
Speaker 5: super majority vote, right and it doesn't take a whole
Speaker 5: bunch of signatures to put it on the ballot. So
Speaker 5: I think that should be one of the top things
Speaker 5: that Council does when in the new term.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, because you know, obviously I'm old as Mathuselah, but
Speaker 1: I remember a time when Issue five was not in effect,
Speaker 1: the so called protections of Issue five were not in effect.
Speaker 1: And you go back in history the chiefs of police here,
Speaker 1: Larry Whale and Tom Striker. There is no way on
Speaker 1: God's green earth that they would have tolerated the abuse
Speaker 1: that Chief Fiji has had to tolerate because they had
Speaker 1: that civil service protection and they had to be fired
Speaker 1: for a reasonable cause. Again, that's just my that's just my.
Speaker 4: Opinion, it's true.
Speaker 5: And you know what this is going to end up being.
Speaker 5: With all these lawsuits with the fire chief, potentially with
Speaker 5: the police chief, payers are going to have to put
Speaker 5: the bill. It is going to be a very very
Speaker 5: hapty bill and we are going to be spending a
Speaker 5: lot of money that again should be going to actual
Speaker 5: things that impact residents, and it's going to be settlements
Speaker 5: because of poor, poor leadership, particularly on the elected official
Speaker 5: side down the City Hall.
Speaker 1: You know, and doing my research for this keating, I
Speaker 1: found out that you are the last Republican not just
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati City Council, but the last Republican council member
Speaker 1: of any of Ohio's six largest cities. And I remember
Speaker 1: back to your term that you've just finished off, and
Speaker 1: I always thought, how is she going to do this?
Speaker 2: And what from what I could see you did?
Speaker 1: Then? What you say if you're elected, you're going to
Speaker 1: do now, work with these people so you're not on
Speaker 1: an island deserted out there if you get back on council.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: And it's so important to have a voice and actually
Speaker 5: drive out the debate. I mean, there was many pieces
Speaker 5: of legislation that I disagreed with, but I still worked hard.
Speaker 5: I still went in research day, better understood all sides,
Speaker 5: and then made amendments to it so I could make
Speaker 5: it a little bit better. Even though at the end
Speaker 5: of the day and the final piece I voted no.
Speaker 5: I voted it down, but I made a lot of
Speaker 5: amendments along the way just to make it better, maybe
Speaker 5: less damaging to the city because I strongly disagreed with something.
Speaker 4: Things like that are so.
Speaker 5: Critical right now we only we have one party rule.
Speaker 5: There's not much debate. You hear a lot of speeches
Speaker 5: that are you know, this is why I'm voting yes,
Speaker 5: or this is why I'm voting no. But there's no
Speaker 5: there's no debate into why are we even doing this?
Speaker 5: What problem are we trying to solve? You know, do
Speaker 5: we have weak points in this legislation, Maybe we should
Speaker 5: be fixing it. And the other great thing is if
Speaker 5: you have somebody that is on the other side, that
Speaker 5: is the Republican Party, is the super majority veto proof
Speaker 5: legislators in the state House, and you have no relationationship
Speaker 5: down at city Hall with the majority party in the
Speaker 5: state House.
Speaker 4: And that was another role that.
Speaker 5: I played to be able to continue to have strong
Speaker 5: and productive conversations with what's happening in Columbus so they
Speaker 5: can better understand the issues happening in urban areas. Because
Speaker 5: if there's no representation in these major cities, these economic epicenters,
Speaker 5: it's a problem. Then some of the legislation might not
Speaker 5: be may not be the best thing for these areas,
Speaker 5: these big cities, and we need that, we need to
Speaker 5: have good conversations, strong relationships that trust there and also
Speaker 5: be able to drive productive debate locally where you know
Speaker 5: you are in a super minority.
Speaker 1: Yep, lizy got a minute. We got a minute left.
Speaker 1: Anything that you want to say.
Speaker 5: In that minute, Lizinati, it is time for change. We
Speaker 5: have to have people get out to vote. You can
Speaker 5: vote today, you can vote tomorrow and early vote, or
Speaker 5: go vote on election day. We deatherately need people to
Speaker 5: show up to vote if you want to see something different,
Speaker 5: have a different direction for a city of Cincinnati. I
Speaker 5: love the city way too much to let it continue
Speaker 5: the way it is, and I know the rest of
Speaker 5: you do too. So please please please.
Speaker 4: Get out to vote.
Speaker 5: Do not vote all nine and make sure your voice
Speaker 5: is heard. We've got to have change on city council.
Speaker 2: Very well, put Liz Keating.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I got a chance to talk to you
Speaker 1: this morning, and best of luck on Tuesday.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: You have a wonderful day you too, Thank you well.
Speaker 1: I tell you what, I obviously i'd love to see
Speaker 1: her back on council. I really would. And you know what,
Speaker 1: she's got a chance of breaking through, I think, as
Speaker 1: does the next person we're going to be talking to
Speaker 1: after the break that's Steve Gooden, also former Cincinnati City
Speaker 1: Council member. It took an interesting kind of route in
Speaker 1: doing what he needed to do to revive the Charter Party,
Speaker 1: which I think is good for this city.
Speaker 2: Charters running a slate of candidates.
Speaker 1: And anyway, when we get back, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to Steve about what he would do if he returns
Speaker 1: to count Radio News Radio seven hundred WLW Mike Allen
Speaker 1: an hour two of Saturday Midday talking to the candidates
Speaker 1: for Cincinnati City Council and Cincinnati Mayor. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what the next guy. I know you're going to recognize him.
Speaker 1: I'm talking, of course, about our political analyst, Steve good
Speaker 1: excuse me, legal analysts also politics as well. Steve served
Speaker 1: on Cincinnati City Council, was appointed twenty twenty to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. Unfortunately that time he was not elected. He
Speaker 1: has the endorsement, in my humble opinion, but the only
Speaker 1: one that matters these days, of FOP Lodge sixty nine,
Speaker 1: as does Liz Keating. I should have mentioned that, but
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 6: Steve.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Saturday Midday in kind of a new
Speaker 1: role here.
Speaker 2: Yay, Good morning, Mike, takes it's my pleasure. Hey, let
Speaker 2: me ask you this, Steve, what.
Speaker 1: Made you decide to run again for Cincinnati City Council
Speaker 1: knowing that the city is about three one democrat now
Speaker 1: these days.
Speaker 3: Well, I got to a point, Mike, where I just
Speaker 3: couldn't take it anymore. You know, I live over in
Speaker 3: the Clinton Neighborhood, have been involved in the community council
Speaker 3: for a number of years. There is no more left
Speaker 3: wing progressive neighborhood in the city than the Clifton Gaslight District.
Speaker 3: I am a lone conservative over the year, but get
Speaker 3: along with my neighbors. And this neighborhood was fed up
Speaker 3: with city council. This neighborhood was fed up with AFTAB
Speaker 3: because of the uptick in violence and property crimes that
Speaker 3: we saw, because of the homelessness situation that has developed, particularly.
Speaker 2: In our park.
Speaker 3: They couldn't take it anymore, and I couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 3: And it occurred to me that if this neighborhood was
Speaker 3: to stand up and break with this council and break
Speaker 3: with this mayor, both of whom got, like you know,
Speaker 3: almost eighty percent of the vote in this neighborhood, then
Speaker 3: my God, the rest of the city was sped up
Speaker 3: as well. So I mean, this is this isn't some
Speaker 3: overnight thing for either for me or for the city.
Speaker 3: This has been building over the last four years. The
Speaker 3: city is more violent, it is more divided, it is dirtier.
Speaker 3: It is just a harder place to live in than
Speaker 3: it was four years ago. And I don't care if
Speaker 3: you're a Democrat or Republican or communist or whatever you are. Like,
Speaker 3: it's unavoidable and I think everyone's ready for some fresh voices.
Speaker 3: And that's why I really have been pushed to do
Speaker 3: this by people across the political spectrum, and it just
Speaker 3: felt like it was time to step up. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm also in a position of my life where I'm
Speaker 3: not trying to start some big, grand political career. I
Speaker 3: just want to go down there, as I say, I
Speaker 3: want to bring some grumpy old man energy because I
Speaker 3: really don't care. I'm not really politically correct about it.
Speaker 3: I don't really care what people think. We're not poll
Speaker 3: testing anything that we say or do. We're just saying
Speaker 3: this is what the city needs from a common sense standpoint.
Speaker 3: If you'll love it, vote us in. If you don't,
Speaker 3: that's fine. We'll go back to work on Wednesday morning
Speaker 3: with a smile on our face, knowing that we tried
Speaker 3: to raise these issues, but we have gotten a tremendous,
Speaker 3: tremendous response and we feel very good about it.
Speaker 1: Well, let me kind of dovetail that with something of
Speaker 1: you and I have talked a little bit about what
Speaker 1: went into and why did you decide? And I know
Speaker 1: it's just not you, but you're the guy that did it.
Speaker 1: Why did you decide to kind of re energize the
Speaker 1: Charter Party, which again I think is a fantastic idea
Speaker 1: given the history of Charter in this city and the
Speaker 1: good things they've done through the years. What made you
Speaker 1: decide to do that?
Speaker 7: Well, a couple of things.
Speaker 3: Look, I've always been Look I'm a registered Republican, but
Speaker 3: I've always been involved in the Charter Party for many, many,
Speaker 3: many years, and it was my turn to be chairman
Speaker 3: a couple years ago, and it just seemed to me
Speaker 3: the best vehicle to reach the most people. I mean,
Speaker 3: the Charter Party has always been the good Government party.
Speaker 3: It's been around since nineteen twenty four. You know, we're
Speaker 3: the ones that basically the Charter Party created with Murray
Speaker 3: season Good that the actual current form of government that
Speaker 3: we have that I guess still does need to be
Speaker 3: continually tweaked, because you have every season. Good would tell
Speaker 3: you it always has to evolve to deal with the times.
Speaker 3: But they were the anti corruption party. They ended Bosses
Speaker 3: and they took on Boss Cox, they took on what
Speaker 3: was at the time very corrupt single party rule back
Speaker 3: in the twenties, which ironically were Republicans. And as we
Speaker 3: looked at city Hall, you've got just you know, we've
Speaker 3: had three corruption based the rest in the last five years.
Speaker 3: You have an all democratic council and a democratic mayor,
Speaker 3: a city manager who is clearly not acting independently as
Speaker 3: is required under the charter. And it felt like that
Speaker 3: is the heart of the problem. But we also, as
Speaker 3: the charter ticket does not take positions on national issues.
Speaker 3: So and I think that's one of the things that's
Speaker 3: always killed common sense candidates for city counts on the
Speaker 3: last couple of cycles, is where they nationalize the issues
Speaker 3: and trying to make it all about Donald Trump or
Speaker 3: the last time it was all about abortion and all
Speaker 3: these things, and we just don't get involved work here
Speaker 3: that the old charter, you know, joke is that there's
Speaker 3: no Republican or Democratic way to fix a pothole. At
Speaker 3: the end of the day, somebody just wants a pothole fixed.
Speaker 3: And we also realize too that the Charter Party has
Speaker 3: a really good history of working with people in the
Speaker 3: black community, whether it be you know, back in the
Speaker 3: day Ted Berry who was the first black mayor, Marriott Spencer,
Speaker 3: all the way up through ty Yates and kind of
Speaker 3: bridging gaps between Republicans and Democrats. Because we have a mix,
Speaker 3: you know, in our committee and a lot of folks
Speaker 3: in those neighborhoods, we're hearing from a lot of whom
Speaker 3: the black neighborhoods have the same concerns that they haven't Clifton,
Speaker 3: that they have in High Park, that they have in
Speaker 3: the west Wood and Price Hill. And the joke that
Speaker 3: we've been saying is we're giving the same speech whether
Speaker 3: we're in Bond Hill or Price Hill, or we're getting
Speaker 3: the same reaction. People just know what it's like not
Speaker 3: to be listened to. So we felt the Charter Party
Speaker 3: was absolutely the right way to go with it, and
Speaker 3: we have all these candidates that are on that ticket
Speaker 3: are all aligned on getting more cops on the street
Speaker 3: and there was a public safety that's too nice. We
Speaker 3: need more police on the street, probably up to three
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty more if we're really going to seriously
Speaker 3: police this city the way it needs to be. And
Speaker 3: also we want to get rid of all this kind
Speaker 3: of crazy zoning stuff, including this connected community thing that
Speaker 3: they've done, which will just absolutely got our neighborhoods with
Speaker 3: a bunch of in garbage housing that nobody wants. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you know, we're aligned on those issues, and it
Speaker 3: just felt like the right way. There's a lot of people,
Speaker 3: you know, who are going to vote for Charter people
Speaker 3: and Democrats and Republicans, and we think that's the way
Speaker 3: this government works best when you got everybody represented, Steve.
Speaker 1: I got to ask you this question. I'm asking it
Speaker 1: at every one. I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the most important issue faeeing
Speaker 1: the city? And if elected, what would you do to
Speaker 1: make that problem go away or make it go away
Speaker 1: as best you can?
Speaker 3: Look, we have a police staffing crisis, like period, full stop.
Speaker 3: It's been building for years. Back when when Smitherwin and
Speaker 3: I were on council, we tried to address it by
Speaker 3: taking some of the COVID federal money and putting it
Speaker 3: aside so we could do three D recruit classes that
Speaker 3: didn't hold. A council has a spending problem. They spend
Speaker 3: money on stupid pet projects. Millions per year on things
Speaker 3: like urban gardening and dance lessons and all these things
Speaker 3: that that are almost too ridiculous. When I talk about it,
Speaker 3: people think you must be kidding. I'm not. I mean, really,
Speaker 3: is a council member who thinks that we can stop
Speaker 3: gun violence by handing out fruit and vegetables to young
Speaker 3: men who might be I'm not kidding, like like he's
Speaker 3: a really ripe tomato, don't shoot the guy. It's absurd.
Speaker 3: And they've spent millions on this stuff rather than than putting,
Speaker 3: you know, putting that money into into police recruit classes
Speaker 3: and recruiting laterals and getting our staffing levels where they
Speaker 3: need to be. I mean, it's an absolute disgrace. You know,
Speaker 3: what's occurred here and what they've allowed to occur. We
Speaker 3: need at least three hundred, maybe four hundred new police
Speaker 3: officers over the next two years if we're even going
Speaker 3: to be keep up with the retirements that are going
Speaker 3: on and actually do they kind of beat policing that
Speaker 3: we know works. So that is the number one priority.
Speaker 3: You cannot have a city, you cannot have a civil society,
Speaker 3: you know, if you don't have an adequate police force.
Speaker 3: And that is our situation here. Our police officers there,
Speaker 3: morales and a toilet. We don't even really have a
Speaker 3: chief right now. Politics is everywhere in the department, the
Speaker 3: rank and file officers, despite their contract, and see how
Speaker 3: the chief is being treated and how everyone and the
Speaker 3: other command staff being treated. It is just a terrible, terrible,
Speaker 3: terrible way to run a city and it needs to
Speaker 3: be fixed top to bottom or we're not going to
Speaker 3: have a city to talk about.
Speaker 1: I think you just addressed the next question I was
Speaker 1: going to ask if you thought that Chief Fiji had
Speaker 1: been treated fairly. I think clearly i'm hearing your answer
Speaker 1: that would be.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely, yes, absolutely. Look, I mean I had big
Speaker 3: issues with Chief Fiji's performance down the stretch. I mean
Speaker 3: I have big issues. I do believe that over time
Speaker 3: should become kind of part of the problem. And my view,
Speaker 3: particularly on this issue about police statistics. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 3: the mayor and council have a gigantic. The biggest problem
Speaker 3: is a credibility problem, because they spent all summer telling
Speaker 3: us we didn't have a real uptick in shootings, we
Speaker 3: weren't really seeing more gun violence. It's all the statistics
Speaker 3: will bear this out. It's really not what it seems.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden they got to a
Speaker 3: point where they couldn't deny it anymore. So they basically
Speaker 3: spent the summer line and the chief was kind of
Speaker 3: part of that. I have to say it, and I
Speaker 3: mean I was very critical of her at times, but
Speaker 3: I'm just saying this. And you were in the army too,
Speaker 3: You know how it is to be an officer. This
Speaker 3: isn't how you remove someone. This isn't how you deal
Speaker 3: with the change of command. Even if they have a
Speaker 3: case against her, which I mean that convinced they really do.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think really what she did was implement
Speaker 3: these policies they told her to implement them. When they
Speaker 3: didn't work, they cut her loose. And that's I think
Speaker 3: that's really what happened here. But even if they even
Speaker 3: if she had done something actually wrong, this isn't the
Speaker 3: way you do it. You don't play this out in
Speaker 3: public you have to be mindful of the impact as
Speaker 3: will have on the morale of the rank and file.
Speaker 3: It just shows that these folks have no real experience
Speaker 3: in the real world, either in law enforcement, military, or
Speaker 3: even just basic business experience. This isn't how you manage
Speaker 3: a large urban police department. So I do feel for her.
Speaker 3: There was no need to humiliate her a treat her
Speaker 3: the way they have, and I'm sorry. As a lawyer,
Speaker 3: I can tell you they're going to end up paying
Speaker 3: it at the end of the day, with taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 3: She's going to get paid. That's the only way this happens,
Speaker 3: otherwise if they don't pay her. I'd love to see
Speaker 3: the trial where she lays out all these private conversations
Speaker 3: she had with our mayor and the chief and the
Speaker 3: council where they talk about these goopy progressive policies that
Speaker 3: just you have almost ruined the city.
Speaker 2: You're right, and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to back up the Brins truck
Speaker 1: to city Hall for that settlement, as well as the
Speaker 1: fire chief.
Speaker 2: I got to ask you this.
Speaker 1: It's very important to me and I think others and
Speaker 1: I should mention that you did receive the FOP endorsement
Speaker 1: Issue five back in two thousand. You're familiar with it, Hunt,
Speaker 1: you steve what it was.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's my question, if elected, re elected or technically
Speaker 1: I guess not re elected, if you go back to council,
Speaker 1: will you do what you can do to see that
Speaker 1: that either gets back on the ballot or at least
Speaker 1: it is clipped somewhat. Because I'm telling you right now,
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to know this. If Issue five did
Speaker 1: not succeed in the year two thousand, we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: going through all this nonsense with the police chief. Will
Speaker 1: you do whatever is in your power to see that
Speaker 1: that is put back on the ballot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike, absolutely. It either needs to be straight out
Speaker 3: repealed or see significantly reworked. And I mean, just to
Speaker 3: remind your audience, really, what it did was Issue five
Speaker 3: gave the mayor really and the city manager the ability
Speaker 3: to remove, basically remove the police chief from civil service protection.
Speaker 3: You know, the rank and file police officers have a contract,
Speaker 3: they have a process. You can't just fire them. And
Speaker 3: that's because police officers face false charges all the time.
Speaker 3: I mean, people claim that they were injured and arrests,
Speaker 3: and they were not. It's just it comes with the job,
Speaker 3: so they have to have some protection against false claims.
Speaker 3: But really, what Issue five did is put the police
Speaker 3: chief at the borgency of the political leadership. At the time,
Speaker 3: that was hailed as this big reform that would make
Speaker 3: the police department more responsive to the civilians and to voters,
Speaker 3: et cetera. But we also see now it has led
Speaker 3: to a scenario where where you know where political pressure
Speaker 3: can be brought to bear and just to absolutely demoralize
Speaker 3: the police department. So it absolutely needs to be revisited.
Speaker 3: I also believe that at the end of the day, though,
Speaker 3: we cannot talk about this without also talking about the
Speaker 3: city manager. For years, the Charter Party has been saying
Speaker 3: that you ought to be able to remove that that
Speaker 3: the city manager should also be able to be right
Speaker 3: now can be removed. The mayor should be able to
Speaker 3: be removed by a majority of council as well. That's
Speaker 3: the only way to make the city manager more responsible
Speaker 3: and in the chain of command, really, the city manager
Speaker 3: is the one who is directly over the police chief.
Speaker 3: So I think if we're really going to bring accountability here,
Speaker 3: rather than having the police chiefs more at the mercy
Speaker 3: of the politicians is to actually be the city manager
Speaker 3: who should have to answer more directly to council and
Speaker 3: to have some checks and balances and to keep this
Speaker 3: sort of nonsensical situation going on. Right now, you can
Speaker 3: tell from the public record that there are backdoor conversations
Speaker 3: going on about personnel matters there in particularly regards to
Speaker 3: the police chief that are just inappropriate, bad business, and
Speaker 3: we need to make that more transparent and open. So
Speaker 3: an Issue five is a big part of that. And
Speaker 3: whether or not the city manager can be fired by
Speaker 3: council is another big part of that piece. They're a puzzle.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, Steve, And the city of Cincinnati was
Speaker 1: at least until Issue five, unique in that the chief
Speaker 1: of police, fire chief, and I think some other officials
Speaker 1: had that civil service protection. And I can guarantee you,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been around long enough to know to
Speaker 1: make this statement definitively, had you had a chief striker,
Speaker 1: chief Whalen, that those chiefs did not have to deal
Speaker 1: with the issue of Issue five, you wouldn't have this
Speaker 1: crap that's going on in the city now.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel very confident saying that.
Speaker 7: Oh absolutely.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things that we've lost
Speaker 3: here is that the police chief under that system had
Speaker 3: the independence to push back against the election officials, you know,
Speaker 3: and say, hey, look good it, we're not staff properly.
Speaker 3: Your kind of your lack of enforcement of low level
Speaker 3: crimes isn't working. Your friends, mister mayor and council members
Speaker 3: over at the courthouse are letting people out that archives
Speaker 3: arrest within twenty four hours with guns, and they She
Speaker 3: would have an independent chief as the ability to push
Speaker 3: back and raise those issues. I mean, right now, politics
Speaker 3: has crept into every last part of the upper achelon
Speaker 3: of that department over there, and I mean, look, there
Speaker 3: were times when Chief Deji was forced into a position
Speaker 3: or she had to provide political cover for the city
Speaker 3: manager infin the mayor. And it's an absolute corruption of
Speaker 3: our system. It's not the way it's supposed to work.
Speaker 3: She's supposed to be out there for the rank and
Speaker 3: file officers and to protect the public and to really
Speaker 3: talk bluntly about what we need and don't need in
Speaker 3: terms of staffing and resources. And she was not. She
Speaker 3: was part I have to have used to introduce her
Speaker 3: as quote part of their team, and that's not the
Speaker 3: way it's supposed to be. The police chief is supposed
Speaker 3: to be with the police in the public.
Speaker 1: Yep, Hey, Steve, Unfortunately we're out of time, but best
Speaker 1: of luck on Tuesday. I think you've put yourself in
Speaker 1: a position to get back on there and we wish
Speaker 1: all the luck in the world.
Speaker 7: You know, it feels really good.
Speaker 3: We're going over to the Board of Elections to remind
Speaker 3: everyone you can still vote early through tomorrow afternoon at
Speaker 3: four pm to come down, and it is kind of cold,
Speaker 3: crappy out, but come on down.
Speaker 7: We'll be there all weekend.
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks Steve, take care, thank you?
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that was Steve Gooden, a charter candidate
Speaker 1: for city council.
Speaker 2: I think he's got a shot at breaking through.
Speaker 1: Even as we've been saying, in a three to one
Speaker 1: Democrat city, I think Steve's got a chance of cracking
Speaker 1: that nine.
Speaker 2: We shall see. Hey, we got to take a break.
Speaker 1: Button we get back, we're going to be talking to
Speaker 1: Corey Bowman, who I'm sure y'all know is a candidate
Speaker 1: for mayor. I think he's done an incredible job. I
Speaker 1: think he's done an amazing job. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: to him about what he would do if he is
Speaker 1: elected mayor of the City of Cincinnati. We'll do that
Speaker 1: when we get back Mike Allen. Back Mike Allen, Saturday midday,
Speaker 1: moving on with our discussion with candidates for city council,
Speaker 1: our next best candidate for mayor, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to Josh Berkewitz next Judge joshsh Berkowitz about his
Speaker 1: real election efforts. But with that, I want to talk
Speaker 1: to Corey Bowman. He is the founding pastor of The
Speaker 1: River Church in Cincinnati, co owner of King's Arms Coffeehouse.
Speaker 1: He's an Ohio native, graduate of the former School of
Speaker 1: Business at Miami, and I should mention before I forget
Speaker 1: he is also FOP endorsed.
Speaker 2: Corey. Thanks so much for checking in with us this morning.
Speaker 7: Mike.
Speaker 8: Thank you so much to you and your listeners for
Speaker 8: having me. I'm sorry for any noise in the background.
Speaker 8: Work in the West End today volunteering at Saint Vincent
Speaker 8: DePaul for their food panter.
Speaker 1: There you go. The weekend before election is one that
Speaker 1: candidates who are serious are out there working it. And
Speaker 1: I think Corey, you have run an incredible campaign. I
Speaker 1: think when it was first announced, a lot of people thought, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, here's the cannon fodder for our mayor candidate.
Speaker 2: Nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker 1: You're working it hard on a lot of people's opinion,
Speaker 1: You're talking about the right issues.
Speaker 2: So with that, I wanted to ask you. I know
Speaker 2: I know the.
Speaker 1: Answer to this question, but I'm going to ask you anyway,
Speaker 1: what do you feel is the major issue facing Cincinnati
Speaker 1: City Council and the mayor at this point in time.
Speaker 8: Well, I think we've got to eliminate the opinion that
Speaker 8: Skyline's better than gold Star, because gold Star is a
Speaker 8: clear winner on this thing, and that's what people really
Speaker 8: care about.
Speaker 7: My gallum.
Speaker 2: You know what, thank you for correcting me.
Speaker 1: What would you say that is the second most important issue.
Speaker 8: By the way, I love gold I love the Skyline
Speaker 8: as well. I love them both, But I definitely think
Speaker 8: that people it's obvious that the issue at hand is
Speaker 8: public safety. Public safety, public safety, that is what people
Speaker 8: care about. That's why our FOP endorsement so vital in
Speaker 8: this because we've had the conversations with cops, We've had
Speaker 8: the conversations with the people that know how to get
Speaker 8: the job done. We know what's happening that is preventing
Speaker 8: that from taking place in our city. And that's what
Speaker 8: we're going to be focusing on as mayor of Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: If elected, Mayor Corey, what will be the first thing
Speaker 1: you do? I mean, the mayor's got some power, more
Speaker 1: than ordinary council members, which was the history for a while,
Speaker 1: but the mayor's got some clout and got some jews.
Speaker 2: What will be the first thing that you do on
Speaker 2: the crime issue?
Speaker 8: Well, the first thing is obviously we have to be
Speaker 8: able to work with everybody at City Hall. And so
Speaker 8: going into January, we're going to have a new council
Speaker 8: or whatever the elected council is. That's what we're going
Speaker 8: to be going into to work with. We have to
Speaker 8: be able to assess the city manager's office properly.
Speaker 6: We have to be able to.
Speaker 8: Assess all of the boards and committees to make sure
Speaker 8: that the right people are in and from my perspective,
Speaker 8: this isn't about Republican or Democrats. This is about making
Speaker 8: sure that people are in these positions to have a
Speaker 8: heart for our city and that don't have a heart
Speaker 8: for their own personal agendas. Or their own political careers. Now,
Speaker 8: once we get past that, we've got to do three things.
Speaker 8: We've got to allow the officers to do their job.
Speaker 8: I know that that sounds very simple and overly simplified,
Speaker 8: but the reality of it is that when we see
Speaker 8: the litigation that's coming forth from Chief CG and the
Speaker 8: details of that, that is confirmed that from the top down,
Speaker 8: these officers and even the chief have been not able
Speaker 8: to do their jobs properly as far as enforcing the
Speaker 8: low level crime, the exhalation tactics, and making sure that
Speaker 8: they do things properly. Number Two, we've got to bring
Speaker 8: the complement levels up. We are twenty percent understaff right now.
Speaker 8: That has to be a priority, not in an election year,
Speaker 8: not during the summer. That has to be a priority
Speaker 8: from day one. We have to implement lateral hiring. And
Speaker 8: once the lateral hiring class realizes that we have strong
Speaker 8: leadership in place, we're going to make sure that we
Speaker 8: have the proper staffing in our police department. And then finally,
Speaker 8: we have to put pressure on the judges privately at first,
Speaker 8: and if they do not comply, we have to do
Speaker 8: it publicly and make sure they know we have the
Speaker 8: whole criminals accountable. We have to make sure our streets
Speaker 8: are safe.
Speaker 2: You know, just as in aside.
Speaker 1: I'm about ninety percent retired, but I do have a
Speaker 1: couple of cases left. I was there in the courthouse
Speaker 1: this week and I couldn't believe it. I mean the
Speaker 1: lack of cases that not only in the municipal Court
Speaker 1: but in Common Police Court as well. Cops just aren't
Speaker 1: being proactive and aggressive like they used to be. When
Speaker 1: I say that, I mean appropriately proactive and aggressive.
Speaker 2: What can you do.
Speaker 1: Corey Bowman as mayor to address that issue? So the
Speaker 1: cops are out there again like they used to be,
Speaker 1: being aggressive and being proactive, what do you think you
Speaker 1: could do as mayor to get that back to where
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: I know you weren't around then, but I was.
Speaker 1: And it's just amazing the drop in the number of
Speaker 1: cases in both Common Police and Municipal Court.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 8: Also, let's we have to mention too that the jails
Speaker 8: are empty. We have two hundred beds and empty, and
Speaker 8: then that's not including the two floors that are locked
Speaker 8: down that haven't been used. So a lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 8: the jails are overrun, No they're not.
Speaker 6: But what we have to do.
Speaker 8: It might seem simplified, but when the cops, the officers,
Speaker 8: the police chiefs and everybody knows that they are strong
Speaker 8: leadership in place that will back them up, they will
Speaker 8: enforce the law. Now, this isn't trying to go against
Speaker 8: the collaborative agreement, This isn't trying to go against the
Speaker 8: common sense of accountability and transparency that has to be
Speaker 8: on our officers. But whenever they feel like they're on
Speaker 8: pins and needles with every situation, they can't approach, they
Speaker 8: can't just ask simple questions. They don't feel like the
Speaker 8: city has their back, they don't feel like City Hall
Speaker 8: has their backs. That's going to change from day one
Speaker 8: of our administration, whether it be with public press comptons,
Speaker 8: whether it be with meetings with the entirety of all
Speaker 8: the officers, letting them know that we've got their back,
Speaker 8: and our policies are actually going to back that up
Speaker 8: as well. Our hiring is going to back that up,
Speaker 8: our funding is going to back that up, and our
Speaker 8: pressure on the courts is going to back that up.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, I'm asking all the council
Speaker 1: and mayor canidates this, do you think Chief Fiji was
Speaker 1: given a fair shake by the city administration in all
Speaker 1: the hubbub of the last I don't know, six weeks
Speaker 1: or a month or so.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I think that you know what we saw
Speaker 8: over the summer months. There was a lot of people
Speaker 8: in my comments sections that were telling me to call
Speaker 8: for the resignation of the firing of Police Chief Fiji.
Speaker 8: But I told people that the only person I'm calling
Speaker 8: to be fired is that to have Purvoll on November fourth,
Speaker 8: and once we get in place there we can actually
Speaker 8: see what's going on. Our suspicions, which have been confirmed
Speaker 8: by this litigation from Chief Fiji, is that the chief
Speaker 8: was actively trying to fight crime in practical ways with
Speaker 8: pressure on the courts, with the things when it came
Speaker 8: to enforcing low level crimes, and she got a flat
Speaker 8: out no from City Hall, from the City manager's office.
Speaker 8: And when you look at the letters and the messages
Speaker 8: that have come from the City Manager's office to the
Speaker 8: police chief, that is not allowing a police chief to
Speaker 8: do their job. That is a gag order, that is
Speaker 8: non disclosure agreement, that is fear tactics, and that cannot happen.
Speaker 8: We need a chief to be able to know that,
Speaker 8: no matter what, they are going to do their job
Speaker 8: properly and they're going to have the backing of City Hall.
Speaker 1: That is so important I think, and I know a
Speaker 1: lot of other people think that as well. We're also
Speaker 1: discussing with all the candidates the matter of Issue five
Speaker 1: back in two thousand. I know you weren't here then, Corey,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you do know about it. If elected
Speaker 1: as mayor, would you do everything within the mayor's power
Speaker 1: to see that that is put back in front of
Speaker 1: the voters of the City of Cincinnati to reconsider it.
Speaker 1: Because I've been around long enough Corey Bowman to know
Speaker 1: that if Issue five had not passed and the Chief
Speaker 1: of police, and let me mention too, I was reminded
Speaker 1: by a former chief of police just she texted me
Speaker 1: not only the chief, the assistant chiefs lost civil service
Speaker 1: protection when Issue five passed in the year two thousand.
Speaker 1: I guess it's all a long way of saying, will
Speaker 1: you do what you can to get that back before
Speaker 1: the voters.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, so, I think that we have to hear
Speaker 8: from the voices of the cops. We have to hear
Speaker 8: from the voices of those that actually have stake in
Speaker 8: the matter, and when you hear them, that's what I'm
Speaker 8: hearing right now. I would continue to have more conversations
Speaker 8: to make sure that we're hearing from every group and
Speaker 8: every perspective. But what we're hearing right now, based on
Speaker 8: conversations I'm having right now, the issue five was a
Speaker 8: major issue that has caused problems for the leadership in
Speaker 8: CINCINNATIPD and we got to be able to look at that.
Speaker 8: And if they're a ballot initiative needs to be put
Speaker 8: out to be able to give people the choice, then
Speaker 8: we would do everything we can to give people that choice.
Speaker 2: That's what needs to happen. I'll tell you what I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't know a lot about a lot, but I
Speaker 1: think I know a lot about a little. And when
Speaker 1: that thing passed, and I think it was fifty two
Speaker 1: forty eight, I mean it was really close. I said
Speaker 1: to myself, this is going to be an absolute disaster.
Speaker 1: It took a while for the disaster to set in,
Speaker 1: but it certainly has. And I know from talking to
Speaker 1: Ken Kobert that the FOP is jassed up to get
Speaker 1: it back on the ballot if that's possible. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate your comments on that. I wanted to ask you too,
Speaker 1: did you see I guess it came out yesterday, reported
Speaker 1: yesterday some new videos of what I call the downtown
Speaker 1: beatdown the way The Inquirer had their headline how new
Speaker 1: videos of downtown brawl shake up Cincinnati's mayoral election.
Speaker 2: First of all, did you see it? If you did,
Speaker 2: what do you think?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Sorry for the noise in the background here, but I
Speaker 8: saw it, and I actually called a press conference on
Speaker 8: forth and Album last night to discuss it. I wanted
Speaker 8: to make it very clear that, you know, whenever we
Speaker 8: get to be mayor of Cincinnati next year, one of
Speaker 8: the biggest things we have to run on is transparency.
Speaker 7: There's a very big.
Speaker 8: Difference between telling the public that the details will come
Speaker 8: out and that the investigation is ongoing, versus purposely with
Speaker 8: holding information that could diffuse a situation in our city.
Speaker 8: In the summer months when this fight happened, there was
Speaker 8: so much division and unrest between groups of people, between
Speaker 8: people living downtown, even from a racial aspect, and a
Speaker 8: lot of this stuff could have been diffused if all
Speaker 8: the information could have been brought forth. Now we're hearing
Speaker 8: that the mayor didn't even want to see the full footage,
Speaker 8: and then when the city was asked to present these
Speaker 8: videos to the media, they were rejected. Now, I sins
Speaker 8: two weeks, three weeks after the and I understand let
Speaker 8: the investigators do their job well when it's months afterwards,
Speaker 8: and this is critical information that could help ease the
Speaker 8: division and the unrest in our downtown area. But you're
Speaker 8: allowing that to just be hindered. Then that shows me
Speaker 8: that in an election year, you're just trying to divide
Speaker 8: people and you're just trying to get people to be
Speaker 8: stacked up against each other. As a mayor, I know
Speaker 8: that everybody sees as a Republican or Democrat. You're not
Speaker 8: voting for Republican or Democrats with Corey Bowman, You're voting
Speaker 8: for a Cincinnati And I'm going to.
Speaker 7: Fight for people that hate me.
Speaker 8: I'm going to fight for people that live in our city.
Speaker 8: And that's what we need from city hall. We don't
Speaker 8: need this partisan battle that copy and paste from national politics.
Speaker 8: We need people that can have safe streets, clean streets,
Speaker 8: and prosperous streets. And that's what we're going to focus on.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Hey, we got about two minutes left. Corey Bowman,
Speaker 1: what would you like to say in those two minutes,
Speaker 1: as we are three days out from the election.
Speaker 8: I would say that if if you were a person
Speaker 8: that has not gotten involved in these elections in the past,
Speaker 8: because you haven't seen anybody that represents you on the ballot.
Speaker 8: This year, we have twenty seven strong candidates for council
Speaker 8: and we have an option for mayor of Cincinnati, and
Speaker 8: I would encourage people, if you haven't gotten out to
Speaker 8: vote and these off your elections, get out to vote.
Speaker 8: And then for those that might be iffy about who
Speaker 8: to vote for, I would encourage you vote outside your
Speaker 8: comfort zone and consider that new leadership in place that
Speaker 8: has a heart for this city and that knows how
Speaker 8: to surround themselves with the people that have a heart
Speaker 8: for the city and practically can implement policies that can
Speaker 8: protect our people. Then vote for Corey Bowman for Mayor
Speaker 8: of Cincinnati.
Speaker 5: We're in the.
Speaker 8: Final days right now. We've got early voting that's happening
Speaker 8: today and tomorrow. There's no early voting on Monday, and
Speaker 8: then Tuesday the polls are open. This is one of
Speaker 8: the most critical elections in the history of our city
Speaker 8: and everybody's got to participate.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Corey.
Speaker 1: One really appreciates you taking time out from your very
Speaker 1: busy day to talk to us about all this and
Speaker 1: good luck on Tuesday.
Speaker 8: Hey, we're meeting at Pryce Hill Chili at one pm
Speaker 8: today to go drop literature. If anybody wants to meet
Speaker 8: us there.
Speaker 1: There you go, Thanks Coreyell, Okay, all right, that was
Speaker 1: Corey Bowman, candidate for mayor. You know I should have
Speaker 1: told him to price shll chili. I put them in
Speaker 1: the top three of chile in the City of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: But hey, that's just me. Seriously, though, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: When he was announced as a candidate, all that well,
Speaker 1: you know what, he'll make a name for himself and
Speaker 1: maybe run for counsel at some point.
Speaker 2: I completely turn that around. He has done an amazing
Speaker 2: job of articulating the issues that I think people in
Speaker 2: the City of Cincinnati are talking about. Again, you got
Speaker 2: a three to one voting advantage for Democrats in the
Speaker 2: City of Cincinnati. But this is a.
Speaker 1: Different kind of election, this is a different kind of year.
Speaker 1: I think Corey's got a shot at breaking through, and man,
Speaker 1: how that would improve this city. Hey, we got to
Speaker 1: take a break, but when we get back, we're going
Speaker 1: to switch gears a little bit and talk judicial with
Speaker 1: Judge Josh Berkowitz. He's of the Hamilton County Municipal Court.
Speaker 1: He's up for election on Tuesday as well. We'll do
Speaker 1: that when we get back. Mike Allen, Saturday Midday.
Speaker 2: News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: Mike Allen with hour three, which is the third and
Speaker 1: final hour of Saturday Midday, going to do a little
Speaker 1: segue here. Been talking about mayor and council all morning,
Speaker 1: but we're want to talk about Municipal Court District four
Speaker 1: and Judge Josh Berkowitz is the judge in that position,
Speaker 1: and he has been since two thousand and fifteen, ten
Speaker 1: years experience as a municipal court judge, and I can
Speaker 1: tell you over that ten years, I've appeared before him
Speaker 1: any number of times representing clients and he is incredibly
Speaker 1: fair and that's all you can ask for out of
Speaker 1: a judge. He was the former law director of the
Speaker 1: City in Norwood, an assistant Hamilton County and Franklin County prosecutor.
Speaker 2: Judge. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
Speaker 7: Thanks Mike, Thanks for having me on, Hey.
Speaker 1: Can you briefly explain your judicial district and how the
Speaker 1: districts work. I don't want to take a lot of
Speaker 1: your time, but I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 1: understand that it's not, and it hasn't been for a
Speaker 1: long time, a county wide.
Speaker 9: Election, right, So, municipal cory in Hamilton County are we.
Speaker 7: Have fourteen judges.
Speaker 9: We take cases from all over Hamilton County, but we
Speaker 9: run in districts, seven geographical districts. There's two judges elected
Speaker 9: from each district. My district is kind of the southeast
Speaker 9: of the county. So if you imagine a map, Norwoods
Speaker 9: right in the middle, and you move east from there
Speaker 9: through kind of the east side of Cincinnati, Oakley, Hyde Park,
Speaker 9: Mount Lookout, Mount Washington, and then all of Anderson Township, Marymont, Newtown,
Speaker 9: kind of the east end along Kellogg and the Ohio
Speaker 9: River there, kind of bending into downtown.
Speaker 2: Gotcha.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you doing that, and in your opinion the
Speaker 1: importance of municipal court. I've heard it referred to as
Speaker 1: the McDonald's of the justice system, not in a negative right,
Speaker 1: in a positive way, because you all got to deal
Speaker 1: with everything and it's the court that most citizens I
Speaker 1: think get their impressions of the judicial system.
Speaker 2: Would you have anything to add with that or do
Speaker 2: you agree with it?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 9: Absolutely, I mean we are the people's court. This is
Speaker 9: a really and this is a really exciting moment. You know,
Speaker 9: here we are days before the election and this year,
Speaker 9: I mean municipal court. You can't overstate the importance to
Speaker 9: public safety.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 9: Public safety is absolutely on the ballot right next to
Speaker 9: me on Tuesday, and that's why this race is really critical,
Speaker 9: critically important. The contrast could not be more stark between
Speaker 9: myself and my record over ten years as a judge
Speaker 9: and as you mentioned, eight years as an assistant prosecutor
Speaker 9: in two different counties, and my opponent, who is absolutely
Speaker 9: part of the progressive political left. And that's what they
Speaker 9: want to bring to the court or more of it,
Speaker 9: and no doubt, no surprise, they don't want.
Speaker 7: To talk about public safety.
Speaker 9: I mean, that's that's just not a priority. That's not
Speaker 9: what you're seeing them talk about. Her supporters, the people
Speaker 9: who put who put this candidate up against me. They
Speaker 9: want to hear and talk about anything but public safety,
Speaker 9: and that that shouldn't surprise anybody, because the reality is, uh,
Speaker 9: that progressive kind of political and judicial philosophy, you know,
Speaker 9: it now dominates the courthouse and the criminal justice.
Speaker 7: System, as you know, Mike.
Speaker 9: Uh, They've got the prosecutor, They've got the sheriff, they've
Speaker 9: got a majority of the Common Pleas Court, the entire
Speaker 9: Court of Appeals, they've got you know, Cincinnati police leadership and.
Speaker 7: Meaning city Hall.
Speaker 9: Uh, they've got the Public Defender's office, and the appeals court.
Speaker 9: The municipal court has really been kind of the last
Speaker 9: hold out there where we have judges uh, such as myself.
Speaker 9: You know, my record has been consistent.
Speaker 7: It's equal justice for all.
Speaker 9: I don't buy into uh these these term the terminology
Speaker 9: that you hear that sounds packaged up real real nights
Speaker 9: like uh, smart justice. I mean, who would be opposed
Speaker 9: to smart justice or you know, restorative justice. But uh,
Speaker 9: you know when you when you kind of break it
Speaker 9: down just a little bit and scratch just below the surface,
Speaker 9: you figure out real quick that that kind of terminology
Speaker 9: is just the same old kind of social justice replay
Speaker 9: that we've seen in this community and around the country
Speaker 9: kind of percolate up through colleges and law schools, and
Speaker 9: now it's in the court system and it's been a
Speaker 9: disaster everywhere.
Speaker 7: So specifically, what I'm.
Speaker 9: Talking about are things like no cash bail, which has
Speaker 9: created the revolving door.
Speaker 7: At the jail that you're familiar with.
Speaker 9: We're talking about defunding the police, and people say, well,
Speaker 9: defund the police. That never came to Cincinnati or you
Speaker 9: know as well as I do, and Ken Kober will
Speaker 9: tell you Cincinnati Police is one hundred and forty officers
Speaker 9: below where their contract says that they're supposed to be.
Speaker 9: When you're one hundred and forty officers, and that's an improvement,
Speaker 9: by the way, there was two hundred officers.
Speaker 7: Earlier in the year.
Speaker 9: One hundred and forty officers below where the contract says
Speaker 9: they should be. That's defund the police. That means you're
Speaker 9: not devoting the resources necessary to fully staff your law enforcement.
Speaker 9: You know, the when you talk about smart justice or
Speaker 9: restorative justice, Well that's the two or three hundred empty
Speaker 9: beds at the Hamilt's County Justice Center and it's been.
Speaker 7: That way for five years. Judgment policies are year years
Speaker 7: in the making.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I mentioned this before. I'm about
Speaker 1: ninety percent retired. I've got two cases left. I was
Speaker 1: there at the courthouse this week. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: It was like a damn ghost town. Not just unicourt
Speaker 1: courtrooms because I got into a couple of them, but
Speaker 1: common pleas as well. It's stunning how the cases have dropped.
Speaker 1: And as you just pointed out and others have said,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of room at the end so to speak
Speaker 1: at the Justice center. How do you explain that? And
Speaker 1: I know you got to be careful what you say
Speaker 1: as a judge, but is there anything you would have
Speaker 1: to offer on that point?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, look, there's no question there's been these
Speaker 9: changes in philosophy from the bench in terms of bond
Speaker 9: setting and in terms of sentencing, both in our court
Speaker 9: and the Common Police Court.
Speaker 7: And there's been.
Speaker 9: Major changes in enforcement, particularly at City Hall. I mean
Speaker 9: there's no question that they have, and they've essentially acknowledged
Speaker 9: as much recently that they were telling officers to reduce
Speaker 9: the number of arrests for what they call minor offenses.
Speaker 9: They changed the way that they wanted officers to enforce
Speaker 9: the law to be less proactive, to be less and
Speaker 9: to be more reactive. More responding to calls for assistance
Speaker 9: and less proactively enforced the law, whether you're talking about
Speaker 9: traffic law, whether you're talking about you know, going after
Speaker 9: illegal drugs or illegal guns, or trying to get at
Speaker 9: the people who are actually responsible for the lion's share
Speaker 9: of the violence in our community. And and and in
Speaker 9: replacement of all that, you know, you hear this again.
Speaker 9: You hear this flowery language like root causes, and I
Speaker 9: hear that from my opponent and her supporters, uh that, well,
Speaker 9: we need to address the root.
Speaker 7: Causes all this.
Speaker 9: When you hear somebody talk to you about root causes,
Speaker 9: you better hold on to your wallet, Mike, because the
Speaker 9: reality is that what that translates to is absolutely no
Speaker 9: one will be held accountable for criminal conduct, and you're
Speaker 9: gonna pay for it in the form of taxes going
Speaker 9: to all these uh, all these treatment providers, all these
Speaker 9: service providers. You know, they're gonna they're gonna make money
Speaker 9: off of the situation, and no one's gonna be held accountable.
Speaker 9: And who gets entirely forgotten in that situation the victims
Speaker 9: of crime, yep, absolutely ignore. You're not going to hear
Speaker 9: anything about the victims of crime from the people who
Speaker 9: promote this progressive agenda.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, judge, We've got about four
Speaker 1: minutes left.
Speaker 2: We got the election in just a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Would you like to make a closing argument, so to speak,
Speaker 1: in those about four minutes about what you want to
Speaker 1: do if and when you're reelected, which I hope and
Speaker 1: pray that you are.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I mean, Mike, I've been consistent as a judge and
Speaker 9: before that as a prosecutor.
Speaker 7: Public safety has always.
Speaker 2: Been a priority of my career.
Speaker 7: And it should be.
Speaker 9: I mean it should be when you take the bench.
Speaker 9: We have a direct impact through things like bond setting.
Speaker 9: You know, the opposition would have you believe that municipal
Speaker 9: court does nothing, but you know, jaywalking and littering tickets.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's really ridiculous.
Speaker 9: We set bonds on more than a thousand cases every week.
Speaker 7: And when you have judges.
Speaker 9: Who bring a political agenda to that process and they're
Speaker 9: not just applying the law as it's written, and they're
Speaker 9: not treating victims with the seriousness that these cases demand,
Speaker 9: then you get absurd results.
Speaker 7: And that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 9: When I do my job correctly, and I'm proud of
Speaker 9: my record over the last ten years. When we do
Speaker 9: our job correctly as judges, we have the opportunity to
Speaker 9: deter criminal behavior. I mean, you don't hear about that,
Speaker 9: but jail deters criminal behavior. There are people who have
Speaker 9: come back to see me, who have thanked me, who
Speaker 9: have said that they didn't want to go back to jail,
Speaker 9: and so they got sober, so they got a job,
Speaker 9: so they turn their lives around.
Speaker 7: That happens.
Speaker 9: It happens more than anybody in the media or in
Speaker 9: politics would want to believe or want you to believe.
Speaker 9: Jail's incentive advised people to get help, to get to
Speaker 9: get treatment. We have an opportunity to intervene directly to
Speaker 9: disrupt cycles of violence and cycles of abuse and trauma.
Speaker 7: I mean, these are important opportunities.
Speaker 9: And we also show victims and witnesses that our system works,
Speaker 9: that it's functional, that it's fair, that they have a
Speaker 9: real opportunity to get justice. And you know, the flip
Speaker 9: side of that is when people see the revolving door
Speaker 9: and they see no cash bail, and they see that
Speaker 9: there's not police in their neighborhoods and that people aren't
Speaker 9: being held accountable. You know, the message gets sent real
Speaker 9: quickly that there's no consequences for criminal misbehavior, for criminal
Speaker 9: conduct and just anti social behavior in general. So we
Speaker 9: have a strong we have an opportunity to send a
Speaker 9: really strong message not just to all the judges, to
Speaker 9: all those offices that I mentioned, that this community expects
Speaker 9: and demands that public safety be treated as the priority
Speaker 9: that it is to everyone.
Speaker 7: This is not a you know, it's.
Speaker 9: Not one neighborhood out of another, or you know, a
Speaker 9: wealthy neighborhood thing uh uh Indian Hill or Hyde Park.
Speaker 9: I mean, this is across the county. I really believe
Speaker 9: that people are fed up with this. People who live,
Speaker 9: especially in high crime neighborhoods, they want to see some accountability.
Speaker 9: They want they want to they know who the dangerous
Speaker 9: people are and they want them held accountable and taking
Speaker 9: off the streets.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 7: People who want to get involved.
Speaker 9: I mean, this is a tremendous opportunity the last three days,
Speaker 9: uh to get involved. And you can do that right now.
Speaker 9: You can go to keep Judge Berkowitz dot com. You
Speaker 9: can sign up to help on election day, you can donate,
Speaker 9: you can share with your friends. Don't ever assume that
Speaker 9: people know this stuff or people have an opinion. A
Speaker 9: lot of people are going to show up on election
Speaker 9: day and they have and they really don't know where
Speaker 9: I stand or where my opponent stands. The ballot doesn't
Speaker 9: tell them anything about party affiliation. It doesn't tell them
Speaker 9: anything that I'm the judge or the incumbent, and that
Speaker 9: my opponent has never held elective office before. It doesn't
Speaker 9: tell them anything about you know, who's endorsed me or
Speaker 9: who's endorsed my opponent. So we've got to reach those
Speaker 9: folks ahead of time. And when you send a text
Speaker 9: message or an email and you link my website or
Speaker 9: my YouTube video, that goes a tremendously long way towards
Speaker 9: getting that message across. This will be a low turnout election.
Speaker 9: We know that, and so every single vote takes takes
Speaker 9: a tremendous amount of significance.
Speaker 1: All right, Judge, I really appreciate you coming on. I
Speaker 1: know how busy you are this weekend, and best of
Speaker 1: luck on Tuesday.
Speaker 7: Thanks Mike. I really appreciate your time. This is this
Speaker 7: is exciting.
Speaker 9: We're going to get it done, and I really appreciate
Speaker 9: your time, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you, your honor. All right, that was Judge Josh Berkowitz.
Speaker 1: And again I can only say what my experience has been,
Speaker 1: and he's been an incredibly fair judge, and I don't.
Speaker 2: Know that you can say anything more.
Speaker 1: Hey, we got to take a short break, but we
Speaker 1: will be back. Mike Allen Saturday Video seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: Mike Allen in the closing a half hour of Saturday
Speaker 1: Midday and batting cleanup today, which I think is appropriate,
Speaker 1: is Christopher Smitheman. Christopher served on council. He also served
Speaker 1: when he was on Council on the Law and Public
Speaker 1: Safety Committee. I think that's going to serve him well
Speaker 1: as he goes back to Cincinnati City Council. Has a
Speaker 1: Master's in Counseling from Bowling Green, Bachelor's and Criminal Justice
Speaker 1: in the Ohio State University. And he's very well versed
Speaker 1: on crime and the crime issues. And he's one heck
Speaker 1: of a financial advisor. I will add last thing I
Speaker 1: want to say before I turn it over to Christopher.
Speaker 1: He is enthusiastically endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police. Christophers,
Speaker 1: thanks for taking time out of what I know is
Speaker 1: a busy day for you today.
Speaker 6: Mike Allen, Thank you so much for allowing me to
Speaker 6: be on These are what we would call in your
Speaker 6: space as a lawyer clothing argument.
Speaker 10: Yes, and the jury is in the box, and we
Speaker 10: hope that they've been listening to all of the evidence
Speaker 10: that we've been putting in front of them, that we
Speaker 10: can make a change in the city and that things
Speaker 10: are not on the right track.
Speaker 6: And so I think we've presented a pretty good case
Speaker 6: for citizens and it's now time for them to show
Speaker 6: up and vote. You know, my concern is that voter
Speaker 6: turnout is low. There's apathy out there. You know, I'm
Speaker 6: dropping in Camp Washington today as an example, and we're
Speaker 6: just trying to encourage people to participate in the political process.
Speaker 6: Because all fifty two neighborhoods, we're all one year. This
Speaker 6: is one Cincinnati to our regional partners, you know, the
Speaker 6: core is everything. So we want people to come to
Speaker 6: the air and off and we want them to come
Speaker 6: down to Jeff Rubi's. We want them to come to
Speaker 6: the banks and enjoy the the you know, the Bengals
Speaker 6: and Reds games and FC. There's so much going on
Speaker 6: in our city. But if crime continues to hit in
Speaker 6: the direction it is heading in. Our partners will not
Speaker 6: feel safe. Capital we're talking investment dollars will be deployed
Speaker 6: other places because there are other options. They can go
Speaker 6: right over across the bridge. They can go to Indiana
Speaker 6: as an example, they can go to Chicago, they can
Speaker 6: go to Florida if they want to. So if we
Speaker 6: don't turn things around to our city residents, money will
Speaker 6: not come here, development will not happen, and we will
Speaker 6: hit in that track and start looking like Shiticgo, which
Speaker 6: I have no desire to look like Chicago. But how
Speaker 6: do you think Chicago got the way it was? It
Speaker 6: was incremental. It wasn't just overnight, so it was an
Speaker 6: incremental process over time where crime got out of control,
Speaker 6: the criminals started running things, and people began the flight,
Speaker 6: move out of the city, move out into the suburbs.
Speaker 6: We don't want to have that happen. We've done a
Speaker 6: great job turning things around places like OTR in the Mohawk.
Speaker 6: We want to make sure we continue to have that
Speaker 6: kind of investment in our core. Now that's not saying
Speaker 6: that our other fifty one neighborhood's like a bond Hill
Speaker 6: who was very concerned about low income housing. That has
Speaker 6: been placed there that's impacting their equity and their homes
Speaker 6: where they've been investing lots of money, and they're very
Speaker 6: concerned about what's happening there, or what's happening in Evingston,
Speaker 6: or what happened in Hyde Park and Mount Lookout, or
Speaker 6: what's happening in Camp where North Side. You know, the
Speaker 6: housing has gotten so expensive that people are now moving
Speaker 6: into the Camp and that neighborhood is having a transformative
Speaker 6: time right now. My point is that Cincinnati, whether it's
Speaker 6: Mount Washington, whether it's California, whether it's Columbia Tusculum, we
Speaker 6: could turn things around, but we cannot allow our core
Speaker 6: to fall. We can't have people shooting our Fountain Square,
Speaker 6: shooting off of Fountain Square. We can't have youth that
Speaker 6: are thirteen and fourteen carrying guns on the banks. We
Speaker 6: put our lot. I put a lot of time and
Speaker 6: energy in the creation of the door. I don't want
Speaker 6: this to implode because parents can't keep control of their kids.
Speaker 6: We need our cops. I've been listening to your show,
Speaker 6: Mike Allen. Look, we clearly have attrition. We've got two
Speaker 6: hundred cops in Drops. We know that that's going to
Speaker 6: continue to accelerate. One of the things you'll see me
Speaker 6: do is go in and reassure those cops that are
Speaker 6: thinking about retiring that I have their back and that
Speaker 6: we need them, and that we need them to train
Speaker 6: the new cops that we are hiring, because that institutional
Speaker 6: memory is so important when those young cops come out
Speaker 6: of training and they're in that six month probation, we
Speaker 6: don't want to lose all that institutional memory. So you'll
Speaker 6: see me going to roll calls. You'll see me doing
Speaker 6: our ride along. You'll see me talking to the FOP
Speaker 6: and the police chief, trying to write the ship and
Speaker 6: send the message to our officers and our firefighters that
Speaker 6: when things are bad, I have their back. When things
Speaker 6: are good, they're back, and that we need them. If
Speaker 6: we don't get a hold of crime, none of these
Speaker 6: things that we're talking about matter.
Speaker 1: Mike Allas, you're so right, and you're also so right,
Speaker 1: Christopher in saying that we've got to protect the core.
Speaker 1: I live downtown for about twelve years, and it's been
Speaker 1: a while. It's even better now. What we have down
Speaker 1: there and on the riverfront is it's amazing. It's like
Speaker 1: no other city in this country and we're in danger
Speaker 1: of losing it if we still have the issue of
Speaker 1: crime that's persistent. And I think if you are elected
Speaker 1: to council, you can be the point person on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, hopefully you get some more down there that
Speaker 1: will be with you and other like minded people. But
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to see on that. I think Christopher,
Speaker 1: being honest, of all the non incumbents running, based on
Speaker 1: your background and based on your grasp of the crime issue,
Speaker 1: you have the best shot of getting back on counsel.
Speaker 1: That's just my opinion, it's also the opinion of many others.
Speaker 6: Well. I appreciate that, Mike Allen, and I'll tell everybody listening. Look,
Speaker 6: we have a great opportunity here and I do politics
Speaker 6: and the love for our city. When I say our city,
Speaker 6: I'm talking Mike Allen, all your listening audience, and anybody
Speaker 6: that lives in our core, in our region. And the
Speaker 6: reason I say, look, politics can be selfish, but I'm
Speaker 6: just not a selfish politician. That's why I talk about
Speaker 6: a Liz Keating who's running for city council. Hey, I
Speaker 6: don't want to just get elected. I want I want
Speaker 6: a group of people to get elected. So somebody like
Speaker 6: Liz Keating, great choice. I think a good is a
Speaker 6: great choice. Great lawyer, great depth, smart, cares about the city,
Speaker 6: lives in Clifton. Another great person. I really like a
Speaker 6: Linda Matthews. Nice person, you know, solid, understands not just
Speaker 6: politics but the running of the city. What about a
Speaker 6: Dondrey House, blue dog Democrat from the west side of town,
Speaker 6: you know, very interested in housing and what's happening in
Speaker 6: our in our housing stock, across our fifty two neighborhoods.
Speaker 6: Great person to have on council, and the blue dog
Speaker 6: Democrats are dying in the party. And that's why he's
Speaker 6: a good candidate to get elected, because he's that He's
Speaker 6: Tom Lucan, that Charlie Lucan, that John Cranley out there
Speaker 6: that's so important to the political process. So I talk
Speaker 6: about a Dondriouse. What about a Lakita Cole. You know,
Speaker 6: she's a Democrat there, she's usually endorsed by the Democratic Party,
Speaker 6: but they've abandoned her. I would say that a Latria
Speaker 6: Cole could say the Democratic Party left her. She didn't
Speaker 6: leave the Democratic Party, but she's out there working incredibly hard.
Speaker 6: Somebody to really look at who could easily take one
Speaker 6: of these seats, because you got four or five members
Speaker 6: of council that people don't even know who they are.
Speaker 6: They're not out here communicating, they're not out here knocking
Speaker 6: on doors. And even right now is his video showing
Speaker 6: the corruption at the highest levels. Please listen to what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. I served on council. There is no way
Speaker 6: that a video like that exists, and I don't know
Speaker 6: about it. I'm gonna say that again. There is no
Speaker 6: way a video exists that three c DC has that
Speaker 6: was just released and I don't know about it. And
Speaker 6: so there was a motivation here, I think, to divide
Speaker 6: the electric racially different hard for people to hear. They
Speaker 6: wanted African Americans to go in and be emotionally charged
Speaker 6: and believe in some way they have been slighted. And
Speaker 6: so the way Democrats tend to do that is they
Speaker 6: divide us by race. And we've got to stop this madness.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: That's why I run as an independent because so often
Speaker 6: the answers for most people are in the middle. They're
Speaker 6: not on either side. And this is that sick part
Speaker 6: where we have nine members of council who are democrats,
Speaker 6: a democratic mayor, a democratic administration, and all of them
Speaker 6: were hiding the football like Charlie Brown. I'll say this
Speaker 6: to you so clearly. I went to the School for
Speaker 6: Creative and Performing Arts. This mayor and this council collectively,
Speaker 6: not individually, but collectively collectively, remind me of the Scarecrow,
Speaker 6: no Brain. They remind me of the ten Man, no Heart,
Speaker 6: They remind me of the of the Lion, no courage.
Speaker 6: They're the greatest trilogy of all. How do you have
Speaker 6: somebody like Sarah Hearinger and her husband Patrick murdered in
Speaker 6: OTR and this mayor doesn't reach out. How do you
Speaker 6: have a Ronda Win where you have Cassandra Winn shot
Speaker 6: in the back walking down the street in downtown Cincinnati
Speaker 6: at nine or so in the evening. Not only has
Speaker 6: the mayor not reached out, but we haven't even found
Speaker 6: out who murdered her five children. Roder Winn is suffering
Speaker 6: out here like crazy. My point to you is, we
Speaker 6: have these high profile murders around us, and we have
Speaker 6: a mayor that acts as if he doesn't have a heart.
Speaker 6: We have a council collectively that doesn't have the courage
Speaker 6: to stand up to that bully and tell him, listen,
Speaker 6: you're not going to push us around. We're not going
Speaker 6: to engage in corruption. And we have the right to
Speaker 6: have independent opinions away from what the mayor has both
Speaker 6: for Corey Bowman, absolutely, people have asked me, why are
Speaker 6: you supporting Corey Bowman. We've got to hit a different direction,
Speaker 6: you know, as an independent, I believe that we I
Speaker 6: don't look at party Mike Allen, I don't look at
Speaker 6: any of this stuff. I'm into what is the best
Speaker 6: for the city of Cincinnati.
Speaker 7: That's it.
Speaker 6: I don't care about anything else. One day I might
Speaker 6: run for mayor. Maybe I don't ever run for mayor, right,
Speaker 6: But the point is I only care about what is
Speaker 6: right for the fifty two neighborhoods in Cincinnati, in our
Speaker 6: core because indian yill places like Mason Right, places where
Speaker 6: we would think about Anderson, those is naming some of
Speaker 6: our surrounding areas. Their community will not drive into our
Speaker 6: core if they don't feel safe and they don't think
Speaker 6: the leadership has it on the ball. That's why I'm
Speaker 6: asking you to vote for Smitherman for City Council. And
Speaker 6: those are my closing arguments to the jury.
Speaker 1: All right, Christopher, we've got about three and a half
Speaker 1: minutes here. I wanted you to talk a minute. I
Speaker 1: have heard that the number that they're the turnout is
Speaker 1: like ten to fifteen percent, which is incredible, incredibly bad.
Speaker 1: If you could address that, and if you have any
Speaker 1: thoughts on how people should vote and what they can
Speaker 1: do to help you in the closing days of the campaign.
Speaker 2: And you got four weeks.
Speaker 6: We still need yard sign locations, We still need contributions
Speaker 6: to our campaign Smitherman for Cincinnati. They can drop them
Speaker 6: off at seventeen oh three Deal Road in bond Hill,
Speaker 6: which is where my financial planning practice is located. There's
Speaker 6: a twenty four hour box there that they can put
Speaker 6: a check in there. Our number there at seventy five one, three,
Speaker 6: eight eight eight. The apathy that is happening in our city,
Speaker 6: meaning people feel like they are defeated, and we've got
Speaker 6: to turn that around. And so every vote counts. Because
Speaker 6: the voter turnout is so low fifteen to twenty percent,
Speaker 6: that means we knock on ten doors today of registered voters,
Speaker 6: and only two of those houses are coming out. The
Speaker 6: other eight are staying home, and so We're trying to
Speaker 6: turn that around because there are a lot of traditional voters,
Speaker 6: Mike Allen, and they don't vote during the thirty days.
Speaker 6: They've flagged outside their houses, their families have served in
Speaker 6: the military or in the police department or some way,
Speaker 6: and they feel like, I'm only gonna vote on election day. Well,
Speaker 6: if that's where you're gonna vote, we need you to
Speaker 6: show up in heavy numbers on Tuesday between six thirty
Speaker 6: and seven point thirty at your local polling location, and
Speaker 6: let's see how this thing turns out. Never vote for
Speaker 6: nine people for city council. It's up to nine. I've
Speaker 6: given you a lot of examples today of good people
Speaker 6: that are running with good art. I think four or
Speaker 6: five of those. Let me also say Gary Favors is
Speaker 6: out there running, good guy. But there are a lot
Speaker 6: of good people out there running. Pick four or five
Speaker 6: of them and stop there. You're looking just for a majority.
Speaker 6: Never vote for nine people for city council. And I
Speaker 6: promise you, if people listen to that one tool, we
Speaker 6: will absolutely flip city council and and we will absolutely
Speaker 6: impact what's happening in the Mayor's office.
Speaker 1: There you go, I'll tell you what wise advice. Christopher.
Speaker 1: We're out of time here, but thank you for being
Speaker 1: so available to us, and good luck on Tuesday. I
Speaker 1: think you've put yourself in a position to get back
Speaker 1: on that thing.
Speaker 6: Mike. Here's my last promise. When I'm elected on Tuesday night,
Speaker 6: you will have the exact same access to me that
Speaker 6: you have now in good times and in battle right,
Speaker 6: and so I'll make myself available for you to question me,
Speaker 6: question my votes, question my decisions, and question what's happening.
Speaker 6: Too many of these elected officials are hiding. And I
Speaker 6: also bought those commercials during your show to extending you
Speaker 6: the respect that I know that you deserve. And I'm
Speaker 6: so thankful the access you've given me.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Christopher, really appeace you might Okay, I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you probably before Tuesday.
Speaker 2: But if I own good luck, Thank you, Rob.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, Christopher Smithman, I'll tell you what man,
Speaker 1: that young man gets back on council, whether he's got
Speaker 1: Republicans to work with, Charter rights, he's going to make
Speaker 1: an impact in everything, but especially especially in the crime issue,
Speaker 1: which is obviously the biggest issue facing us. And you know,
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the vote I've never understood that. And
Speaker 1: as Christopher said, you don't have to vote for nine.
Speaker 1: We shall see what happens. Hey, listen, I'm out of time.
Speaker 1: I want to thank my great producer, Lian Liam Tomlinson,
Speaker 1: who keeps me out of trouble,