Speaker 1: You don't want to be an American.
Speaker 2: Scott flown back on seven hundred ww first snowfall yesterday.
Speaker 2: But if you're in the city of Cincinnati and you
Speaker 2: went to the new and highly publicized snowplow tracker website,
Speaker 2: it was not working, it wasn't up. Why well, he's
Speaker 2: I would call him mister Plow. He just ran a
Speaker 2: very successful re election campaign and he wanted to be
Speaker 2: council member. Seth Walsh. Congratulations. By the way, I'm glad
Speaker 2: you got your seat back or retained your seat.
Speaker 3: I guess I should say thanks, Scott, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: This morning, Yeah, you too. We talked a lot about transportation.
Speaker 2: I saw your you know, your campaign ads featured snow
Speaker 2: removal issues. It's one of the big big things for people.
Speaker 2: Obviously they felt made that connection, being November and all that.
Speaker 2: Uh So, let's go back to this now. We know
Speaker 2: the headaches and heartbreak we had this time last year,
Speaker 2: or maybe a little bit later earlier than last year,
Speaker 2: but two weeks ago the city I think it was
Speaker 2: two weeks ago, we had this, you know, this whole
Speaker 2: crowdsourcing thing, and we're having a contest to come up
Speaker 2: with a better way to get the information about plows working.
Speaker 2: And we've got these investments and we've instructed all the
Speaker 2: plow drivers and workers how to use these tablets and
Speaker 2: we put them in the plows and you can see
Speaker 2: if it's coming down your road or where they are,
Speaker 2: and if you uh, if they're missing you, you can
Speaker 2: somehow send a message back to Central Command, the High Command.
Speaker 1: We'll get a plow to you. We'll get your plowed out.
Speaker 1: We did all this. It snowed yesterday and it wasn't
Speaker 1: on Why.
Speaker 3: Well, I think some bl answer Scott is there weren't
Speaker 3: snow clouds out there yesterday. The ground was pretty warm,
Speaker 3: so snow wasn't sticking. They did a lot of pre
Speaker 3: treatment for the streets and you know it resulted in
Speaker 3: you know, pretty safe clean streets very quickly yesterday. But
Speaker 3: I think there's a fair there's a fair question ye there.
Speaker 3: You know, why why are we not including when we're
Speaker 3: pre treating the streets so you know your streets getting precreated.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of information. I think people love to
Speaker 3: know that we're not quite there yet. But yesterday some
Speaker 3: blasters just there weren't clouds out there because the weather
Speaker 3: was taking care of it for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think typically, and it's I think it's an
Speaker 2: important point is that we were plowing. But certainly you
Speaker 2: know where I lived and coming from Warren County to
Speaker 2: Hamblin County, the roads were well, they were in need
Speaker 2: of some some treatment for sure. You know, maybe not
Speaker 2: plowing technically, but I think when you're a constituent, when
Speaker 2: you're a voter, when you're a taxpayer homeowner, you look
Speaker 2: at it going I don't care plowing or just treating.
Speaker 2: I just want to know you guys are doing your job.
Speaker 2: I just want to know you're out there tackling the problem.
Speaker 2: And I log on the site that you guys pouted
Speaker 2: the hell out of and it's saying, wow, there's nothing
Speaker 2: to see here.
Speaker 1: Forget it. I go here we go again with the communication.
Speaker 2: I think that's I don't think that's an unfair analysis
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 3: No, No, it's not unfair at all. And I talk
Speaker 3: about city communication all the time. I think it's the
Speaker 3: only thing we know about each other at this stage.
Speaker 3: But yesterday was the first day that really builded two
Speaker 3: debut things. I think we needed to let me back
Speaker 3: it up. We actually got a briefing yesterday that was
Speaker 3: coincidentally prepared for the snow as planned, and one of
Speaker 3: the things they talked about was there are forty four
Speaker 3: major areas of failures that we had in this last
Speaker 3: snow emergency back in January. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people like to try to downplay and say, well, was
Speaker 3: penaches of snow. What did you expect us to do?
Speaker 3: And the answer is pow it. And the reality is like,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of reasons why we couldn't get
Speaker 3: it resolved, and there are forty four major areas to
Speaker 3: resolve it. They have been working incredibly diligently, and you
Speaker 3: know that I'm not wont to hould back on criticism,
Speaker 3: so I hope this comes across genuinely here because they
Speaker 3: have worked very diligently to get the entire operation scrapped
Speaker 3: and rebuilt since January, including bringing a new director of
Speaker 3: Public Services who has just impressed me. A snow end. Yesterday,
Speaker 3: they they debuted it and I think, like many things
Speaker 3: of the city, we just missed the market on how
Speaker 3: we can do the pr I think we forget that
Speaker 3: people want to play with the new shiny things just
Speaker 3: as much as we want to debut them. And so yesterday,
Speaker 3: you know, it snows, and you're like, where's the snowpod tracker,
Speaker 3: the ones that's designed for this, And so there's a
Speaker 3: lot of disappointment, including myself initilin and I asked that
Speaker 3: the briefing, like why aren't we showing off the snowpops,
Speaker 3: like because there's not snowflops And they're like, oh, that
Speaker 3: makes sense. But I do think that there was a
Speaker 3: lot more we could do in the communications. I think
Speaker 3: there's more we could do to showcase what we're doing
Speaker 3: to get people out there, and had you ride along
Speaker 3: in the snow polically like here's how it's dramatically different,
Speaker 3: because it is, and there's still a lot more work
Speaker 3: we have to do, right, let's not sugarcoat it. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of work that had to go to rebuildings
Speaker 3: entire operation.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I so were you treating streets at all yesterday during
Speaker 2: the event or was it just a pre treat and hey,
Speaker 2: it's going to melt.
Speaker 3: Anyway, to my understanding was we did a lot of
Speaker 3: pre treatment. There were some areas that we were getting
Speaker 3: reports on that we were getting out there and doing
Speaker 3: treatment on. But within the city limits. It sounded like
Speaker 3: they had it pretty well under control, and that the
Speaker 3: pretreatment did this job. One of the things that I
Speaker 3: don't think they've talked about that and it sounds insane,
Speaker 3: but these guys actually went out to cities that experienced
Speaker 3: massive snowfall, Denver being the most recent one. Same how
Speaker 3: do you get handled this? And they took those lessons,
Speaker 3: they came back and to used it to get ready yesterday.
Speaker 3: And you have short of a few car accidents that
Speaker 3: I've heard about, which you know, I think is on
Speaker 3: all of us to make sure we're driving safe and
Speaker 3: snow weather. I'm from Michigan, you're from Buffalo. We know
Speaker 3: what this is like. Yep. It sounds like things actually
Speaker 3: worked pretty smoothly yesterday in terms of the actual road condition.
Speaker 2: And that's the hardest part. Ste I guess that's my point.
Speaker 2: It's the lack of communication. It's getting the ball to
Speaker 2: the goal line and fumbling. And I look at this way,
Speaker 2: for example, our peers around this Louisville, Kentucky Transportation candidate
Speaker 2: Cabinet O dot Warren County, Butler County. They're active on
Speaker 2: social media saying hey, we're treating the road street. I
Speaker 2: was looking through this morning school and so the only
Speaker 2: thing on there was come and meet. I think a
Speaker 2: police dog was the only text or the only social
Speaker 2: message from a post from the city. At the very least,
Speaker 2: you know, communicate that on social and say, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: we only turned the app on when we are plowing streets,
Speaker 2: not pre treating streets. And then people go, oh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: that makes sense. But to leave people hanging like that
Speaker 2: is I'm that's just incompetent, isn't it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's frustrating. I think it's it's frustrating, and
Speaker 3: I think it's part of a culture mindset that I'm
Speaker 3: personally trying to get shifted the city Hall, which is
Speaker 3: they try to solve the problems, they don't necessarily communicate
Speaker 3: how they solved the problem. And that's what we saw yesterday.
Speaker 3: Hey the problem is solved. The nobody knows the problem solved.
Speaker 3: I worried about why the snap protract and you did.
Speaker 2: All this hype about the app, and so people are
Speaker 2: naturally going to go, oh, we'll see why you know
Speaker 2: what's going on with and it's like, wait, it's down,
Speaker 2: and it feels like you failed when actually everything worked.
Speaker 3: Right. You know, there's nothing worse than turning in your paper,
Speaker 3: but the professor loses it. So you're like, well you
Speaker 3: did you didn't do the work in the first place, right. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: we have to get better if you are as a city.
Speaker 3: I keep saying this over and over again to you.
Speaker 3: I've said it to them personally. I had one of
Speaker 3: their offices yesterday as the snow's coming down, and I
Speaker 3: was like, why are we not showing everybody what we're doing?
Speaker 3: Because we've put in a lot of work. You were
Speaker 3: ready for this, We've knocked it out of the ballpark.
Speaker 3: I think you'd be blown away if you meet Mark,
Speaker 3: you know, when you get a chance to get him
Speaker 3: anio to talk about the work he does for public services,
Speaker 3: to make sure that we are ready. But then when
Speaker 3: you're right, when we missed the low, the lay ups
Speaker 3: to say, hey, it's the first snowfall of the years.
Speaker 3: Let's see where the free treatments are. How do you
Speaker 3: know what are we doing. Let's show you what our
Speaker 3: snow piles look like. Let's show you what the tractor
Speaker 3: looks like. We did hype it up a lot. We
Speaker 3: weren't ready to show off our shiny new toys. U
Speaker 3: let people play with them, and I think we can
Speaker 3: do better at that. But I also think that that's
Speaker 3: a pr issue and the real problem of making sure
Speaker 3: people get safely to it from work. We actually did
Speaker 3: great on it, and the only complaint you've had so
Speaker 3: far was him take County Warren County, which you know,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take the rare moment to be able to
Speaker 3: say it wasn't the City of Cincinnati that failed on
Speaker 3: that part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was a horrific event by any means.
Speaker 2: It was a little bit of snow yesterday, but a
Speaker 2: good test I think for the system. And it seems
Speaker 2: like you know, and I think it's also unfair all
Speaker 2: the people you mentioned, Seth is like everyone will blame
Speaker 2: them and go, well, you I screwed this up. No,
Speaker 2: we did our jobs. It was just a lack of communication.
Speaker 2: And it hasn't been easier. It's never been easier in
Speaker 2: our lifetime. Is only going to get easier to get
Speaker 2: this information through social even a social media or hell,
Speaker 2: even on the web page itself. But say, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: we pre treated the roads. Here's if you're looking for plows,
Speaker 2: here's why at least explain it to me.
Speaker 1: We're going to that website.
Speaker 2: And I think that is also, quite honestly a systemic
Speaker 2: problem for the city, because it's not just this which
Speaker 2: is relatively minor. Let's face it, I'm trying to make
Speaker 2: a big deal out of something minor. But I think
Speaker 2: it's also emblematic the whole problem is. I mean, look
Speaker 2: at the police department, lack of communication from the Mayor's
Speaker 2: office when it came to Chief Thiji and the crime
Speaker 2: and only recognizing the good things, and the appearance that
Speaker 2: aftabs only there for ribbon cuttings and the like. Nw
Speaker 2: He won re election handily, there's no debating that. But
Speaker 2: the problem has always been communication with the City of Cincinnati,
Speaker 2: and I just don't know why we're so bad at it.
Speaker 3: I wish i'd answer on that. And again, I think
Speaker 3: it's a cultural issue. I think it's part of the
Speaker 3: form of government that we have. There's an expectation, I
Speaker 3: think from the citizenry that the answers come from the politicians,
Speaker 3: and so the administrative side has taken the philosophy of like,
Speaker 3: we're going to get the problems solved, we'll lot the
Speaker 3: politicians to be the politicians and go do the marketing
Speaker 3: a PR well, with all due respect, I'm an economic
Speaker 3: development guy. I'm not a PR guy. I'm not a
Speaker 3: guy who knows how to put you know, I can
Speaker 3: find really hilarious means on Instagram them and so I
Speaker 3: think that's where the disconnect is. And I think part
Speaker 3: of the job of the politicians and conversations that you
Speaker 3: and I are having here and that I had yesterday,
Speaker 3: is to say to the administration, like, the job's not done.
Speaker 3: If you're not communicating it to the public, you have
Speaker 3: an equal responsibility to the public to tell them what
Speaker 3: you've done, to showcase it and frankly be proud of
Speaker 3: the work you did, because in this case, you know
Speaker 3: this is literally and you have a listener that has
Speaker 3: sent me a letter almost every time I have to
Speaker 3: come on here about the snow plows the situation saying
Speaker 3: Juius will never solve this problem because for fifty plus
Speaker 3: years we haven't solved the problem. Scott, I can keep
Speaker 3: prett like we solved it, but we haven't solved it.
Speaker 3: And this time they've put in a lot of time
Speaker 3: and effort, and I'm I've seen the work that they
Speaker 3: put into it. Let's go, let's go showcase it. Let's
Speaker 3: go show it off and brag about it. Let's let's
Speaker 3: let you see how much we've fre treated the streets.
Speaker 3: Let's just let you see how we change the beat
Speaker 3: juice that we're using to be able to make sure
Speaker 3: they're actually aggresed up on it so that yesterday it
Speaker 3: doesn't go across by And all we're complaining about is
Speaker 3: the snow cloud tractor wasn't on and working. And we
Speaker 3: may communicate about that, right that's actually a win, but
Speaker 3: it's not framed as a win because we're not doing
Speaker 3: a good job of talking about it. And we have
Speaker 3: to continue to push the administration. We have to continue
Speaker 3: to push the city and have that expectation that there
Speaker 3: are a lot of cities that are doing a really
Speaker 3: great job on how they communicate their work and their success,
Speaker 3: which makes people feel more confident city, because right now
Speaker 3: we have to recognize that for decades we have failed
Speaker 3: in some of these areas, and now we have to
Speaker 3: earn your trust back. It's not just about saying like
Speaker 3: trust me, I'm stuff wallsh right, It's about saying trust
Speaker 3: me and by the way, go look at yourself.
Speaker 2: And the thing is too you know, it's a young, vibrant,
Speaker 2: democratic led city and so you've got a lot of
Speaker 2: young people in this administration, and that seems like an
Speaker 2: easy thing to fix relative to you know, get a
Speaker 2: and maybe not an influencer per se, but someone who
Speaker 2: is knowledgeable in social media and have them putting videos together,
Speaker 2: put it out on social You know, how we're changing
Speaker 2: the beat juice recipe and all that.
Speaker 1: That seems relativelyazy, and I know other cities do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would think so too. Again, I'm
Speaker 3: not a pr expert, so I don't want to be
Speaker 3: over here saying exactly how it is. But I agree,
Speaker 3: and I'm just as frustrated that we don't do a
Speaker 3: better job at our victory left. And I hope the
Speaker 3: message that they hear here is we want to celebrate you.
Speaker 3: People want to talk about it. If people want to
Speaker 3: feel to talk about what's actually positively happened in the city,
Speaker 3: you get the absence of talking about the positive things
Speaker 3: that we do because we just expect you're going to
Speaker 3: pick it up. You're only going to talk about the
Speaker 3: negative things. And when the negative things happen, it feels
Speaker 3: like that's all that's happening in the City of Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: That's not the case. We have a lot of things
Speaker 3: that we should be very proud of, but we should
Speaker 3: talk about them outside of the month. Leave us to
Speaker 3: an election, because we do some really great work at
Speaker 3: the City of Cincinnat. They are great people that are
Speaker 3: dedicating their lives to it. Let's talk about it, let's
Speaker 3: celebrate it, and we don't do a good job on that.
Speaker 2: You need to be more like You need to be
Speaker 2: more like Trump, for God's sakes, and break your arm,
Speaker 2: pat yourself on your back.
Speaker 3: That's that's one way to do it. I mean, again,
Speaker 3: I don't even run my social media, so I'm really
Speaker 3: not want to criticize it too hard on this too much,
Speaker 3: you know, but there is a point to say. And
Speaker 3: you know again, we literally had the snowfall yesterday. This
Speaker 3: is this is an easy layoup to celebrate it earlier.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: I'm glad to get the chance to talk about it,
Speaker 3: but I wish that we did more to celebrate it.
Speaker 2: Wait, we had some calls in our newsroom about it
Speaker 2: and it wasn't about the the streets. Mean, it's like,
Speaker 2: why isn't the snowplot tracker working? And people were more
Speaker 2: mad about the lack of communication. It was because the
Speaker 2: streets were relatively okay. They weren't like, you know, people
Speaker 2: couldn't get up the cut in the hill, you know,
Speaker 2: the typical things we've seen when we get a lot
Speaker 2: of snow. It was more like you guys, you touted
Speaker 2: this thing, you spent the money, you did the whole
Speaker 2: contest for it, and then it's a nothing burger When
Speaker 2: we actually had a little snow, I think people just
Speaker 2: wanted to see it. To your point, And the communication thing,
Speaker 2: I'll point this out too, is and this is just
Speaker 2: another example of Okay, so interim chief.
Speaker 1: Henny is the interim chief.
Speaker 2: We're going to get a new public information officer for CPD,
Speaker 2: which I think is needed. They're at full time squat officers,
Speaker 2: all watches, the crime center hours have been extended, and
Speaker 2: all these other things that Henny's doing. But back to
Speaker 2: the central thing. He's the interim chief or is he
Speaker 2: the actual chief at this point? I mean interims generally
Speaker 2: hold on and not don't do anything until someone else
Speaker 2: comes in and officially becomes chief and they put their
Speaker 2: stamp on it if Terry Thiji is still the chief, technically,
Speaker 2: why is he making all these changes?
Speaker 1: Again communication, Yes.
Speaker 3: I mean very much so. I think that's a unique situation.
Speaker 3: I forget he pop on my office yesterday as talking
Speaker 3: about this one of your colleagues, Scott. But I do
Speaker 3: think that's the unique situation sense that interim Chief Henny
Speaker 3: has inherited a situation where we have a public safety
Speaker 3: crisis that we've been trying to get our hands wrapped thrown.
Speaker 3: I think the worst thing we could do is just
Speaker 3: put it in them in there and not try what
Speaker 3: their ideas are. And he has great support from the
Speaker 3: police department, so I have great confidence ideas he's putting
Speaker 3: forward or their suggestions for how they can solve this.
Speaker 3: But to your point, we do need to communicate that way.
Speaker 3: We need to have the press for a while, we
Speaker 3: need to have the introduction to the community because as
Speaker 3: a minimum for the contract, the investigation is going to
Speaker 3: go to the end of this year, so he's going
Speaker 3: to be the inner in police chief for at least
Speaker 3: two months and that is not an intant insignificant amount
Speaker 3: of time. They're very busy period in Cincinnati, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: how do we do better at communicating and making sure
Speaker 3: people feel comfortable with him, whether that's just the short
Speaker 3: term or long term, and make sure they're comfortable with
Speaker 3: the decisions he's making. I do think you're spot on.
Speaker 3: A lot of the problems that we experienced this summer
Speaker 3: could have maybe been a little bit more mitigated if
Speaker 3: we communicated better. And I've said that that's why one
Speaker 3: of the reasons I come on here. We just have
Speaker 3: to keep challenging it to say, hey, we can do
Speaker 3: better on that. Because we challenge the snow situations, do
Speaker 3: better on that. And look, they did better on that.
Speaker 3: And as I said to you last week, my job
Speaker 3: is that you guys never even know my name because
Speaker 3: things are going so smoothly, and so yesterday I think
Speaker 3: things went smoothly enough that we're complaining about communication. That's
Speaker 3: a great problem to have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess I get what you're
Speaker 2: saying is, hey, the plows aren't running and so, but
Speaker 2: if you're treating streets, you put a you know, the
Speaker 2: the plows that had the assault on them, because actually,
Speaker 2: for a minute it was they were on and we
Speaker 2: were watching it early on in the morning and said, okay,
Speaker 2: there's only two streets that I don't know. It was
Speaker 2: like seven o'clock that been done and then you switched
Speaker 2: it off, and I went, wow, wonder for that having
Speaker 2: problems with the system or I couldn't put it together. Now,
Speaker 2: what you're saying makes sense, because if you had two
Speaker 2: trucks out there that were just salting the trouble spots,
Speaker 2: that now makes sense in retrospect. But if I'm a taxpayer,
Speaker 2: if I'm a property or you know, citizen of Cincinnati,
Speaker 2: I look at it and go, what the hell are
Speaker 2: they doing here? Just like the breakdown and communication, we
Speaker 2: just need to I know we've been talking about doing better,
Speaker 2: but it seems like with the police department getting a
Speaker 2: new public information officer, it seems like the city needs
Speaker 2: a little bit more that someone to handle the communications.
Speaker 2: And maybe it's a departmental thing. Maybe streets and bridges
Speaker 2: and the street department needs someone to handle all that
Speaker 2: up on social media. Not that we want to spend
Speaker 2: more money, but communication is key and it really undermines
Speaker 2: all the hard work that behind the scenes that the
Speaker 2: city's been doing stuff well.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, we have a small but mighty team
Speaker 3: handling communications at the city of Cincinnaty, and I don't
Speaker 3: think it s fielverlooked is that they are putting entriagy
Speaker 3: in a lot of situations constantly, and so I think
Speaker 3: again communications, you know, there's a strategy to it some
Speaker 3: of it. You know, you can choose one way and
Speaker 3: then you're always wrong and should go the other way.
Speaker 3: I think what we're talking about here is, you know,
Speaker 3: how do we get strategic about some of these victories
Speaker 3: and talk and talk that way? And part of that is,
Speaker 3: let's just you know, we just have to encourage them
Speaker 3: like that the area that I think would be very
Speaker 3: helpful to be engaged in. That doesn't mean that they're
Speaker 3: not doing a good job, but they are a small
Speaker 3: but mighty team here. To your point, we're not spending
Speaker 3: a lot of money on commun cations of the city.
Speaker 3: Maybe when you beat that up, maybe that is a
Speaker 3: conversation we need to have. But those who are working
Speaker 3: on it deserved the kudos for putting on a lot
Speaker 3: of fires constantly throughout the day. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: Scott cloves in the city trying to get information from
Speaker 3: the city.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2: He is a council member of REELECXS Seth Walsh on
Speaker 2: the Scott Slane Show on seven hundred WW AKA mister
Speaker 2: plow and mister development. I was good to have you back,
Speaker 2: but I'm glad you I'm glad you won your seat.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate it, Scott, thank you too, Lated all.
Speaker 1: Right, appreciate it, thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Hopefully got some answers there, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't drive in the city yesterday, but maybe you did.
Speaker 1: And how did they do?
Speaker 2: By the way, if you're a you're driving in the
Speaker 2: city yesterday compared to maybe years past, granted to say,
Speaker 2: very small sample size and a little bit of snow,
Speaker 2: but how did it all work? Outside of the snowplow
Speaker 2: Tracker app five one, three, seven, four, nine, seven thousand
Speaker 2: eight of the Big One talk back on the iHeart
Speaker 2: Radio app. We'll do that next right after news on
Speaker 2: seven hundred WW.