Speaker 1: In AMers County.
Speaker 2: It's phony here on seven hundred WLW ready to rock
Speaker 2: and roll this morning. I'm not quite sure what's going
Speaker 2: on with her behind the scenes stuff. Hold on just
Speaker 2: a second, I have a guest on the show here. Momentarily,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna do this. Oh wow, all right, So
Speaker 2: trying to get hold of Alisha reached she was going
Speaker 2: to jump in this morning and talk about the fifty
Speaker 2: million dollar property tax relief incentive. Number one issue for
Speaker 2: every man and woman, I would save to say in
Speaker 2: Hamlin County, Butler County, Warren County, pretty much in the
Speaker 2: state is the issue of property taxes. I had yesterday
Speaker 2: on the show, Bill Sites, who was a co chair
Speaker 2: of the working group the governor put together. They came
Speaker 2: up with like a twenty point plan, and a lot
Speaker 2: of it makes you kind of your eyes glaze over.
Speaker 2: It's just numbers and terms that we don't easily understand.
Speaker 2: You know, we start talking about. Bottom line is if
Speaker 2: you're lucky, maybe you saw a twenty percent increase, but
Speaker 2: some people have seen two hundred, three hundred percent increases.
Speaker 2: Now for the average person, it's an extra I don't
Speaker 2: like eleven bucks, twelve bucks a month. In some cases
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, no big deal. If you're a senior
Speaker 2: and you're pinching pennies, a little more difficult there. But
Speaker 2: the big problem, of course, is when you start to
Speaker 2: see some folks who are getting hit literally with hundreds
Speaker 2: and hundreds of dollars more, that's a different story entirely.
Speaker 2: Alicia Reese, Hamlin County Commissioner, on the show on seven
Speaker 2: hundred WLW welcome back.
Speaker 1: How you been, Hey, great? How are you love? I'm
Speaker 1: doing what?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's good to be back. It's good to be here.
Speaker 2: Limping along. I saw the Butler County. A bunch of
Speaker 2: counties are doing stuff right. Butler County is doing a
Speaker 2: fifty million dollar property tax relief initiative. As I said,
Speaker 2: number one issue for voters right now is that. A
Speaker 2: bunch of other counties too, I know that like Franklin
Speaker 2: County and others are doing things to try and relieve
Speaker 2: some of the burden. You saw this and it was
Speaker 2: almost what a year ago, I think a year ago,
Speaker 2: next month, this coming month, when you guys said, you
Speaker 2: know what, you're finally going to get that property tax rollback.
Speaker 2: We've guaranteed when we built an new stadiums a couple
Speaker 2: of several decades ago. Now, so the end result is
Speaker 2: you look at Butler County said, well, why aren't we
Speaker 2: doing that?
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely, thron you know, I've been on this issue.
Speaker 1: You've been on this issue. I've been on this show.
Speaker 1: We've been dealing with this when I first got elected
Speaker 1: almost five years ago, and we kept saying, probably taxes,
Speaker 1: it's the number one issue. That's what we said. And
Speaker 1: so one of the things that we've tried to do,
Speaker 1: of course short term things. One was I said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're talked about affordable housing. That's great, but we've got
Speaker 1: to also make sure that the people can afford to
Speaker 1: keep the house they already have. And so I said,
Speaker 1: we're going to take some of this money to help
Speaker 1: stop gap that because we've got these new appraisals coming through.
Speaker 1: So we put six million dollars to try to help
Speaker 1: people get through and hoping that the state legislature would
Speaker 1: get this solved. Then the next thing I did, I said, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I gave my state of the county
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, governor, let's free the taxes on
Speaker 1: senior citizens, particularly until the legislature gets this done. It's
Speaker 1: good to put a committee together, but I've been at
Speaker 1: the state House and I know what happens with those committees.
Speaker 1: They go back and forth, back and forth. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: your property tax is going up and you're trying to
Speaker 1: hang on to your house. And we had almost one
Speaker 1: hundred homeowners come down to the county one of the
Speaker 1: county meetings regarding this issue. I said, they need help
Speaker 1: right now, so I have them and freeze of property
Speaker 1: taxes on that. The other thing that we did was,
Speaker 1: you know, the thirty percent that was promised to voters
Speaker 1: so many years ago with the stadium deals. That was
Speaker 1: never kept. And in the four years I had been there,
Speaker 1: I was able to get it passed two of those years.
Speaker 1: And I've been on your show and certainly some of
Speaker 1: your listeners helped us to achieve that as well. But
Speaker 1: in the new Bengal deal lease, which is what I
Speaker 1: had the big problem with, we wouldn't be were we
Speaker 1: got rid of the thirty percent. You can't do thirty percent.
Speaker 1: I even asked the administrator and he said, no, there'll
Speaker 1: be no money in here for the taxpayers to get
Speaker 1: a thirty percent break. Even though that's what was promised,
Speaker 1: and that's why I didn't go with the deal. I said,
Speaker 1: the taxpayers are written out of the deal. I can't
Speaker 1: go with it. But now we're seeing a law was
Speaker 1: passed where it allows us at the local level to
Speaker 1: double the homestead. Now we would have to pay for it,
Speaker 1: you know, every county would have to pay for it.
Speaker 1: So Butler County stepped up and I talked to one
Speaker 1: of the commissioners there because I had some interest in it.
Speaker 1: They stepped up and said, Hey, we're gonna do fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars. We're going to double this homestead and we're
Speaker 1: going to do it with our own money until the
Speaker 1: state gets it together. I then introduced the motion just
Speaker 1: last week when I saw that, and I said, mister
Speaker 1: Administrator Jeffaluto, who we're putting our budget together for you know,
Speaker 1: we do one year budget, so we're putting the budget
Speaker 1: together now. He had never mentioned it at first, and
Speaker 1: so I introduced the motion in the meeting saying, I
Speaker 1: want this looked into immediately. And I can't even because
Speaker 1: each of us turn in our budgets. I can't turn
Speaker 1: in a budget. If I didn't know that we could
Speaker 1: do this because I now want to look at this right.
Speaker 1: So we would have turned in our budgets and had
Speaker 1: no idea we could do this. I said, hold on,
Speaker 1: I need to know about this and come. And then
Speaker 1: I asked him, I said, well, why did Butler County
Speaker 1: move so quick? He said, oh, yeah, by the way,
Speaker 1: you have in October. We have a deadline this month
Speaker 1: to make a decision. And so again when we looked
Speaker 1: at the budgets, we always find money for, you know,
Speaker 1: the big projects, you know, whether it's a Bengal leave
Speaker 1: or a big project. But when it comes to the people,
Speaker 1: they say, oh, we're broke. We're not able to help
Speaker 1: the homeowner. And I told him, I said, my number
Speaker 1: one thing, we can't price the people out of Hamilton
Speaker 1: County where they can't afford to live here and can't
Speaker 1: afford to hold on to their home. I had gotten
Speaker 1: a letter one time from a senior citizen. You could
Speaker 1: tell she could barely write. And she hands me shaking
Speaker 1: based on the letter, and she said she had never
Speaker 1: in her life she missed her property tax. She always
Speaker 1: pays her taxes, but she just can't do it, and
Speaker 1: she deserves to hold onto her home and that really
Speaker 1: touched me. And after that I just have been, you know,
Speaker 1: relentless on trying to get this done. Now they've issued
Speaker 1: a report from the state. You know, some of this
Speaker 1: stuff got to go to the legislature. They got to
Speaker 1: take it to the House, and they got to take
Speaker 1: to the Senate, and they got to go back and forth.
Speaker 1: But people need help immediately, and so I have put
Speaker 1: a motion forward to see if we can at least
Speaker 1: start with this budget doubling the homestead to help our seniors. Again,
Speaker 1: I would I would encourage the governor to freeze these
Speaker 1: property taxes until they can get it done, so that
Speaker 1: can put some sense of urgency on it. But if
Speaker 1: Butler County is doing it, Warren County's looking into it,
Speaker 1: I think we've got to look into it.
Speaker 2: So it's just you know, the rich suburban communities like
Speaker 2: Butler and Warcott. Green County's doing something. They said that
Speaker 2: they're going to temporar roll back a half middle of
Speaker 2: the inside millage. Montgomery County, which is Dayton, of course,
Speaker 2: said they're working on promoting property tax relief and expanding
Speaker 2: homestead which you did here in Hamlin County. Owner occupancy
Speaker 2: credit stuff like that as well. And so it's not
Speaker 2: just the wealthy quote unquote wealth of your suburbs are
Speaker 2: doing this. It's happening all of the states simply because
Speaker 2: it is so broken. Yesterday in the show, I had
Speaker 2: the code chair and former Ohio House Minority Speaker from
Speaker 2: Green Township, Bill Sites on the show. He was the
Speaker 2: co chair of the working group the governor put together
Speaker 2: to try and come up with a plan. They issued
Speaker 2: a twenty point plan to try and fix the property
Speaker 2: tax issue. One of the things came up and see
Speaker 2: if you agree with this or not, and that is
Speaker 2: the control through the county Budget Commission, which would be
Speaker 2: the Hamlet County Budget Commissioner, or your concern would be
Speaker 2: the reduction of unnecessary excessive levees basically meaning instad saying
Speaker 2: that you know, you can't if a levee fails, you
Speaker 2: can't come back right away put the levee back on
Speaker 2: the ballot. From someone who is very pro local control,
Speaker 2: county control, how does that sit with you?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the state always what I call it
Speaker 1: trickle down taxation. They cut things at the state level
Speaker 1: and they pass it on to the local level and
Speaker 1: really don't give us the power. I'll give you an
Speaker 1: example of people dealing with their sewer bills and I
Speaker 1: wanted when I first got there, I said, well, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, let's try to put a freeze on it
Speaker 1: for senior citizens, etc. They said, no, you can't do
Speaker 1: that because the state. You got to get approval from
Speaker 1: a state, and then the state never did give us approval.
Speaker 1: They're still running around talking about they got a build,
Speaker 1: but they never put it in the budget. You know,
Speaker 1: some of this control they're talking about, it was never
Speaker 1: put in the state budget. And being at the state,
Speaker 1: if it's not at the state budget, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a deadline. And if it doesn't have a deadline at
Speaker 1: the state, you know how they do, They study, study, study,
Speaker 1: at what they do is say go back home, and
Speaker 1: then when you go home, they you know, they cut
Speaker 1: the local government fund. I don't, we don't have money
Speaker 1: to do anything. Uh. You know, I was up in
Speaker 1: the state. I remember they kept saying, well, raise the
Speaker 1: taxes at the local level, and we're gonna cut it
Speaker 1: up at this level. And I jumped them and said,
Speaker 1: this is trickle down taxation. So again it's almost a
Speaker 1: passing of the buck. Uh. You know, because what I've
Speaker 1: seen is that the state could fix this problem immediately.
Speaker 1: And what we have right now is we have a
Speaker 1: we have you know, property tax are do and bills
Speaker 1: are due right now, and we're talking about studying and
Speaker 1: a long term approach. I think we need a long
Speaker 1: term plan, but you know, the lady that wrote me
Speaker 1: and the other people that I've interacted with, they need
Speaker 1: a right now plan. And I'm hoping that there are
Speaker 1: some things that we can do. Hopefully doubling this homestead
Speaker 1: will be Hopefully we can move forward with it. The debate, though,
Speaker 1: is does the local people pay or does the state
Speaker 1: give us the money to pay the doll.
Speaker 2: That's the problem, right this goes well, the problem is,
Speaker 2: of course, it goes back to what's Strickland. And the
Speaker 2: idea was, hey, you know what, we've got to right
Speaker 2: size the state budget. And so what we're gonna do
Speaker 2: is we're gonna cut off all the local money because
Speaker 2: we'd send our money to Columbus kind of like we
Speaker 2: do Washington and it trickles back to us. And that
Speaker 2: was the plan, all right, so we send our money, well,
Speaker 2: you know what, we're gonna do stuff at the state
Speaker 2: level we're going to cut off the local supply to
Speaker 2: counties and municipalities and alike. And that, of course, over
Speaker 2: the years, has put a lot of areas in a crunch.
Speaker 2: Property tax has a hand in that to some degree.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, okay, Well, the state is flushed
Speaker 2: with cash. Look at our well balanced budget. We've got
Speaker 2: a surplus at the state. The problem is that the
Speaker 2: money's not flo flowing back to the local communities and
Speaker 2: hasn't for some time. So in order to raise capital,
Speaker 2: you guys have to, Well, we got to raise taxes,
Speaker 2: We've got to put levies out there, and now we're
Speaker 2: going to put a cap on the lobbies. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying it's right or wrong, but it's it's the state
Speaker 2: of politics because the entities at the time, to put
Speaker 2: it together, we're trying to run for higher office. That
Speaker 2: makes you look good when you're flushed with cash at
Speaker 2: the state level, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, at the state level they always say we
Speaker 1: got this rainy day. Fun I said, well, it's storming
Speaker 1: down here where I'm at at Hamilton County. Give it
Speaker 1: to us. And like you said, once you send it,
Speaker 1: it's like Washington. Once you send it to Washington. Don't.
Speaker 1: It never comes back. You know, we only get a
Speaker 1: small percentage once you send it to the state. It
Speaker 1: doesn't come back, just like a unclaimed funds, which I'm
Speaker 1: I'm pushing Sloan right now with my five one three
Speaker 1: relief bus. We're trying to help people get their money back.
Speaker 1: They want to give our money to Cleveland. We're not
Speaker 1: getting it back here. They gave six hundred million in
Speaker 1: the budget for Cleveland Browns out of our unclaim money.
Speaker 1: Focus on everybody claim our money.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I pushed back a little on that. Well, that's money
Speaker 2: that's been sitting around for ten years. And I would
Speaker 2: say this, like, if you're not plugged in enough to
Speaker 2: hear all the people talking about unclaimed monds funds, you
Speaker 2: go check the website. I went and checked, and I
Speaker 2: got like a check of a It took like thirty years,
Speaker 2: but I got to check for four hundred dollars. They're
Speaker 2: pretty happy and unplaying money.
Speaker 1: That was owed to me.
Speaker 2: But you know, you got to get off your ass
Speaker 2: if it's your money and get it after ten years.
Speaker 2: It's public money.
Speaker 1: But let me say this though, for years people because
Speaker 1: of the scams, people were thinking Is this real? Is
Speaker 1: this a scam? Is this one of those fraud things?
Speaker 1: So you had to get over that, and then they
Speaker 1: made it kind of difficult. You know those who were
Speaker 1: in the know, who you know, were able to do it.
Speaker 1: So now we're gonna make it simple. We've got the laptops,
Speaker 1: we got the five one three relief bus. They can
Speaker 1: go to five one three relief out or find the bus.
Speaker 1: And they ain't go. I saw a lady, a senior citizen.
Speaker 1: She jumped up and said, what they had two hundred
Speaker 1: of my money? You know, where the hell are you being?
Speaker 1: She thought it was a fraud.
Speaker 3: A lot of people, you know, because you know all
Speaker 3: these things, you know, you gotta do a look now
Speaker 3: you got to be good for people like you were
Speaker 3: out there doing the business, representing people and you're telling
Speaker 3: them it's like, oh, look, well I didn't believe it's Aleisha.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing. We were.
Speaker 2: We had enough people like yours talking about getting your
Speaker 2: money back. And if you don't want it to go
Speaker 2: to Cleveland, uh, then you know, and I didn't. I
Speaker 2: didn't want my four hundred dollars going to Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll be honest with you, I didn't know we
Speaker 1: had four billion dollars sitting up there. That a lot
Speaker 1: of money. A lot of people could be helped with it.
Speaker 1: If they were saying, we're gonna put that money toward
Speaker 1: the homestead, wouldn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now Brown's are getting the news.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 2: And by the way, you got that deal done. You
Speaker 2: finally we got the stadium deal done and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Stadium deal. Okay, we got the stadium deal done, and
Speaker 2: then we turn around and the Bengals are terrible? Can
Speaker 2: we get our money back?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm and I tried to tell you that you
Speaker 1: got to read the sign print of these deals and
Speaker 1: the taxpayers was written. Now now now I'm on your
Speaker 1: show and you're hollering we won our money back? Get
Speaker 1: we not winning? And at the same time, Brandma's house,
Speaker 1: she can't hold onto her house. What did we get
Speaker 1: out of the deal. We needed one of those Denver
Speaker 1: Broncos deals where they said they're putting up all private
Speaker 1: money and we could have saved at Grandma's house. And
Speaker 1: so now we're fighting again to hold the property taxes.
Speaker 1: We took out the thirty percent, so now you can't
Speaker 1: get the thirty percent rebate that you and I have
Speaker 1: been fighting for every single year at least you can
Speaker 1: get something back, and that's not happening. And now we're
Speaker 1: not winning. And now we've got a deal, and we
Speaker 1: got a lease that will end at the same time
Speaker 1: as the Reds lease. Oh my god, we got problem.
Speaker 1: Maybe I said, have come on here you and gave
Speaker 1: me a headache.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I got your workdof You're the one who
Speaker 2: wanted the damn job, and now you don't want the
Speaker 2: damn job.
Speaker 1: I want the dog. But I'm trying to tell the people.
Speaker 1: I'm only one vote. And even with the property taxes,
Speaker 1: last time we had to fight, it was a two
Speaker 1: to one vote. I mean we didn't we didn't get
Speaker 1: a unanimous So again, uh, we're gonna keep fighting for this.
Speaker 1: I got a motion out. I want you. We're doing that.
Speaker 1: We're getting ready to the budget. And I told the
Speaker 1: vister Ludo, Now we can't say we're broke today and
Speaker 1: then tomorrow you got an eight hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar post almost a billion dollar Bengal lease and the
Speaker 1: taxpayers are left out. So that's what we're doing. But
Speaker 1: throw on Wednesday, next Wednesday, put on your pink. Put
Speaker 1: on your pink is Breast Cancer Awareness Day. My mother
Speaker 1: passed from it. A lot of other people had cancer.
Speaker 1: I've got a cancer Caucus state of cancer. It's hitting everybody.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care about your age, your race, your social status.
Speaker 1: The rates have gone up in Hamilton County. So we've
Speaker 1: got doctors in a call to action so that we
Speaker 1: get more screenings that no co pay and all that.
Speaker 1: And we're doing it next Wednesday. I want all celebrities,
Speaker 1: all the people in Hamilton County. We're wearing pink. But
Speaker 1: it's not just breast cancer. We're gonna take on all
Speaker 1: of the cancer and look at how we could get
Speaker 1: more money, more clinical trials, and more cures.
Speaker 2: But we got to do it through early detection from
Speaker 2: non Hodgkins lymfalma and breast cancers hit friends and family members.
Speaker 2: I know it all too well. And uh, I'm glad
Speaker 2: you're raising awareness for it. And I'm gonna I'll be
Speaker 2: glad to wear pink next Wednesday. The Cancer Caucus. She
Speaker 2: is a Hamlin County commissioner, Alicia Reese, trying her best
Speaker 2: to try and get some of that money back. All right, Alicia,
Speaker 2: I gotta get going. I always love having me on.
Speaker 2: You're a spark of light in another wase dismal Hamlin County.
Speaker 2: Let me put it that way.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. Let's keep the fight norse all right.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you, appreciate you. Have a great day. We'll chat
Speaker 2: again next time. I got to get to a news update.
Speaker 2: I always love having Lisa bring noise. I have a
Speaker 2: little buyer's remorse at that state. I've got the stadium,
Speaker 2: they'll done. Can we get some of the unclaimed fun money?
Speaker 2: Maybe buy an offensive linement or two?
Speaker 1: Huh? Can we can we?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 2: All right now, Mike Brown's like, wait, what can we do?
Speaker 1: Can we do that?
Speaker 2: We can get players and we don't have to pay
Speaker 2: for I don't have to cut a chick. Hey wait
Speaker 2: a minutelet's fuck into that. Hey hey, he's on the side.
Speaker 2: Hey hey, oh frugalism. It's five minutes away from a
Speaker 2: news update. We'll do that and more to follow. Sloane
Speaker 2: here on this rainy and we welcome the rain on
Speaker 2: this Tuesday morning, by the way, because it's been bone
Speaker 2: dry for two damn long rain for a good solid day,
Speaker 2: good hard rain we needed here. Seven hundred w welwt