Speaker 1: Don't want to be an americandio shorright here we go,
Speaker 1: Here we go slowey seven hundred WLW. Very sad and
Speaker 1: horrible story here. As you know, we had a casualty
Speaker 1: on New Year's Day, the first shooting of twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: and it happened to be an eleven year old girl
Speaker 1: who was committing the deadly sin in areas since in
Speaker 1: some aria of Cincinnati of actually playing at a playground.
Speaker 1: That's a horrible story in a horrible way, horrible thing
Speaker 1: for any parent or grandparent or family member to go through,
Speaker 1: but especially on a New Year's Day with a child
Speaker 1: who just celebrated Christmas. So another shooting at or near
Speaker 1: Laurel Playground on the West End. If you go back
Speaker 1: a couple of years, there's a promise to put more
Speaker 1: cameras up, and cameras are on us specifically in that
Speaker 1: area because there have been shootings and kids being struck,
Speaker 1: and the inquirers of Scott Warpman reported the stories when
Speaker 1: being confusion and contradictions, lack of accountability. If you budgeted
Speaker 1: the money council did to put those cameras up, how
Speaker 1: come the cameras aren't up that is a good question.
Speaker 1: She sits on public Safety, the Committee of Public Safety,
Speaker 1: and that be council member. And I'll be on the
Speaker 1: Scottsland Show this morning on seven hundred W out of
Speaker 1: and a happy new year. How are you.
Speaker 2: Good morning? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the mayor said we will spare
Speaker 1: nothing to put a stop to this after the shooting
Speaker 1: death of this eleven year old, and it sounds like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's again more important things to say, more
Speaker 1: things to say, and giving lip service to this. But
Speaker 1: if two years ago you on council approved one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars for cameras to go up in
Speaker 1: the West End as part of that four and a
Speaker 1: half million dollar public safety package, what's going on the
Speaker 1: camera's up?
Speaker 3: I wish I had a better answer for you, but
Speaker 3: it appears that there's still work to be done to
Speaker 3: get those dollars out the door and those cameras installed.
Speaker 2: So, just to set.
Speaker 3: A little bit of context through listeners, in early September,
Speaker 3: city Council past a five point four million dollar public
Speaker 3: safety package. It's part of that, there a bunch of
Speaker 3: different things which included one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: specifically for cameras in the West. And additionally, there was
Speaker 3: another one point two million that was meant to be
Speaker 3: for lighting and cameras broadly city wide.
Speaker 2: And those are.
Speaker 3: Two line items in that bill that I was personally
Speaker 3: very passionate about because while we know sometimes you know,
Speaker 3: cameras can't stop a crime necessarily, it sure makes it
Speaker 3: a lot easier to solve the crime and in this case,
Speaker 3: to apprehend a killer, someone who shot and killed an eleven.
Speaker 2: Year old on New Year's Day.
Speaker 3: So this is a moment of urgency for myself, for
Speaker 3: my colleagues, and the mayor and the city manager. We
Speaker 3: are all eager to get those dollars out the door.
Speaker 3: And frankly, we're looking to CPD at this moment.
Speaker 2: You know, those.
Speaker 3: Dollars, those at one hundred and fifty thousand for Western cameras,
Speaker 3: sits within the police budget, and we need to get
Speaker 3: those dollars out the door.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that was September of last year. I mean,
Speaker 1: here we are in January. Should it take that long?
Speaker 3: No, it absolutely should not, and I think everyone should be.
Speaker 2: Mad that it has.
Speaker 3: We should be able to move a lot faster especially
Speaker 3: since you know, council passed that package at five point
Speaker 3: four million with the urgency of responding to the moment
Speaker 3: over the summer when we had a series of incidents
Speaker 3: as well. So if we're moving with urgency, we should
Speaker 3: expect that of every single person administration, including some side police.
Speaker 3: Right we are trying to make it easier to prevent
Speaker 3: crime and solve crimes that are happening. So those dollars
Speaker 3: are sitting there. My understanding is we need to get
Speaker 3: with some you know, business owners so we can have
Speaker 3: permission to put cameras on their property.
Speaker 2: So you know, my ask is, if you are a
Speaker 2: business owner.
Speaker 3: In that area and you are willing to have a
Speaker 3: camera or lights put on your building, email my office
Speaker 3: let me know and I will make sure since I
Speaker 3: police that reaches out to you as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: Well, and I'd imagine there isn't a business owner down
Speaker 1: there that wouldn't go, yeah, I'd love a camera up,
Speaker 1: no problem, because it affects their quality of life, their business,
Speaker 1: their bottom line with this crime continuing, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's I guess it's going to take a little bit
Speaker 1: of time, but it seems reasonable to have this done
Speaker 1: at least by the first of the year, for sure.
Speaker 1: And it's not the first time we've had a shooting
Speaker 1: or violent crime happen around this playground, for God's sakes,
Speaker 1: and now the end result is because of I don't know,
Speaker 1: lack of accountability or confusion, contradiction or incompetence or a
Speaker 1: combination of all of those. You have an eleven year old.
Speaker 1: It's dead. There's literally bloods blood on the hands of
Speaker 1: elected officials because of the lack of movement on this project.
Speaker 3: You are not wrong that we need to move faster.
Speaker 3: I completely agree with the urgency of the moment. You know,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of questions. You know, the council
Speaker 3: is asking around why these dollars haven't moved faster. And
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, you know, actually we
Speaker 3: cannot turn back time, which is a heartbreaking reality. So
Speaker 3: from this moment on, it's what can we do going forward?
Speaker 3: And to me, it's the camera as well as lighting.
Speaker 3: I went down to that playground for the balloon release
Speaker 3: of the Little Girl and you know, it was round
Speaker 3: five o'clock, stayed there until after six. The right is
Speaker 3: the sun setting and it's dark. It is not lit there,
Speaker 3: and we know that you know, places that are well lit,
Speaker 3: especially ones where kids are going to be playing. You know,
Speaker 3: early evening six o'clock is not that late, but then
Speaker 3: the middle of winter it's dark out right. We need
Speaker 3: to have these spaces well lit so that they are
Speaker 3: states and then you pair that with the cameras and
Speaker 3: make sure that there's that monitoring there.
Speaker 2: And that's what we need.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you right now, all council, the mayor
Speaker 3: or even the city manager, we are all moving on
Speaker 3: this with complete urgency. So again my ask is if
Speaker 3: you have owned property in that area and you're willing
Speaker 3: to raise your hand and have a camera or have lighting,
Speaker 3: reach out to me my office. I'm Anna dot Albi
Speaker 3: at cincinnatidshoh dot gov, and I will get you in
Speaker 3: contact with Cincinnati Police because at the end of day, like,
Speaker 3: we need a police out there.
Speaker 2: And if that means going door to door and.
Speaker 3: Knocking and asking who's willing to do this, like it's
Speaker 3: time to do that work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean two years ago, three well three now
Speaker 1: we had Dominic Davis killed another eleven year old all
Speaker 1: the same place ground right, and you know, okay, now
Speaker 1: let's get this thing fast tracked. It took till September
Speaker 1: of last year for you to allocate one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars for the camera expansion. And we spend
Speaker 1: a ton of money based on the crime that's happening downtown,
Speaker 1: on public safety. From a council person's position, an alby,
Speaker 1: do you look at it going Okay, well we order
Speaker 1: the money, here's the money, we're going to appropriate it,
Speaker 1: and then do you just move on to the next
Speaker 1: thing and the it's not finger pointing at you or
Speaker 1: council for that matter, about a simmer Fire council member,
Speaker 1: I would think we voted and passed something, hand that
Speaker 1: off to the city manager, the mayor's office, or whoever
Speaker 1: the police department, that there's going to be action on this.
Speaker 1: Should you have to follow up on everything you guys appropriated.
Speaker 1: From a funny.
Speaker 2: Perspective, I'm not here to dodge blame. I'm really not.
Speaker 3: But typically when council does the voting and the allocating,
Speaker 3: that is our part of the job. We have a
Speaker 3: city manager, former government, and we have you know, in
Speaker 3: this case it's the police chief, but in other departments
Speaker 3: it's directors. Right, we have a city indministration whose job
Speaker 3: then is to then execute on what we have allocated
Speaker 3: the vision. Right, So that's typically how it goes. Now
Speaker 3: in this situation, right, the buck stops with us elected.
Speaker 3: So I am not going to dodge the responsibility that
Speaker 3: I can, and I will be doing a better job
Speaker 3: checking in and making sure those dollars are out the door.
Speaker 3: In fact, you know, right before Christmas, I had multiple
Speaker 3: people ask me about the Feusist camera technology, which allows
Speaker 3: private camera owners to kind of connect their feed in
Speaker 3: with Cincinni Police.
Speaker 2: My people come up and being like, hey, we want.
Speaker 3: To do this, but we have no idea how So
Speaker 3: I literally got an email on Christmas Eve back from
Speaker 3: the assistancity manager being like, oh, yeah, the funds are there,
Speaker 3: and you know what, I should have followed up them
Speaker 3: and be like, great, we need to do more. So
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not going to duck and dodge responsibility. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's true that typically when council allocates the dollars and
Speaker 3: puts for the vision, it's then the administration's job to execute.
Speaker 3: But in this case, when it's life or death, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get my hands dirty and make sure we're
Speaker 3: in there. And making sure that we get those cameras up,
Speaker 3: get better in lighting. Those are all urgent, immediate actions.
Speaker 1: Okay, And I think that is a respect you for
Speaker 1: that and saying, hey, listen, you know we passed UF
Speaker 1: it's up to someone else to make sure it's the
Speaker 1: plan is executed. It doesn't seem fair that you'd have
Speaker 1: to go back and make sure that people follow your orders.
Speaker 1: So and you're saying, okay, the buck stops with us elected.
Speaker 1: I get that. I appreciate that, But where's the weak
Speaker 1: link here? Who's dropping the ball, who's not doing their
Speaker 1: job to make sure this money is being spent in
Speaker 1: those cameras being put up? Who is that on the
Speaker 1: city manager?
Speaker 2: That's a fair question. I'll say.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad owned a business for forty years
Speaker 3: and he had a problem solving process and it first
Speaker 3: started with solved the.
Speaker 2: Problem in hand.
Speaker 3: So the first step here is to solve the problem.
Speaker 3: So how do we get those cameras up? How do
Speaker 3: we get the lights installed? So once we solve the problem,
Speaker 3: we can go back and analyze what went wrong. But
Speaker 3: I'm here in the immediate moment, which is let's get
Speaker 3: these up, and in fact, just yesterday coming out of
Speaker 3: kind of a meeting with CPD and I think the
Speaker 3: City Manager's office we got camera tower with lights into
Speaker 3: Laurel Playground into that park area, right, So we are
Speaker 3: in the moment where we are solving the problem and
Speaker 3: we can go back and analyze after it's taken care of.
Speaker 1: I hope there is, because someone shouldn't have to be
Speaker 1: covered in this whole thing. I mean, I don't want
Speaker 1: to speak out of turn because I don't know the
Speaker 1: anal workings, but it seems like once you approved that
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, it goes to the
Speaker 1: city manager and then to the police department as well.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the cops don't want to get those
Speaker 1: cameras up. It helps them do their job. Is the
Speaker 1: week length the City Manager's office?
Speaker 3: No, those dollars are in Cincinnati Police budget, so they're
Speaker 3: now fully under Sincinnati Police kay area. So now I
Speaker 3: don't know the bureaucracy within the police department well enough
Speaker 3: to know who's the person doing outreach to those business owners, right.
Speaker 3: So again, I'm not in the spot at this moment
Speaker 3: where I'm trying to pick apart who's exact fault. I'm
Speaker 3: in a situation now where it's saying, Okay, how do
Speaker 3: we fix it? How do we want it forward?
Speaker 2: You know, So that's that's my priority at the moment.
Speaker 1: Now it might be because of the you know, the
Speaker 1: confusion after Chief Fiji. I mean, when you don't have
Speaker 1: a direct leader, you've got an interim chief. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of confusion, a lot of people looking
Speaker 1: over their shoulder and there. Do you think that contributed
Speaker 1: to this?
Speaker 3: I hope not.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't.
Speaker 3: Again, I don't know the inner workings of since my
Speaker 3: police bureaucracy not my area of expertise. But again, at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, right, we know that there's
Speaker 3: this problem, and if there are people in the West End,
Speaker 3: and I know the community Council has been kind of
Speaker 3: speaking a little bit about trying to get these cameras
Speaker 3: up as.
Speaker 2: Well, So email me.
Speaker 3: I will be that connector at this moment and make
Speaker 3: sure we get this done. We need to push hard
Speaker 3: at this moment. And it's not just this one one part, right,
Speaker 3: I firmly believe all of these play spaces that are
Speaker 3: supposed to be for kids, we need to make sure
Speaker 3: that they are well lit, have those cameras.
Speaker 2: So that kids can be outside.
Speaker 3: Right, It is every mother's grandmother's parents worst nightmare to
Speaker 3: have their life year old shot and kids while filming
Speaker 3: TikTok videos and playing in the park.
Speaker 2: Like, how horrific.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're an eleven year if you're a kid
Speaker 1: and can't be safe in a public park, I don't
Speaker 1: have an answer for that. I especially what angers I
Speaker 1: think everyone listening, Anna, i'llbe is the fact that we
Speaker 1: had an eleven year old shot and killed two years ago,
Speaker 1: and here we are again doing the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over. And when you talk to the city manager
Speaker 1: or the police department, they can't answer basic questions about
Speaker 1: whether or not the cameras that you guys ordered in
Speaker 1: September have been put up or not. We don't even
Speaker 1: know if they even do we know they even have
Speaker 1: any footage whatsoever of what transpired on New Year's Day.
Speaker 3: I know there is a camera in the area, I
Speaker 3: don't know more than that. I would kind of have
Speaker 3: to direct questions back to the police communications. You know,
Speaker 3: leader there again, this is clearly a breakdown and kind
Speaker 3: of getting dollars out the door and Frankly, this is
Speaker 3: a problem we have across the board with different city
Speaker 3: you know, initiatives, right, Council allocates dollars and then it
Speaker 3: can take weeks, months, maybe you know, longer, to get
Speaker 3: dollars out the door for projects. So when we think
Speaker 3: about making government work for people, it's got to be
Speaker 3: a priority for us to cut through that red tape
Speaker 3: so we can actually get the work done. And so
Speaker 3: that's something I'm going to be focusing on hard this
Speaker 3: next term. The second term here is Okay, we can
Speaker 3: have all the great intentions in the world, but if
Speaker 3: we can't get dollars out the door to get think
Speaker 3: initiatives up and running, intentions don't matter for anything, right,
Speaker 3: So we've got to be able to cut through the
Speaker 3: red tape and make government work for people.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Our residents should absolutely expect that if Council allocates dollars
Speaker 3: for cameras, those cameras get up and I again will
Speaker 3: take responsibility for that. We've got to be able to
Speaker 3: work faster and get things out the door.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But in all fairness to you, Anna Albe and
Speaker 1: other members of Council, whether it's Mark Jefferies or Seth Walsh,
Speaker 1: or Scottie Johnson. The fact of the matter is you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to follow about everything. You guys pay as
Speaker 1: to make sure it's actually getting executed. And I hope
Speaker 1: and I think the public deserves quite honestly, and no
Speaker 1: more so than those in the West End, because you know,
Speaker 1: we're told two and a half years ago, after the
Speaker 1: first eleven year old was shot to death, that this
Speaker 1: is intolerable, it's not going to happen, and we have
Speaker 1: yet another death, the same age, same situation, same location
Speaker 1: of something that we told We're told two and a
Speaker 1: half years ago that this isn't going to happen again.
Speaker 1: We're going to put the cameras up, and the cameras
Speaker 1: aren't up. And I think the public demands that. I
Speaker 1: think they deserve to know where the problem was. And
Speaker 1: you know, I know generally folks like yourself don't want
Speaker 1: to out others, but I think the public deserves that,
Speaker 1: because if I'm in the West End right now and
Speaker 1: you're telling me, and the mayor goes, hey, look we
Speaker 1: were after this one. We'll spare nothing to put a
Speaker 1: stop to this whole thing. Well, you said that two
Speaker 1: and a half years ago, and now we got another
Speaker 1: baby dead. I think we deserve to know what went wrong,
Speaker 1: where the fault was, what happened, and why it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And not only that, I think an apologies in order
Speaker 1: for those in the West then, and specifically if you're
Speaker 1: a West End resident, I is it fair for someone
Speaker 1: to go a look, I just don't trust you guys anymore.
Speaker 1: This is twice now.
Speaker 3: It's heartbreaking, right, And I know nothing I'm going to
Speaker 3: say to you is going to make a difference to
Speaker 3: the family, right, I know it, But I think you're
Speaker 3: absolutely correct. We need, frankly, a full audit of that
Speaker 3: entire five point four million dollars. We need to know
Speaker 3: how many of those dollars are off the door, what
Speaker 3: programs and processes are.
Speaker 2: Up and running because of it.
Speaker 3: I believe, but don't quote me on it, that this
Speaker 3: month or early next month, the Assistant City Manager over
Speaker 3: Public Safety APM. Bresina was going to come in and
Speaker 3: give us kind of a report out on those dollars.
Speaker 3: So if that's not on the agenda yet, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be pushing Public Safety Chare Council Number Johnson to
Speaker 3: make sure we do get.
Speaker 2: That full audit. And report out about where those dollars were.
Speaker 3: Because I know last time I talked to this assystem
Speaker 3: city manager, it was slow to get dollars out the door,
Speaker 3: which again speaks to the broad process of how hard
Speaker 3: it is to cut through the red tape. You know,
Speaker 3: how tedious our pecurement processes are.
Speaker 2: All of that. So we got to be able to
Speaker 2: work faster.
Speaker 3: Especially in these urgent, critical life and death moments. So
Speaker 3: I one hundred percent agree we we counsel you. The
Speaker 3: public deserve a full readout of how that five point
Speaker 3: four million dollars has been spent already or what needs
Speaker 3: to still be get out the door and implemented.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so this is one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars of the five point four million that was allocated
Speaker 1: September for public safety. That's a small percentage. I'm not
Speaker 1: smart enough to do that math off the top of
Speaker 1: the my head without a calculator and a slide rule
Speaker 1: and an advocacy and all, but you probably are. But
Speaker 1: I look at this and go, okay, well, if we
Speaker 1: don't know how one hundred and fifty was spent, how
Speaker 1: can we trust that the other five five point four
Speaker 1: and change is being spent properly. You have to go
Speaker 1: back and literally look and make sure every dollar that
Speaker 1: you guys allocated is being spent properly or at the
Speaker 1: very least the plan's been implemented. I mean, who the
Speaker 1: hell has that kind of time to follow up.
Speaker 3: And that's where we are at the moment, to be honest,
Speaker 3: and I don't think I don't want to be careful
Speaker 3: with language. It's not being spent properly. Dollars are not
Speaker 3: being improperly spent, right. It's a matter of getting through
Speaker 3: the red tape and the governmental procedures to actually get
Speaker 3: dollars out the door, right. And that's so I don't
Speaker 3: want people thinking that there's dollars going missing or anything
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: That's not what I'm talking about whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It's Minnesota, for god's sakes, it's Cincinnati, Okay.
Speaker 3: I just I want to be really careful with my
Speaker 3: language there. I don't want anyone to think something the
Speaker 3: serious is happening. It's just a matter of cutting through
Speaker 3: you know, processes here and get dollars out the door. So, yeah, again,
Speaker 3: we need to get an update from the city administration,
Speaker 3: whether that's the police interim police chief coming in and
Speaker 3: giving a report out about how those dollars that were
Speaker 3: allocated to since my police because a big chunk of
Speaker 3: that five point four million, and that's why I don't
Speaker 3: have to listen for to me was to police over
Speaker 3: time and other you know, police functions, including these cameras.
Speaker 3: You know, some of that also was for department transportation
Speaker 3: getting lighting up around the city. You know, there is
Speaker 3: other technology in there like the drones expansion and fusis
Speaker 3: and licensed plate readers. Right, we do need to know
Speaker 3: where we are on that securement process. You know, our
Speaker 3: contracts signed, Have we you know, signed the check our
Speaker 3: dollars out the door? Have things been implemented? So you know,
Speaker 3: I am looking now to the city administration for that
Speaker 3: complete rundown, whether that's from the city manager's office or
Speaker 3: from the department heads or in this case the interim
Speaker 3: police chief to know exactly where those dollars are and
Speaker 3: have they been spent yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. Once again, we have I think
Speaker 1: the biggest issue facing our government here locally, and I'll
Speaker 1: be is transparency and accountability, and those two things we
Speaker 1: get failed yet again. And this is I don't have
Speaker 1: enough fingers and toes to count how many times I've
Speaker 1: felt have had that feeling. And I'm sure people listening
Speaker 1: also going where's the accountability? Where's responsibility when you can't
Speaker 1: fulfill basic open records requests I mean, Scott Warman, the
Speaker 1: inquirement to try to figure this out. No one has
Speaker 1: any answers about how many cameras are up, which ones
Speaker 1: are working, where the money went, if it was spent,
Speaker 1: where the documentary. No one knows anything. That's not a
Speaker 1: good look for city government. And I know you're part
Speaker 1: of the solution, not the problem, and you're a good Again.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on the show this morning, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for the time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: And again for everyone listening, I want them to walk
Speaker 3: away understanding that this council, of this mayor the city manager,
Speaker 3: who frankly has lost a member for family two gun buyers,
Speaker 3: we are all committed to making things right, making things better,
Speaker 3: making sure people feel safe, and this is an overfixed tragedy,
Speaker 3: and I feel the heartbreak, and you know, my heart
Speaker 3: really goes out to the family and everyone in the
Speaker 3: community is acted all.
Speaker 1: Right and all the best, and thanks again, for joining me.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, take care all.
Speaker 1: Right, council member, and I'll be sitting on public safety.
Speaker 1: And you heard it here. How many times you a
Speaker 1: red tape, red tape, red tape And yet the mayor,
Speaker 1: we will spare nothing to put a stop to this.
Speaker 1: And you could have prevented this. And I think the
Speaker 1: blood is on the hands of I don't know. It
Speaker 1: could be the police, it could be the city manager's office,
Speaker 1: could be another entity in there, but damn it for once,
Speaker 1: how about some accountability. How about hey, here's where the
Speaker 1: weak link was and name names instead of because if not,
Speaker 1: you just continue to create the same pattern over and
Speaker 1: over again. And that is in competence, that is a
Speaker 1: lack of transparency and account of There's got to be
Speaker 1: some accountability with this death. Your thoughts five three, seven,
Speaker 1: four nine under the Big One talk back the the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app if you're extreaming the show there Scott Sloan
Speaker 1: show Back after News on seven hundred w Weld