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Speaker 1: Things that you have never seen. Hear it from the

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Speaker 1: voices you've never seen before. You can always trust never

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Speaker 1: On fifty five krs the talk station hit A six

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Speaker 1: ififty five kerr ce DE talk Station. Brian Thomas pleased

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Speaker 1: as I can be to look across the board here

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Speaker 1: and see Citizen Watchdog Todd Zenzer in studio and while

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Speaker 1: what an eye opening discussion we're gonna have Todd Zenzer's

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Speaker 1: in studio. His new podcast, Citizen Watchdog is the name

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Speaker 1: of it. Find it. You're gonna love hearing about it.

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Speaker 1: Talks about the subject better we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: this morning. Uh So, thanks Joe Strekker for producing it,

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Speaker 1: and thank you Todd Zenzer lending your experience as a

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Speaker 1: former US Inspector General. As a I joked about it

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Speaker 1: going into the break at the top of there is

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Speaker 1: kind of like a hobby during retirement. Man, you are

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Speaker 1: closely analyzing the expenditures of the City of Cincinnati, and

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Speaker 1: the timing of you being here could not be better.

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Speaker 1: Christopher Smithman was on this morning venting his spleen in

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Speaker 1: a special Spleen Done edition for this because the city

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Speaker 1: of Cincinnati is talking about a five percent across the

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Speaker 1: board cut, including cuts to public safety after infusing five

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Speaker 1: million plus dollars last year. Because we have a public

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Speaker 1: safety problem, they want to cut police and fire, claiming

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Speaker 1: we got a budget problem. They want to increase taxes

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Speaker 1: as well. Todd Zinzer, they have a hole to fill.

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Speaker 1: But whoa, whoa, whoa, Todd Zenzer. You told me before

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Speaker 1: we started talking on air this morning that we don't

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Speaker 1: have a budget problem in the city. Good to have

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Speaker 1: you back in, my friend.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Brian.

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Speaker 1: No, there isn't a budget problem.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't think there's a budget problem. They they

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Speaker 2: really have spent a lot of money just recently, for example,

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Speaker 2: on things that are not really towards public safety for example,

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Speaker 2: or any any of them must do type of things

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Speaker 2: that the city.

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Speaker 1: Has, road bridges, infrastructure, public safety, the core functions of government.

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Speaker 2: Yes, they just spent three point eight million dollars last week, folks,

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Speaker 2: on a dozen different purposes. Three of them, for example,

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Speaker 2: almost six hundred thousand dollars I think, on efforts to

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Speaker 2: help illegal immigrants who need representation against the government.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, of course that's a core function of cities

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Speaker 1: since a government.

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Speaker 2: Right, So there are things like that just a corp

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Speaker 2: of weeks ago they approved twelve million dollars for a

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Speaker 2: new solar array.

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Speaker 1: Oh you ah man, you you came in here to

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Speaker 1: piss me off.

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Speaker 2: And just I think part of this three point eight

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Speaker 2: this past week or this week, I think it was

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Speaker 2: this week actually four hundred and fifty thousand dollars to

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Speaker 2: help green to promote the Green workforce, which I don't

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Speaker 2: really know what that is, but those are the kind

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Speaker 2: of things that they spend money on that they.

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Speaker 1: Really don't need to the green workforce. Yeah, well, I

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Speaker 1: suppose that's an opportunity for party loyalists to get a

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Speaker 1: salary and probably do nothing but maybe wear t shirts

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Speaker 1: promoting the environment or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so much. There's so much of that, Brian,

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Speaker 2: And I think what they're trying to do with this

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Speaker 2: reparations issue is in the Green New Deal or the

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Speaker 2: Green New Green Cincinnati Plan, they put the plan in place,

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Speaker 2: and then throughout the year they spend money, and the

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Speaker 2: justification is it to implement the Green Cincinnati Plan. So

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Speaker 2: the cost of that particular program doesn't need to need

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Speaker 2: to be justified on its own, it's justified by the

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Speaker 2: Green Cincinnati Plan. They're going to do the same thing

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Speaker 2: with this reparations plan, is they're going to They're going

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Speaker 2: to set it up and then as they spend money

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Speaker 2: throughout the year on things that tangentially fit that, they'll

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Speaker 2: call it reparations.

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Speaker 1: So they will hire non government organizations out there and

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Speaker 1: separately pay them to implement manager otherwise deal with the

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Speaker 1: separate the overarching five million dollar reparations program.

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Speaker 2: That's what I think is going to happen, and the

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Speaker 2: reparations ish you. At least my involvement with it goes

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Speaker 2: back to the railroad campaign. Two weeks before the election

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Speaker 2: or the referendum, the city council, the vice mayor in particular,

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Speaker 2: entered a motion for the Rising fifteen railway fund they

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Speaker 2: wanted to take. They wanted to establish a Rising fifteen

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Speaker 2: railway fund and take ten percent of whatever the city

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Speaker 2: gets in a distribution and put it in that fund.

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Speaker 2: And they did that two weeks before the election. And

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Speaker 2: when I saw that it was well, they were just

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Speaker 2: trying to get support from the black community which was

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Speaker 2: wishy washy on the sale of the railroad. And then

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Speaker 2: after the election where they actually won, the motions went away,

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Speaker 2: oh really, and it came back in January of twenty five.

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Speaker 2: That's when they introduced the reparations, the Rising fifteen Railway Fund,

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Speaker 2: the Rising fifteen Economic Development Fund, and I went down

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Speaker 2: and objected just based on the socioeconomic data that they

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Speaker 2: said supported the motion. It consisted of three columns, the

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Speaker 2: fifteen neighborhoods, the median income of those neighborhoods, and the

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Speaker 2: racial makeup of those neighborhoods.

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Speaker 1: That was it.

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Speaker 2: That was it, And so I did. I went down

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Speaker 2: to city council and I told them I didn't think

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Speaker 2: was appropriate to make government funding decisions based on race,

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Speaker 2: which this absolutely was. So I don't know if that

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Speaker 2: had an impact, but they did not vote on that motion.

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Speaker 2: And so the next thing you had, also in January

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Speaker 2: of twenty five for the Rising fifteen is they wanted

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Speaker 2: to take the railway money and apply it to sidewalk

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Speaker 2: a sidewalk repair program where if you're delinquent in fixing

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Speaker 2: your sidewalk and you've been penalized, they wanted to use

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Speaker 2: railway money to fix those sidewalks and relieve the property

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Speaker 2: owner of that penalty.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's not property, that is the responsibility of this city.

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Speaker 1: In the first place. I know, so this is another

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Speaker 1: social welfare program in disguise.

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Speaker 2: Yes, So, I think the thing about the reparations motion

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Speaker 2: is that there's no question that Cincinnati has a segregation problem.

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Speaker 2: There's no question about that.

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Speaker 1: And the.

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Speaker 2: Reparations is really just a label. It's a charged or

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Speaker 2: a loaded word that people see it and they think

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Speaker 2: that means that we're going to go and pay payments

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Speaker 2: to people whose ancestors were enslaved. That's not what this

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Speaker 2: reparations program is. This is really just a housing program

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Speaker 2: that they've labeled reparations.

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Speaker 1: Well, and the predicate is there used to be a

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Speaker 1: discrimination in the real estate market. Agents were told do

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Speaker 1: not show these particular properties to black people, those zoning issues.

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Speaker 1: All of that was eradicated over the years and deemed unlawful,

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Speaker 1: which exactly was. But you said, we do have a

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Speaker 1: segregation problem in the city of Cincinnati.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah. The poverty, for example, is totally concentrated in

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Speaker 2: the West End and neighborhoods like Avondale. It's just concentrated

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Speaker 2: there because of these zoning and property of policies that

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Speaker 2: existed so many years ago.

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Speaker 1: Which continued to this day.

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Speaker 2: I get the impression to a certain extent. Yeah, the

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Speaker 2: big issue was, the big boiling point was the Kenyan

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Speaker 2: Bar neighborhood if you've never heard of that. That was

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Speaker 2: like the Queensgate area and the west part of downtown.

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Speaker 2: It was the largest neighborhood in the city back in

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Speaker 2: the day. This was in the sixties, I guess. And

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Speaker 2: that's when they took I seventy five and took it

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Speaker 2: right through Kenyon Bar. They displaced all the residents there

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Speaker 2: and those residents had to move and it concentrated in

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Speaker 2: the West End and then into these other areas. And

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Speaker 2: that's what that's what the city's dealing with in terms

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Speaker 2: of the concentration of poverty.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so they feel they have a moral high ground

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Speaker 1: to allocate this money, yes, all right. Now, let me

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Speaker 1: just ask a very practical question. Even if it's the

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Speaker 1: greatest idea since sliced bread, five million dollars, when you're

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Speaker 1: dealing with a housing issue, I can't see that going

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Speaker 1: a long way. Todd, That's right, that's exactly right. Symbolic.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's very symbolic, and it's very consistent with what

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Speaker 2: this city council does. You've got the financial freedom blueprint.

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Speaker 2: You've got the Act for Sincy that spreads out all

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Speaker 2: this money. It's called it's called spreading the peanut butter.

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Speaker 2: And they keep spreading the peanut butter and it gets

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Speaker 2: thinner and thinner and thinner. Yeah, because they're trying to

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Speaker 2: accommodate all of these social services and social justice purposes.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think I made a comment to you on

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Speaker 1: the heels of a different way of putting it. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can be a bleeding heart and think you need

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Speaker 1: to help and fund and you know every worthy cause

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Speaker 1: or maybe even not worthy cause that comes down the road,

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Speaker 1: but you're eventually going to bleed to death. That's right,

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Speaker 1: And that's where we find ourselves. So it's not that

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Speaker 1: it's not that we we actually have a budget problem,

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Speaker 1: but it's brought about by that reality. You don't need

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Speaker 1: to spend all this money. It's ultimately a pointless gesture,

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Speaker 1: virtue signaling. It allows you to hire all of these

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Speaker 1: weal or these political loyalists who basically can go out

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Speaker 1: in the world, use up those funds and accomplish nothing.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's it boiled down in a nutshell. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: pause right now. We'll bring Todd zzerbeca waits you here

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Speaker 1: where some of these this money goes? He say, A

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Speaker 1: bar a nineteen. If you have Karos de talk station.

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Speaker 1: Citizen Watchdog is the podcast. Citizen Watchdog is the man

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Speaker 1: who is Todd Zinzer in studio and Tom, I'm to

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Speaker 1: give you props because you're exposing the nefarious reality where

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Speaker 1: our money, our City of Cincinnati taxpayer dollars being spent

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Speaker 1: by this runaway council and mayor. You remind me of

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Speaker 1: the citizen journalists who expose well, they think they knew

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Speaker 1: about it, it had been reported on a lot, but actually

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Speaker 1: blew up the whole Minneapolis Leering Center thing. Yes, he

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Speaker 1: walked around, he saw what was going on, he reported it,

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Speaker 1: and boom, that's you. With regard to the expenses, the

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Speaker 1: City of Cincinnati is engaging out of the projects they're

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Speaker 1: engaging in, so they claim they got a financial crisis.

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Speaker 1: They want to raise the taxes. They're talking about a

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Speaker 1: five percent across the board cut, including fire and safety,

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Speaker 1: and you're pointing out that they spend gobs and gobs

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Speaker 1: of money basically virtue signaling with no hope of actual

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Speaker 1: real something realistic coming from these endeavors by spending it

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Speaker 1: on some of the programs you mentioned before. Tell everybody

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Speaker 1: about the bar, Well, this has.

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Speaker 2: Been on the agenda for a long time. I think

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Speaker 2: it's been in the works for a long time. But

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Speaker 2: they've been appropriating money to something called the West End

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Speaker 2: Sports Bar and Grill, and my sense is that it's

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Speaker 2: a minority owned business that's been you know, they're trying

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Speaker 2: to revitalize in the West End and so every once

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Speaker 2: in a while they'll they'll put money into it. And

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Speaker 2: that's not uncommon for this council to do that.

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Speaker 1: But how is it, I mean, here again pointing out

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Speaker 1: that you're the one that's exposing this, there is I

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Speaker 1: don't know that there is any local media outlets five

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Speaker 1: nine twelve, Fox nineteen. They have reporters since they acquire

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Speaker 1: Scott Wartman should be on the job, don't we Is

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Speaker 1: there no one who else in the world who's paying

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Speaker 1: attention to this? I mean, these are really really it

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Speaker 1: just sounds like you're revealing a level of corruption that

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Speaker 1: my brain can't quite comprehend this morning, toodd.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think everybody's gotten used to the council spending

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Speaker 2: money like this these for example, this three point eight

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Speaker 2: million that they approved this week. Those motions are sprinkled

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Speaker 2: throughout the agenda. So what I do and I get

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Speaker 2: an agenda for the city Council, I put it through

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Speaker 2: AI and say simplify this for me and outline it.

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Speaker 2: And it takes all this legal mumbo jumbo and language

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Speaker 2: in the agenda takes all that out and just lists

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Speaker 2: what's happening. And so I take that and then I

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Speaker 2: post it on my Facebook.

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Speaker 1: And that's why you need to follow Todd Zenzer on

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Speaker 1: Facebook and also listen to his citizen Watchdalk podcast. Well

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Speaker 1: what else is revealing here? I know there's an opportunity

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Speaker 1: for City of Cincinnati to chime in on this. And

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Speaker 1: I want to remind listeners in the city March eleventh,

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Speaker 1: North Avondale Rec Center at five point thirty you can

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Speaker 1: talk to them about the budget and the potential cuts

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Speaker 1: coming your way. Maybe bring Todd Zenzer's list of things

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Speaker 1: they actually spent money on and say why the hell

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Speaker 1: did you do this and didn't pave my street? How

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Speaker 1: many road models we have outstands, Todd that have been

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Speaker 1: building up over the years. I don't know, it's insane though,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot. Okay, that's that's infrastructure falling apart.

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Speaker 1: That is a screaming, waving red flag. That's a broken

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Speaker 1: window that needs to be fixed to bring in more

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Speaker 1: business and industry. Right Todd, That's right, damn straight. March sixteenth,

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Speaker 1: five point thirty pm, Sailor Park Rec Center to chime

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Speaker 1: in on these budget suggestions in the across the board cuts,

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Speaker 1: what else do you have on your list?

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Speaker 2: Well, last last year, since since we just kicked off

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Speaker 2: the budget process last year, I went to one of

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Speaker 2: these public hearings and I suggested to them that they

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Speaker 2: should have the solicitor's office tell them what does the

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Speaker 2: city do that we must do by law, by contract,

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Speaker 2: by grant assurances? What are we union agreements? What are

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Speaker 2: we legally obligated to pay? And then anything left over

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Speaker 2: is all discretionary and you should figure that out so

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Speaker 2: that you know how much discretionary money you really have

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Speaker 2: versus what mandatory requirements are. So I'm going to go

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Speaker 2: back and make that suggestion again. And then the other

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Speaker 2: thing we're going to suggest or request is that when

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Speaker 2: at some point during the process, the members of council

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Speaker 2: come in with a list of organizations that they want

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Speaker 2: to give money to, and it can total over over

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Speaker 2: a million dollars for any particular member of council. I've

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Speaker 2: asked them to when they send these memos in to

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Speaker 2: the city manager, they need to sign an attestation that

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Speaker 2: they do not have any conflicts of interests to those organizations.

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Speaker 2: So we're going to go back and make that recommendation

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Speaker 2: as well, and if we need to, I think I

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Speaker 2: said this online or my podcast, we're going to organize

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Speaker 2: people to start sending in letters requesting that those city councils.

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Speaker 1: I was just going to ask you, if there's a

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Speaker 1: call to action, I would think calling up any of

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Speaker 1: the men as a council or all of them and

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Speaker 1: basically say quit funding these non government organizations and these

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Speaker 1: pet projects until you get your damn budget in line

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Speaker 1: and pave my street. But I love that, you know why,

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Speaker 1: because the minute someone tries to resist that, you got

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Speaker 1: to look at them and say, what are you trying

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Speaker 1: to hide? You don't want to disclose a direct financial

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Speaker 1: connection to the money that you're spending the taxpayer dollars on.

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Speaker 2: Now here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Demand accountability.

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Speaker 2: If I think I said I think it must have

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Speaker 2: been online. But if they were to do that, if

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Speaker 2: they were to put that in, then Mayor would not

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Speaker 2: be able to sign that memo because two of the

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Speaker 2: people on his list are going to be people or

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Speaker 2: organizations where he sits on the board.

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Speaker 1: You see why we are lucky to have Todd Zenzer

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Speaker 1: citizen watchdog. I wish there were more reporters out there

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Speaker 1: looking into this like Todd Zenzer does in his spare

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Speaker 1: time and at no cost. I think you should put

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Speaker 1: a request in to be a non government organization. You

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Speaker 1: get money from the City of Cincinnati since you're doing

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Speaker 1: the laboring or the work that they should be doing

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Speaker 1: every day. Todd's Inzert. Let me thank you from the

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Speaker 1: bottom of my heart for the work that you're doing

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Speaker 1: and for coming to the studio and bringing this to

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Speaker 1: everyone's attention. And let's keep pounding away. And yes there's

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Speaker 1: a call to action. Demand accountability, Demand them to disclose

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Speaker 1: any financial interest they have in a single dollar that

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Speaker 1: goes out. Todd, keep up the great work, my friend.

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Speaker 1: All right, thank you very much. Folks, don't go away.

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Speaker 1: It's time to have a little bit of fun with

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Speaker 1: Jay Ratliff. We've got a lot of aviation topics to

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Speaker 1: talk about with Jay