Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
By the way, NBA, did you see Steph Curry last night?
He had like forty at the half, forty at the half,
he finished like fifty two. Ah, he made like eight
threes in the first half or something. You get forty,
why not go for eighty? Yeah, I don't think that's
how it goes most of the time. And then Jokich
went sixty ten and ten, sixty ten and ten. Yeah,
as they finished like sixty one, ten and eleven. And
then Russell Westbrook fouled a three point shooter at the buzzer.
(00:22):
It's in the second overtime, and the Timberwolves won on
the free throws. So he got sixty ten and ten
and they lost.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Ouch, right, dang for.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
A guy who's everything to his team to put up
that stat line and it's still lose enough.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's not great.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
All right.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
So may oral race, did you see? Okay, so tell
the people who advanced to the general election.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
A Jeans Dothard and John Ewingck.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm adding up the votes here real quick because I'm
trying to figure out what the turnout was. Now, again,
this may not be one hundred percent accurate. It the
six sixth ninth. Oh, I'm seeing based on the voting
results that at least I have that are in their systems.
(01:12):
I'm seeing like sixty eight thousand votes. There were like
eighty eight thousand or eighty five thousand ballots cast.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm trying to figure this out. It's like, there's no
way only sixty seven thousand people voted yesterday. So but again,
this is a primary and not necessarily like a general election.
Will the general election get more? I'm thinking thirty percent
was basically kind of where our line was, So we'll
try to get that number as soon as we get
as accurate a number as possible. With that being the case,
(01:45):
are you surprised by what you saw the final numbers here?
It was Jeene Stuth twenty five thousand and fifty six
at last check, John Ewing at twenty one thousand, six
twenty three. That's thirty seven percent and thirty two percent
or so, And then it was a pretty steep decline
to Mike McDonald. He finished with thirteen eight fifty nine,
(02:06):
that's about twenty point four percent. Jasmin Harris just shy
of ten percent, six hundred ninety, and then Terry Brewer
who was. We reached out to him, we didn't get
We're back to try to interview him to be a
part of our interviews last week, but he only got
a four hundred and eighty six votes overall.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I'm a little I'm a little more than surprised. I'm
more than a little surprise. I think is why I
want to say that that John Ewing had that much
to gain. I did say that once we had people
kind of emailing us and saying, hey, be on the lookout.
I think John Ewing's going to be like the Democratic
turnout is going to make him a bigger player than
you may anticipate.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And they were right. They were right.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
There was room for a Republican and there was room
for a Democrat. Now the bigger question becomes where to
the votes for Jasmine Harris and Mike McDonald go when
we it to mid May's general election. How do we
split that up? Do you think that will be a
very interesting thing to watch, because I don't think it's
going to be just like a split like Mike McDonald's
(03:11):
votes all go to Jane and Jasmin Harris's votes all
go to John Ewing. I don't think it's going to
be that simple.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
It won't be a perfect split, so it'll be I
think there's some variables to consider. I think that if
you were just kind of used and I know that
this is not a party race, but we all kind
of have our mind towards like we know who aligns
with which party. Yeah, so even though Mike McDonald was
a Democrat switched to a Republican the twenty percent that
(03:41):
he got, you would think you would think that most
of that would end up with with with gen But.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You never know.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
There's a lot of things to happen between now and then,
Well we have a campaign. How do you see this
campaign going? I feel like this campaign is going to
be a pretty civilized campaign.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
And how many people out there who see John Ewing
making it through the primary who maybe didn't vote because
they thought, oh, we already have a mayor and she's
been the mayor for a long time and we already
knew who our mayor is, are going to be incentivized
to get out there.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I mean, it's possible.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
It'll be interesting to see what the conversation is going
to be because the street cars kind of not a
thing now, right, like, you're not going to have like
the street car is gonna get brought up because it
didn't come to a vote, And that's what John Ewing's
point is. But I think he understands the value of
the project itself and he's not going to even kind
of insinuate he will stop it. So what are we
going to debate now? I mean, I think it's going
(04:32):
to be developmental growth outside of the downtown Dodge Corridor.
I think you're going to be seeing safety, right, Like, hey,
what does crime look like beyond homicides? We can look
at homicides and we'll see that homicides are definitely on
their way down, and that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
What about other crime?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
What about you know, other types of development for the
people who live here?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
What about property taxes?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Like maybe all of that stuff kind of hits the
table a little bit more because now all of a sudden,
this isn't just going to be a battle over whether
or not the street car should exist.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I think that's gone.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I don't think you're going to be like, unless John
Ewing really changes his tune on that, I don't think
that's going to play much of a factor. And I
think between Stothart and Ewing. We're going to have a
pretty civilized campaign. Not that it wasn't going to be
civilized if Mike McDonald or Jasmine Harris would have won,
and those disrespected Terry Brewer. It's just I don't know
(05:26):
how many people really expected him to make big waves
in this election. You know, you had four candidates basically
ten percent or over, so that tells you like there
was a solid base for at least four of these candidates.
But I think if it was between Stothart and McDonald,
or even John Ewing and McDonald, I think you're going
to be hearing from an entire side of the race
(05:48):
who would be very anti streetcar and think it was
really dumb idea and they don't want anything to do
with it, and they're going to try to rework those contracts.
My plan is hopefully this we can get in touch
with Mayor Stothart and John Ewing for our show. I
know Mayor Stoutht, John Ewing, and Jasmine Harris were with
Gary in the morning, so it's a good get for
(06:10):
those guys in the morning. As we kind of try
to digest these results, we'll try our best to get
the percentage kind of locked down of how many people
actually participated in this primary, and then the question becomes
to people that didn't participate in the primary decide to
participate in the general election. Do you think that that
will be a bigger pot. I'm just not sure it
will be. But like you said, there may be untapped
(06:34):
Democratic people that you could like dig into and try
to mind for if you're in this town who otherwise
just like, you know, not paying much attention, but now
there's like, oh, there's a real chance that maybe a
person who identifies as a Democrat could get the may worship,
but unfortunately for them. I think Gene Stothart also kind
(06:55):
of fits in a more moderate tone of Republican that
a lot of Democrats are pretty okay with the job
that she's been doing. So I guess it kind of
depends on where you live and the messaging that's out
there to you.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
So if you're John Ewing right now and you're the
campaign staff, are you formulating a plan that's focusing on
the ten percent that Harris got and the twenty percent
from McDonald got, and focusing on those voters and seeing
what motivated them and seeing how you could motivate them
towards you, or are you focusing on the field of
people who might be more likely to vote in the
(07:28):
major election less likely in the primary and focus on them. Well,
I just don't you just split your time. I just
don't know who that those people are. Yeah, you know,
I just feel like as upfront and center as we
possibly have gotten for the primary and everybody I feel like,
who is engaged in city politics knew yesterday was the
mayoral primary. Who are the people that are going to
(07:51):
vote in May that didn't vote Yesterday's That's that's my question.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
The other question that you had was, Okay, so how
are the other votes, especially for McDonald and Harris going
to be divvied?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I think you and I are in agreement.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
The Jasmine Harris voters, the seven thousand or so of them,
are just going to probably align with you.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Ing.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Look, if we're just saying these are the same people
that are going to vote in May, the six six
hundred and ninety people that voted for Jasmin Harris uns
tack that on a John Ewing's number, So that would
give him close to twenty eight thousand, maybe a little
bit over twenty eight thousand people. Jean Stothart in a
primary against somebody else who was identifying as a Republican
available on the ballot, got twenty five thousand. Mike McDonald
(08:32):
has almost fourteen thousand votes to get if you're just
counting these numbers. And again I'm no disrespect to Terry Brewer,
but I'm not taking really his five hundred votes or
so into account here. Jean Stouthart gets four thousand of
the fourteen thousand from Mike McDonald. She is going to
have more than John Ewing like at the base, So
if they're tied there, that leaves ten thousand Mike McDonald
(08:55):
votes to battle for. And that's I think where the
battleground is is how many Mike McDonald voters are real
Republicans that want Jean Stott to stay in office because
she's a better alternative than John Ewing would be. And
how many people who are voting for Mike McDonald under
no circumstance, wants to see Gene Stothert be the mayor
for any given reason or even a third option. How
(09:18):
many Mike McDonald voters were Mike McDonald or bus and
will not vote, won't show up to vote, because they
don't like stother and they won't vote for a Democrat.
So how many people in the McDonald fourteen thousand are.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Those That's what I'm curious about right now. Curious about
a Mike McDonald voter who does not plan on voting
for Stouther in the major election, the main election.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Do they participate and vote for Ewing? Or do they
just say do they sit out? That's going to be
how like We're gonna have to kind of sift through there.
It'll interesting to see how the campaign changes because now
it's one to one, it is one versus one. But
I don't see either of these candidates really being very
hostile toward each other. I think Jean Stouth is going
to lean on her record as mayor. I think John
(10:01):
Ewing is going to lean on his record as a
public servant and somebody who has some ideas of things
that can be changed to take us into the future.
I think both of those are going to be pretty
well received messages. And I think we're going to get
a pretty civilized campaign here one v one, But who knows,
maybe somebody's going to get in their ear and say, hey,
we got to start tearing down what the other side
is doing to assure us for victory. Time will tell
(10:23):
two nineteen. We'll open the phones for you your thoughts
on this whole thing. Mike McDonald comes up short, finishes third,
Jean Stothar and John Ewing will go to the general
election next month. You can call us at four h
two five five eight eleven ten, four h two five
five eight eleven ten A news radio eleven ten kfab
and ninth tongue Amberson in an email. So the Mike
McDonald fan club was the Police and Firefighters Union. John
(10:44):
Ewing was a police officer, So there's a one to one.
Would the police officers kind of go with a former
officer or would they follow Chief Schmatterer who endorsed gen
stother because remember that was kind of weird the fire
chief indorse Stouther at the police officers Union indors McDonell.
(11:06):
Do they just kind of fall back in with Stothert
or do they go with a former officer? And obviously
Chief Schmater would never have indorse Stouther if he was
going to change his mind, you know, endorse John Ewing
for whatever it's worth. So it might be a clue.
I just don't know, I don't know if it'll be
that simple.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Pretty interesting battleground though.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Oh yeah, the police officers. I mean, it'll be fascinating
to see if the police officer union makes a determination
sometime in the next couple of weeks. Because we've got
till May thirteenth. I mean, we got like five weeks,
five full weeks, six full weeks. I don't know, give
me a calendar. I don't care. Craig says, I didn't
vote yesterday. I will vote in the general election. I
sat it out to see if the monoail would win Monoreil. Well,
(11:48):
Craig not sure the monoail was on the ballot. But
the street car seems like I mean, can we retire that?
I mean, it will come up based on the fact
that people didn't get to vote on it. But as
an actual project, neither of these people are going to
stop the street car. So do we need to talk
about do we need to talk about the numbers? Do
we need to talk about what could potentially happen.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Whether you like it or not. The project's already started.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well, you're not gonna like it, if you're not gonna
use it. I mean, nobody's gonna like the idea if
they know tax dollars, even if it's not an additional
more taxes, specifically it's through tax incremental funding. If somebody's
telling you that three hundred and eighty five million dollars
is going into a project using city tax dollars, and
(12:35):
you never go downtown and would have no interest in
using any type of public transportation whatsoever, especially one that
doesn't exist yet, you're not going to like that.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
What if you like that? I mean, I don't know
I could. I'm trying to pontificate a way where someone
would they don't plan on using it, but they like
the idea for the community.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, I mean you would have to just really believe
that person would have to believe what Mayor Stouther says
about the developmental dollars that have been in fun into
downtown with the idea that that's going to get done.
You know that giant skyscraper for instance, you think they
did that just because you think they were going to
build that skyscraper, Like the Mutual Omaha is just going
to build a skyscraper for no good reason.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
And just hope people fill it with somebody.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, no, h you're going to fix all of the
downtown park and we can be right on the edge
of that. Oh, and there's going to be a street
car that's going to go right by, and they're going
to see our building all the time. And we look
at all the other communities that have a streetcar and
the amount of land increase of value within a mile
of the street car rail that would Yeah. I mean,
if you're if you're forward thinking, if you're looking at
(13:36):
ten fifteen years down the line, certainly we have all
the evidence in the world that says that the streetcar
should make the city more money. It's just at the
at the time where it costs money. It's not a
great idea, It's right. It's like, Matt, I'm forcing you
to invest in Tesla right now. I don't want so
give me twenty five hundred dollars right now.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
I don't got it.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, I'm taking it from you anyway, So give it up.
And you're going to be like kicking and screaming while
I force you to give me that money. And then
when I show you, Hey, I come back to you
in a decade and I'm like, hey, Matt, remember when
I forced you to invest twenty five hundred dollars in Tesla. Well,
now that is matured into ten thousand dollars here you go, Oh, okay,
well glad I did that right?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So there's a free seventy five hundred dollars for you.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Congratulations, you're welcomes all right, all right, that's what I'm saying.
That's the way you have to sell this to somebody
is saying, even if you think you may not use it,
based on all the evidence that we have around the
United States with similar projects, money is going to be
made for this city and it's going to be good
for the health of this city. Now it's whether or
not when that money's coming in, how does that get
(14:40):
back to us?
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Like?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Am I going to see a decline in my property
tax at some points? That's what everybody wants to out right,
So time was going to tell on that. Also, Rick says,
why are polling places different? Mine was not in its
usual location? Is it because presumably lower turnout and different
or fewer polling places means less workforce at polls require
does the city or county manage the mayor primary and election?
(15:03):
So I went to the wrong place. I told you
this yesterday. I ended up going to a different church
than the one that I was supposed to go to,
But it was on the Douglas County elections website where
I punched in my number and gave me an option
of which house is mine, like which address is mine?
I clicked the address and then it told me where
I was supposed to go. So then I went to
the right place and I voted. There were four people
(15:26):
at my polling place. There were four people at the
one that I wasn't supposed to be at as well.
I don't think they had a shortage of that, and
I guess we'll find out what exactly that turnout looks like.
I put in a request to see if I can
get like as accurate a result of that. Not just
for our wager, but I think it's important to note
how many people were actually, you know, activated to vote
(15:47):
in a mayor oal primary race. So stuff on our
mind today. It is two twenty eight. Thank you for listening.
Our understanding is that Donald Trump is supposed to speak
today at three o'clock and he's gonna be doing Liberation
Day things. Is a result of kind of the tariffs
that are supposed to be in play, especially the reciprocal ones,
(16:09):
and there's you know, there's quite a bit of things
that maybe he could and couldn't say.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
But you know what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
We're gonna probably keep an eye on that, and when
he's talking, we'll probably take that live in the three
o'clock hour for whatever it's worth. So yeah, in that regard,
stick with us.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
We'll have that.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
We'll keep talking about these results as we get them
from the mayor's race and all sorts of other news
around the Omaha area on news radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And raised on there.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
I was just starting to call myself Master Damas and
then I get that wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Got it wrong.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
At least it sounds like unless sel them somewhere, they
find enough votes somewhere lying around that would pump that
up over thirty.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Yeah, find me votes. No, I'm sending my people a
text as we speak, find me the votes.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Oh, it's funny. No, so you get guard Dettos.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
We never really figured out what that wager was, but
maybe some obile cream pies one day. Who knows George
is on the phone line four h two five five
eight eleven ten, George, what's on your mind about this
whole old thing.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Hey brother, I just think the smarter or more time
people spend in college and take these city, state, federal jobs,
the stupider everything ends up. You look like our bus
system right now. We lose twenty twenty five million dollars
a year on our buffes in this town. There's nobody
going to ride this street car. We're going to be
four hundred million dollars into this before we get in
(17:28):
the operational costs, which is gonna be millions of dollars
a year. There's going to be nobody on it because
whoever was at Einstein had figured out where we was
going to run is running down a lane that has
absolutely no parking. Anybody you can park at the Quest Center.
Downtown's full, there's no parking spots down there. People are
going to drive downtown and ride the street car back
to Blackstone. There's no parking in Blackstone for them to
(17:51):
come from West Omaha and ride it into downtown. And
if you drive ten miles down there and I gave
you another For instance, these new electric trucks, I've done
this for forty nine years, almost on Lincoln delivery. They
weighed ten thousand pounds more than a regular semi now,
so you have to take ten thousand pounds of product
off every truck going down the interstate, which is going
(18:11):
to add thousands of trucks a week just to get
the same amount of stuff delivered. I mean, people are
absolutely messed with this crazy stuff. You're going to raise
the property taxes on people that have no intention of
getting on this thing. The property value is going to
go up, so they're going to pay more money out
of their pocket just to live in a house they've
been in for thirty years.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
I don't understand the nonsense these people come up with.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, well, George, I mean I understand where you're coming
from on it. I just think that the results yesterday
showed that people are not I mean, the people who
are activated to vote really don't care about the street
card being built.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I guess, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I mean, we're going to have to see what it
looks like because it's going to happen now.
Speaker 6 (18:49):
So, oh, I understand what's going to happen. But here's
one other thing that people It just makes me laugh.
The old Civic Auditorium downtown up there on sixth seventeenth Street,
parking spots out to people during the day in downtown.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Yeah, you know, for.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
Thirty dollars a month they were, So they're making thirty
thousand dollars a month off of vacant lots down there.
They moved down to the Quest Center. Well there ain't
nobody parking on their lots. You know, the city lost
two auditorium loss two hundred and eighty thousand dollars a
year just for parking.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting Georgia, And you're right. I
guess we're gonna have to find out what the parking
situation looks like for people who are trying to get
on the street car and take it to downtown and back.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
But we'll find out. Man, I appreciate your thoughts on
a really coo. Yeah, I have a good day.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I mean, what he's saying is voicing a lot of
opinions very similar to what a lot of people who
voted for Mike McDonald would have had about the street car,
but based on what the votes ended up like, people
were not that concerned about that.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So let's go to John.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
John, I'm under the impression you did vote for Mike
McDonald yesterday.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Uh, you know I had, Yeah, I had marked my
I will vote first author in the general. Now I
had vote. I had marked my ballot for McDonald in
the primary. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well, so I wasn't
able to get my ballot dropped off and it was
too late to send it in. But my reason for
(20:18):
voting for McDonald was I just kind of wanted to
advance him into the general for the debate. But also
it wasn't so much the streetcar, but it was the
the roads and the and the lack of the lack
of police or having to hire, you know, more police
(20:38):
officers and stuff. So but originally I think that the
street car will go through, but I think it's my
original thought was build up and when they will come.
Was a kind of a bad idea for of hoping
for it. But uh, I'm not real thrilled with. Another
(21:04):
reason I voted for I was going to vote for
McDonald was this the street disrepair of stuff. I hear
excuses from Stothard on that, and it's not about winter
and that and this then the potholes during the winter,
because that's going to be whoever's mayor. But I was
(21:26):
I was driving like one thirty second from like Pacific
to Maple and there are potholes that hadn't been fixed.
And this was June and July and August. That's not
part of the freest thaw cycle. And so that's just
kind of, uh, that was my thinking. But I will
I will vote for Stothard because I'm not wanting to
(21:50):
vote for you. I'm not wanting to vote for you, Engst.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
So, yeah, you wouldn't vote for the Democrat just for
for change, you still stick out of the principles of
the politics.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I got you.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
I picked yep.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
John, Hey, thanks for those thoughts, man, thanks for coming in.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Uh, Pat's on the phone line of four h two five, five,
eight eleven ten. What are you you thinking about today?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
They're Pat.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Oh, Well, remember I'm an underground utility contractor. I've been
laying pipe in Omaha for about thirty five years. And
every time I'm in downtown Omaha digging up a water
main or some of that nature, inevitably, no matter where
we dig, we run into train tracks. So the whole
streetcar thing that nobody's talked about yet, it's interesting is
(22:31):
it's already failed once. Yeah, then street cars all over
downtown Omahan. Now when you go to tear out the road,
you got to tear out the road and then the
tracks and then the old ties, and I mean it's
already failed in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, that's it's an interesting perspective, you know, like we've
just kind of built up on top of what was
downtown roads before.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Pat.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
There are some stark differences between how that car operates
in kind of the electric version of what this is
going to look like moving forward. But it's a good
it's a good point to mention that Omaha did have
a street car before. But it's gonna happen, my man,
I find I guess we're gonna have to find out
what exactly it looks like once it gets done. And
I know we're still a couple of years away from that,
(23:15):
so we'll figure that out. But I appreciate all the
hard work that you and all your comrades do on
our roads.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Pat.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
We really appreciate what you do.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Yeah, I just I just feel like it's another kind
of a vanity project, you know, that's going to be
kind of neat and everything, But as far as you know,
being a viable investment, I don't. I don't think it's
going to even come close. I mean, we would like
to have last I said, we got buses already, you know,
we operated a loss, and I mean that thing's going
to cost so much just to get started. It's amazing.
(23:43):
So anyway, all right, thanks.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Hemry, thanks man, appreciate the call. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Uh here's some additional context. Matthew emailed her mind and
this is a little bit more of what I kind
of alluded to it.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
But he said it outright.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That skyscraper Mutual of Omaha is building for their headquarters
right on the edge of the downtown park area of
Jeene Leahie mal And all that stuff was done in
a like, was done with the understanding the street car
was going to happen to. So could you imagine going
to them while they're halfway done building their giant skyscraper
that's opening next year and saying, hey, by the way,
(24:17):
that thing that you said that you would like, we're
gonna we're gonna move the contracts around on that. So
I think there's probably a lot of relief from a
city's perspective on that. Again, you could talk about this
is good for the developers and developers are investing all
this money, all this stuff, and I understand that you know,
you may not use it, but I don't know what
use trying to stop it at this point is going
to be. Because both of the mayor candidates that are
(24:40):
advancing to the general election, that is going to completely
that's just not going to be a discussion. Both of
them are going to see that through. They may discuss
whether or not it should have gone to a vote,
because that's where the difference lies between Stothard who didn't
put it to a vote and John Ewing, who said
it should have gone to a vote, but they both
are in agreement that this is a good project and
(25:01):
will be good for downtown and for Omaha in general.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
So for whatever that's worth.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Two forty seven, if you'd like to call in here
in the two o'clock hour, we're expecting to hear from
Donald Trump at three o'clock hour. We'll see what that
looks like. But yeah, that's on the way, and we'll
take more calls four h two, five, five, eight to
eleven ten when we come back on these radio eleven
ten kfab m Rin Okay, sorry.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
Jane, I am so disappointed that people that decided that
they wanted to not have Jens Stothard are just going
to go ahead and vote for her anyway because they
cannot see their way through actually getting to know mister Ewing.
We have a DMV that has been turned around, and
if you haven't had to go then you maybe don't understand.
(25:45):
But he has done an excellent job. And there are
people besides missus Stothard who has obviously bent to the
whims of people that have lots of money, and she
is not making decisions on her own, and I think
we need to give other people an opportunity to show
(26:05):
us what they can do. Very sad that we have
people that are so tied into one little.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
Group of people.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Well, I can I ask real quick, Janie, what the
what you don't like that she's done, Like a specific
thing that you think John Ewing would be better suited
for mayor than Jene Stothart.
Speaker 7 (26:26):
She has backed mister Nodle, who has totally destroyed the
aesthetics of many parts of this city. She is obviously
willing to let people lead her or pay her. I
have no idea how it goes, but I think that
we've seen her work enough and this less selection of
(26:48):
doing what she did without letting the people vote in
terms of this rail system is beyond the pale. Okay,
give somebody else a chance that has already shown us
through their integrity what they have done for this city.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Fair enough, All right, Well, Janney, I appreciate you calling
in and thank you so much for your thoughts on
this today.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
We alsome.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
We're going to definitely day yeah you as well, and
we'll definitely talk to John Ewing and Jean Stothard again
between now and the election at least once, maybe twice,
who knows. But I mean it's it's worth It's a
good perspective, right. It's just like, hey, you voted against
Jean Stothart and then you're just going to vote for
her because your preferred candidate didn't win. Now, I mean
(27:29):
that's part of the primary process here. You're narrowing it down,
but makes quite interesting. Daniel's on the phone line four two, five, five,
eight eleven ten, Daniel, what's on your mind today?
Speaker 8 (27:38):
Hey, Henry. When I moved here to Omaha with the
up twenty five years ago, we were really jealous of
the mutual of Omaha employees that live worked in that building,
the old building, because when Mutual of Omaha built it,
they bought up housing around it, and employees that moved
here contracted for subsidized housing with no calls so they
(28:01):
could all walk to work. Part of the deal with
building the new building downtown was so that those same
people can go to work no car, and so that
other people could do the same thing. The deal when
they agreed to build the building downtown was to have
a streetcar. So the cost of breaking that deal would
(28:21):
probably be more than the whole projects were much less
all the other contracts.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, definitely is one thing that nobody really talked about
in regards to trying to stop the street car, as
just all of the inner workings of why it was
there in the first place and what those contracts look like,
especially when it comes to Mutual trying to build this
big building with that in mind. I appreciate the call, Daniel,
thanks for listening to us today.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
No problem, Thanks, No problem. Dave's on our phone line. Dave,
I have about forty seconds. What's on your mind today?
Speaker 6 (28:48):
Okay, I just.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
Wanted to make comment on the rail system. I'm not
even from Omaha, from more and I hear about it
sounds like a dead horse to me. And when as
they say, they can't stop it, but you know, you
can stop and maybe lose some money, or you can
keep it going and just keep pumping money in a
dead horse. Yeah, that's all I have to say.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Appreciate it, Dave, thanks for listening to us.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And I suppose you know, it just kind of depends
on what your opinion is on what the project looks
like or if you're going to use it. Like we
just heard from Daniel though, that it's going to be
well used for a lot of people who are living
and the you know, Blackstone type area that will have
the opportunity to then use the street car to get
downtown and work at the Mutual Building or probably some
(29:28):
of the other people at least in that agreement as well.
So I don't know, it's interesting. I got a lot
of emails coming in. We'll do the best that we
can to try to sift through this. Donald Trump's supposed
to speak next hour. We'll let you hear some of
that as well here on news radio eleven to ten
kfab
By the way, NBA, did you see Steph Curry last night?
He had like forty at the half, forty at the half,
he finished like fifty two. Ah, he made like eight
threes in the first half or something. You get forty,
why not go for eighty? Yeah, I don't think that's
how it goes most of the time. And then Jokich
went sixty ten and ten, sixty ten and ten. Yeah,
as they finished like sixty one, ten and eleven. And
then Russell Westbrook fouled a three point shooter at the buzzer.
(00:22):
It's in the second overtime, and the Timberwolves won on
the free throws. So he got sixty ten and ten
and they lost.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Ouch, right, dang for.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
A guy who's everything to his team to put up
that stat line and it's still lose enough.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's not great.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
All right.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
So may oral race, did you see? Okay, so tell
the people who advanced to the general election.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
A Jeans Dothard and John Ewingck.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm adding up the votes here real quick because I'm
trying to figure out what the turnout was. Now, again,
this may not be one hundred percent accurate. It the
six sixth ninth. Oh, I'm seeing based on the voting
results that at least I have that are in their systems.
(01:12):
I'm seeing like sixty eight thousand votes. There were like
eighty eight thousand or eighty five thousand ballots cast.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm trying to figure this out. It's like, there's no
way only sixty seven thousand people voted yesterday. So but again,
this is a primary and not necessarily like a general election.
Will the general election get more? I'm thinking thirty percent
was basically kind of where our line was, So we'll
try to get that number as soon as we get
as accurate a number as possible. With that being the case,
(01:45):
are you surprised by what you saw the final numbers here?
It was Jeene Stuth twenty five thousand and fifty six
at last check, John Ewing at twenty one thousand, six
twenty three. That's thirty seven percent and thirty two percent
or so, And then it was a pretty steep decline
to Mike McDonald. He finished with thirteen eight fifty nine,
(02:06):
that's about twenty point four percent. Jasmin Harris just shy
of ten percent, six hundred ninety, and then Terry Brewer
who was. We reached out to him, we didn't get
We're back to try to interview him to be a
part of our interviews last week, but he only got
a four hundred and eighty six votes overall.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I'm a little I'm a little more than surprised. I'm
more than a little surprise. I think is why I
want to say that that John Ewing had that much
to gain. I did say that once we had people
kind of emailing us and saying, hey, be on the lookout.
I think John Ewing's going to be like the Democratic
turnout is going to make him a bigger player than
you may anticipate.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And they were right. They were right.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
There was room for a Republican and there was room
for a Democrat. Now the bigger question becomes where to
the votes for Jasmine Harris and Mike McDonald go when
we it to mid May's general election. How do we
split that up? Do you think that will be a
very interesting thing to watch, because I don't think it's
going to be just like a split like Mike McDonald's
(03:11):
votes all go to Jane and Jasmin Harris's votes all
go to John Ewing. I don't think it's going to
be that simple.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
It won't be a perfect split, so it'll be I
think there's some variables to consider. I think that if
you were just kind of used and I know that
this is not a party race, but we all kind
of have our mind towards like we know who aligns
with which party. Yeah, so even though Mike McDonald was
a Democrat switched to a Republican the twenty percent that
(03:41):
he got, you would think you would think that most
of that would end up with with with gen But.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
You never know.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
There's a lot of things to happen between now and then,
Well we have a campaign. How do you see this
campaign going? I feel like this campaign is going to
be a pretty civilized campaign.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
And how many people out there who see John Ewing
making it through the primary who maybe didn't vote because
they thought, oh, we already have a mayor and she's
been the mayor for a long time and we already
knew who our mayor is, are going to be incentivized
to get out there.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I mean, it's possible.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
It'll be interesting to see what the conversation is going
to be because the street cars kind of not a
thing now, right, like, you're not going to have like
the street car is gonna get brought up because it
didn't come to a vote, And that's what John Ewing's
point is. But I think he understands the value of
the project itself and he's not going to even kind
of insinuate he will stop it. So what are we
going to debate now? I mean, I think it's going
(04:32):
to be developmental growth outside of the downtown Dodge Corridor.
I think you're going to be seeing safety, right, Like, hey,
what does crime look like beyond homicides? We can look
at homicides and we'll see that homicides are definitely on
their way down, and that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
What about other crime?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
What about you know, other types of development for the
people who live here?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
What about property taxes?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Like maybe all of that stuff kind of hits the
table a little bit more because now all of a sudden,
this isn't just going to be a battle over whether
or not the street car should exist.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I think that's gone.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I don't think you're going to be like, unless John
Ewing really changes his tune on that, I don't think
that's going to play much of a factor. And I
think between Stothart and Ewing. We're going to have a
pretty civilized campaign. Not that it wasn't going to be
civilized if Mike McDonald or Jasmine Harris would have won,
and those disrespected Terry Brewer. It's just I don't know
(05:26):
how many people really expected him to make big waves
in this election. You know, you had four candidates basically
ten percent or over, so that tells you like there
was a solid base for at least four of these candidates.
But I think if it was between Stothart and McDonald,
or even John Ewing and McDonald, I think you're going
to be hearing from an entire side of the race
(05:48):
who would be very anti streetcar and think it was
really dumb idea and they don't want anything to do
with it, and they're going to try to rework those contracts.
My plan is hopefully this we can get in touch
with Mayor Stothart and John Ewing for our show. I
know Mayor Stoutht, John Ewing, and Jasmine Harris were with
Gary in the morning, so it's a good get for
(06:10):
those guys in the morning. As we kind of try
to digest these results, we'll try our best to get
the percentage kind of locked down of how many people
actually participated in this primary, and then the question becomes
to people that didn't participate in the primary decide to
participate in the general election. Do you think that that
will be a bigger pot. I'm just not sure it
will be. But like you said, there may be untapped
(06:34):
Democratic people that you could like dig into and try
to mind for if you're in this town who otherwise
just like, you know, not paying much attention, but now
there's like, oh, there's a real chance that maybe a
person who identifies as a Democrat could get the may worship,
but unfortunately for them. I think Gene Stothart also kind
(06:55):
of fits in a more moderate tone of Republican that
a lot of Democrats are pretty okay with the job
that she's been doing. So I guess it kind of
depends on where you live and the messaging that's out
there to you.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
So if you're John Ewing right now and you're the
campaign staff, are you formulating a plan that's focusing on
the ten percent that Harris got and the twenty percent
from McDonald got, and focusing on those voters and seeing
what motivated them and seeing how you could motivate them
towards you, or are you focusing on the field of
people who might be more likely to vote in the
(07:28):
major election less likely in the primary and focus on them. Well,
I just don't you just split your time. I just
don't know who that those people are. Yeah, you know,
I just feel like as upfront and center as we
possibly have gotten for the primary and everybody I feel like,
who is engaged in city politics knew yesterday was the
mayoral primary. Who are the people that are going to
(07:51):
vote in May that didn't vote Yesterday's That's that's my question.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
The other question that you had was, Okay, so how
are the other votes, especially for McDonald and Harris going
to be divvied?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I think you and I are in agreement.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
The Jasmine Harris voters, the seven thousand or so of them,
are just going to probably align with you.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Ing.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Look, if we're just saying these are the same people
that are going to vote in May, the six six
hundred and ninety people that voted for Jasmin Harris uns
tack that on a John Ewing's number, So that would
give him close to twenty eight thousand, maybe a little
bit over twenty eight thousand people. Jean Stothart in a
primary against somebody else who was identifying as a Republican
available on the ballot, got twenty five thousand. Mike McDonald
(08:32):
has almost fourteen thousand votes to get if you're just
counting these numbers. And again I'm no disrespect to Terry Brewer,
but I'm not taking really his five hundred votes or
so into account here. Jean Stouthart gets four thousand of
the fourteen thousand from Mike McDonald. She is going to
have more than John Ewing like at the base, So
if they're tied there, that leaves ten thousand Mike McDonald
(08:55):
votes to battle for. And that's I think where the
battleground is is how many Mike McDonald voters are real
Republicans that want Jean Stott to stay in office because
she's a better alternative than John Ewing would be. And
how many people who are voting for Mike McDonald under
no circumstance, wants to see Gene Stothert be the mayor
for any given reason or even a third option. How
(09:18):
many Mike McDonald voters were Mike McDonald or bus and
will not vote, won't show up to vote, because they
don't like stother and they won't vote for a Democrat.
So how many people in the McDonald fourteen thousand are.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Those That's what I'm curious about right now. Curious about
a Mike McDonald voter who does not plan on voting
for Stouther in the major election, the main election.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Do they participate and vote for Ewing? Or do they
just say do they sit out? That's going to be
how like We're gonna have to kind of sift through there.
It'll interesting to see how the campaign changes because now
it's one to one, it is one versus one. But
I don't see either of these candidates really being very
hostile toward each other. I think Jean Stouth is going
to lean on her record as mayor. I think John
(10:01):
Ewing is going to lean on his record as a
public servant and somebody who has some ideas of things
that can be changed to take us into the future.
I think both of those are going to be pretty
well received messages. And I think we're going to get
a pretty civilized campaign here one v one, But who knows,
maybe somebody's going to get in their ear and say, hey,
we got to start tearing down what the other side
is doing to assure us for victory. Time will tell
(10:23):
two nineteen. We'll open the phones for you your thoughts
on this whole thing. Mike McDonald comes up short, finishes third,
Jean Stothar and John Ewing will go to the general
election next month. You can call us at four h
two five five eight eleven ten, four h two five
five eight eleven ten A news radio eleven ten kfab
and ninth tongue Amberson in an email. So the Mike
McDonald fan club was the Police and Firefighters Union. John
(10:44):
Ewing was a police officer, So there's a one to one.
Would the police officers kind of go with a former
officer or would they follow Chief Schmatterer who endorsed gen
stother because remember that was kind of weird the fire
chief indorse Stouther at the police officers Union indors McDonell.
(11:06):
Do they just kind of fall back in with Stothert
or do they go with a former officer? And obviously
Chief Schmater would never have indorse Stouther if he was
going to change his mind, you know, endorse John Ewing
for whatever it's worth. So it might be a clue.
I just don't know, I don't know if it'll be
that simple.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Pretty interesting battleground though.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Oh yeah, the police officers. I mean, it'll be fascinating
to see if the police officer union makes a determination
sometime in the next couple of weeks. Because we've got
till May thirteenth. I mean, we got like five weeks,
five full weeks, six full weeks. I don't know, give
me a calendar. I don't care. Craig says, I didn't
vote yesterday. I will vote in the general election. I
sat it out to see if the monoail would win Monoreil. Well,
(11:48):
Craig not sure the monoail was on the ballot. But
the street car seems like I mean, can we retire that?
I mean, it will come up based on the fact
that people didn't get to vote on it. But as
an actual project, neither of these people are going to
stop the street car. So do we need to talk
about do we need to talk about the numbers? Do
we need to talk about what could potentially happen.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Whether you like it or not. The project's already started.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well, you're not gonna like it, if you're not gonna
use it. I mean, nobody's gonna like the idea if
they know tax dollars, even if it's not an additional
more taxes, specifically it's through tax incremental funding. If somebody's
telling you that three hundred and eighty five million dollars
is going into a project using city tax dollars, and
(12:35):
you never go downtown and would have no interest in
using any type of public transportation whatsoever, especially one that
doesn't exist yet, you're not going to like that.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
What if you like that? I mean, I don't know
I could. I'm trying to pontificate a way where someone
would they don't plan on using it, but they like
the idea for the community.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, I mean you would have to just really believe
that person would have to believe what Mayor Stouther says
about the developmental dollars that have been in fun into
downtown with the idea that that's going to get done.
You know that giant skyscraper for instance, you think they
did that just because you think they were going to
build that skyscraper, Like the Mutual Omaha is just going
to build a skyscraper for no good reason.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
And just hope people fill it with somebody.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, no, h you're going to fix all of the
downtown park and we can be right on the edge
of that. Oh, and there's going to be a street
car that's going to go right by, and they're going
to see our building all the time. And we look
at all the other communities that have a streetcar and
the amount of land increase of value within a mile
of the street car rail that would Yeah. I mean,
if you're if you're forward thinking, if you're looking at
(13:36):
ten fifteen years down the line, certainly we have all
the evidence in the world that says that the streetcar
should make the city more money. It's just at the
at the time where it costs money. It's not a
great idea, It's right. It's like, Matt, I'm forcing you
to invest in Tesla right now. I don't want so
give me twenty five hundred dollars right now.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
I don't got it.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, I'm taking it from you anyway, So give it up.
And you're going to be like kicking and screaming while
I force you to give me that money. And then
when I show you, Hey, I come back to you
in a decade and I'm like, hey, Matt, remember when
I forced you to invest twenty five hundred dollars in Tesla. Well,
now that is matured into ten thousand dollars here you go, Oh, okay,
well glad I did that right?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So there's a free seventy five hundred dollars for you.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Congratulations, you're welcomes all right, all right, that's what I'm saying.
That's the way you have to sell this to somebody
is saying, even if you think you may not use it,
based on all the evidence that we have around the
United States with similar projects, money is going to be
made for this city and it's going to be good
for the health of this city. Now it's whether or
not when that money's coming in, how does that get
(14:40):
back to us?
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Like?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Am I going to see a decline in my property
tax at some points? That's what everybody wants to out right,
So time was going to tell on that. Also, Rick says,
why are polling places different? Mine was not in its
usual location? Is it because presumably lower turnout and different
or fewer polling places means less workforce at polls require
does the city or county manage the mayor primary and election?
(15:03):
So I went to the wrong place. I told you
this yesterday. I ended up going to a different church
than the one that I was supposed to go to,
But it was on the Douglas County elections website where
I punched in my number and gave me an option
of which house is mine, like which address is mine?
I clicked the address and then it told me where
I was supposed to go. So then I went to
the right place and I voted. There were four people
(15:26):
at my polling place. There were four people at the
one that I wasn't supposed to be at as well.
I don't think they had a shortage of that, and
I guess we'll find out what exactly that turnout looks like.
I put in a request to see if I can
get like as accurate a result of that. Not just
for our wager, but I think it's important to note
how many people were actually, you know, activated to vote
(15:47):
in a mayor oal primary race. So stuff on our
mind today. It is two twenty eight. Thank you for listening.
Our understanding is that Donald Trump is supposed to speak
today at three o'clock and he's gonna be doing Liberation
Day things. Is a result of kind of the tariffs
that are supposed to be in play, especially the reciprocal ones,
(16:09):
and there's you know, there's quite a bit of things
that maybe he could and couldn't say.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
But you know what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
We're gonna probably keep an eye on that, and when
he's talking, we'll probably take that live in the three
o'clock hour for whatever it's worth. So yeah, in that regard,
stick with us.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
We'll have that.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
We'll keep talking about these results as we get them
from the mayor's race and all sorts of other news
around the Omaha area on news radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And raised on there.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
I was just starting to call myself Master Damas and
then I get that wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Got it wrong.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
At least it sounds like unless sel them somewhere, they
find enough votes somewhere lying around that would pump that
up over thirty.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Yeah, find me votes. No, I'm sending my people a
text as we speak, find me the votes.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Oh, it's funny. No, so you get guard Dettos.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
We never really figured out what that wager was, but
maybe some obile cream pies one day. Who knows George
is on the phone line four h two five five
eight eleven ten, George, what's on your mind about this
whole old thing.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Hey brother, I just think the smarter or more time
people spend in college and take these city, state, federal jobs,
the stupider everything ends up. You look like our bus
system right now. We lose twenty twenty five million dollars
a year on our buffes in this town. There's nobody
going to ride this street car. We're going to be
four hundred million dollars into this before we get in
(17:28):
the operational costs, which is gonna be millions of dollars
a year. There's going to be nobody on it because
whoever was at Einstein had figured out where we was
going to run is running down a lane that has
absolutely no parking. Anybody you can park at the Quest Center.
Downtown's full, there's no parking spots down there. People are
going to drive downtown and ride the street car back
to Blackstone. There's no parking in Blackstone for them to
(17:51):
come from West Omaha and ride it into downtown. And
if you drive ten miles down there and I gave
you another For instance, these new electric trucks, I've done
this for forty nine years, almost on Lincoln delivery. They
weighed ten thousand pounds more than a regular semi now,
so you have to take ten thousand pounds of product
off every truck going down the interstate, which is going
(18:11):
to add thousands of trucks a week just to get
the same amount of stuff delivered. I mean, people are
absolutely messed with this crazy stuff. You're going to raise
the property taxes on people that have no intention of
getting on this thing. The property value is going to
go up, so they're going to pay more money out
of their pocket just to live in a house they've
been in for thirty years.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
I don't understand the nonsense these people come up with.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, well, George, I mean I understand where you're coming
from on it. I just think that the results yesterday
showed that people are not I mean, the people who
are activated to vote really don't care about the street
card being built.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I guess, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I mean, we're going to have to see what it
looks like because it's going to happen now.
Speaker 6 (18:49):
So, oh, I understand what's going to happen. But here's
one other thing that people It just makes me laugh.
The old Civic Auditorium downtown up there on sixth seventeenth Street,
parking spots out to people during the day in downtown.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Yeah, you know, for.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
Thirty dollars a month they were, So they're making thirty
thousand dollars a month off of vacant lots down there.
They moved down to the Quest Center. Well there ain't
nobody parking on their lots. You know, the city lost
two auditorium loss two hundred and eighty thousand dollars a
year just for parking.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting Georgia, And you're right. I
guess we're gonna have to find out what the parking
situation looks like for people who are trying to get
on the street car and take it to downtown and back.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
But we'll find out. Man, I appreciate your thoughts on
a really coo. Yeah, I have a good day.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I mean, what he's saying is voicing a lot of
opinions very similar to what a lot of people who
voted for Mike McDonald would have had about the street car,
but based on what the votes ended up like, people
were not that concerned about that.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
So let's go to John.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
John, I'm under the impression you did vote for Mike
McDonald yesterday.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Uh, you know I had, Yeah, I had marked my
I will vote first author in the general. Now I
had vote. I had marked my ballot for McDonald in
the primary. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well, so I wasn't
able to get my ballot dropped off and it was
too late to send it in. But my reason for
(20:18):
voting for McDonald was I just kind of wanted to
advance him into the general for the debate. But also
it wasn't so much the streetcar, but it was the
the roads and the and the lack of the lack
of police or having to hire, you know, more police
(20:38):
officers and stuff. So but originally I think that the
street car will go through, but I think it's my
original thought was build up and when they will come.
Was a kind of a bad idea for of hoping
for it. But uh, I'm not real thrilled with. Another
(21:04):
reason I voted for I was going to vote for
McDonald was this the street disrepair of stuff. I hear
excuses from Stothard on that, and it's not about winter
and that and this then the potholes during the winter,
because that's going to be whoever's mayor. But I was
(21:26):
I was driving like one thirty second from like Pacific
to Maple and there are potholes that hadn't been fixed.
And this was June and July and August. That's not
part of the freest thaw cycle. And so that's just
kind of, uh, that was my thinking. But I will
I will vote for Stothard because I'm not wanting to
(21:50):
vote for you. I'm not wanting to vote for you, Engst.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
So, yeah, you wouldn't vote for the Democrat just for
for change, you still stick out of the principles of
the politics.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I got you.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
I picked yep.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
John, Hey, thanks for those thoughts, man, thanks for coming in.
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Uh, Pat's on the phone line of four h two five, five,
eight eleven ten. What are you you thinking about today?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
They're Pat.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Oh, Well, remember I'm an underground utility contractor. I've been
laying pipe in Omaha for about thirty five years. And
every time I'm in downtown Omaha digging up a water
main or some of that nature, inevitably, no matter where
we dig, we run into train tracks. So the whole
streetcar thing that nobody's talked about yet, it's interesting is
(22:31):
it's already failed once. Yeah, then street cars all over
downtown Omahan. Now when you go to tear out the road,
you got to tear out the road and then the
tracks and then the old ties, and I mean it's
already failed in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, that's it's an interesting perspective, you know, like we've
just kind of built up on top of what was
downtown roads before.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Pat.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
There are some stark differences between how that car operates
in kind of the electric version of what this is
going to look like moving forward. But it's a good
it's a good point to mention that Omaha did have
a street car before. But it's gonna happen, my man,
I find I guess we're gonna have to find out
what exactly it looks like once it gets done. And
I know we're still a couple of years away from that,
(23:15):
so we'll figure that out. But I appreciate all the
hard work that you and all your comrades do on
our roads.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Pat.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
We really appreciate what you do.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Yeah, I just I just feel like it's another kind
of a vanity project, you know, that's going to be
kind of neat and everything, But as far as you know,
being a viable investment, I don't. I don't think it's
going to even come close. I mean, we would like
to have last I said, we got buses already, you know,
we operated a loss, and I mean that thing's going
to cost so much just to get started. It's amazing.
(23:43):
So anyway, all right, thanks.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Hemry, thanks man, appreciate the call. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Uh here's some additional context. Matthew emailed her mind and
this is a little bit more of what I kind
of alluded to it.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
But he said it outright.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That skyscraper Mutual of Omaha is building for their headquarters
right on the edge of the downtown park area of
Jeene Leahie mal And all that stuff was done in
a like, was done with the understanding the street car
was going to happen to. So could you imagine going
to them while they're halfway done building their giant skyscraper
that's opening next year and saying, hey, by the way,
(24:17):
that thing that you said that you would like, we're
gonna we're gonna move the contracts around on that. So
I think there's probably a lot of relief from a
city's perspective on that. Again, you could talk about this
is good for the developers and developers are investing all
this money, all this stuff, and I understand that you know,
you may not use it, but I don't know what
use trying to stop it at this point is going
to be. Because both of the mayor candidates that are
(24:40):
advancing to the general election, that is going to completely
that's just not going to be a discussion. Both of
them are going to see that through. They may discuss
whether or not it should have gone to a vote,
because that's where the difference lies between Stothard who didn't
put it to a vote and John Ewing, who said
it should have gone to a vote, but they both
are in agreement that this is a good project and
(25:01):
will be good for downtown and for Omaha in general.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
So for whatever that's worth.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Two forty seven, if you'd like to call in here
in the two o'clock hour, we're expecting to hear from
Donald Trump at three o'clock hour. We'll see what that
looks like. But yeah, that's on the way, and we'll
take more calls four h two, five, five, eight to
eleven ten when we come back on these radio eleven
ten kfab m Rin Okay, sorry.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
Jane, I am so disappointed that people that decided that
they wanted to not have Jens Stothard are just going
to go ahead and vote for her anyway because they
cannot see their way through actually getting to know mister Ewing.
We have a DMV that has been turned around, and
if you haven't had to go then you maybe don't understand.
(25:45):
But he has done an excellent job. And there are
people besides missus Stothard who has obviously bent to the
whims of people that have lots of money, and she
is not making decisions on her own, and I think
we need to give other people an opportunity to show
(26:05):
us what they can do. Very sad that we have
people that are so tied into one little.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
Group of people.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Well, I can I ask real quick, Janie, what the
what you don't like that she's done, Like a specific
thing that you think John Ewing would be better suited
for mayor than Jene Stothart.
Speaker 7 (26:26):
She has backed mister Nodle, who has totally destroyed the
aesthetics of many parts of this city. She is obviously
willing to let people lead her or pay her. I
have no idea how it goes, but I think that
we've seen her work enough and this less selection of
(26:48):
doing what she did without letting the people vote in
terms of this rail system is beyond the pale. Okay,
give somebody else a chance that has already shown us
through their integrity what they have done for this city.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Fair enough, All right, Well, Janney, I appreciate you calling
in and thank you so much for your thoughts on
this today.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
We alsome.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
We're going to definitely day yeah you as well, and
we'll definitely talk to John Ewing and Jean Stothard again
between now and the election at least once, maybe twice,
who knows. But I mean it's it's worth It's a
good perspective, right. It's just like, hey, you voted against
Jean Stothart and then you're just going to vote for
her because your preferred candidate didn't win. Now, I mean
(27:29):
that's part of the primary process here. You're narrowing it down,
but makes quite interesting. Daniel's on the phone line four two, five, five,
eight eleven ten, Daniel, what's on your mind today?
Speaker 8 (27:38):
Hey, Henry. When I moved here to Omaha with the
up twenty five years ago, we were really jealous of
the mutual of Omaha employees that live worked in that building,
the old building, because when Mutual of Omaha built it,
they bought up housing around it, and employees that moved
here contracted for subsidized housing with no calls so they
(28:01):
could all walk to work. Part of the deal with
building the new building downtown was so that those same
people can go to work no car, and so that
other people could do the same thing. The deal when
they agreed to build the building downtown was to have
a streetcar. So the cost of breaking that deal would
(28:21):
probably be more than the whole projects were much less
all the other contracts.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, definitely is one thing that nobody really talked about
in regards to trying to stop the street car, as
just all of the inner workings of why it was
there in the first place and what those contracts look like,
especially when it comes to Mutual trying to build this
big building with that in mind. I appreciate the call, Daniel,
thanks for listening to us today.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
No problem, Thanks, No problem. Dave's on our phone line. Dave,
I have about forty seconds. What's on your mind today?
Speaker 6 (28:48):
Okay, I just.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
Wanted to make comment on the rail system. I'm not
even from Omaha, from more and I hear about it
sounds like a dead horse to me. And when as
they say, they can't stop it, but you know, you
can stop and maybe lose some money, or you can
keep it going and just keep pumping money in a
dead horse. Yeah, that's all I have to say.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Appreciate it, Dave, thanks for listening to us.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And I suppose you know, it just kind of depends
on what your opinion is on what the project looks
like or if you're going to use it. Like we
just heard from Daniel though, that it's going to be
well used for a lot of people who are living
and the you know, Blackstone type area that will have
the opportunity to then use the street car to get
downtown and work at the Mutual Building or probably some
(29:28):
of the other people at least in that agreement as well.
So I don't know, it's interesting. I got a lot
of emails coming in. We'll do the best that we
can to try to sift through this. Donald Trump's supposed
to speak next hour. We'll let you hear some of
that as well here on news radio eleven to ten
kfab
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