July 31, 2025 • 18 mins
Willie talks with Western and Southern CEO John Barrett about how the violence downtown is affecting the business community. Also they discuss the big changes to the Cincinnati Open tennis tournament.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Billy Cunningham, the Great American, and welcome to somewhat rainy
Thursday afternoon in the Reds Baseball. What a dramatic win
last night, and Tony Bender wants to know how can
O Tony be on the mound and take it out
but he's still hit. We're gonna have to talk to
maybe Tommy Thrall about that later on, but nonetheless, first
pitch about seven to ten. It should be clear by then,
and we go to the coverage at six ten. The
(00:27):
Braves are in town today and tomorrow, and then on
Saturday they play at Bristol Motor Speedway in the in
front of the largest crowd ever to see a baseball game,
like ninety thousand people. But until then, we have a
little problems in River City. Things aren't as good as
they possibly could be. Where the headline of the New
York Daily News, New York Post headline, and Fox News
and CNN's largely ignoring it, playing a little bit, but nonetheless,
(00:50):
one of the Grand Ramseys, the first or the second,
I call him Ramseys. The second Carl Lender Junior was Ramseys.
The first help building the great City of Cincinnati is
John Barrett to CEO Western Southern and also heading up
to three c DC head on Steve Leeper the other
day to talk about those circumstances. But John Barrett, welcome
again to the Bill Cunningham Show, and is one of
the leaders of our town. How do you process what's
(01:12):
happened the past four or five days?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Hello, Willie. Great to be on. It's obviously a deep concern.
It's deep concern to all of us who love our city.
And this is not this is not us. We don't
want to behave like a Chicago. We're a different city,
and this is this is hopefully going to be a
(01:37):
short lived issue that we can get over, bring the
folks to justice, and move on. That's that's my hope.
But again, things have a way of as they say,
Cincinnati thing has happened a little bit later than they
do elsewhere. I hope, we're hope we're not five years
by the times in more ways in white you know
(01:58):
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
After the April riots that Charlie Lucan and I walked
up and down Vine Street and he told me a vision,
and then you and others got leaper out of Pittsburgh
and said, wait a minute, we're going to revitalize OTR,
and everyone said at the time, good luck. And the
CBD was a central business district, wasn't of the best shape.
Otherwise we going went through about twenty years and now
(02:19):
Brownstones and OTR sell for one point four million dollars
TQL anchors. One side, you got the Bengals. And by
the way, there was a shooting this morning about five
a m. Out in front of the Bengals practice facility.
They're in the bubble this afternoon. The guy was shot
in the back. We're gonna have twenty thousand shots fired
this year in the city of Cincinnati. We're going to
have four hundred people wounded, seventy to eighty are going
(02:42):
to be killed. We're going to have about twenty five
thousand crimes committed. And I have a census as Cincinnati
and as you are born and bred, that we're back
to the good old days of twenty years ago where
the town's got in the publicity. Negatively, that cannot be
cannot be repeated again. Do you have a long term
concern that we have the wrong leadership in the city
(03:03):
of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Willie, I would just say that now is the time
for a stronger law and order push. We've been you know,
very lais a fair and the stuff. It's time that
we we look at ourselves and say, safe streets are
a must. Safe have people feeling safe is a must.
(03:26):
And I'm sure we're going to get there. I hope
we can get there quickly. We have. Joe Dieters used
to say, if I could keep one hundred habitual criminals
locked up, I could knock the I could knock the
crime rate by fifty percent. You cannot let a guy
out of jail. I was a four thousand dollars bond.
(03:46):
He puts up four hundred bucks, right, and then he's
part of the of the beat down that that's just
unacceptable and our judges have to wake up. We've fantasy
change in the election politics of our area, not just
the city but the county. Two. Well, now is the
(04:07):
time for them to step up and deliver. So the
challenge is there. Hopefully they'll step up and deliver. They
were elected and appointed to lead. We want them to lead.
It's important. This is a small tidbit, and I'm not
trying to pat Western Southern on the back, but about
thirty five years ago, I was pretty New in Town.
(04:28):
I was up in Joe Pittler's office at the Kroger
Building and he said, you know, John, I bet we're
the only fortune five hundred and a company in a
country that's just on the edge of a blighted area
like this. For one that's really not true. But so
simultaneous with that, my boss, Bill Williams said, John, let's
(04:49):
do something nice for the city. So we had hired
a guy from New York City, Mario San Marco, whom
I had worked with when I lived there, and he
had gone to pay Universe, about a mile from from
Wall Street, and the area between those two places was
a blighted area that had come back and it came
back the way Main Street did in Cincinnati sweat equity,
(05:12):
and we said, let's take a shot here. So we
bought the two toughest blocks south of Liberty and over
the Rhine that had been walled up between twelfth and fourteenth,
redeveloped it completely and we were often running, and we
redeveloped trash housing into low income housing. Its quality. The
(05:32):
city has recently asked us if we would upgrade it
to more market rate stuff because the demand was there,
and they wanted to, you know, continue to progress and
over the Rhine, so we were architects of the Over
the Rhine Renaissance. We are concerned that the local people
will stop supporting over the Rhine if it's not safe,
(05:55):
and so we've been pushing hard to improve the safety.
I know others share our concerns that way. We just
got to get some action here. We don't have enough
uniform police on the streets, yes, and we've got to
do something about that.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And we can well, you know, we're down two to
three hundred cops and you want to hire young twenty
five to thirty year old cops who are going to
be on the street actually able to chase down run.
And when you talk about Joe Diaters, it couldn't be
a better comment made that the great majority of African Americans,
white Americans, whatever, have nothing to do with crime. At
the so called music festival, there was eighty five thousand
(06:37):
people there and we're talking about behavior maybe one hundred.
But when that is identified as a problem and you
have a city leader, say I'm talking about Victoria Parks,
who's actually a city leader saying quote they beg for
that beatdown quote unquote, and I thought, okay, I don't
know her. Well, maybe you know her better than I do.
Victoria Parks on City Council elected. I thought, okay, maybe
(07:00):
she had a bad day. And Curtis Fuller a Channel
five called her and she said, no, that that's what
I believe. That they they, whoever they is, beg for
the beatdown. Is that the kind of leader we need.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well, I don't know her myself, Willie, but I was
a little bit shocked by that response, and I don't
think most people feel that way. It's it's a shame
the politics of our country has gone so crazy, you know,
just crazy. We need regular people who have regular jobs
(07:34):
and normal lives to be the people who run the
city in this country. We don't need, we don't need,
you know, loudmouths. And I think at the end of
the day, what we've got to have is the Business
Committee will work hand in glove with the city leaders
to help us fix downtown. They already are and many
(07:56):
medias are going on right now, Willie, all over the
city at all levels. So let's see if we can't
coalesce into some really good action that supports each other.
And we've got to have help from the court system. Yeah,
we have help from the appointed and the elected officials,
(08:17):
and everyone has to do his or her job.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I spoke to most of the restaurant tours who signed
that letter about three or four days ago. It was
signed by Britney Ruby Miller, and also I talked to
four or five others. At night. They have to have
armed guards walk their younger employees of the parking lot.
Customers who have left downtown restaurants have been beaten. I
(08:42):
think a good friend of both of ours, I don't
want to mention his name was had dinner at Ruby's
walk down the river to like eight o'clock, came back
up four guys and they got the crap kicked out
of them. And we've got more shootings taking place almost daily.
Is it fair to say that things have been tried
in law enforcement up to this have not worked, and
that we need to go in a new and different direction.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I think that's fair, Willie, and I think if people
realize there is force behind their behavior, if it's bad,
they behave better. They do well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
In this one case of this one gentleman, he's a
career criminal. He was charged with aggravated robbery, gun use
and convicted. He goes in front of Judge Mallory who
gives him a four hundred dollars bond. About two weeks
ago he gets out and he was part of the
group that was, shall we say, kicking the crap out
of these tourists, and I understand their tourists. And now
(09:39):
he's got a five hundred thousand dollars bond. Because there
was one judge on the bench that particular day that
has more of a conservative viewpoint. Unfortunately it's going to
get to Common Police Court or about half the judges
don't think people should be locked up and prisoned at
all for historical reasons or whatever. And when I had
Mike the Wine on yesterday, the governor had a five
part plan one, two, three, four five, And to his credit,
(10:02):
the governor said on the air that they have to
have Puerival has bought into this, and there's also a
sense that other people in the city have not bought
into it in positions of leadership. And the five part
plan includes the highway patrol coming here in order to
take over traffic responsibilities so that the regular beat cops
can hunt down the one to two hundred people they
(10:22):
need to be locked up, and if those things happen,
that would be a positive. But I think it's fair
to say that those of us and you also have
more of a national, international perspective. When you talk to
those who live in Boone County, Butler County, Claremont County,
they say they're not going downtown. Well I'm not. I'm
not going to put up with that. What does John
(10:44):
Barrett say to those who live outside of Cincinnati that
can you say today, John Barrett, that Cincinnati is safe.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I'm gonna say it will be safe, and I'm going
to say it will be sooner than sooner than you think.
A number of the companies will have their security in
their companies, take care of their neighborhoods. That's that's in
the cards, and it's going to happen shortly, which will
help the beat police. Obviously, when they move people from
(11:16):
over the Rhine to cover a music festival, they leave
over the Rne vulnerable. So we need more folks, more
police presence. The presence of police reminds people that there
could be consequences if I misbehave sequence. Yeah, and that's
(11:37):
the key. And so I think you're going to have
a very spirited election coming up, and a lot of
a lot of people who might have voted one way
just for traditional whatever are going to be looking for
a little bit firmer commitment from their political leaders about
(11:57):
the future of our city. And it's really importantly we're
here pushing hard to bring jobs, people, college graduates to Cincinnati,
researches to the UC pill Hill Quarter there, all that stuff.
We don't want them to reject us out of hand
before they ever come and see us because of what
(12:19):
they've heard. And if you remember, with Timothy Thomas, we
did a whole really really hard work to get everything
is sort of resorted out and make sure that we
were able to live that down. This is that type
of magnitude of an event again, and it's been published everywhere,
(12:42):
and I think we need firm action now and we
have to stick with it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
You have you spoken to Mayor Pirrival.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I have not.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
He's coming back into town sometime soon. I could not
imagine that Western Southern is in near total collapse in
John Barrett is on vacation in Canada, but that's a
different story. I had dinner last night at Blinkers, which
is a fine facility in Covington, and one of the
leaders of Kent County tell me, look, Barrett's got a
police department. Carter has a police department, Proctern Gamble has
(13:16):
a police department. Joseph Schevrolet Downtown they have security guards,
buildings have security guards. Everyone has the private police department.
He said, we don't have that here. We have Covington
Police and they know that we will back them up.
And so he said, I'm not going to Cincinnati for
a while until things calm down, because unless I'm with
Western and Southern or P and G or Fifth Third Bank,
(13:38):
or with private security guards, I don't trust the city police,
led by the current leadership, to keep me safe. And
there's numerous examples of that. So for those who say, well,
if you're John Barrett, you're good, But if you're a
Tony Bender from Boone County, I'm not going downtown Cincinnati,
what would you say to those of those who have
those concerns.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I would say there's been a high and fear of
the crime and whatnot, and so in response, there's also
been a heightened responsibility the part of the police department
to be more evident and available. I would think town
will be safer now than it has been for a while,
that'd be my thought.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Well, John, let's hope. All we have is hope. I
mean it happened. I look at New York City, and
you know about New York City after David Dinkins complete disaster,
and then Rudy came in in Bloomberg and the city
turned around, and we turned around for like twenty years.
And people don't want to go back to those kind
of days that.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Existed, Willie. I lived there then, and what Giuliani did
was thought to be impossible. Yeah, but it worked. It worked.
And you know, people's rights to carry guns without they
got to have a permit. All these people were armed
down here everywhere now and it's not good. But you
(14:57):
can't do away with guns. There's over a do you
know them out there. You have to do away with
the way people use them, where they take them, and
how they use them. And twelve and fourteen year olds
with guns is just totally unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And we need a functional school system, John, you know
the CPS. Many of my friends in Cincinnati tell me
the school system is so bad. I pay high taxes
and can't benefit my children by sending him to a
public school where twenty five percent of the student body
is chronically absent. And I don't know how you start
in the first grade, second rate, or third grade saying
you've got to come to school. Parents must be held
(15:32):
to account. There's something called truancy and something called vagrancy.
There's something called that you have to go to school,
and that doesn't happen, and it's just an endemic problem.
But at the end of the day, the cops deal
with the end of the line. They don't begin, but
at the beginning of the line, which is a completely
dysfunctional school system. But well, John, one last question. You
got the tennis tournaments coming up August fifth. I mean,
(15:54):
I can't believe it's already here. So can you give
us a capsule of what tennis fans and Mason are
going to find when they go to the Cincinnati Open
sponsored by you.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
They're going to be blown away by the facilities. One
hundred million bucks or more has been poured into it
last year. There are many more courts, many more venues,
there will be much more activity. It's going to be
a real, really good show. And I unfortunately noticed that
(16:26):
a bunch of players pulled out of the Toronto tournament
resting up for this one good that's important. We're one
of the Big nine. And if they have an All
Star Game every year in your city, it's unreal. And
that's what this is. This is the best human beings
who can play tennis playing here. And the guy who
(16:48):
purchased a tournament is more than just that. Heavily endowed
guy self made. His daughter is the number eight woman
player in the world, and he's all in. We lucked out,
and he put a very good guy from Charlotte in
(17:09):
here to run the tournament, and he's got a house
in Mason. And these guys are they are adapting to
our city very very well. And I think they are
delaying with the decision they made to spend all that
money here.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
John Barrett, thanks for coming on, and I'm encouraged by
what you're saying. But the buy in must be from
Mayor Puival, Cheryl Long, Chief Fiji and the rank and file.
And the rank and file I know as zero respect
for the leadership of the city of Cincinnati. Zero respect.
When you talk to cops on the beat, they just
(17:45):
roll their eyes at what's happening and things fish brought
from the head first, and if we don't have the
right political leadership in the city of Cincinnati. Council members
like Victoria Park said, quote they beg for that beat down.
I don't know how you overcome that level of ignorance
by a city leader. And you can throw artist early
(18:06):
in the match too.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
There's a ballot box, and that's where you overcome it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
John Barrett, you're a great American. Thanks for coming on
the Bill Cunningham Show. Thank you, John.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Thanks Willy god Blease.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Let's continue with more. There's the classic comment, a ballot box,
what a novel concept. If you want change, you have
to be the change by changing the leadership of this
town to reflect not the viewpoints of quote they beg
for that beatdown, but law and order and mainly judges
have got to realize their role in the process and
the beat cop Bill Cunningham. These Radio seven hundred ww
Billy Cunningham, the Great American, and welcome to somewhat rainy
Thursday afternoon in the Reds Baseball. What a dramatic win
last night, and Tony Bender wants to know how can
O Tony be on the mound and take it out
but he's still hit. We're gonna have to talk to
maybe Tommy Thrall about that later on, but nonetheless, first
pitch about seven to ten. It should be clear by then,
and we go to the coverage at six ten. The
(00:27):
Braves are in town today and tomorrow, and then on
Saturday they play at Bristol Motor Speedway in the in
front of the largest crowd ever to see a baseball game,
like ninety thousand people. But until then, we have a
little problems in River City. Things aren't as good as
they possibly could be. Where the headline of the New
York Daily News, New York Post headline, and Fox News
and CNN's largely ignoring it, playing a little bit, but nonetheless,
(00:50):
one of the Grand Ramseys, the first or the second,
I call him Ramseys. The second Carl Lender Junior was Ramseys.
The first help building the great City of Cincinnati is
John Barrett to CEO Western Southern and also heading up
to three c DC head on Steve Leeper the other
day to talk about those circumstances. But John Barrett, welcome
again to the Bill Cunningham Show, and is one of
the leaders of our town. How do you process what's
(01:12):
happened the past four or five days?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Hello, Willie. Great to be on. It's obviously a deep concern.
It's deep concern to all of us who love our city.
And this is not this is not us. We don't
want to behave like a Chicago. We're a different city,
and this is this is hopefully going to be a
(01:37):
short lived issue that we can get over, bring the
folks to justice, and move on. That's that's my hope.
But again, things have a way of as they say,
Cincinnati thing has happened a little bit later than they
do elsewhere. I hope, we're hope we're not five years
by the times in more ways in white you know
(01:58):
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
After the April riots that Charlie Lucan and I walked
up and down Vine Street and he told me a vision,
and then you and others got leaper out of Pittsburgh
and said, wait a minute, we're going to revitalize OTR,
and everyone said at the time, good luck. And the
CBD was a central business district, wasn't of the best shape.
Otherwise we going went through about twenty years and now
(02:19):
Brownstones and OTR sell for one point four million dollars
TQL anchors. One side, you got the Bengals. And by
the way, there was a shooting this morning about five
a m. Out in front of the Bengals practice facility.
They're in the bubble this afternoon. The guy was shot
in the back. We're gonna have twenty thousand shots fired
this year in the city of Cincinnati. We're going to
have four hundred people wounded, seventy to eighty are going
(02:42):
to be killed. We're going to have about twenty five
thousand crimes committed. And I have a census as Cincinnati
and as you are born and bred, that we're back
to the good old days of twenty years ago where
the town's got in the publicity. Negatively, that cannot be
cannot be repeated again. Do you have a long term
concern that we have the wrong leadership in the city
(03:03):
of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Willie, I would just say that now is the time
for a stronger law and order push. We've been you know,
very lais a fair and the stuff. It's time that
we we look at ourselves and say, safe streets are
a must. Safe have people feeling safe is a must.
(03:26):
And I'm sure we're going to get there. I hope
we can get there quickly. We have. Joe Dieters used
to say, if I could keep one hundred habitual criminals
locked up, I could knock the I could knock the
crime rate by fifty percent. You cannot let a guy
out of jail. I was a four thousand dollars bond.
(03:46):
He puts up four hundred bucks, right, and then he's
part of the of the beat down that that's just
unacceptable and our judges have to wake up. We've fantasy
change in the election politics of our area, not just
the city but the county. Two. Well, now is the
(04:07):
time for them to step up and deliver. So the
challenge is there. Hopefully they'll step up and deliver. They
were elected and appointed to lead. We want them to lead.
It's important. This is a small tidbit, and I'm not
trying to pat Western Southern on the back, but about
thirty five years ago, I was pretty New in Town.
(04:28):
I was up in Joe Pittler's office at the Kroger
Building and he said, you know, John, I bet we're
the only fortune five hundred and a company in a
country that's just on the edge of a blighted area
like this. For one that's really not true. But so
simultaneous with that, my boss, Bill Williams said, John, let's
(04:49):
do something nice for the city. So we had hired
a guy from New York City, Mario San Marco, whom
I had worked with when I lived there, and he
had gone to pay Universe, about a mile from from
Wall Street, and the area between those two places was
a blighted area that had come back and it came
back the way Main Street did in Cincinnati sweat equity,
(05:12):
and we said, let's take a shot here. So we
bought the two toughest blocks south of Liberty and over
the Rhine that had been walled up between twelfth and fourteenth,
redeveloped it completely and we were often running, and we
redeveloped trash housing into low income housing. Its quality. The
(05:32):
city has recently asked us if we would upgrade it
to more market rate stuff because the demand was there,
and they wanted to, you know, continue to progress and
over the Rhine, so we were architects of the Over
the Rhine Renaissance. We are concerned that the local people
will stop supporting over the Rhine if it's not safe,
(05:55):
and so we've been pushing hard to improve the safety.
I know others share our concerns that way. We just
got to get some action here. We don't have enough
uniform police on the streets, yes, and we've got to
do something about that.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And we can well, you know, we're down two to
three hundred cops and you want to hire young twenty
five to thirty year old cops who are going to
be on the street actually able to chase down run.
And when you talk about Joe Diaters, it couldn't be
a better comment made that the great majority of African Americans,
white Americans, whatever, have nothing to do with crime. At
the so called music festival, there was eighty five thousand
(06:37):
people there and we're talking about behavior maybe one hundred.
But when that is identified as a problem and you
have a city leader, say I'm talking about Victoria Parks,
who's actually a city leader saying quote they beg for
that beatdown quote unquote, and I thought, okay, I don't
know her. Well, maybe you know her better than I do.
Victoria Parks on City Council elected. I thought, okay, maybe
(07:00):
she had a bad day. And Curtis Fuller a Channel
five called her and she said, no, that that's what
I believe. That they they, whoever they is, beg for
the beatdown. Is that the kind of leader we need.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well, I don't know her myself, Willie, but I was
a little bit shocked by that response, and I don't
think most people feel that way. It's it's a shame
the politics of our country has gone so crazy, you know,
just crazy. We need regular people who have regular jobs
(07:34):
and normal lives to be the people who run the
city in this country. We don't need, we don't need,
you know, loudmouths. And I think at the end of
the day, what we've got to have is the Business
Committee will work hand in glove with the city leaders
to help us fix downtown. They already are and many
(07:56):
medias are going on right now, Willie, all over the
city at all levels. So let's see if we can't
coalesce into some really good action that supports each other.
And we've got to have help from the court system. Yeah,
we have help from the appointed and the elected officials,
(08:17):
and everyone has to do his or her job.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I spoke to most of the restaurant tours who signed
that letter about three or four days ago. It was
signed by Britney Ruby Miller, and also I talked to
four or five others. At night. They have to have
armed guards walk their younger employees of the parking lot.
Customers who have left downtown restaurants have been beaten. I
(08:42):
think a good friend of both of ours, I don't
want to mention his name was had dinner at Ruby's
walk down the river to like eight o'clock, came back
up four guys and they got the crap kicked out
of them. And we've got more shootings taking place almost daily.
Is it fair to say that things have been tried
in law enforcement up to this have not worked, and
that we need to go in a new and different direction.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I think that's fair, Willie, and I think if people
realize there is force behind their behavior, if it's bad,
they behave better. They do well.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
In this one case of this one gentleman, he's a
career criminal. He was charged with aggravated robbery, gun use
and convicted. He goes in front of Judge Mallory who
gives him a four hundred dollars bond. About two weeks
ago he gets out and he was part of the
group that was, shall we say, kicking the crap out
of these tourists, and I understand their tourists. And now
(09:39):
he's got a five hundred thousand dollars bond. Because there
was one judge on the bench that particular day that
has more of a conservative viewpoint. Unfortunately it's going to
get to Common Police Court or about half the judges
don't think people should be locked up and prisoned at
all for historical reasons or whatever. And when I had
Mike the Wine on yesterday, the governor had a five
part plan one, two, three, four five, And to his credit,
(10:02):
the governor said on the air that they have to
have Puerival has bought into this, and there's also a
sense that other people in the city have not bought
into it in positions of leadership. And the five part
plan includes the highway patrol coming here in order to
take over traffic responsibilities so that the regular beat cops
can hunt down the one to two hundred people they
(10:22):
need to be locked up, and if those things happen,
that would be a positive. But I think it's fair
to say that those of us and you also have
more of a national, international perspective. When you talk to
those who live in Boone County, Butler County, Claremont County,
they say they're not going downtown. Well I'm not. I'm
not going to put up with that. What does John
(10:44):
Barrett say to those who live outside of Cincinnati that
can you say today, John Barrett, that Cincinnati is safe.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I'm gonna say it will be safe, and I'm going
to say it will be sooner than sooner than you think.
A number of the companies will have their security in
their companies, take care of their neighborhoods. That's that's in
the cards, and it's going to happen shortly, which will
help the beat police. Obviously, when they move people from
(11:16):
over the Rhine to cover a music festival, they leave
over the Rne vulnerable. So we need more folks, more
police presence. The presence of police reminds people that there
could be consequences if I misbehave sequence. Yeah, and that's
(11:37):
the key. And so I think you're going to have
a very spirited election coming up, and a lot of
a lot of people who might have voted one way
just for traditional whatever are going to be looking for
a little bit firmer commitment from their political leaders about
(11:57):
the future of our city. And it's really importantly we're
here pushing hard to bring jobs, people, college graduates to Cincinnati,
researches to the UC pill Hill Quarter there, all that stuff.
We don't want them to reject us out of hand
before they ever come and see us because of what
(12:19):
they've heard. And if you remember, with Timothy Thomas, we
did a whole really really hard work to get everything
is sort of resorted out and make sure that we
were able to live that down. This is that type
of magnitude of an event again, and it's been published everywhere,
(12:42):
and I think we need firm action now and we
have to stick with it.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
You have you spoken to Mayor Pirrival.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I have not.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
He's coming back into town sometime soon. I could not
imagine that Western Southern is in near total collapse in
John Barrett is on vacation in Canada, but that's a
different story. I had dinner last night at Blinkers, which
is a fine facility in Covington, and one of the
leaders of Kent County tell me, look, Barrett's got a
police department. Carter has a police department, Proctern Gamble has
(13:16):
a police department. Joseph Schevrolet Downtown they have security guards,
buildings have security guards. Everyone has the private police department.
He said, we don't have that here. We have Covington
Police and they know that we will back them up.
And so he said, I'm not going to Cincinnati for
a while until things calm down, because unless I'm with
Western and Southern or P and G or Fifth Third Bank,
(13:38):
or with private security guards, I don't trust the city police,
led by the current leadership, to keep me safe. And
there's numerous examples of that. So for those who say, well,
if you're John Barrett, you're good, But if you're a
Tony Bender from Boone County, I'm not going downtown Cincinnati,
what would you say to those of those who have
those concerns.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I would say there's been a high and fear of
the crime and whatnot, and so in response, there's also
been a heightened responsibility the part of the police department
to be more evident and available. I would think town
will be safer now than it has been for a while,
that'd be my thought.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Well, John, let's hope. All we have is hope. I
mean it happened. I look at New York City, and
you know about New York City after David Dinkins complete disaster,
and then Rudy came in in Bloomberg and the city
turned around, and we turned around for like twenty years.
And people don't want to go back to those kind
of days that.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Existed, Willie. I lived there then, and what Giuliani did
was thought to be impossible. Yeah, but it worked. It worked.
And you know, people's rights to carry guns without they
got to have a permit. All these people were armed
down here everywhere now and it's not good. But you
(14:57):
can't do away with guns. There's over a do you
know them out there. You have to do away with
the way people use them, where they take them, and
how they use them. And twelve and fourteen year olds
with guns is just totally unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And we need a functional school system, John, you know
the CPS. Many of my friends in Cincinnati tell me
the school system is so bad. I pay high taxes
and can't benefit my children by sending him to a
public school where twenty five percent of the student body
is chronically absent. And I don't know how you start
in the first grade, second rate, or third grade saying
you've got to come to school. Parents must be held
(15:32):
to account. There's something called truancy and something called vagrancy.
There's something called that you have to go to school,
and that doesn't happen, and it's just an endemic problem.
But at the end of the day, the cops deal
with the end of the line. They don't begin, but
at the beginning of the line, which is a completely
dysfunctional school system. But well, John, one last question. You
got the tennis tournaments coming up August fifth. I mean,
(15:54):
I can't believe it's already here. So can you give
us a capsule of what tennis fans and Mason are
going to find when they go to the Cincinnati Open
sponsored by you.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
They're going to be blown away by the facilities. One
hundred million bucks or more has been poured into it
last year. There are many more courts, many more venues,
there will be much more activity. It's going to be
a real, really good show. And I unfortunately noticed that
(16:26):
a bunch of players pulled out of the Toronto tournament
resting up for this one good that's important. We're one
of the Big nine. And if they have an All
Star Game every year in your city, it's unreal. And
that's what this is. This is the best human beings
who can play tennis playing here. And the guy who
(16:48):
purchased a tournament is more than just that. Heavily endowed
guy self made. His daughter is the number eight woman
player in the world, and he's all in. We lucked out,
and he put a very good guy from Charlotte in
(17:09):
here to run the tournament, and he's got a house
in Mason. And these guys are they are adapting to
our city very very well. And I think they are
delaying with the decision they made to spend all that
money here.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
John Barrett, thanks for coming on, and I'm encouraged by
what you're saying. But the buy in must be from
Mayor Puival, Cheryl Long, Chief Fiji and the rank and file.
And the rank and file I know as zero respect
for the leadership of the city of Cincinnati. Zero respect.
When you talk to cops on the beat, they just
(17:45):
roll their eyes at what's happening and things fish brought
from the head first, and if we don't have the
right political leadership in the city of Cincinnati. Council members
like Victoria Park said, quote they beg for that beat down.
I don't know how you overcome that level of ignorance
by a city leader. And you can throw artist early
(18:06):
in the match too.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
There's a ballot box, and that's where you overcome it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
John Barrett, you're a great American. Thanks for coming on
the Bill Cunningham Show. Thank you, John.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Thanks Willy god Blease.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Let's continue with more. There's the classic comment, a ballot box,
what a novel concept. If you want change, you have
to be the change by changing the leadership of this
town to reflect not the viewpoints of quote they beg
for that beatdown, but law and order and mainly judges
have got to realize their role in the process and
the beat cop Bill Cunningham. These Radio seven hundred ww
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