April 6, 2026 • 18 mins
Willie talks with WLWT's Brian Hamrick about the mayor and City Manager's unwillingness to answer any questions about recent safety events in Cincinnati.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Billy Cunningham, the Great America will welcome this Monday after
him in the tri States. So much going on, so
little time. We had the President coming up, Donald J.
Trump at one o'clock today on a news conference and
talk about what's happening in Iran and also related issues.
The city of Cincinnati has major difficulties. As you may know,
the inquiry ran a long story in which the income
tax revenues of the city are way down off by
(00:28):
like thirty percent. You may know if you work or
live in the city, you pay about one point eight percent.
That money's not coming in because jobs are bleeding all
over the place. And also we had the riotous conditions
after Red's opening day. And so Brian Hambrick of the
Power of fives that it might be good to get
a comment from the mayor about what is happening with
our city, especially when it appears to be in difficult waters.
(00:50):
I know the business owners I speak to are filled
with trepidation, and you don't want trepidation. Brian Hamrick, Welcome
again to the Bill Cunningham Show. First of all, Brian,
talk about the circumstances in which you, as a reporter
wanted to get the comments from the mayor. This a
few days ago when he was raising the transgender flag.
He had time for the transgender flag, but not for
Red's opening day. But that's a different story and relate
(01:13):
to the American people. What happened When you try to
track down the mayor, have to have pierrival to make
a comment on something.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thanks agetting us un Am. Yes, well, we you know,
there's a lot of things going on. You know, we
have the concerns of the budget the police had been in.
They're talking about maybe a five percent cut there, the
fire departments talking about a five percent cut. You know,
these are kind of major issues for the city. We
(01:41):
had all the stuff that went down with opening day
the mayor, which I mean, you know, people take time
off whatever, but he wasn't here whenever that all happened,
and so we hadn't seen him. We hadn't had a
comment from the.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Mayor about all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
What he thought, ou how did the police do? Did
he think there need to be changes anything any of that.
We didn't talked to him about the five percent proposal
of Kottai. You know, how do they come about that?
I wanted to ask him about you know this money
that comes in from the railroad, I know it's specifically allocated.
Is there a way that you know, maybe general fun
(02:17):
money could be diverted because there is this extra money
now coming into infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
From the railroad money.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
You know, all these things are issues, and you know
it's not something I want to talk to him about necessarily,
or the station. I mean, but we're representing the people.
The people of Cincinnati have these questions. They pay me
to go ask the mayor these questions. And it shouldn't
make somebody mad or upset or you know, they shouldn't
(02:46):
you would think, you know, I was telling another council member,
this should be when the mayor sees me, really any
of my constituents, they should come through me and say, look, great,
this is a great opportunity for me to get you know,
my message out and come over and talk and say, hey, look,
I'm glad you asked about this, but this is that's
(03:07):
not what happens. So we're down at this raising a
flag for this transgender flag to and it was a
it was an event, but we hadn't caught up the
mayor and they had no time. It's between his schedule
when he got back to talk to us. So we're like, well,
we'll get him at this event. So they do the event.
(03:28):
They had certain speakers come up and they they spoke
and said, wow, this was an important event, and the
mayor and some council people were there told their opinion
why they you know, was an important event. And then
as they went to raise the flag just before this event's.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Not over yet.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
The key crowning moment of the event is they're going
to raise this flag the city hall and so and so.
So I noticed the city manager quickly they're on the
steps and we're kind of down off the steps there
in front on the city Hall, shooting this thing. And
I'm only there just to get a comment from the
(04:05):
mayor about these other things, you know. You know, we're
we're gonna show what happened and why they were there
and all. But my specific mission is to talk to
the to the mayor. And so I'm like, well, you know,
I don't want to be disruptive and you know, start
yelling questions during this event that they've put up and
(04:25):
these folks were all here to see, so I'm gonna
wait till he's done. Well, I see the SENNI manager
run up the steps real quick, and I'm like, that
doesn't look good. I mean, it's not over the events,
not of the people you say you are here to support.
Just saw you leave their flag raising. And then I'm like, well,
the mayor's surely not going to run out.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
He goes look over here at.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
The flat orsing the flight starts to go up, and man,
he goes up those steps so fast, and I see it,
so I'm kind of ready for it, but I'm not
in real good position. But I'm like Rocky Bob Bowack
one up the stairs trying to catch him and he
goes in. I finally get him at the top of
the stair and he goes, I'm sorry, I.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Got a meeting. I gotta get in.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The wind.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And so did you trust he was going first?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
He was going first, you know, And they I guess
they saw me standing out there because they know if
I don't, you know, if I don't get an opportunity,
I'll just turn the camera on and walk the side
of them going in or wherever they're going to start
asking them questions.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
And that doesn't look real good.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And uh, but you know, maybe the mayor I'm sure
he was. He was busy. I'm sure he had another
meeting or something. But what is more important than getting
your message out to the people of your city. And
this was a prime opportunity. I mean, it would have
taken me three minutes gets to get you know, a
few quick comments. It's like, all right, a mayor, what
(05:53):
do you think about you know, opening day, we had
all this these events down there and the police. What
was your perspective on the police. What what is your
idea about how we're going to make up this money
on this? You know, we're asking maybe to look at
five percent, you know, five percent cons I mean, some
simple basic things.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
You know, I got it.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
The mayor is busy. I'm sure he had a lot
of stuff to do, but this is you know, they
talk continuously. Almost every one of these meetings I go to.
Is transparent. I've seen Welder's mask had more transparency. There's
no transparency coming out of there, and and it filters
(06:36):
down through and I'm telling you it's it's to their
own benefit. And you know, like Jen Michelle Curney, she
was there, she was glad to talk to She's the
vice mayor, she's not the mayor. You know, and we
got some comments from her, and she got her perspective
out there and we were able to use some of that.
I appreciated her talking to me, But but nobody had
(06:58):
heard from the mayor on this stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Isn't it consistent? Go back in time just a little?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Even to the people who were there for the event,
thought Wow, if I was there and let's say it
was something let's just put it like, if it was
a veterans event, if the mayor was there for the
flag racing the veterans and he and he took off
before the event was over, I would think the people
there would think, wait, that's kind of disrespectful. I just didn't,
(07:24):
you know.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I don't know, maybe they already knew that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I was happy, yes, yes, but whatever, I just you know,
I just didn't. To me, watching from the outside, I
just thought, wow, I thought he would have stayed to
the end of the event, right, Henrick on that issue.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Kevin Aldridge of The inquir He's the Kevin Aldridge runs
the inquir and he wrote a column about two or
three months ago about the incapability of the mayor to
address the issue of his own personal financial difficulties because
the repo man visited the mayor, I guess his home
(08:01):
or at city Hall and hooked up the car because
he didn't make his payments. The repo man, you got
to pay the note otherwise. The repo man sesa, and
this is a problem because we had other city council
members four or five years ago that didn't have money,
and so they took bribes in order to uh you know,
uh the jeff Pastors and others took took the money
(08:21):
and ran. And that's a problem. So we have the
mayor who's having his car repossessed. And Kevin Alders of
the inquiry said he's got to answer for that. He's
got to say why did that happen? And just thought, well,
we made a mistake. You don't get your car repossessed
when you miss a payment or two or three. When
your names have to have peer of all. Your name's
not exactly Bill Smith, you know where I have to
(08:42):
have pure of all is So Kevin Aldridge makes the
point of the inquiry, he owes an explanation to the
people of Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
As to what cal happened.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That you're not taking care of your personal finances and
that's a problem. He ca he handles this city like
he handles his personal money, which is repossession. And so
you're saying the same thing. Kevin Audrey says at the end, choir,
you know what, we got a problem he's got to answer,
and when asked about it, he doesn't answer any questions
because the answers are bad for him. Now, before the
(09:12):
transgender flag at the top of the pole, you got
the city manager and the mayor sprinting away from the event,
and I'm thinking, you know that's so the problem isn't
a simple one, but the mayor ought to sit down
with legitimate media outlets and answer questions number one about
the repossession of his car and how did that happen?
(09:33):
How many months are a year behind? Were you notified delinquent?
Every car repossession I speak to when I practiced law,
I did some bankruptcies. They go through months and months
and months. The last thing you want to do is
repossess a car. And so if your name is af
teb Pirival, they're going to get a hold of you
and say you owe four months or the payments? Where's
the money? Before they hook up the car. He doesn't
(09:55):
answer the question. He leaves the event, because it's embarrassing
when the city was national news again and the mayor
once again, and everybody goes on vacation, but you don't
go on vacation during the music festival, during the taste,
during Red's opening day, you don't go on vacation. And
the mayor answers no questions and it's not held to account. Plus,
you brought this up off there to me, and I
(10:16):
brought it up last week. The city's getting like fifty
eight million dollars a year for capital expenditures, which is
out of the regular budget. Therefore, they have more money
than other cities have to spend because they don't have them.
They're getting the money. They got one hundred and ten
million dollars in the account right now, Amy Murray says.
And they can't spend the money because they're incompetent.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
They can't.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
They can't spend money because they don't have it, and
when they have it, they don't spend it. Can you
smell when I'm cooking?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Well, you know, I mean I worked in a PR
department one time years ago when I was getting my
master's at the University of Oklahoma, and it was apparent
to me at that time that it was very dysfunctional
and they had the same as They wouldn't talk about anything.
There are all kinds of issues that had come up,
(11:04):
and some of them were difficult issues.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
But they would duck and hide.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And I remember they looked at me like I had
three heads. When I told them, I said, look, people,
not everybody's gonna agree with us. I said, but and
I'm the lowest guy. Yeah, I'm a grad student there.
You know, I've got a full time job, but I'm
a grad student. I'm the lowest founder. But I don't
have enough sense to, you know, not tell.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Them what they need to hear. But they needed to
hear it.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And I said, look, we're reasonable people, we make reasonable decisions.
We do the best we can. All we need to
do is just tell people why we did it. You know,
I said, because you're not going.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
To please everybody.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Nobody's going to be pleased with this. I mean, but
there are certain people that will look at it and go, well,
that's the reason they did it. I understand why they
did it, but you have to get that message out there.
You have to tell people why you did something. There
may be a perfectly logical explanation to some of these things,
but we don't get them. We're not hearing that, and
(12:08):
that's really the thing that is more damaging, I think
than anything. You know, you know what, and it trickles down.
We're getting the same thing out of the police department.
And I mentioned this. You know, look, you could go
like New York Chicago. They have pr people that would
come down and this will cost you a few hundred
(12:28):
thousand dollars to get this advice. But this would have
been my advice. And I'm actually seriously thinking about doing
this because here's the kind of advice that a lot
of municipalities and a lot just us, but a lot
of them need just kind of so they went down.
Had I been the chief or been advising the chief, now,
you know, like they're like, why would we listen to you?
(12:49):
But imagine this, this this take on what happens rather
than what we got. Because what we got was, look,
we did the best we could. We had some issues
and you know, we made some arrest and we're going
to prosecute those. And the mayor put out a statement saying,
just a statement, he said, it's an outrage and we're
going to prosecute to the full.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That's what we got.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Imagine had we had, Hey, there's a guy down there,
a captain that's that's running and they that area down
by the banks. This guy's really good. As named Schofield.
He gave us a kind of a rundown of what
they were going.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
To do the day before.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
He was direct, he was matter of fact, he had
all the facts, he knew what he was doing. I'd
have probably got that guy to go out and do it,
you know, depends on who's But antonia is just trickling
down because they're saying no, you know, I think there
may be a filter saying you can't say this or
you can't say that. But what they should have said
was this chief or somebody he appointed, should have said, look,
(13:48):
come out in front of everybody as soon as possible
and said, what you saw here was maybe one of
the finest jobs of policing in the history of this
the Apartment, if not in recent memory.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
We had officers.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
As we told you yesterday, we were going to have
Swat Team CRDT. We were going to have extra officers.
We were going to place them strategically where they needed
to be. We told you yesterday. We were going to
have drones, we were going to have the real time
cameras under surveillance. Everything was going to be watched. We
were going to respond at a moment's notice.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
To any problem.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
And you know what happened, That's exactly what we did. Well, Chief,
we saw that video of people getting routy, that's exactly right.
And because our officers were right there, right where they
were strategically placed where they needed to be, that became nothing.
We tossed water on that fire like smoky Bear, and
it became nothing. Had we not been there, it would
(14:46):
have been a disaster. More people are thrown in deal
at Octoberfest in this event, no shooting, no injuries, no
major injuries during the whole thing. Yes, we know a
young girl was the packed up at up their liberty.
We're working to crack down the individuals responsible for that.
(15:06):
We've got three or four detectives on that trying to
figure out exactly what's going on there. But overall, this
is what happened. It was an outstanding job of policing.
That would have been my advice, you know, for the folks,
and that in the message. We didn't get that message.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I want to share with you one sentence from the
story written by Scott Wortman of the inquiry by the way,
two thirds of the city's money come from the income
tax is this is this one sentence that Wartman talked
about the failure of the city to collect the money.
Because right now there's a huge red flag of flying
and the city is in financial straits. In fact, the
(15:43):
B word has been raised by some, which is bankruptcy.
And that is at this point a year ago, the
city income tax collections are down about thirty four percent. Unbelievable.
They get two thirds of their money, and the thirty
four percent down year over year, and so far this
year they're down twenty eight percent the first what three months,
and so instead of a five percent cut, there might
(16:04):
be a ten percent cut. And what city Council dot
now does is keep spending money. They spend eight million
dollars for the criminals after the George Floyd riots, eight
million dollars for the symphony to make the tuba player happy.
We've got millions more going out in settlements to the
Chief of Police and to the fire chief. And that
somewhere down the road. The lawyer from Dayton branding is
(16:27):
going to collect a lot of money for his client,
millions of dollars. The last thing to do when you're
a whole is to keep digging, And so city council
keeps handing out money. Now they got a budget problem
and they're thinking what do we do Now? The income
taxes two thirds of what they collect and that's down
about thirty percent. And so to me, the cuts could
get more severe down the road. Well, we got to run,
(16:48):
Brian Hemrick, get on your gym shoes, give me your
final comment about the mayor and the way the city's run.
We had about thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Well, you know, literally, I think they would do better
just to tell people what's going on. That that's really
the bottom line for me. They just need to let
people know what it is, what their thoughts are. You know,
the crime for egment, it's up, it's down, it's up,
it's down, but the perception and and it to handle
the perception. And it's not just a one time when
(17:15):
we came out and now we addressed that. Now we're done.
This needs to be done on a pretty much a date. Look,
they could take some advice from the commander in chief there.
I mean they're telling him, okay, you know, even his
inside guys is saying, okay, maybe too much communication, Yeah,
too much, you know, too much, but it is but
it is communication, and it's and it's constant.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And you know where at any given moment where he.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Stands on on the issues at that particular moment, you know, so, uh,
there needs to be maybe a balance there, but there
needs to be more of that. There needs to be
more people saying, look, here's why we did this, here's
why we did that. You know, it's the press. The
legitimate press. Isn't somebody to run from. That's somebody to
go and say, hey, look, this is an opera op
(18:00):
comunity every time, an opportunity to just get our message out. Yeah,
you will face some hard questions, right, Okay, you can
answer that thing for a good reason.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well we got to run. But Brian Hamrick, I hope
it changes. By putting a spotlight on it, maybe somebody
in city Hall will get to the mayor hold a
no Holtz Barre news conference in which the city that
the real legitimate media can ask questions about the repossession
of his cars, the financial status of the city. If
you can't handle your own finances. Why do you handle
the city finances? They're handled about the same way we
(18:32):
got to run. Good luck through your stories. Say afternoon,
Brian Hamrick. You're a great American and thanks for coming
on the Bill Cunningham Show.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Thank you, Brian, Thanks again, mister Cunningham.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
God bless America. There's the best there is. How about
answering questions? Novel suggestion News Radio seven hundred WW
Billy Cunningham, the Great America will welcome this Monday after
him in the tri States. So much going on, so
little time. We had the President coming up, Donald J.
Trump at one o'clock today on a news conference and
talk about what's happening in Iran and also related issues.
The city of Cincinnati has major difficulties. As you may know,
the inquiry ran a long story in which the income
tax revenues of the city are way down off by
(00:28):
like thirty percent. You may know if you work or
live in the city, you pay about one point eight percent.
That money's not coming in because jobs are bleeding all
over the place. And also we had the riotous conditions
after Red's opening day. And so Brian Hambrick of the
Power of fives that it might be good to get
a comment from the mayor about what is happening with
our city, especially when it appears to be in difficult waters.
(00:50):
I know the business owners I speak to are filled
with trepidation, and you don't want trepidation. Brian Hamrick, Welcome
again to the Bill Cunningham Show. First of all, Brian,
talk about the circumstances in which you, as a reporter
wanted to get the comments from the mayor. This a
few days ago when he was raising the transgender flag.
He had time for the transgender flag, but not for
Red's opening day. But that's a different story and relate
(01:13):
to the American people. What happened When you try to
track down the mayor, have to have pierrival to make
a comment on something.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thanks agetting us un Am. Yes, well, we you know,
there's a lot of things going on. You know, we
have the concerns of the budget the police had been in.
They're talking about maybe a five percent cut there, the
fire departments talking about a five percent cut. You know,
these are kind of major issues for the city. We
(01:41):
had all the stuff that went down with opening day
the mayor, which I mean, you know, people take time
off whatever, but he wasn't here whenever that all happened,
and so we hadn't seen him. We hadn't had a
comment from the.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Mayor about all of that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
What he thought, ou how did the police do? Did
he think there need to be changes anything any of that.
We didn't talked to him about the five percent proposal
of Kottai. You know, how do they come about that?
I wanted to ask him about you know this money
that comes in from the railroad, I know it's specifically allocated.
Is there a way that you know, maybe general fun
(02:17):
money could be diverted because there is this extra money
now coming into infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
From the railroad money.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
You know, all these things are issues, and you know
it's not something I want to talk to him about necessarily,
or the station. I mean, but we're representing the people.
The people of Cincinnati have these questions. They pay me
to go ask the mayor these questions. And it shouldn't
make somebody mad or upset or you know, they shouldn't
(02:46):
you would think, you know, I was telling another council member,
this should be when the mayor sees me, really any
of my constituents, they should come through me and say, look, great,
this is a great opportunity for me to get you know,
my message out and come over and talk and say, hey, look,
I'm glad you asked about this, but this is that's
(03:07):
not what happens. So we're down at this raising a
flag for this transgender flag to and it was a
it was an event, but we hadn't caught up the
mayor and they had no time. It's between his schedule
when he got back to talk to us. So we're like, well,
we'll get him at this event. So they do the event.
(03:28):
They had certain speakers come up and they they spoke
and said, wow, this was an important event, and the
mayor and some council people were there told their opinion
why they you know, was an important event. And then
as they went to raise the flag just before this event's.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Not over yet.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
The key crowning moment of the event is they're going
to raise this flag the city hall and so and so.
So I noticed the city manager quickly they're on the
steps and we're kind of down off the steps there
in front on the city Hall, shooting this thing. And
I'm only there just to get a comment from the
(04:05):
mayor about these other things, you know. You know, we're
we're gonna show what happened and why they were there
and all. But my specific mission is to talk to
the to the mayor. And so I'm like, well, you know,
I don't want to be disruptive and you know, start
yelling questions during this event that they've put up and
(04:25):
these folks were all here to see, so I'm gonna
wait till he's done. Well, I see the SENNI manager
run up the steps real quick, and I'm like, that
doesn't look good. I mean, it's not over the events,
not of the people you say you are here to support.
Just saw you leave their flag raising. And then I'm like, well,
the mayor's surely not going to run out.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
He goes look over here at.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
The flat orsing the flight starts to go up, and man,
he goes up those steps so fast, and I see it,
so I'm kind of ready for it, but I'm not
in real good position. But I'm like Rocky Bob Bowack
one up the stairs trying to catch him and he
goes in. I finally get him at the top of
the stair and he goes, I'm sorry, I.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Got a meeting. I gotta get in.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The wind.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And so did you trust he was going first?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
He was going first, you know, And they I guess
they saw me standing out there because they know if
I don't, you know, if I don't get an opportunity,
I'll just turn the camera on and walk the side
of them going in or wherever they're going to start
asking them questions.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
And that doesn't look real good.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
And uh, but you know, maybe the mayor I'm sure
he was. He was busy. I'm sure he had another
meeting or something. But what is more important than getting
your message out to the people of your city. And
this was a prime opportunity. I mean, it would have
taken me three minutes gets to get you know, a
few quick comments. It's like, all right, a mayor, what
(05:53):
do you think about you know, opening day, we had
all this these events down there and the police. What
was your perspective on the police. What what is your
idea about how we're going to make up this money
on this? You know, we're asking maybe to look at
five percent, you know, five percent cons I mean, some
simple basic things.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
You know, I got it.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
The mayor is busy. I'm sure he had a lot
of stuff to do, but this is you know, they
talk continuously. Almost every one of these meetings I go to.
Is transparent. I've seen Welder's mask had more transparency. There's
no transparency coming out of there, and and it filters
(06:36):
down through and I'm telling you it's it's to their
own benefit. And you know, like Jen Michelle Curney, she
was there, she was glad to talk to She's the
vice mayor, she's not the mayor. You know, and we
got some comments from her, and she got her perspective
out there and we were able to use some of that.
I appreciated her talking to me, But but nobody had
(06:58):
heard from the mayor on this stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Isn't it consistent? Go back in time just a little?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Even to the people who were there for the event,
thought Wow, if I was there and let's say it
was something let's just put it like, if it was
a veterans event, if the mayor was there for the
flag racing the veterans and he and he took off
before the event was over, I would think the people
there would think, wait, that's kind of disrespectful. I just didn't,
(07:24):
you know.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I don't know, maybe they already knew that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I was happy, yes, yes, but whatever, I just you know,
I just didn't. To me, watching from the outside, I
just thought, wow, I thought he would have stayed to
the end of the event, right, Henrick on that issue.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Kevin Aldridge of The inquir He's the Kevin Aldridge runs
the inquir and he wrote a column about two or
three months ago about the incapability of the mayor to
address the issue of his own personal financial difficulties because
the repo man visited the mayor, I guess his home
(08:01):
or at city Hall and hooked up the car because
he didn't make his payments. The repo man, you got
to pay the note otherwise. The repo man sesa, and
this is a problem because we had other city council
members four or five years ago that didn't have money,
and so they took bribes in order to uh you know,
uh the jeff Pastors and others took took the money
(08:21):
and ran. And that's a problem. So we have the
mayor who's having his car repossessed. And Kevin Alders of
the inquiry said he's got to answer for that. He's
got to say why did that happen? And just thought, well,
we made a mistake. You don't get your car repossessed
when you miss a payment or two or three. When
your names have to have peer of all. Your name's
not exactly Bill Smith, you know where I have to
(08:42):
have pure of all is So Kevin Aldridge makes the
point of the inquiry, he owes an explanation to the
people of Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
As to what cal happened.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That you're not taking care of your personal finances and
that's a problem. He ca he handles this city like
he handles his personal money, which is repossession. And so
you're saying the same thing. Kevin Audrey says at the end, choir,
you know what, we got a problem he's got to answer,
and when asked about it, he doesn't answer any questions
because the answers are bad for him. Now, before the
(09:12):
transgender flag at the top of the pole, you got
the city manager and the mayor sprinting away from the event,
and I'm thinking, you know that's so the problem isn't
a simple one, but the mayor ought to sit down
with legitimate media outlets and answer questions number one about
the repossession of his car and how did that happen?
(09:33):
How many months are a year behind? Were you notified delinquent?
Every car repossession I speak to when I practiced law,
I did some bankruptcies. They go through months and months
and months. The last thing you want to do is
repossess a car. And so if your name is af
teb Pirival, they're going to get a hold of you
and say you owe four months or the payments? Where's
the money? Before they hook up the car. He doesn't
(09:55):
answer the question. He leaves the event, because it's embarrassing
when the city was national news again and the mayor
once again, and everybody goes on vacation, but you don't
go on vacation during the music festival, during the taste,
during Red's opening day, you don't go on vacation. And
the mayor answers no questions and it's not held to account. Plus,
you brought this up off there to me, and I
(10:16):
brought it up last week. The city's getting like fifty
eight million dollars a year for capital expenditures, which is
out of the regular budget. Therefore, they have more money
than other cities have to spend because they don't have them.
They're getting the money. They got one hundred and ten
million dollars in the account right now, Amy Murray says.
And they can't spend the money because they're incompetent.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
They can't.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
They can't spend money because they don't have it, and
when they have it, they don't spend it. Can you
smell when I'm cooking?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Well, you know, I mean I worked in a PR
department one time years ago when I was getting my
master's at the University of Oklahoma, and it was apparent
to me at that time that it was very dysfunctional
and they had the same as They wouldn't talk about anything.
There are all kinds of issues that had come up,
(11:04):
and some of them were difficult issues.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
But they would duck and hide.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And I remember they looked at me like I had
three heads. When I told them, I said, look, people,
not everybody's gonna agree with us. I said, but and
I'm the lowest guy. Yeah, I'm a grad student there.
You know, I've got a full time job, but I'm
a grad student. I'm the lowest founder. But I don't
have enough sense to, you know, not tell.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Them what they need to hear. But they needed to
hear it.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And I said, look, we're reasonable people, we make reasonable decisions.
We do the best we can. All we need to
do is just tell people why we did it. You know,
I said, because you're not going.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
To please everybody.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Nobody's going to be pleased with this. I mean, but
there are certain people that will look at it and go, well,
that's the reason they did it. I understand why they
did it, but you have to get that message out there.
You have to tell people why you did something. There
may be a perfectly logical explanation to some of these things,
but we don't get them. We're not hearing that, and
(12:08):
that's really the thing that is more damaging, I think
than anything. You know, you know what, and it trickles down.
We're getting the same thing out of the police department.
And I mentioned this. You know, look, you could go
like New York Chicago. They have pr people that would
come down and this will cost you a few hundred
(12:28):
thousand dollars to get this advice. But this would have
been my advice. And I'm actually seriously thinking about doing
this because here's the kind of advice that a lot
of municipalities and a lot just us, but a lot
of them need just kind of so they went down.
Had I been the chief or been advising the chief, now,
you know, like they're like, why would we listen to you?
(12:49):
But imagine this, this this take on what happens rather
than what we got. Because what we got was, look,
we did the best we could. We had some issues
and you know, we made some arrest and we're going
to prosecute those. And the mayor put out a statement saying,
just a statement, he said, it's an outrage and we're
going to prosecute to the full.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That's what we got.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Imagine had we had, Hey, there's a guy down there,
a captain that's that's running and they that area down
by the banks. This guy's really good. As named Schofield.
He gave us a kind of a rundown of what
they were going.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
To do the day before.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
He was direct, he was matter of fact, he had
all the facts, he knew what he was doing. I'd
have probably got that guy to go out and do it,
you know, depends on who's But antonia is just trickling
down because they're saying no, you know, I think there
may be a filter saying you can't say this or
you can't say that. But what they should have said
was this chief or somebody he appointed, should have said, look,
(13:48):
come out in front of everybody as soon as possible
and said, what you saw here was maybe one of
the finest jobs of policing in the history of this
the Apartment, if not in recent memory.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
We had officers.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
As we told you yesterday, we were going to have
Swat Team CRDT. We were going to have extra officers.
We were going to place them strategically where they needed
to be. We told you yesterday. We were going to
have drones, we were going to have the real time
cameras under surveillance. Everything was going to be watched. We
were going to respond at a moment's notice.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
To any problem.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
And you know what happened, That's exactly what we did. Well, Chief,
we saw that video of people getting routy, that's exactly right.
And because our officers were right there, right where they
were strategically placed where they needed to be, that became nothing.
We tossed water on that fire like smoky Bear, and
it became nothing. Had we not been there, it would
(14:46):
have been a disaster. More people are thrown in deal
at Octoberfest in this event, no shooting, no injuries, no
major injuries during the whole thing. Yes, we know a
young girl was the packed up at up their liberty.
We're working to crack down the individuals responsible for that.
(15:06):
We've got three or four detectives on that trying to
figure out exactly what's going on there. But overall, this
is what happened. It was an outstanding job of policing.
That would have been my advice, you know, for the folks,
and that in the message. We didn't get that message.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I want to share with you one sentence from the
story written by Scott Wortman of the inquiry by the way,
two thirds of the city's money come from the income
tax is this is this one sentence that Wartman talked
about the failure of the city to collect the money.
Because right now there's a huge red flag of flying
and the city is in financial straits. In fact, the
(15:43):
B word has been raised by some, which is bankruptcy.
And that is at this point a year ago, the
city income tax collections are down about thirty four percent. Unbelievable.
They get two thirds of their money, and the thirty
four percent down year over year, and so far this
year they're down twenty eight percent the first what three months,
and so instead of a five percent cut, there might
(16:04):
be a ten percent cut. And what city Council dot
now does is keep spending money. They spend eight million
dollars for the criminals after the George Floyd riots, eight
million dollars for the symphony to make the tuba player happy.
We've got millions more going out in settlements to the
Chief of Police and to the fire chief. And that
somewhere down the road. The lawyer from Dayton branding is
(16:27):
going to collect a lot of money for his client,
millions of dollars. The last thing to do when you're
a whole is to keep digging, And so city council
keeps handing out money. Now they got a budget problem
and they're thinking what do we do Now? The income
taxes two thirds of what they collect and that's down
about thirty percent. And so to me, the cuts could
get more severe down the road. Well, we got to run,
(16:48):
Brian Hemrick, get on your gym shoes, give me your
final comment about the mayor and the way the city's run.
We had about thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Well, you know, literally, I think they would do better
just to tell people what's going on. That that's really
the bottom line for me. They just need to let
people know what it is, what their thoughts are. You know,
the crime for egment, it's up, it's down, it's up,
it's down, but the perception and and it to handle
the perception. And it's not just a one time when
(17:15):
we came out and now we addressed that. Now we're done.
This needs to be done on a pretty much a date. Look,
they could take some advice from the commander in chief there.
I mean they're telling him, okay, you know, even his
inside guys is saying, okay, maybe too much communication, Yeah,
too much, you know, too much, but it is but
it is communication, and it's and it's constant.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
And you know where at any given moment where he.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Stands on on the issues at that particular moment, you know, so, uh,
there needs to be maybe a balance there, but there
needs to be more of that. There needs to be
more people saying, look, here's why we did this, here's
why we did that. You know, it's the press. The
legitimate press. Isn't somebody to run from. That's somebody to
go and say, hey, look, this is an opera op
(18:00):
comunity every time, an opportunity to just get our message out. Yeah,
you will face some hard questions, right, Okay, you can
answer that thing for a good reason.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well we got to run. But Brian Hamrick, I hope
it changes. By putting a spotlight on it, maybe somebody
in city Hall will get to the mayor hold a
no Holtz Barre news conference in which the city that
the real legitimate media can ask questions about the repossession
of his cars, the financial status of the city. If
you can't handle your own finances. Why do you handle
the city finances? They're handled about the same way we
(18:32):
got to run. Good luck through your stories. Say afternoon,
Brian Hamrick. You're a great American and thanks for coming
on the Bill Cunningham Show.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Thank you, Brian, Thanks again, mister Cunningham.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
God bless America. There's the best there is. How about
answering questions? Novel suggestion News Radio seven hundred WW
Bill Cunningham News
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