Mayor Stothert: "No Regrets"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are so honored to be joined this morning by
Omaha Mayor Jane Stothard after a tough day and a
tough night. Mayor, thank you so much for coming on, you.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Bet thanks for having me so.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
You've had, you've slept on and I assume a little
bit overnight. First impressions, first thoughts after the result from yesterday.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Sure, you know, I just got to say from the beginning.
You know, I've loved every minute of being mayor for
the last twelve years, and I absolutely have no regrets.
I built and assembled a great team. I love working
with him. I love seeing the progress that we have made.
You know, I never take any of my elections so
for granted. And I said this all along, not in thirteen,

(00:43):
not seventeen, not and twenty one, and certainly not this
one either. And I just don't want to point fingers
and say at anybody or any particular thing and say
this is why I didn't win, you know, I mean,
I will say this, The voter fatigue is real, and
I knew that going into it, though you know I
knew it. I mean, no one has ever served for

(01:06):
three consecutive terms in the city of Omaha, and I
did that. A woman has never served at all, and
I did that. But that voter fatigue is real, and
I hear it. I heard it when I said I
was going to run for a fourth term. I've heard
people say, well, isn't three enough? And so you know,
and three was a lot too. I had it in me.

(01:28):
I sure had it in me to do for more years.
But you know, I will accept what the voters, how
they voted, and you know it's time for a new
mayor in Omaha. So I'm happy with what we accomplished.
I really am. And I think, as I said last night,
I'm very proud, I'm very grateful, and I'm still very
hopeful for Omaha because I want Omaha to do better

(01:50):
in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I don't understand the voter fatigue thing. I do. I
agree it is real. I've never understood that if somebody
either likes what you're doing or they don't, that seems
to me to be the logical reason to vote for
or against. But when you look back, Mayors Dothart, I'm
not talking about your three terms in policy, but in
terms of the campaign, any regrets, anything you'd do differently

(02:17):
leading up to yesterday.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
No, I don't. You know, I really don't think so.
I mean, we really really worked hard at this. We
knew what the issues were. I will say the streetcar.
I don't want to blame the streetcar totally, but I
think that was an issue with some people, but it's not.
It wasn't the only issue. And you know I would
I'll go back and look at what happened in the primary.

(02:41):
If the street car was the issue, Mike McDonald would
be mayor. You know, he ran his campaign on stop
the streetcar. I think the streetcar will happen. It will
be successful. I know it will be. It's moving on.
It is a great catalyst for economic development. It's already happening.
And I always relate the straight streetcar to the same

(03:03):
issues that we had when we were building a new ballpark.
I know everybody remembers that nobody wanted to leave rosenblt Blat.
Everybody said, I will never go downtown. I don't want
to go to another College World Series game again. And
then it's open and running and sellout crowds and people
love it. I think that's what will happen with the streetcar.
But it'll take a while. It'll take a while before

(03:24):
it's up and running and people understand the value and
what it's going to do for downtown in Midtown, but
not now because they don't understand it. And I understand that,
you know. I mean, it's just people have their opinions.
I do think that the voter turnout is a concern
of mine. Never been good though in these independent city elections,

(03:48):
and every time I have run, the voter turnout has
not been much better than in the thirty percentile. And
I think people need to think about that because they
should be really much much more engaged in this election process.
I am assuming there's a lot of people woke up
this morning and said, whoa, what happened yesterday? And that
voter turnout. I think it's gotten so mean, and it's

(04:12):
gotten so partisan. I think I just wish we could
get back to people taking part in the election process
and doing it right and not being so much vitriol
was out there. But that's the way it is right now.
I would be a real, real advocate to change the
city elections to coincide with the state elections, you know,

(04:34):
with the May primary and in November general election, because you're
guaranteed a bigger voter turnout then, and I think that
that would be helpful for Omaha mayor.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Is this loss last night a bit of a blessing
in disguise? Speaking to someone who has known you for
several years now, and even though oftentimes you're chastising me
via barrage of text messages, I still think I have
to No, no, I don't know. Please, I still consider us friends.
But I think that you're the type of person who

(05:07):
would have done this for another twenty terms if fate
had let you do it. The voters are like, look,
she's had a great run here, Let's go a different direction,
and let's let her get out of city Hall and
enjoy these great years in her life. My wife was
shocked when I told her last night, you're eighty six
years old. She is, I can't believe she's that old.

(05:28):
She looks so young. Pretty good, all right, maybe not
quite eighty six, But this is an excellent opportunity for
you to move on in this and actually have some
more of a life now in the years ahead. Here,
is this a bit of a blessing in disguise?

Speaker 2 (05:46):
You know it could be, And I'm going to look
at it that way. I mean, I'm disappointed, yes, but
life goes on. And you know, I always have said
things happened for a reason. I truly believe in that.
And you know, this was just not God's plan last night,
and I accept that. That's fine. But I think everybody knows.
You know, my husband of forty one years died before

(06:07):
the last election. I've been remarried. I've only been married
for three years. I have a great new husband I
would love to spend more time with rather than run
to work every day, although he loves what I do.
I have grandkids that I don't get to see that much.
And so you know, at my age, and everybody knows
I'm seventy one, a lot of people are retired by

(06:28):
that time. I will have plenty to keep myself busy
and do and enjoy life. And I just feel like
we have left me and my team, not just me,
but me and my team have left a very positive
legacy for the city. We've accomplished a lot. I'm still
very proud of how safe it is, how clean it is,
how progressive as far as development is now, lots of

(06:50):
investment in the city, and that's because of what my
team and I have accomplished, and I'm very proud of that,
no regret.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
All of this begs the question, though, will you stay
living in Omaha?

Speaker 2 (07:02):
I love Omaha right now. I mean I'm not saying
my husband and I aren't saying this morning, let's get
out of here at all. I love it here and
I love where I live where, and I have lived
here for the less. It's nineteen ninety three and I
have to mention all this silliness about I don't live
here that started out on social media.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
I heard it again yesterday. I heard it again.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
I did too. Hopefully people will find something else to
talk about, because I have not. I've lived here since
nineteen ninety three, in the same house, on the same street,
paid taxes. It's so easy to prove otherwise. But this
is some social media spot or that people like to
keep on talking about. We'll put that all the rest.
But you know, the social media is another thing. It's

(07:48):
so mean anymore, and it's just it's really difficult. And again,
I just hope elections get back to what they are
meant to be to let people's voice be heard. But
people need to get out and vote. And yeah, I
think Bran Cruz told me last night, probably about thirty
one thirty two percent of the people in Omaha that

(08:09):
are are registered voters voted in this election.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Another this decision, another couple of minutes here with a
former mayor's author. I'm sorry, mayor's author, and I got
to stop that. That doesn't happen till tell June.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
I'm still in this decision until June.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
So give us your analysis of what and I know
you said last night, John Ewing is inheriting a great
vibrant city. What is your forecast for a Ewing administration?

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well, I don't have one. I mean that's up to
John Ewing. All I can say this morning is I'm
proud of our progress, and I'm grateful for everybody's support
and friendship and trust, and I'm very hopeful that the
momentum that we have created will continue on into the
Ewing administration. So I'm I'm proud that we've remained two

(09:01):
to our goals with great success, and I'm just very
grateful for the past twelve years and four years before
that on the city council. And so this is going
to have to be up to John Ewing the direction
that he will go with the city. We are definitely
a blue dot. I mean, we are definitely now a
Democrat run city. And we know that there's about nineteen

(09:23):
thousand more Democrat voters in the city than Republican and
so it will be up to him what he is
going to do in the next four years is mayor
of Omaha. But I certainly hope this great momentum that
we have, the investment in Omaha, the low unemployment rate,
all of that will continue.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Firmly blue now four to three Democrats on the city council,
Democrat mayor coming in. What do you think, Mayors author
about the likelihood of TODJ. Schmater wanting to stay on
as chief or John Ewan keeping him on his chief?

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Well, Touchmater is in the drop program. We got it
extended for the drop for the two chiefs of fire
in the police chief and so he actually his original
drop would have been up in March twenty six and
now he has five more years that he could stay.
Todd and I we've been together this whole time. We're friends,

(10:19):
will always remain friends, and that's up to him, you know,
I mean, he likes being chief here. He wanted to
extend it because he thought he'd be working with me again.
But he's done such a good job. And you know,
I think Omaha is a better place right now than
when I started. I think it's much better than when
I started as mayor. And I think he's done a

(10:39):
great job. And you know, if he wants to stay,
he certainly will. I know there are many other cities
that would love to have Todd Schmater too.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
So you know, American fire him, right, Doesn't he serve
at the pleasure of the mayor?

Speaker 2 (10:52):
No, he the fire chief, police chief, in the city
attorney do have civil service protection. Only those three, and
they could be fired, but it has to be far caut.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
The other directors like planning, director of public Works, they
are at the pleasure of the mayor. So John Ewing
could come in tomorrow and say you're all gone, but
not the police chief, fire chief, or the city attorney.
They are protected. But if there's a reason, he could
replace him with someone else. And I certainly hope he
does well.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Law and order is a big deal, and.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes, it certainly is. And Chief Smutter has done a
great job and a great job for the city. He's
well known, he's well liked. I hope he stays on,
but you know that's going to be up to him too.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Very very nice and classy of you to come on
this morning on the wake of the defeat and all
of the years a mayor's doctor. Thank you. Let's stay
in touch.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yes, And I just have to say I don't feel defeated.
I feel like I've done twelve years. I've done, you know,
three terms. We've achieved a lot, and I'm just very
thankful and grateful for people for voting for me for
three terms.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Very good Mayor Jeanie's author k Fab's Morning News seven
fifty one here on this Wednesday morning,