A Local Candidate Is "Upset". Surprisingly, It’s Not About the Streetcar

Omaha Streetcar is inevitable, the new Omaha Public Library is ugly and Denise Powell is "PO'd"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And I just have to say. I was listening to
KFB on the way in hearing Scott talk about the
rabbits and things in his yard. But he did say
something mentioned my name, so I'm gonna I'm going to
have to comment about it. And he says, I bite.
Now why do what did he say? I bite? He
was talking about another sinkhole down south a little bit

(00:22):
on corn Husker, but he started talking about the sinkholes
that could happen downtown and why in the world would
we want to put streetcar rails downtown Omaha when we
could potentially have a streetcar. And he says, but if
I bring up the streetcar, she bites. I heard him
say it, so I will say this. You know, just

(00:42):
saying I bite is just promoting that name that I
have earned of mean Gene. So stop that, Scott vorhees
saying I bite. But listen, we would never build a
streetcar out in Millard. We're never going to build a
streetcar out in Elkorn. The place where a streetcar needs
to be built is where a lot of traffic events, restaurants.

(01:03):
It's to help people get in around and out of downtown,
and it's a catalyst for economic development. So one of
these days we're going to have to have a real
debate about the streetcar. But the reason, the reason is
we're building it downtown is that's where you need it.
It's downtown. The other thing is is the reason there

(01:23):
is all this construction right now is exactly that issue,
and that is they're doing utility work downtown. We have
one hundred, one hundred twenty year old sewers and the
last thing we want to do is tear up the road,
put rails in, close the roads up, get the streetcar running,
and have a water main break or a sewer collapse

(01:44):
or a sinkhole downtown. So that, indeed, is why all
of this utility work is going on downtown in Midtown
right now. Now m UDE is doing a lot more
utility work and demanding to do a lot more than
we originally had planned, and it's added about two years
onto the construction. So I understand the frustration with that,

(02:05):
but that's exactly why we are doing it. So Scott
Vorhees quit saying that I bite.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
I'll let you guys know if she bites. I haven't
gotten bitten yet. No, No, I've try to keep my distance.
You know, it's kind of like a cat outside. You
just don't want to get too close until you're too
familiar with it yet.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
So nobody's ever said that about me before that I bite.
But Peyton, what about this weather too? This is nuts. Yeah,
it's like a roller coaster out there. You know, this
is honestly, and I will say this many, many times.
This is the fifth state I've lived in. I am
not from Saint Louis. Now everybody will say that I

(02:42):
don't live in Saint Louis either, But I have lived
in Illinois, Missouri, the state of Washington, Texas, and now Nebraska.
And this weather is the around here. It's so roller
coaster in the spring. You just don't know what to anticipate.
To go from a negative zero wind chill to one

(03:03):
hundred degrees and then back again. It's certainly hard to
plan what's going to go on. And I have never
with the five states I have lived in, and I
was born and raised in Illinois, not Saint Louis. Let's
bring it up again, shall we, because we might get
another comment about it. I only moved to Saint Louis
after I graduated from nursing school. And I was an adult,

(03:25):
and I really lived in Saint Louis less than ten
years of my entire life, and that was because I
worked at Saint Louis you as a nurse. But I've
never had allergies like I have here in Nebraska, and
I think a lot of that has to do with
the wind and the changing weathers. So but I love
Nebraska and I love Omaha. One call we had yesterday too,
I wanted to mention again that said something about I

(03:48):
just still want to be the mayor and said to
move on and quit talking about Omaha. And let me
tell you, I'm never going to quit talking about Omaha.
First of all, I worked too hard for twelve years
as mayor to improve Omaha and get it where it is.
I love Omaha, and I love where we're at right now,
and I encourage people to call in and ask more
questions about Omaha because that's what people care about when

(04:09):
they live here. They care about it. But I know
our audiences is ranges, is far, and it's not just Omaha. So,
as I said in the opening, really anything goes. We
could talk about whatever. This week, We're on Friday, We're
going to have Senator Brad von Gillern on the show,
and he is the legislator from District four, which is

(04:29):
out Melcorn. But he is also chair of the Revenue Committee,
and because of everything going on in Lincoln, the budget
will probably be voted on Wednesday or Thursday this week.
I thought it would be a great time to have
Senator von Gillern into the studio, so he will be
with us on Friday. He's going to be in the studio.
We're going to talk a lot about what's going on

(04:50):
in Nebraska in the legislature with the budget and getting
this budget shortfall settle. So that'll be a good show.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yes, that caller you were talking about yesterday, you're a
good mayor, but I don't want a street car. That's
why I didn't vote for you. And I think this
is a good segue. We got two callers on the line.
Let's get to them real quick and in regards to
the streetcar, so we can get these out of the way.
And then I wanted to ask you about another candidate
race that's going on and see some campaign work. But
let's get these callers out of the way first. The

(05:18):
first one on the line here comes from Adam Adam,
You're on news radio eleven ten KFAB with jeanst Author.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Good morning, Yeah, thanks for taking McConnell. Good morning.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
I was calling.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I was always interested with the streetcar idea came out
of you. I've in other cities in places. Why didn't
we build a streetcar from the airport past the stadium
into downtown. It seems like that would be a better
plan than just right down the.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Middle of city, right, you know, thanks for that question.
And the reason that we picked the route we did
is because we really want to build up downtown, our
urban core, downtown and town, bring more businesses in. We
have lost over twenty thousand residents in downtown since about
the nineteen seventies. And to bring more business, bring more people,

(06:10):
we need to look at the transportation in our urban core,
and we need to look at parking. And that's one
of the main reasons we move forward with the streetcar,
and one of the main reasons the Urban Core Committee
out of the Greater Oroma Chamber of Commerce with their
number one recommendation to build a streetcar because downtown Omaha
right now, half is dedicated to parking, and at any

(06:32):
given time half is vacant so we are really exchanging
businesses and building and residents and people for parking. So
we had to address that issue. It's going to be
a catalyst or economic development, and we want that in
our urban core. And it already is. It's already successful,
and it's a way to bring people in around and

(06:52):
out of downtown to reduce the congestion and the need
for parking. Now, having said that, you're absolutely right about
the airport, and we already applied for and received a
grant to do a study to do the second route
of the streetcar and actually go up towards the airport.
And we've also looked at a southern route to add two.

(07:15):
And I think when now that we are expanding our
arena convention center, you know there's a two hundred million
dollar expansion going on now. You can't see it too
much if you go down there, if you drive down
Tenth Street or go to the ballpark, you really can't
see because it's all out back. It's all going east
towards the river. But adding a lot more rooms for conventions,

(07:37):
a lot more business rooms and rooms that people can
hold bigger conventions in there. So wouldn't that be great
if we are having a lot bigger conventions that people
from out of town could come in, come to the airport,
jump on the streetcar and take it right down to say,
to tenth and Capital, right there where the hotels are.
And so we are already studying that route. The difference

(07:59):
is is if we did extend it to the airport
to pay for it the way we are paying for
it now using the revenue from the economic development would
be different because there wouldn't bring it all up through
North Omahon to the airport. There isn't that There isn't
as much development potential, I will say that. So we'd

(08:20):
have to look at another way to fund it, and
that's what we're looking at now. Where would the route be,
where would the rails be, and how would we fund it?
And my goal would always be how would we fund
it without having to raise taxes? And this first stretch
of the streetcar, it's not going to affect your property taxes,
so that's why. But yes, we need to look at
other routes for it too. So this is just the

(08:42):
initial route of the streetcar, but a north and south
route would be perfect.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
I think there's a lot that can be done and
in the Omaha. On Omaha streetcar dot org, you can
see a nice map and it shows potential future outlets
for expansion. I got one more question in regards to
the streetcar here. This comes from Jeff be in the
same vein. Jeff, you're on news radio eleven kfa B
with Jean Stouth.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Good morning, Hey.

Speaker 5 (09:07):
There, I I'm gonna turn my radio off. I just
want to thank you or congratulate you on your new position.
I voted for you every time as mayor. But just
like you kind of stated that the street car as
it came up was just such a such a sore
subject because I just personally could never make sense of it.

(09:28):
To me, it just seemed like, with like the bike lanes,
how we installed those maybe grand ideas, you know, lofty plans,
and when you every time I drive down the street
and I look at the bike lanes, the unused bike
lanes choking the streets, it's just it's just aggravating and
the and the street car just seems like it's amplifying

(09:49):
that same logic the same people that came up with
the plans or using the same criteria. But I don't
know if they're using good data. So when it comes
to the street car, I'm how many streetcars are going
to be moving, how many people are on can get
on a streetcar? And how long would it take to
go from the beginning of where the streetcar starts to

(10:10):
where the end is in Bath Because when I hear
about like the congestion and things like that, it just
seems like the time that it would take to go,
you know, to park your car, how much parking is
where they start, you know, is it congested there? And
it just seems like it's just a non starter when

(10:31):
it comes to people being willing to take that much
time to drive to ride a streetcar versus just taking
your vehicle down and finding the market space and going
home at the end of the night when you're hired,
instead of climbing on a streetcar, driving someone we're else,
walking to another parking lot and then driving home right.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Well, you know, it is hard to understand for a
lot of people that haven't been in a city that
used a streetcar, But I will tell you we did
a lot of studying of other cities that built streetcars
before we move forward with this, and the best example
I always use is Kansas City because it's our closest neighbor.
And there was a lot of complaints, a lot of skepticism.
When they were building the streetcar. There was construction, there

(11:14):
was businesses being affected negatively, just like it's happening here
in Omaha. But it is so wildly successful in Kansas City.
Now they're extending it down to country Club Plaza. I
know they even looked into it. Could they extend it
out to the airport, which is a long way away
in Kansas City. But every city that we studied, the

(11:35):
projection of the economic development along the route was way
surpassed to what they originally anticipated. In ours is two.
You know, we first anticipated or estimated that there would
be about two billion dollars worth of new development along
the streetcar corridor, which we consider three blocks and then

(11:58):
six blocks from the where the rails are. Two billion
dollars worth of new development within the first fifteen years.
When I left office, there was already about one and
a half billion, and the rails aren't even in the ground.
People are building along the streetcar route anticipating it, and
they are building along the route because it's permanent. You

(12:19):
don't see people doing a lot of economic development along
a bus route because it could change tomorrow. But because
the rails are permanent, they know that street car is
going to be there. They are building, and they are
building fast and furiously from downtown all the way out
to where the west terminus right now is thirty eighth Street.

(12:39):
But we stopped it. We were going to stop it
at forty second. But the Medcenter really wants to extend
it all the way to Saddle Creek for a big
benefit to them. And so each car, the cars are ordered,
we got a pretty good deal on it. Each car
will hold anywhere from one hundred and twenty to one
hundred and fifty people in bicycles too, So I mean,
that's a big car. A lot of people asked me

(13:01):
in the very beginning, why don't we just buy some
more ali the trolleys. Well, Ali, the trolley is no
comparison to what a modern streetcar would be. And you know,
I've got to bring up the conversation about Warren Buffett,
because mister Buffett made a wrote a letter to the
Public Pulse and said he did not support the street car. Well,
it got on the front page, and of course it did.

(13:21):
And I went in and talked to Warren Buffett in
his office, and he's delightful if people don't know him personally.
And he said, you know, I buy, I buy, I
buy trains and railroads. And he said, that's mass transportation.
And he said streetcars just don't work for mass transportation.
And I said, but we're not using it for mass transportation.

(13:41):
We're really using it to get you in and around
and out of downtown and for a catalyst for economic development.
So it depends on what's going on too, about how
those will run and how long it will take. But
I'd say about an average of twenty minutes for the
whole route. But again, if you live in west Omaha
like I do, the city is, for example, is going
to buy the three garages right now that are at Midtown.

(14:04):
So what I could do from west Omaha, because I
live in Millard, drive to wards downtown like I'm going
to a ballgame, park my car at very low cost
at the city owned garages at Midtown, hop on the
street car. It's free, there's no charge, and I could
do whatever I want. I could go down to the ballpark.
I could go to the Creighton game. I could go
out to dinner, to a bar whatever and then come back,

(14:26):
get in my car and go home. And that's the
benefit really of us using the street car. But I
will tell you all the cities that we looked at,
the streetcar was a big advantage, and once it was
there and people learned how to use it, they loved it.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Well, Warren Buffett could be dropped off at the front
door with a motorcade and get the entire street shut
down if he really wanted to go somewhere.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
But you know what I mean, And I told him,
he said he did need to use it. I told him,
I said, he said, I just wrote a letter to
the public Pulse. And I said, mister Buffett, you write
a letter to the Pufflay Pulse.

Speaker 5 (14:57):
It's gonna get on.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
The front page of the World Herald. But you know,
I mean, a bright, brilliant man. I love Warren Buffett.
I mean, he's great to talk to and obviously very
very smart. But he just had it in his mind
that we were going to try to use this for
mass transportation. What I will tell you is it will
never go out to Elkhorn, it will never go to Millard.
It's just it's not needed to go out that direction.

(15:19):
And where in the world would we put it. We
we've talked a lot about light rail, and that's a potential.
If we did any light rail out west or maybe
even onto Lincoln, it would probably go down Center Street.
But that is something that is a huge expense and
it's something that has been talked about. Though.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Okay, let's move on here. We got a different topic.
Enough of the street car.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Here we go.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yes, Okay. This email comes from Cindy. Okay, this is
this is what she says. I recently viewed a TV
commercial from a Nebraska candidate for Congress, Denise Powell, and
this exact commercial she used the exact phrase pod, I'm
p O two times.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
She didn't say, she didn't say pod. We all know
the word, yeah, we all know.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
What are your thoughts about the use of this language
in an ad campaign, especially by a woman claiming to
be worried about her family's future. My personal opinion is
that it is irresponsible, opinionated in a huge turnoff as
a voter.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Well, I would agree with you on that one. I
heard that commercial for the first time yesterday, and you know,
I was in four campaigns and I was very very
careful about how I presented myself in a commercial in
what I said, and when I saw that commercial, it
was to me it was cringeworthy. I would not use

(16:36):
that word. Like I said, she doesn't use the word pod.
She uses the word that I don't like to use
in public. Some people use it all the time. It's
not that offensive to some, but I felt like it was.
And she starts out with saying I am pod and
then she finishes it at the end. This is a
congressional candidate that is using that, and I think her

(16:57):
message could have been much better expressed, especially on a
TV commercial that we anticipate we will see over and
over then using that word. I agree with you on
that one. Is there, it's crude.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Is there any context in which that would be more okay?
As far as the campaign goes.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
I don't think so. I mean, you might be out
in a debate, or you might be doing a town
hall that you get a little annoyed or aggravated, and
that word may slip. I tell you I've done. I've
brought this up before, but I did over seventy five
town hall meetings and they weren't all the most pleasant.
I mean, I've been yelled at every issue and called

(17:37):
just about everything. But I'd never respond using that word.
Are those other words that you don't want to use
in public are never on the air. I just think
it sounds a little crude, and I cringed when I
heard it.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yes, okay, last question here, This comes from Pat. Following
the last mayor's race, we learned that your chief of
staff was lifelong buddies with Mayor Ewing.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Who are him?

Speaker 2 (18:00):
It seems reasonable to ask about a possibility of conflict
of interest on his part during the election. Do you
have any comments on that?

Speaker 1 (18:08):
You know, I kind of want to not really, Okay,
I kind of want to avoid it because but I
will tell you. Tom Warren, I've known him for years.
He was chief of police in the city of Omaha.
I did appoint Tom Warren. He was with the Urban League.
I did appoint him to the Mecca Board. I knew him.
I thought he would be a good representation on the
Mecca Board, and he accepted that. I had Marty Beelick

(18:32):
as my chief of staff for eight years. Marty Bilick
is a great person. If you don't know him, he
was worked with Tim Dunning with the Sheriff's Department, he
was deputy sheriff, and he did a great job for me,
and he had brought in that knowledge of law enforcement
and crime that helped me a lot. When Marty decided

(18:53):
not to come back for my third term, we were
talking in my office and we were thinking who could
fill that role that Marty did and had a background
in law enforcement and would able to help me with
those issues, and we all thought, well Tom Warren, So
I asked ing. He thought about it just for about
a day and agreed to come on. So he was
with me for four years. There is no doubt that

(19:14):
him and John Ewing knew each other a long time ago.
I think they went to grade school together, and so
he did the new mayor, Mary Ewing ask him to
stay on. Other than that, you know, Tom Warren did
notify me the day after the election and told me
that he was going to be Mary Ewing's chief of staff.

(19:38):
So that decision you'd have to really ask Tom about.
I don't really see a conflict of interest present, nothing
that I could prove anyway, So that's just kind of
how it happened. He worked. I thought he worked very
well for me. I was surprised because you know, and
I've said this before. Maybe in business, when a new lead,

(20:00):
a new president, or a new CEO comes on, maybe
in business, do you keep your same staff because their experience,
they know what they're doing. But not in politics, that
just doesn't happen. It would be like Donald Trump keeping
all of Biden's staff. I mean, when I became mayor,
Mayor Subtle staff was gone and I was able to

(20:22):
hire the everyone, I mean, all the directors, every person
in my office I was able to hire, with the
exception directors of Bob Stuby in public Works, he's been
in the city since two thousand and five and chiefh
Mater that it was Mayor Subtle that appointed chiesh Mater.
But everybody else I appointed, I interviewed, I made sure

(20:42):
that they agreed with excuse me, with what our focus
and what our vision was. But Mayor ew And kept
everybody on. And that really is unprecedented for something like
that to happen. Now, are they good, Yeah, they're really good.
I mean all those directors are great, all the staff
in the Mayor's office are good. But it is highly
unusual and highly unprecedented that that happens. That before we

(21:04):
get into more calls. I wanted to address something. It
was in the Midlands Voices in the Omaha World Herald,
and that happened on Sunday, and it was by Nebraska
State Senator Kathleen Cauf, and I want to talk about
a little bit of what she said in her article.
I like Senator Cauf. I think she's very smart, she's

(21:25):
very conservative, she's doing a good job. But she did
say a few things in this article that I have
an issue with because I don't think it's accurate at all.
And so, first of all, I want to say that
the Nebraska legislature now is having a real time of
it because there is a big budget shortfall and that
budget is going to be voted on either Wednesday or

(21:46):
Thursday this week. That's why I mentioned earlier that I'm
going to have Senator von Gilleran on on Friday. He
is chair of Revenue Committee, and it is so important
that this budget gets approved and that the budget gets back. Now.
The one thing that Senator Kyuth did say, and this
is about property taxes, and I think we all know
that the number one issue with the governor is to

(22:09):
keep property taxes lower or get them lower. The number
one issue with citizens of the state in Nebraska and
in Omaha is property taxes and high property tax values
and what they are paying. And what Senator Kyuf is
saying in her article, in fact the headline which she
didn't write, but it says, Nebraska's budget is broken and

(22:30):
let's take our next steps to fix it. I agree
with that. But the property tax levy is local. It
is not done by the State of Nebraska. And now
what she is saying in her article is that we
need to decrease spending. And she what she is saying
is that local property taxing entities like the City of Omaha,

(22:53):
like the school districts like the nrds like Douglas County,
are spending more money than they bring in. And what
she says in this budget then is that we are
spending more than we bring in and then the state
has to make up the difference between the revenues they
gained from property taxes and their expenditures. Let me clarify

(23:16):
this because she also goes on and says you need
to understand how things currently work in the system. And
she will say that the local authorities like schools and towns,
meaning cities too. She says in this article, they set
their budget and then they established the levy rates to
raise the money through property taxes. That is not accurate.

(23:39):
Now it might be for the school districts, because you know,
I was on the Millard School Board for eleven years.
When I was on the Millard School Board, the difference
between the local property taxes and state aid was about
fifty to fifty. Then it really changed with the state
that they wanted the schools more reliance on property taxes
and less on state aid. Now they're saying school districts,

(24:02):
you got to cut back on your property tax. She's
saying the same. She's grouping the City of Omaha in
with that too, and that's not correct. That is not
how the City of Omaha does the budget. Now, I
did the budget for twelve years. Mary Eweing is going
to be working on the twenty seven budget soon. And
what we do with the City of Omaha is we
will first get an estimate of all of our revenues

(24:24):
that are coming in. And the primary revenue that we
have with the City of Omaha is not property taxes.
The primary revenue that we have with the City of
Omaha's budget is sales tax. We have more sales tax
coming in than we have property tax, so it goes
sales tax, property tax, and then restaurant tax. Those are
our three main sources of revenue. And there are others.

(24:47):
I mean, there's licenses, permits, there's sewer use fees, there's
bond sales. All of that goes into what our budget is.
We get make an estimate of what those revenues are
going to be, and then what I did is I
sat with every single city department and I assume, Mary
you going will do the same and help the departments develop

(25:07):
their budget based on the revenue estimates that we have.
We never come up and do a whole budget and
then come back and say, Okay, now we've got to
set the property text and we're going to raise it
to fund this budget. This is what her article says,
and that is not the truth. That is not how
we do it. My goal with every single budget that
I did was we have our estimates of what our

(25:29):
revenues will be for the next year. But my goal
always was and if we can lower the levee, we will.
And we went through every single department, whether it was planning, library,
public works, line by line, really line by line with
the department director, even fire and police. We went by
it line by line to say is this really accurate?

(25:51):
Is this what you need? Is this funding your department appropriately?
Now when she says in her article that we really
need to reduce our spending, and she will say over
and over, we do. Don't have a revenue problem, we
have a spending problem. The city of Omaha is two
thirds of the general fund budget is fire and police,
two thirds of the general fund budget, and for employees

(26:14):
it's about seventy two or seventy four percent, I would
say of the entire general fund is for employees and benefits.
So then where do you cut? Is my question. And
if you are saying, well, you need to cut your budget,
you need to cut your spending, well, then that would
mean do we cut the police department? Do we cut
the fire department? You know, and you've got to keep

(26:37):
in mind too that police, fire, and then a big
civilian are unions. They are public employee unions, and we
could debate that or talk about that in another show.
Is there still a need for public employee unions? But
they are under contract and you're obligated to pay what
is in that labor contract. And so with seventy four

(26:58):
percent of the City of Omaha general fund budget going
to personnel and fire and police. The police budget is
two hundred and sixteen million, the fire budget's one hundred
and forty one million. Those are huge budgets. But if
they're saying cut your budget, where do you cut with personnel?
Do you cut public works and not have enough to
plow snow and fill potholes?

Speaker 2 (27:18):
You know how people feel about that exactly.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
I mean, do you shut down your swimming pools? Do
you shut down your library? I mean, it's where do
you cut? And I think I tried to be as
fiscally conservative as I could be. I did lower our
levee five times when I was mayor lowered the levee.
But again keep this in mind, the City of Omaha
is only twenty two percent of your entire property tax bill.

(27:42):
So when I lowered the levee a few pennies, it's
lowering the levee of twenty two percent of your entire bill,
So you don't see a big benefit in your pocket.
The school districts, again are sixty two sixty three percent
of your total property tax bill. If you really want
to see those property taxes go down, You've got to
look at all the taxing entities. So to say that

(28:06):
that we come up with this budget and we're spending
too much, and then we go back to the state
and say, well, we're going to raise a levey and
now you need to give a state aid to make
up the difference. That's not true with cities. We have
not received state aid from the cities in decades. Unless
you want to consider the gas tax. But still the
gas tax, we get money back on the gas tax,

(28:28):
but it's from people in Omaha buying gas and it
goes to the state. Now the sales tax also, sales
tax in Nebraska are in Omaha seven percent, the state
is five and a half, and then we have a
local option of one and a half. Total is seven percent,
but we get that local option. But the rest of
the sales tax, it's hard to tell how much goes
to the state and how much comes back to the city.

(28:51):
So our primary source of revenue in the city of
Omaha is not property tax for the city, and it
is sales tax, followed by property tax, followed by the
restaurant tax. And let's let's talk about the restaurant tech
someday too. I could spend a whole hour on that.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
We definitely, we definitely have some emailers about that, and
people have called in before. But you're making this really
easy on me. This one comes from Jason. What does
you think about the new police contract? How difficult is
it to negotiate these contracts? And this comes from a
soon to retire city employee.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
It is so hard to negotiate those contracts because number one,
the mayor should be representing the taxpayers with a labor contract.
The unions represent the unions. But at the same time,
the way I looked at it is those unions, those
members of those unions are city employees. And you know,
it always seems like there's a fight going on between

(29:39):
the mayor's office and the labor unions. And I would
tell the members of the unions, we're not your enemy,
we're your employer. You know we should. What I wanted
is a very fair contract for our employees, fire police
to civilians, but I also had to look out for
the taxpayers. I have not read the new police contract.

(30:01):
I've not read it in its entirety, so I hate
to but I can and talk about it at a
later time, but they are very very difficult to negotiate
because there's so many specifics with it. This is a
shorter contract. I preferred longer contracts. This is a two
year contract, and I preferred the longer ones because it
does give you some stability doing the budget because you

(30:22):
know what's in that contract. You know what those raises
are going to be. Like I said with police, I
mean we have nine we budget for nine hundred and
six police officers and that's a huge budget for employee
and benefits. If you have a longer contract, it gives
you some certainty and some stability to look into the
future to see where your budget's going to be then,

(30:43):
So you know, I do know that one of the
things that Mayor Ewing talked over and over and over
about during the campaign, because I stood there next to him,
is saying I want our police and fire to pay
less into their pensions. I don't see where they are
paid less into their pensions with this new contract, but

(31:03):
I will say this, it's almost impossible to do that
because those pensions need to be fully funded. They're still underfunded,
and if the employees pay lesson to the pension that
means the taxpayers need to pay more, and I wasn't
willing to raise taxes or to do that, so I'll
be interested to really read through this contract. But they're

(31:25):
very difficult, and you know what they should be because
you are funding this with taxpayer money, and every budget
should be difficult because you're funding it with taxpayer money.
You should struggle with them. If you're mayor, I mean,
and you start, I will tell you it takes a
long time. You start negotiating or planning and developing the
city budget in January. It's not approved by the city

(31:46):
council until August, so you spend a lot of time
developing that budget and getting it just right. Because again
I always would tell myself, it's not my money I'm spending,
it's the tax payers headed to the library.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Like I said before the break, Doug does not like
the look of it, and he's not the only one.
I think it looks pretty good. I like all the
glass on the side of it.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
It's got a very very different look. Like I said,
the architects, I should look this up. They were either
from Sweden or Denmark. It's you will love it when
you go inside because it's so light with all of
that the glass in there, it's really beautiful inside. But
I know what you mean. It has a really different

(32:28):
look for the corner of seventy second in Dodge, and
I think a lot of people are saying, wow, does
that really fit how the area looks. But I will
tell you when Crossroads is done, which it will be done,
there is a new owner of the corner of seventy
second in Dodge, the northeast corner, and gonna do a
new development there. You know where pet Co is, So

(32:49):
once that whole corner gets developed, I think it's going
to fit in more with a more modern look of
that corner. But yeah, people are iffy about the design
of it. I've heard. Do you know that the original
design it's changed from the original design. Originally it was
going to look and it was even more artsy. It
was going to look like an open book, like a

(33:11):
book that was opened, So it had kind of a
wavy look to it, and the outside change in the
architecture as they were developing and designing it. But it's
got a real unique look to it. But I think
the important part is is you know when you go there,
you could park easily there's green space outside, it's beautiful inside,

(33:33):
and it's real functional inside, much much better than our
old central library that was the Dale Clark and that
will be our central library. People are going to love
it once they see it. And I have to remind
people although this was primarily privately funded, it's about one
hundred and fifty eight million dollar library the city put
in twenty The rest is private. It will be a

(33:53):
City of Omaha library owned and operated by the City
of Omaha with City of Omaha employees.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Let's see what Rob has to say about it. Rob,
you're here on news radio eleven to ten kfab with
Jean's author.

Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah, good morning, good morning. You know, before we get
to the library, which I think looks like a stack
of books, which is fine, you mentioned this Denise.

Speaker 5 (34:15):
Powell thing, which I did not know about.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Your successor has some people wearing shirts that say our
mayor is dope yes or a dope or does dope.
I'm not sure where it is, but either way, I
don't think just kind of wanted your take on that.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
I you know what, I find it quite offensive. There
was one staffer that is new that was not my
staffer that works in the Mayor's office and some of
the things she posts I find quite offensive too. The
other day she made a comment and said, this is
my dope blank mayor and the blank. I'm not going

(34:55):
to say it on the air, but it rhymes with bass.
Get it my dope like mayor and the parade in
north Omaha this summer, she had a T shirt on
and was passing out T shirts that said Mayor Ewing
is dope. And you know that is a slang that
I just don't use. I think it's it's something I

(35:18):
would never do. I don't like to use that word.
You know, maryor Ewing also wears T shirts that says
I am the coolest mayor, and he has quite a
few of those. I guess I wasn't a cool mayor
because I sure didn't have any of those. Holy cow,
I would not do that either. But but I I
find using that word. I it's just a slang word

(35:41):
dope that I don't use, and I would not want
somebody to call me a dope.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
Mare Well, I concur Chris Jerrem has some T shirts
for you, but we won't go into that.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Oh that's a that's a day I want to forget.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Okay, But anyway, going back to the library again, you know,
most cities would fall all over themselves if you know
one eighth of a library cost of being donated. Here
we have seven eighths. And of course there's a downtown,
the riverfront. Were people just pounding at your office door saying,

(36:17):
shut up and take my money because it seems like
it seems like they just handed over money left and right,
which I greatly appreciate our philanthropic community. I just wanted
you to talk about that in at all.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Sure, And you know most of that came from Heritage Foundation,
which is one of our biggest you know it used
to be the leader of that foundation was Walter Scott,
who everybody knows about when he was still alive. But
they really had They're great, and they really have. They
identify where their focus and where their interest is and
they identified when I was still mayor that focus that

(36:52):
they wanted to move forward with was the Omaha Public
Library System and they wanted to know what they could
do to help out. And they did a study and
it was not paid for by the city, but they
did a study on all of our libraries on what
they could do what is needed in the libraries. And
one of the things that came out of that was
to build a new central library where the Dale Clerk,

(37:14):
which was the downtown library and considered the central library,
you know, in that study showed that it was you know,
it was not functioning well, it was old, it was unsafe,
there was a lot of issues with like I said,
with safety and being functional. And even the folks with
the library and the library director said they wish that
we would have a different downtown library or central library,

(37:36):
that the Dale Clark just wasn't working anymore. And so
we built a new downtown library, made the decision philanthropy
made the decision where to put the new central library
at seventy second Dodge, because that's really kind of the
heart of the town right now. And so they made
the decision where they wanted to put it. But and
then they worked with me and they worked with the

(37:57):
city to say, this is really what we want to
focus on. And you know, my goodness, how lucky we are,
how lucky we are that we have philanthropy like we
do in the City of Omaha that wants to put
that much of their money into something like a central library.
And also I got to bring up the Riverfront Parks.
Four hundred million of private money in our city park downtown,

(38:20):
the Riverfront Parks. It's just amazing and we're so lucky
that we have that in our community.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
All of your questions, comments, concerns, your email, your radio talkbacks,
we hold onto these. We collect them, so just because
we don't get them today, we hold them and we'll
get to them a different time. I have a last
question today. It comes from somebody who is the host
of the Big Show in the afternoon.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Oh no, not Chris Baker.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
And he says, my question, does Jean's hair always look
this good? Or is it just a good hair day?

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Well, it's lucky I have hair, Chris Baker, because I
think you are minus a few strands. I'm looking at
him right now across the hallways, talking away. He doesn't
know we're talking about us right now. But well, hey,
thanks for saying that about my hair. Really, you know,
I got criticized about my hair during COVID. People were
saying that that I was going to beauty salons getting

(39:12):
my hair done with the beauty salons were closed out. No, no,
I don't do much with my hair. I'm pretty low
maintenance type of gal. You know, I get up, wash
my hair, I'm done.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Hey that's a luxury. That's a luxury. Hey, this is
the KFAB comment line. You're a host of the show,
Jean Stouth. I'm Peyton Highlocked, producer of the show. After this,
we got Clay and Buck until two o'clock and then
Chris Baker from two to six. After that, Glenn Beck,
this is the KFA B comment line.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Thanks for listening and thanks for being with us today.