Readressing Hanson and Emergency Vehicles

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't back away from anything, and we've got a
lot to talk about. Peyton is with me here today,
the producer. Good morning, Good morning Geene.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
How are you doing.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm good. Did you have a good Easter weekend?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I did really, really fulfilling weekend.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I did too, and got to go out to lunch
with my daughter and my two grandsons. The famous Max amazing,
and I've got plenty of Max stories. But you know, first,
I really want to tell people if you want to
call in today, you can call in at four oh two,
five five eight to eleven ten, or you can email
us at comment at kfab dot com. But I was
on Scott's show a little bit before we started today

(00:35):
to talk about the issue going on with Mayor Ewing
and his administration. And you know, Scott brought up campaigns
were the campaign was contentious. All campaigns are contentious, you know,
And if anybody says during a campaign they don't hate
their opponent, they're lying to you because during the campaign,

(00:55):
you know, unfortunately, but people fire things back and forth.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
This was not.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
This campaign against Mary Ewing after the primary was nothing
like my first campaign with Jim Subtle, the second one
in twenty seventeen. My opponent was Heath Mellow, and it's
a good example for me to talk about because it
was contentious.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Heath and I are best of friends. Now you just get.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Over it and you move on, because I've said many
times when you run for political office, you're either going
to win or lose, and this last one I lost
to Mayor Ewing, and I've moved on and I think
he should too. Now the issue is, and I'm just
going to reiterate it again, is that he told the
cabinet last Monday a we could go to day ask

(01:39):
the Chief of Staff, asked Tom Warren if I was
contacting anyone, and if I was, they were to report
it to them, or if I ask anyone to be
on the show, they were to report it to the administration,
either Mary Ewing, Tom Warren or the communication director, and
they would most likely be denied. Now, I had had

(02:02):
arranged and scheduled last Friday for a department director to
be on the show, and it was at his request.
I didn't call out and ask it was at his request,
but I figured and I went ahead and scheduled him.
And after the cabinet meeting he had to contact us
and say I can't be on your show. Now We're
not allowed to do that anymore. Very perplexing to me

(02:23):
because once again, these are all directors that I hired,
all of them except the Chief of Police, Touch Maater
was hired by Subtle, and then Bob Steube public Works
was hired if you could believe it, by mayor Fahey so,
but I've worked with him for the last twelve years,
had a good working relationship, and alls I would ever
think of doing would be to bring them on to

(02:45):
share current important information that our listeners need to hear.
Whether we have a big snowstorm, may'd be great to
have public Works on, whether it's a public safety issue,
the chief of police. I had Kathy Bossman on Fire
Chief to talk about Western Nebraska fires. But never would
be my intention to bring any of these directors that

(03:06):
are still city employees on and do anything negative or
use it to just be negative towards Mary Ewing. I've
gotten over it, in my opinion, Mary Ewing needs to
to and move along because these are things that are important.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Keep in mind, I also had a very very active
web page and a very very interactive Facebook page for
twelve years, and people would always question there's a lot
of questions going on, a lot of comments on that Facebook,
but they were just sure I had a whole team
answering things, and I didn't. That was the communication director

(03:41):
or me answering people for twelve years, allowing people to comment,
allowing people to be on the Facebook. Mary Ewing started
out not allowing comments on his social media until a
lawsuit was filed, and now apparently he has numerous facebooks.
I don't know how many because I don't really follow it,
but he's a allowing comments on one. Don't understand that

(04:04):
that lack of wanting people to be able to have
their voice and to listen to things important to them. Now,
keep in mind all those department directors also are city
paid employees paid by the taxpayers, and they are here
to serve the public. I think he made it quite
clear that not all of KFAB would be banned, just

(04:25):
my show, and I think that shows it has become
very personal. I don't know whether it's a grudge, but
my statement would be move on, get over it. The
I did follow the proper channels and send an email
to the Communication director Aaron Grace last week after I
was told by the director that he could no longer

(04:47):
be on the show, and I asked permission in writing
for this director to be on the show last Friday,
and once again her answer was, and I'm going to
read it again, excuse me, which will good morning. Thank
you for taking time to reach out at this time.
Per Mayor, youing any request to appear on your show,
your comment show will be declined.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Period.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
And so I followed the proper communication channels that they
are demanding. But keep in mind, when I was mayor,
I just asked anybody that was going on the air
on any station to just let us know, to give
us the heads up. They did not have to ask
my permission. I did not block anybody from any news
media outlet ever, and the police chief for example, fire chief,

(05:34):
they really didn't even need to tell me because these
are issues of public safety that the community, that the
community needed to know. So I really wanted to bring
that up again. This was not my intention whatsoever or
this station's intention whatsoever to use this as a platform
to criticize. But I would say, time to move on

(05:55):
and let's do what's best for the public.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
I'm going to get into something a little bit deeper
that you touched on. And this is in regards to
comments on social media. Okay, so this is coming from
an unnamed Omaha citizen wants to note that they're an independent,
but they did support you. They did not support the
street car however, and then this is the key phrase here. However,
why is everyone getting all the heat for having comments
limited on his Facebook page because he's a Democrat, because

(06:20):
he has a lawsuit against him? And then he said,
let's go to the other side. Governor Pillen does not
have comments on. Senator Kaleen Kathleen Koth does not have
her comments on or limited severely limited comments. Rumors are
that you blocked people on your Facebook all the time.
I think that if you and everyone else is going
to point out the current mayor for disabling the ability

(06:42):
to comment, then every politician needs to follow this.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, in my opinion, they should. But let's go back
in history a little bit. Did a governor ever allow
and have an interactive Facebook? Do the legislators do that?

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Now?

Speaker 1 (06:55):
That's not my business my concern right now, because you
know whether they did or did in the past. Are
they following just what other legislators have done? In the
past or other governors have done in the past. I'm
not sure if any governor was very interactive on their
Facebook or social media, but we certainly did. And to
have somebody say I block people is just false. Now

(07:17):
what we had to do. And again, rumors, I am.
You know, when you're in my position as mayor for
as long as I was, you get so tired of
rumors like the rumor that I lived in Saint Louis.
I mean, my lord, we can't get rid of that.
And that is just a lie. It's so false and
so easy to prove that is false. But you know,

(07:38):
we I took the position that I would be interactive,
and I did it for twelve years. The one thing
we did on my Facebook that I got very concerned
with is we had some very vile, vulgar, racist comments.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
On the Facebook.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
And I thought, this is not right because I have
grade school kids looking at this and reading this, and
so we did put a term of use on the
Facebook and on the homepage it said if there are
any comments that are racist or vulgar or vile, they
may be removed. So we had basically a warning on there.

(08:15):
And that's the only time that we would ever remove anything.
We weren't blocking people. We weren't saying people couldn't comment.
And I'll tell you a story which I think is
quite interesting because it is really shows the difference between
how people look at the mayor and have the ability
to comment.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
I'm going to give you two examples.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Number one, some of the comments were coming in so
so bad and so like I said, vile or vulgar
that my communication director and I did a little test
one day and there was a post that was on OPD,
the Omaha Police Department's Facebook, a post and all the
comments were very positive. Oh, we think you guys are great,

(08:56):
good job, keep it up, keep going. My community cation
director and I took the exact same post with the
exact same picture and we put it online and all
the comments were negative. How dare you do this? This
isn't right, the same exact comment. So when you are
an elected official such as the mayor, you will get

(09:17):
negative comments. But that's just part of it. I mean,
it's just part of what it is. Another example is
we put a post up when we did the groundbreaking,
but it was kind of a ceremonial groundbreaking because the
project was already underway of the new multi sports comments
at Levi Carter Park in North Omaha. We put a

(09:37):
picture up, we put the groundbreaking, we put information up
about what was being built there, indoor outdoor facilities. Within
three days, we ended up taking the whole post down
because there was over eight hundred comments and most of
them were negative, I mean terrible comments about this project

(09:59):
that was about forty eight million dollars no taxpayer money,
all grant money, and they were all negative from why
did you pick Levi Carter to how am I going
to get my child there? To this isn't what we
need in this area. I mean, they were all negative.
So if you are the mayor, you have to expect that,
and if you don't, you know, if it's not serving

(10:20):
a purpose anymore, you can certainly take the whole thing down,
But you can't pick and choose what you're going to
let show to the public and whatnot. When you're a
public official and you have a public Facebook, you need
to keep the public informed. Now, there were every year
I would get a letter, it seemed like, to the
law Department from the ACLU saying somebody has complained that

(10:43):
their post was removed and almost every time we would
look and we removed it because it was something that
was vulgar or racist if and we would always respond
to the ACLU and say we will follow the law,
and we did.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, you can't tolerate that on a public social media page.
I'm going to turn into a little bit of a
different area here. Depending on what the callers and the
listeners are asking, we may get back into it. But
this one is in regards to large city events and
the timing in the planning process. My question is, how
are the large annual Omaha event scheduled? Can two large

(11:17):
events not happen at the same time? And this anonymous
listener used the Sinco de Mayo festival in South Omaha,
noting that that is the second weekend in May, And
is that because the Berkshire Hathaway event is in downtown
the first weekend. That's just an example, but there's a
couple other ones as well.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
No, I mean there are reasons why there are multiple
events all over town in different areas. I mean you
could have a big event, say at Xarbon Village, and
a big event downtown and a big event down in
South Omaha. Now I worked with them on the Sinco
de Mayo Parade because they wanted to change the route
and they wanted to have it at a different area.

(11:56):
They wanted to have it in a different Omaha park.
I would have liked to see Sinko Domayo come downtown
in our beautiful park, our new Riverfront parks. But there
are a few events I will say that can't be
handled at the same time. And I will give you
an example, and that is the Pride Parade. For many
years it was held in Council Bluffs because it was

(12:21):
all over the nation. It was the same time as
the College World Series, and they wanted to have the
parade downtown, and they wanted to have the parade when
it was happening all over the nation. And I tried
to convince them that we could have it downtown, which
I think parade should be downtown. But they couldn't handle
it during the College World Series, and I think people

(12:41):
could understand why, so they went over to Council Bluffs.
I am the one that brought back the Pride Parade
because I had an LGBT advisory and they wanted to
bring it back and got them to agree, and they
were agreed wholeheartily to hold it at a different time.
That's all they had to do, and then we brought
it back to Omaha. So that's just a good example.

(13:01):
But can our police department handle a big, major parade
downtown and the College World Series.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
That would be difficult.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
We did handle, for instance, the College World Series and
the US Swim Trials. They were happening at the same time.
One was at the Arena Convention Center, one was at
the ballpark and they were close together, and we handled that, okay.
So there's just it just depends on what event it is.
Sinko Demayo, I think it would be great if it
would happen on May fifth. It's the same with Saint

(13:33):
Patrick's Day. Everybody always asked me, why do you have
it the weekend before? Why don't you have it on
Saint Patrick's Day because that's when the Hibernians wanted to
have it. They wanted to have it on Saturday, and
Saint Patrick's Day doesn't always follow on a Saturday. So
it does depend on the issue and the parade and
where it is. But you can definitely handle multiple events
at one time, and it is a strain on the

(13:54):
police department. I mean, you know, with a parade, you
got to put up barriers, you got to have the route,
ad has to be approved by the Parks department. There's
all sorts of things that go into getting You have
to get a permit, you have to get like a
parade permit, and that has to be approved by the city.
So the city's always looking at what would be the
safest for people that are going to be attending these events.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
This is I always like to highlight this right here
because this is amazing for all of the listeners. What
I would like to know is if you call the
mayor's hotline, will you get a response back? I called
the mayor's hotline several times when the previous was in office,
and I always got a call back that may not
have been able to resolve the issue, but they at
least communicated with me. What's kind of the procedure of that,
So someone calls in the mayor's hotline for whatever reason,

(14:36):
what does it look like in terms of a response
or reaching out.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
I guess I'm the previous, so I think that would
be you right, That's okay, I am the previous. You know,
I don't know what Mayor Ewing is doing. I will
say the hotline is required by the city charter, and
the city charter says.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
It will be a complaint line.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Well, I didn't want to call it a complaint line
because then I felt like alls we are going to
get as complaints. So we called it the hotline. It
is housed in the Mayor's office. I increased the number
of people we had working in the hotline, and also
I had several retired police officers in there too that
were so good if there was a real contentious call

(15:16):
to de escalate what the issue was. But what I
wanted with the hotline is to make sure we answered
the questions that were coming in and referred people to
the proper department by giving them the number if they
had to call another department. I didn't want to have
a whole list. If people had an issue with public
orcs will call this number. If they have an issue

(15:38):
with planning, call this number. If they had an issue
with whatever. I wanted to have them have one number,
which was four four four or five five fivey five
they could call and get referred on. Then I will
say this, we took a lot of pride in the
twelve years. I was there that Monday mornings were answering
a lot of emails and a lot of phone calls
that came in over the weekend, and they literally spelled

(15:59):
pro spent probably more than half the day, if not
all the day answering what came in over the weekend.
Those men and women that were working the hotline did
a fantastic job. If we had a bad snowstorm in
they closed City Hall, they would be in there, several
of them would come in just to answer calls. Our
procedure was that they would get back to everyone with

(16:21):
an answer. You know, if a pothole was reported, if
a neighbor issue was reported, they would get back with
them on what they were doing to resolve that issue.
I don't know what mer Ewing is doing.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
You know, people complain about like a job interview too.
You get a job and you apply and you just
don't hear anything back, and it's like it's fresh, well shit,
you don't know if they saw it, if it just
went to straight to junk. So it's always nice to
just hear something, even if it doesn't solve the problem,
just acknowledging that what you said was heard.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
And yeah, I agree, And you know what the problems
would change depending on the time of the year too.
And what I would ask is for cabinet on Monday morning,
which I mentioned four, is I would have the hotline
provide me with the number of calls and what the
issues were every Monday morning, and I shared it with
the whole with all of the directors. Because in the
winter it could be potholes and snow removal or ice.

(17:13):
In the summer it could be weeds and litter. I mean,
they just changed what the issues were. But I wanted
to make sure the directors were aware, so they knew
what was going on all over the whole city and
what were the main problems. I will say this, the
main issues that we had consistently though, were neighbor issues
all the time. I'd say seventy percent were always neighbor issues.

(17:36):
Whether it be a noisy neighbor at dog barking, trash,
cars parked in the front yard, the RV parked in
the front yard, whatever, they were multiple different questions and concerns,
but they were mostly neighbor issues.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yes, they thought it was the landlord hotline. Okay, let's
hit the phone lines here. This is Jeff on the
phone lines. You are on news radio eleven ten KFAB
with Jeenst author.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
A Dean. Hey, I had a question for you. I
I was in the truck one hundred and forty fourth
and Maple, and I saw the fire truck and ambulance
behind me, so I pulled over let them go past.
And just in my mind, I'm like, you know, I
bet they're going to the retirement home. And I so
I was heading that way, and sure enough they go
rolling into the retirement home. And I could understand that

(18:24):
an ambulance heading to the retirement home. But when they
roll the fire truck, is that like a contractual cash
cow for the fire department?

Speaker 3 (18:35):
You know that That's a great question, and that question.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Is ask a lot, you know, And it's up to
dispatch who they dispatch when a call comes in nine
to one one, But they have protocol that they have
to follow. And the reason that they always dispatch a
fire truck with an ambulance is because there's a lot
more fire trucks than ambulances, and there is at least
a paramedic, if not just a medic, that are on

(19:00):
every fire truck, a medic that they could get to
a scene quicker sometimes than the ambulances due and that's
why they always dispatch a fire truck with an ambulance.
Sometimes the ambulance reaches at first, sometimes it's the fire
truck that they can. With the fire truck they can
go ahead and start at least basic life support if

(19:20):
it's needed, and then they could dispatch others if needed to.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
I know.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Another point of contention is always been and I got
so many calls about it, is seeing a firetruck idling
with all that diesel fuel in front of a grocery
store and people would go in thinking, oh, there's a
big something, a big emergency going on in this grocery store,
and they would see the firemen getting their groceries for
the day, and they would be like.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Why are you allowing this?

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Well, they're allowing it because they're on duty, you know,
and they are stopping to get their groceries because they
got to eat at the same time. But at this
you know, they are on duty. And if they're in
their shopping for their lunch at Whole Foods and they
get a call, they're out and they're on that call.
And so the reason is they do that is they
are still on duty and they are still in the

(20:09):
area that they cover, and they will get there quicker
if they go and they do the shopping or whatever
while they are they are still on duty, and then
they go back to the station. And if they just
sit down to lunch and they're call, they're out. So
it's not any different than being in the station or
being you know, at a grocery store or whatever.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
But the reason is the fire trucks.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
There are a lot more fire trucks than ambulances, and
they get their quicker. And we are back and boy, Peyton,
there's a lot going on last week, a lot going
on this week. Pam Bondy was fired last week and
that made national news to the private sector, and Supreme
Court seem poised on Wednesday to reject President Donald Trump's

(20:53):
restrictions on birthright citizenship. If anybody has anything to say
about that, we're open to that. Artemists too, still so
exciting now today is when they are going to be
doing that loop and going deeper into space than any
human has ever done, and traveling to the dark side
of the Moon, which reminds me of Pink Floyd's Dark

(21:15):
Side of the Moon that came out in nineteen seventy three.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
I wish I had that song pulled up. That's a
good one.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
I know, it's great.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
I was out of high school one year, so that'll
be really interesting. Of course, they've had a bit of
a toilet problem that they keep on talking about. But yeah,
you know, this is a lot of tests for Artemis
to about longer space travel with humans, and if you're
going to be in space a long time, you need
that toilet. It's just that you can't say I'm going
to go on a space walk y'all.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
For a little bit, see you later, Gotta go. But
hopefully they get that figured out. But it's a good test.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
So there will be a period of time today I
think less than an hour that they will have no
communication with Houston, which is really interesting too. But I
can't wait to see the pictures that they come back with.
So there's something else I wanted to bring up before
we open it up for more calls and questions. And
like I said, we love to hear what you have
to say about anything. It's your chance to speak up

(22:13):
and sound off. But there is a group in Omaha,
and I hope they're listening today called Nebraska Taxpayers for
Freedom and they are a group led by a fellow
named Doug Kagan who's been around a while. He's basically
considered their group a bit of a watchdog. When I
look on their web page, they don't have many followers

(22:35):
on their Facebook, about one hundred and fifty, but they
say that they are there to listen and to be
very very conservative. Obviously, like I said, it's a grassroots
taxpayer right organization is how they describe themselves. So Doug

(22:56):
Kagan is a leader. Doug, I hope you're listening to
this because he posted something about me the other day
that I wanted to bring up and we've already talked
about this. In Nebraska Legislative District twenty, John Ferguson is
a candidate running for re election. He is a Democrat,
and there is another candidate, very good candidate named Chris Johnson,

(23:19):
Chris Anderson. I'm sorry Chris, who is a Republican and
he is a great candidate.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
But I came out and said I.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Endorsed John Ferguson a while back because John Ferguson number
one endorsed me when I was running for mayor I
think he got a lot of comments from the Democrats
because he's a Democrat, but he stood by me. And
the other thing with John Ferguson, I've said this before
is that out of all of the Omaha legislators, Republicans included,

(23:51):
there was nobody that was more engaged with me and
the city of Omaha than John Ferguson. He called me
multiple times, how will this affect Omaha? How will that
affect Omaha? Do you support this?

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Do you not?

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Can you give me some more information. I had one
meeting in my office that I had the president of
Mutual of Omaha come in to talk about tiff with
the new tower downtown. I invited all the Omaha legislators.
Very few came, very few wanted to come. But John
Ferguson was there, and he really cared. And I think
he's done a good job. And isn't that what we want?

(24:25):
I mean, don't we want? The legislature is supposed to
be nonpartisan, And so I said I would endorse him.
I said he was trusted, he was a principal leader,
and he never waivers in fighting for Omaha. And that's true,
and so I stuck by him. Now will I ever
say anything negative about Chrissy Anderson. No, I will not.
I think he's a great candidate. In fact, I've invited him.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
To be on this show.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
But Doug said that KAI quote voters in Legislative District
twenty of a splendid opportunity to elect a fine fiscal
conservative with a sterling background, Chris Anderson, which I agree,
and it's precisely what the taxpayers in D twenty desperately need. Therefore,
I am angered, but not surprised, that former Mayor Jean

(25:12):
Stothart endorsed a liberal Democrat, Streetcar Stothart. Again, Doug likes
the name calling, but he's calling me Streetcar Stouthart, and
again I will accept that with pride.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Street Car Stothart has.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Become a political Oh wait till you hear this pariah.
He's calling me a political pariah among the taxpayer voters.
Now keep in mind, folks, this is coming from a
man who did not support the Republican candidate for mayor
of Omaha. He supported me in the past. I've been
mayor twelve years, but this time he did not support

(25:48):
me because he thought I wasn't lowering taxes enough. Now
keep this in mind. I lowered the levy five times
that the city council approved. I often effort to come
and talk to Doug Kagan and walk him through the
whole budget.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
He refused.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
I offered to go to the Nebraska taxpayers for Freedom
and talk to them and walk them through the budget
process and how I budgeted and why I was only
able to lower the levy five times.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
He refused. He did not want to talk, he did
not want to.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Get the facts, but he likes to criticize, and he
did not support me. Now, I'm just going to say this,
this is what the problem is I see with both
political parties right now. When I became mayor of Omaha,
everybody knows I'm a conservative. Everybody knows I'm a Republican.
Everybody knows I hold up the values of the Republican

(26:44):
Party and I want lower taxes, and I want public safety,
and I want a strong national defense. All the tenets
of the Republican Party I have and people know that
that I have. But you know, it's not easy to
be the mayor of a city of about five hundred people,
and it's not easy to do that budget every year,
which I did, and so I would say, you know,

(27:06):
if we want Republican candidates elected, then we need to
stick together, and we need to have people quit calling
people like me that serve for twenty seven years in
an elected position political pariahs now because I said I
supported a Democrat candidate who did a lot of good

(27:28):
for the city of Omaha. When I say I'm going
to support somebody, and I meant this while I was
a mayor, and I still mean it now, I don't
say anything negative about the opponent the other person. I
just don't you know. If I say I support somebody,
I will say why. But this now, you know, this
name calling and of a pariah is not helpful to

(27:49):
the party period, and this is what we need to
keep on doing. I brought this up in the past,
but I'll repeat it. The day after the election that
I I was defeated this last time, Kevin McCarthy called
me from California and he said, Gene, this is with
the position of every Republican candidate is going to be

(28:11):
like in twenty twenty six. We Republicans need to stick together,
not be fighting against each other. And I don't know
why the Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom and Doug Kagan have
chosen this position to go after fellow Republicans, but they have,
and I think this is something we need to move
forward with and I'd love I'd love to hear your

(28:33):
comments on that. You know, these are things that I
think are very important to us. The National Committee woman
for the state of Nebraska, I've never met her. I
don't know her. I've never met her, and she had
some very negative things to say about me, but I've
never met her, you know. And her comment about me
was I want to take the Republicans' guns away. I mean,

(28:55):
that was probably one of the most false things that
could ever come from somebody who is out there trying
to help the Republican Party. So I will say, whatever
party you are in, you know, it doesn't mean that
the other party is evil. I've brought this up before too.
My son is a Democrat. He used to be a
Republican and he's a Democrat. I don't hate him. He

(29:16):
just has different points of view than I do, and
I want to listen to his points of view. But
I'm not changing who I am either. So being Mayor
of Omaha again, you are in the blue dot. There
are at least twenty thousand more Democrat voters in the
city of Omaha than Republican voters. And if you want
to be the mayor of Omaha, you cannot take a

(29:38):
hard heart ride position right position and think that every
Democrat is evil because they're not.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
To the phone lines we go. You are on the
Genest Author show here on news radio eleven ten kfab Hello, Ryan, Hi.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
Jane, how are you today?

Speaker 3 (29:55):
I'm great? Thank you, how are you? Thanks for calling?

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Hey, pretty good. I think you kind of stepped on
your endorsement there because his name is John Frederickson, not
John Ferguson.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Thank you for paying that.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
You know, I know it, and I after I said that,
I thought, wait a minute, what am I saying? And
then I got on this other tangent when I was
trying to get through. But yeah, that that was That
was quite an error for me. So I obviously know
who is running, but I apologize say that it is John.

(30:30):
It is John Fredrickson, and John A couple.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
Times I did.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
I was on a roll.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
I had something on my mind, but I know it's
John Fredrickson, and I do. John, if you're listening, and
your dad, who's a great guy too, is listening. I apologize.
John Fredericson is the candidate. Thank you for bringing that up.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Though I don't mind bringing up when I say something wrong.
I appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
All Right, we're going to shift another direction here. This
one comes from John and this is wants you to
speak about the streets out in El Corn. There's a
little bit of context real quick. It's a long email,
but I'm just going to give you a few bits
to run with here. We have several subdivisions, and he
named the one that he's in, but I'm going to
leave that private. Several subdivisions with streets that have no
gutters or sidewalks that have been deemed substandard by the city.

(31:19):
They were that way when the city annexed us. Our
streets have passed pothole status. I'm interested in what the
way forward is Today we have five hundred thousand plus
plus dollar homes on third world, horrible streets. What can
they do about this?

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, you know, I'm really glad you brought this up, because,
as the caller or the emailer knows, there's been a
lawsuit that was filed against the city from those folks
out in that area out in el Corn and the
city prevailed in that lawsuit. They did appeal it, they
lost on it again. But here's the deal. When the

(31:58):
City of Omaha, which was not me, I mean it
was before my time, annexed Elcorn, a lot of those
streets were put in a long time ago with beautiful
homes and ranches along that area that did not have sidewalks,
did not have storm brains, gutters, curbs, and the streets
were made out of asphalt. That's the way it was

(32:19):
when it was annexed. The folks out there take the
position that they were promised, and that was during the
Faihi administration, that their streets would be kept up in
good position, in good shape, just like they were when
it was Elcorn. What I did when I first became mayor,
and this is going to take just a few seconds

(32:40):
to explain, this is if an area, whether it be
Elcorn that is now within the City of Omaha West
Side or Millard, if they wanted a residential street repaired
and resurfaced, whether it be asphalt or whether it be
concrete with storm drains and sewers and curbs, it was
one hundred percent up to the homeowners in that area

(33:03):
to pay for it. I thought that was unfair, and
so I got a group of citizens together. They met
for over the year and they made recommendations what they
considered was fair, and the recommendations were something that we
now have been following for over ten years, and there's
been dozens of neighborhoods that have taken part of this plan.

(33:25):
It's either called a street improvement district, which is concrete,
or a road maintenance district, which is asphalt, And basically
what it is now, it's a cost sharing and so
if the neighbors say, on this three block stretch, if
they wanted their streets redone and concrete with storm brains,
curb sewers, sidewalks, then the city would come out, they

(33:48):
would engineer it, they would do all the engineering, they
would come up with a cost, and it would be
basicly basically a fifty to fifty cost share. The city
would pay half and the neighbor would pay half, and
they would do it over a period of years. They
would be assessed for I think it's ten to fifteen
years that they could pay that back, or they could

(34:08):
pay it in one bunch. There has been, like I said,
dozens of neighborhoods that have taken part in this already. Now,
when I was mayor, when this lawsuit came about out
in Elcorn, people were saying, well, you need to do
ours because it was promised and you need to do
it without any cost sharing at all. And that's why
it actually went to court, it was appealed, it's they're

(34:30):
still holding it up. But my issue was is how
can we possibly say, okay, Elcorn, we're going to do
yours that used to be Elcorn but now is Omaha.
But what are we going to do with all these
others that have already taken part in this plan? Are
we going to refund their money? I mean, it's not
fair to say you've paid for half, but now in

(34:53):
a certain area you're going to pay for all of it,
or the city's going to pay for all of it.
So I even went as fall Is asking public Works
to go out in Elcorn and it wasn't just these
few streets and few neighborhoods.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
It had to be.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
The entire Elcorn that was now part of Omaha. And
I said, what would it cost if we would go
out there and resurface all of those streets, put in
the sidewalks and everything and all of Elkorn that was
annexed by the City of Omaha, and it was cost
prohibit prohibitive. I mean it would it would It would

(35:29):
create and have to require a huge tax increase for
all of Omaha just to do Elcorn Street. So I
didn't think that was fair either. So we were sticking
with that policy that we've had for years now. I know,
even Mary Ewing during the campaign had a commercial that
said if Jeene Stother, you know, if you want your
streets redone Jeene Stother says you have to pay for

(35:51):
him yourself. That that was misleading and not accurate at all.
I didn't say you had to pay for it yourself.
I said we are going to follow this record mandation
that came from a committee for the street maintenance districts
and the road improvement districts that we've been following for
over ten years.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Now. To me, it's fair.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Now, there is also part of this plan if it's
in a high poverty area and a certain amount of
people living homeowners, not rentals, homeowners in that area, the
city will pay one hundred percent if it's a higher
poverty area. Once again, John Frederickson. I am sorry that
I was saying your name is Ferguson. I don't know

(36:31):
what I was thinking, but I do apologize. So you know,
you can call me whatever you want to get back
at me if you want.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Hey, a street carst author or stouthor yes, street carst
author that will call you that sr street carst Author.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
And again, Doug Kagan, I will take this with pride
because you know what this streetcar when it is up
and running and people are loving it and it's created
jobs and economic development, then somebody, hopefully somebody back at
that time in the future, will go oh. I think
Jeane Stothard street car Stothard decided to push this one forward,

(37:07):
just like they did the Arena Convention Center, just like
they did the Downtown Ballpark, just like they did the
Riverfront parks. You know, things are hard when you don't
really know how they're going to end. And so I'll
take that name street car Stothard anytime.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Okay. On the Sam Accord, we had a caller who
had a great question for you. Didn't hang on through
the break, so I'll pass it along. He asked, one
thing that you did experienced or handled throughout your twelve
years in office as a mayor of Omaha that you
didn't like, maybe you regret it a little bit, or

(37:43):
something that you wish you could do differently. Oh god,
I'm sure, I'm sure that there's just a huge, super long,
really long list. No, I think sarcastic, but I'm sure
there's some things that come to mind. But give us
one that we can digest today.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
You know, I will tell you I could I could
think of, but I'll just I'll tell you a few.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
I remember it early on I called out a cop.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
And usually this is something I wouldn't do, but I
called out a cop at ninetieth in Dodge early one
morning because he shut down the intersection during rush hour
during a massive snowstorm. And when they told me dodge it,
ninetieth and Dodge is shut down, and I called public
works and found out they had just plowed it like
a few minutes before. I really criticized that cop and

(38:28):
I should have never have done that, and I ended
up apologizing I wasn't there, he had a reason.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
To do it.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
The police department was mad at me. I was mad
at myself for doing it. I mean, I will never
forget that because I was thinking to myself, why in
the world would I criticize him. He's standing out in
the middle of that intersection in a snowstorm, and he
is saying, we can't We've got to close it down
for a while.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
I do regret that. And I will tell you one
other thing.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
I was trying to do this as goodwill, but I
want people to understand that I had to say, Oh,
I'm not sure I should have done this. I thought
this was goodwill. But in twenty nineteen we had a
particularly horrible, horrible winter, and you know, when people call
in and make claims for their cars being damaged by potholes,
we really do not The city does not have to

(39:17):
pay because it's number one, it's an act of God,
and we are following a Torque Claims Act that was
acted enacted in nineteen sixty nine that said the city
is not responsible four acts of God unless that say
that pothole or the hole in the street had been
reported multiple times and we didn't do anything about it.
But we had a particularly bad winter. So from January

(39:37):
through March, I asked the Law Department to go ahead
and pay for all of the claims, all of the
claims from that period of time. Because the streets were
in such bad shape, law department had to hire new people,
new lawyers to go through those claims, and you know,
it backfired on me. There were some legitimate complaints, but
I mean some of the claims that were made were

(40:00):
a torn roof on the convertible, or the air conditioning
wasn't working, or my seats have a rip in it.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
This was because of a pothole.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
So the number of claims that came in were not
legitimate claims, and that was something that I think, Boy,
this was not really the goodwill that I thought it
was going to turn out to be.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Yeah, there's a lot of things that we could get
into with that, and I like that question. Jim. Thank
you for asking that, and I'm sorry we couldn't get
you around. We discussed a lot today. This is always
going to be uploaded on the kfab dot com website
or the iHeartRadio app. This is the kfab comment line
with Jeans to authort. I try to get these up
by noon, certainly the day of so you can always

(40:38):
have a record of these as we wrap up the
show today. Any closing thoughts, Gene.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, thanks for listening, and we have a really good
guest tomorrow. Steve McCoy with the Airport Authority is going
to be in the studio talking about the new billion
dollar renovation at our airport and that ought to be
really really interesting about what's coming in the future and
what's coming and opening next year. So thank you all
for listening, thanks for being with us today. P Jonas
Tomorrow