Sherriff Aaron Hanson Joins

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And this morning, I have a special guest and he's
on the line now, and we have Douglas County Sheriff
Aaron Hanson, Sheriff.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning, well, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
How are you.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
I'm good. I'm good. I'm navigating the slippery roads of
central Douglas County here we had this drizzle coming down.
I'm excited to see more rain, though I hope I
gotta get prepped from my garden. So I love seeing
this rain.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
And I do love seeing the things you post on
your Facebook about your dogs and your garden, et cetera,
et cetera. I've made a few comments, you know, like.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
My goats, like my goats, and like please.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Don't invite me over to dinner. Ever, Sheriff.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Johnson ranches full of fluffy and animals.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
You sure do so. Anyway, the thing I really wanted
to talk to you about this morning is something that
has been on the air before yesterday they started talking
about it. But there was an event, a kickoff event
this week on Tuesday evening for Mark Martinez, who is
running for Douglas County Sheriff mayor. Ewing at that event

(01:13):
spoke who has endorsed Mark Martinez and accused you, the
sheriff of Douglas County, of leading an occupying army, and
he said that with his endorsement of your challenger at
this event, I would say the usual suspects were there.
Tony Vargas, Ron hug Crystal Rhodes, the mayor, his wife,
the First Lady which she prefers to be called, But

(01:36):
apparently Ewing, who helped recruit Martinez to run, really sharply
criticized your current administration under you and described this as
this occupying army. So I wanted to give you a
chance to respond and also just ask you. We'll ask
you to respond, but is there a contentious relationship that

(01:57):
has developed between the city are the mayor and the
Douglas County Sheriff's Department. Just to give you the opportunity
to talk about that accusation, and then I've got a
lot of questions too about about the role of the
sheriff of Douglas County, because I think we all know
the city of Omaha is in Douglas County.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Sure, yeah, well thanks for thanks for the opportunity, and yeah,
you know, I think it's important for people to put
in context. You know, you have politics, and a politics
comes political statements, political rhetoric, and then we have reality,
you know, after elections is you know, when the rhetoric
kind of campers down a little bit and we get

(02:40):
back to business and people work with each other again
and until until the next election cycle comes around. But
you know, I think one thing that really wears people
out today is the divisive political speech that we see
too often both you know, especially on the national level,
but even sometimes on the local level. And to you know,

(03:01):
that's one thing. If somebody wants to be critical with
me and my style or who I am as a sheriff,
you know, that's their game. But I don't think it's
not fair, it's not accurate, and it's not nice, quite frankly,
to paint with a broad brush the hard working men
of women of the Dougas County Sheriff's Office by calling

(03:23):
them an occupying hanney when it comes to sheriffs sheriff's
offices at countywide jurisdiction, and they work directly for the people.
And so if somebody is going to call and ask
for help, if to the extent that we have the
ability to help, we want to be responsive and help
protect our bosses. Now here's the other thing. When it
comes to our relationship with the Oma Police Department, the

(03:45):
Dogs Couinty Shriff's Office has a fantastic relationship with the
Oma Police Department. How people were working together every day
to keep all of our shared constituents safe. The nice
thing about that.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Excuse me, but you always have had a good relationship, correct, Yes,
I mean at twelve that's twelve years I was mayor.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
You did the two agencies work together very well. You know,
let's say OPD is one of the best, if not
the best police department in the nation. Under Chiefs matyrs leadership,
we've seen incredible reductions in violence. There's been a lot
of positive public safety headway to be done. And also

(04:25):
the Dougast County Shriff's Office, in my opinion, is one
of the best major county sheriff's office in the nation.
And luckily we both served some of the best people,
some of the best citizens, the best community in the nation.
And so I think this county is big enough to
be able to have the best police department, the best
sheriff's office serving and protecting one of the best communities

(04:45):
in the nation.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Absolutely, and you know. I mean when you think about it,
and I know people know this, but Marory Ewing is
a former OPD police officer. So is Tom Warren former chief.
You are You spent what over twenty how many years
with the Omaha Police Department before you became sheriff, many
many years, and you had many roles too. I remember

(05:06):
when I first met you, you were on canine and
I would drive down the interstate and see your cruiser
parked on the side of the road and your dog
out and your leg's sticking out from under somebody's car
when you were looking for drugs. I mean, you had many,
many roles. You were the president of OPOA Omaha Police
Officers Association for a while too, and now you're the

(05:27):
Douglas County Sheriff. So in my opinion, there should be
no reason why the two law enforcement agencies can't and
should not get along very very well. Then where do
you think this came from? Do you think it's just
just some political language to help try to get your
opponent elected. I just don't know where this came from.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Well, I think it's again it's politics versus reality. And
I can tell you that I received a lot of
feedback from a lot of members of the Omah Police Department.
Definitely at the members of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office
that were you know, they were, they were surprised, they
were shocked and disappointed to hear those comments broad breaststroking,
you know, the men and women of the Douglas Kinny

(06:12):
Shriff's officers and occupying army. Here's the fact of the matterazine.
When an Omah Police officer was shot in the head
here recently and luckily survived at one hundred and fourteenth
in Dodge, some of the first responding officers, some of
the first responding deputies, were members of the DCSO Special
Operations Group, there to protect their brothers and sisters when
they needed it. Every day, almost every day, our Douglas

(06:34):
Kinny Shriff's Office CAT Team works with the OpenD trafficking
it to pursue and stop and if we need to
arrest dangerous reckless drivers or street racers or those engaging
in the legal side shows, one of the most dangerous
statistical behaviors that we see on our public streets. It
wasn't very long ago. Just last year, the DCSO teamed

(06:56):
up with the Omah Police Department to take down the
break the Precious Metals and eighty fourth and Ugh. This
was a hot spot of theft and fraud. It was
a fencing location. They were victimizing retailers across the Omah
metro and thieves associated with that, impacting people in unincorporated
Douglas County as well as City of Omah. The team

(07:16):
effort is strong, but there's something else, Jean, I think
what's important again. I want to brag about my staff,
the best sheriff's office in the nation of my humble opinion,
Douglas County. Last year, unincorporated Douglas County had the lowest
number of reported person crime and property crime victims in
seven years. We've seen reductions across almost every crime category

(07:40):
from last year to previous years. But then also even
more importantly, we saw seventy five percent reduction in traffic
fatalities and unincorporated Douglas County and a fifteen percent reduction
in personal injury collisions. So that just doesn't happen with
good intentions. That happens because we've got good people that
care about this community, that go to work every day

(08:00):
put on that uniform of their civilian uniform and dropped
their shoulder and are focused on the public safety of
the people that we served.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Absolutely, it's all about keeping the public safe. And then
when you look at what's happening elsewhere, even in Nebraska,
Lincoln just reported their violent crime is up thirty two percent,
and look what we have here in Omaha. And you know,
the one thing I wanted to also bring up if
we have always had mutual aid, we always help each other,
not only the Douglas County Sheriff and OPD, but helped

(08:29):
the other law enforcement agencies in our metro area. And
when Omaha Police Department suffered like every other law enforcement
agency in the country did in twenty twenty when COVID
hit after George Floyd hit and our numbers went down drastically.
You know, we've been operating with about one hundred less
police officers than we are budgeted for. And with that

(08:51):
the help of other law enforcement agencies, including the Douglas
County Sheriff, makes all the sense in the world that
you are out there to help us, we're there to
help you, and the whole the whole intent and goal
is to keep the city safe. And Omaha is a
safe city. And I think that's really important to bring
up that that mutual aid has always existed. Now, one

(09:15):
of the things that they accused you of is over
overstepping your boundaries. So on to just ask you, what
what do you in your words, what is the primary
function of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, Because I know
you have you have officers on patrol. You also take
care of the courthouse, the haul of justice. Just tell
the listeners what the primary function is and then we

(09:38):
are always there to help each.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Other well per per stage statue, you know, every sheriff
in every county has a statutory obligation to maintain and
promote the safety of every citizen in their county, sure
regardless of where they live in the county. The sheriffs
also have statutory duties to protect the courthouse and to

(10:01):
engage in civil process to make sure the court system
runs efficiently. And then also in areas of the county
that are not a city, about one about half the
land mass of Douglas County, about one step of the
population of Douglas County is unincorporated Douglas County. That's where
Sheriff's offices have primary jurisdiction. That means if you call
nine to one one, it's going to be a sheriff's

(10:23):
deputy that's going to arrive to take your call and
a sheriff's investigator who's been due the follow up. Now,
that doesn't mean that that obligation to keep citizens safe
diminishes one block on the other side of that city
county boundary. We do work well with our partner agencies
that are primary jurisdiction agencies in their cities. But if

(10:46):
a citizen in those jurisdictions needs the help of the
sheriff's office and if we can provide that assistance to
keep them safe, we will do so. If that means
working with our partners and other law enforcements for engaging
in the effort on our own. My obligation is sheriff

(11:08):
is my bosses, and my bosses are the people of
Douglas County because that's who I.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Work for directly, absolutely, And you know, Nebraska is one
of forty six states where the sheriff is elected by
the public and not appointed by the mayor like the
police chief is. So you were elected by the public
to serve in that position. One other thing I have
to bring up that was said during the fundraiser or
the announcement with your opponent, Mark Martinez, is that Aaron

(11:36):
Hansen has gobs and gobs of money. I kind of
had to snicker at that statement. Gobs and gobs of money,
lucky you. I mean, raising money is one of the
hardest things to do. Take it from me that has
been doing it. I've been an elected position. I was
for twenty seven years. Campaigning is hard, can't You have

(11:59):
to raise a lot of money, you have to have
a lot of contact with the voters. But the one
thing I never did, and I don't think any candidate
should ever do, is to tell lies to the public
to get elected. And that's when you talked about elections
are getting more and more contentious. That is happening more
and more and more, and the public needs to be

(12:22):
informed and they need to be educated, and they need
to know what they're voting on, and they make it
so confusing. Now, that's why I want to do really
on this morning, to say here's what I do and
here's what the sheriff's duties are, and to be able
to talk about these things. So I think I really
appreciate you being on this morning. The campaign, like I said,

(12:44):
it's firing up like all campaigns are right now, and
so I wish you luck. If your opponent wants to
be on this show, we'd certainly let him be on
this show. But I just I was very surprised at
this headline. I was very surprised by these accusations. I
don't think that they are true. You know, I've worked
with you for twelve years, or actually sixteen years, because

(13:05):
I worked with you when I was on the city council,
and we don't always agree, but that's okay, you know.
I mean, if we always agree, we would be pretty
non functional. So to say that you're leading an occupying
army is something that I certainly would oppose. How many
do you have as far as your total staffing with
your sheriff's department that are actually sworn.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Sure, We've got about two hundred and sixty two total
employees under the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, and we have
one hundred and sixty two or budget for one hundred
and sixty two sworn. And I would say that those
one hundred and sixty two are probably split evenly in thirds.
A third are assigned to Row Patrol patrolling unincorporated Douglas County,

(13:50):
but then also assigned to the Community Action Team, which
can be responsive across the county. A third are assigned
to criminal investigation, and a third are assigned at the
courthouse in the Civic Center to maintain the peace and
safety down there. Now, part of that third is also
constantly out in the county trying to find individuals that

(14:14):
have TELNY warrants. You got to remember, if someone gets
a warrant through the district court, the only agency that
pursues those individuals as a primary duty as a Douglas
County Shriff's Office, regardless of what agency originally does the arrest.
And so you know, the Sheriff's Office, we do a
lot of work constantly all the way across the county

(14:35):
and unincorporated Douglas County. I think our folks do a
great job. I'm proud of them.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yes, absolutely, And I know has brought up about community policing.
You do believe in practice community policing as well as
Olaw Police Department. Correct.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, we created a community laison program and so we've
got individual deputies that are assigned to different areas of
the community that kind of have their own little niche
expert area, whether the say based community, or different parts
of the community, or different business and industries in the community,
and each of them do a good job as a

(15:11):
team to stay in contact and be present at community
events or be president meetings, to be in touch for
the community. So community policing is a big important part
of being in affected law enforcement maidencies. But it's not
just chilling up and being present, right. The real relationship

(15:32):
comes through the problem solving. Sometimes you have to have
tough conversations to try to solve someone's problem in their neighborhood.
And ultimately that real trust comes through action, not just words.
You have to actually have action to help people solve
their problems and be responsive in their communities and keep
their homes and their families safe.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Absolutely all right, well, thank you so much, Jriff Hanson.
And one last important question. What's your favorite Easter candy?

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Oh? Gosh, I love the uh you know, I I
kind of love the Skittles jellybeans. That's that's kind of
my uh.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
No kidding, I don't know about that. I I like
the I like the Cadbury eggs. You know, those little
chocolate ones that have the little yellow in it that
look like a raw egg. Those are the ones I
like so well. Enjoy.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Not a fan of anything in the middle.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, all right, thank you so much for being on.
Sheriff Aaron Hanson, Douglas County Sheriff, thank you for being
here today.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
All right, Peyton, here we go, Jeene, I had a
we spoke briefly yesterday before we go to break here. Yes,
and you mentioned something about your sister city or the
city of Omaha, sister city in France.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (16:52):
I did. I created two sister cities since I've been mayor.
One is in Normandy and it's in France and it's
word Easny Omaha and it's right where Omaha Beach is.
And then I created another one in Sicily, in Carlentini, Sicily,
and I've been to both places.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
Adam responded yesterday. And that's the great thing about the
kfab comment line email inbox is we can come back
to these at any time, So any point throughout the
day you have a question, be sure to reach out. Sure,
he said, Mayor Jean, convince me that a sister city
is more than just an excuse to travel the world
on taxpayer money.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Oh, I am so glad he said that, because you know,
there is an idea from people that that is how
it goes. Let me tell you there is no budget
in the city of Omaha for travel to sister city.
I've been to Ireland CARLAINI, and then I have been
to France, and I paid for it out of Jean
Stanthert's own pocket. My husband went with me too, and

(17:52):
he paid for it out of his own pocket. There
is no budget for travel for the mayor of Omaha,
and so when I went, there was no taxpayer dollars whatsoever.
And I do think they're important. You know, our oldest
sister city is She'soka, Japan. We've had it for over
sixty years. Eisenhower proposed this back in the International Sister

(18:16):
City Association back in nineteen fifty six. It's been in
place for that long, and it was shortly after World
War Two. It was a national initiative to try to
bring people together to share their things, that they were
more alike than their differences. And they call it citizen diplomacy,

(18:40):
and it's really trying to have personal relationships with other
countries that will hopefully in the future reduce a chance
of conflicts. We always have shared education, business, culture, art,
international trade. All of those things are very very important

(19:00):
that we do with our sister cities. And I'll run
through them real quick because I think I remember Shuzoka,
Japan is one. We have one in brown Schwag Germany, Chilae, Lithuania, Nace, Ireland, Halapa, Mexico, Yontai, China.
And then we have the new one in France Karlentini, Sicily,
and the newest is Jamestown, Guana. So those are our

(19:20):
sister cities. And you know, we have exchanges with students.
There's a lot that we share with each other that
we are sharing citizen diplomacy. So I think they're very
important and I hope they continue. And we're back and
we have something to talk about this morning that I
find quite inappropriate and unacceptable, an issue that is going

(19:40):
on now between me as host to this show and
Mayor Ewing, And I want to tell you who are
listening to this, really what is going on, because it
is a concern. So I will preface this by saying
the last twelve years as mayor of Omaha we've had.
My office has had a great relayationship with all media, radio,

(20:02):
the newspaper, TV, and I was very, very supportive of
any of my department directors and department directors include the
fire chief and the police chief, of being interviewed and
taking questions by any media outlet at any time. They
are city employees, their salaries are paid for by the taxpayers,

(20:23):
and important accurate information was the one thing that I
wanted to get out daily. And if any of those
directors needed to come on the radio or we're asked
to come on the radio, that was absolutely fine with me,
and I would do the same thing myself. I must
have been on KFAB hundreds of times. Anytime they asked
me to be on KFAB, I would agree to do it.

(20:45):
In fact, I asked to be on KFAB sometime when
they didn't want me to be on, I just said
I want to be on today. But and when I
was first mayor, I did send an email out to
the staff and the only restriction I had is I said,
if you're going to be on the TV radio, are
do an interview, just let us know, let my communication
director or let myself know as a heads up. Because

(21:08):
what I didn't want is then the media allah calling
me and saying, well, well, so and so say the
library director was on and what do you think about this?
I just wanted a heads up so I would know
that they were on. But never did I deny any
director or any city staff from being interviewed or being
on any media outlet at all. Again, these are city employees.

(21:29):
They're paid for by the taxpayers, and they are keeping
the citizens informed. Now, I was informed that last Monday
at cabinet, and I had a cabinet meeting every Monday
morning with all the department directors and with certain members
of the Mayor's office, and those are the deputies. Those
were the IT director, the homeless service coordinator. We met

(21:50):
every Monday just to talk about the past week and
what was going to be happening in the oncoming week.
And I was told last Monday at the mayor at
the end of the meeting, walked out of the room
and Tom Warren, chief of staff, who was my chief
of staff and now is Mary Yuank's chief of staff,
brought up my radio show to everyone and he asked

(22:12):
if I was contacting anyone, and if you said I
had asked a few questions, for some additional information, etc.
Most of the things, or all of the things I
asked for, should be public knowledge. But sometimes you need
a little memory refresh you know. I mean, these are
things that I dealt with for twelve years, but when
you don't think about them for a while, sometimes you
need a little memory refreshed. But almost anything I ask

(22:34):
was information that I was already privy to as mayor,
And so it went on to say mister Warren. Tom
Warren went on to tell the staff of what I
was told. Obviously I wasn't there. That if I contact anyone,
I was to let them know the mayor or Tom
Warren or their communication director. And if I requested any

(22:55):
of them to be on this show, fire chief, police, chief,
public Works, planning any of them to be on my show,
they were to tell them and my request would be denied.
That's what they were told, and I found out about this.
Now this has been personal in this they've made this personal. Why.

(23:17):
I don't know why. I really don't know why. Again,
a good relationship for the city with KFIRB or any
other media outlet is so important for the taxpayers. I
want to keep that relationship, and so does KFAB. I
mean they want to be able if there is a
public safety issue to have the police chief on, or

(23:38):
if there's a huge snowstorm to have public works on,
or if there's a big development question that they could
have planning on. So my question is to Merror Ewing,
what are you afraid of of not allowing these directors, which,
by the way, all of them I hired, with the
exception of the police chief. I'm the public works director.

(24:01):
I hired all of them. I've been working with them
for almost twelve years. I have a very good relationship
with them. They are city employers employees, and you know,
the reason I would want them on is to talk
about the city and talk about things, to give good
information out. What are you afraid of that you will

(24:22):
not let these employees just be on my show. I
don't see any other restriction to any other show that's
on KFAB on iHeartRadio, on TV news or anything. You know.
I never told my staff when I became mayor that
they had to report any conversation they had with Jim
Suttle or Hal Dobb or Mike Fahee. I never asked

(24:45):
for that at all. There's something called freedom of speech
that I think is very important too. But you know,
Mary Ewing had not allowed any comments on his Facebook either,
which I worked on my Facebook every single day with
my community cation director to get accurate, current information out
and to answer people's questions. This was something that was

(25:06):
very very important to me. Now there was a city
department director scheduled to be on this show today. This
was a director that I did not reach out to.
This director reached out to me asked if they could
be on the show today, and so they were scheduled
to be on the show today. And then after that
cabinet meeting, the director told me that he was not

(25:29):
allowed to be on the show today. So I responded.
The last evening, I sent an email to Aaron Grace,
who is Deputy chief of Staff for Communications for the
Mayor's office, and I asked Aaron, I told her about
you know, I'm hosting this radio show and how important
it is to get current, accurate information out, and then

(25:52):
I mentioned as mayor of Omaha for the past twelve years,
I always had a good working relationship with all media outlets.
And then I asked if I could have that director
reschedule that director on the show at a later date.
I did receive an email back from Aaron Grace this
morning and she said, good morning, thank you for taking
time to reach out at this time. Per Mayor Ewing,

(26:16):
any request to appear on your comment show will be declined.
So they're making this a very personal issue between me
and the Mayor's office or the mayor. Why they are
doing that, I don't know, and that's what I want
the listeners to question too, Why are you doing this.

(26:37):
I was mayor for twelve years. I obviously have a
broad vast knowledge of what's going on in the city,
from the public safety aspect, to the budget, to the
streetcar to anything. Maryor Ewing has been there for ten months,
so I mean I obviously have a lot of knowledge.
I still reach out to Hall dob on issues with

(26:58):
the city. So Scott Vorhes, who is the programmed director
for KFAB here in Omaha, did send a response to
Aaron Grace after I showed him her letter to me
this morning saying any interviews will be declined. And he
did say in the spirit of our email exchange this week,
because Scott did send her a previous email asked talking

(27:22):
about my show, he said, I am curious for what
reason a blanket band of city employees on Jean Stothret
show would be instituted. I can appreciate concerns, but until
given the opportunity to allay those concerns, how can we
prove the mayor's fares are unfounded? As far as I know,

(27:43):
there's no response on that yet. But again, I do
not understand the hesitation to let city paid employees and
directors that I have a good relationship with to share
information are now banned from this show. And you know,
if it's a if it's an is of just being
an opponent. You know, he was my opponent. He ran

(28:04):
against me. I served three terms and he ran against me.
And my feelings about elections have always been the same.
There's one or two things that happen when you run.
You're gonna win or you're gonna lose. There's no second place.
I didn't win my fourth term, and I accept that.
But you know, I've had opponents in the past. For example,
Taylor Royal, he was my opponent back in twenty seventeen.

(28:27):
Heath Mellow was my opponent after the primary in twenty seventeen.
We are best of friends. You know, you get over it,
whether you win or you lose, or what was said
during the campaign, you get over it and you move on.
And that's what mere Ewing, in my opinion, needs to
be doing. This ban of city employees just on one show.

(28:48):
For whatever reason, they're making it personal, and I think
it's inappropriate, and I think that everyone that is listening
should be aware of that, and I would like to
hear your response on that. Again. They his Facebook, just
because of a lawsuit. He has now agreed to have
one Facebook that is taking comments, but he has not

(29:09):
since he has been mayor taking comments and responded to
the public, and so I know he's got something new.
He announced at the State of the City address that
there's going to be an opportunity for a survey. But
my knowledge of the survey is you can sign it
as a guest. But they're wanting to know your email
address and other information what a lot of people don't
want to share, so interested to see what your opinion is.

(29:34):
You know. It just totally baffles me because, like I said,
these directors I worked with for a long long time
had a good, honest, working relationship with him. I never
restricted them from being out in public and talking about
things the public needed to know about. And the big
question is is why would any request from me to

(29:54):
be to any of these directors be declined? Like the
fire chief Kathy Bossman, Chief Bossman was already on. She
was someone I appointed I had her on before this
band came out, or I would call it a gag order.
And she talked about fires in western Nebraska. I mean,
what is the problem with coming on a radio and

(30:17):
talking about fires in western Nebraska? And if this had
already been said, would she be denied that ability to
come on and talk about fires in western Nebraska? So
I asked Mary Ewing to say, what is his issue?
What is he afraid of? And if Mary Ewing wants
to be on this show, we'd certainly invite him to
be onto.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
I just want to ask one question here. You know
KFAB is a conservative, right leaning station. Does that have
anything to do with any of this?

Speaker 1 (30:46):
I have no idea. I mean, I am just I'm
totally baffled by it. And I will say this, I
think that there is the feeling in the community that
perhaps our local newspaper is a little more left leaning
maybe some of our TV stations that never bothered me.
I mean I interviewed with anybody, and my staff will

(31:06):
tell you if I was in the middle of something
major and any news outlet, whether it again be radio, TV, newspaper,
if they called and they wanted an interview, I would
drop what I was doing to interview with them, because
my feeling and my feeling with the directors was that
they're going to do a story with or without you,
So why not be part of it and give your

(31:27):
point of view and get the facts out as often
in as much as you possibly can so that people
know what's going on. And I want that relationship to
continue with KFAB. I want you, Jim Rose or Scott
Vorhees in the morning or Chris Baker in the afternoon
to be able to invite city directors and them be on.
But to put a ban on one show is what

(31:49):
I feel is very inappropriate, and I think the mayor
needs to answer to it.

Speaker 5 (31:54):
I'm not sure why John Ewing would ban that. In
today's day and age. You want diversity of opinion, you
want discussions, you want contrasting opinions that need to be challenged,
and they need to be spoken about, and it's completely unfair,
it's unfounded. We have shows like The View whose sole

(32:18):
purpose was to allow that diversity, and John Ewing certainly
is not interested.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
I you know, I absolutely agree with you. And you know,
like I said, it's baffling to me, not everybody agreed
with me. Good lord. The whole time I was mayor.
I mean it was like every single day. But you
have to accept other people's opinions. It didn't matter to
me what political party you were, are you know, your race,

(32:44):
are your gender, and none of that mattered to me.
And I respected other people's opinion. And that's what should
be happening with government today, rather than say, you know,
we will talk to anybody but you for what reason?
And like I said, what are you a friend? I
should know what's going on in Omaha. I was mayor
twelve years and he's been mayor ten months. So let

(33:07):
us take advantage of those great directors. The City of
Omaha has that, like I said, all of them, but
police chief and Public Works director I hired and worked
with for twelve years, and let him talk to the
public and let them share points of view, and let
people call in and say whether they agree with us
or not, so I absolutely agree. I think it's just
baffling that they have taken this position.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
Four zero two, five, five, eight, eleven ten. Here we
have Frank on the line. Frank, you're on News Rady
eleven ten with Jean Stouth.

Speaker 6 (33:37):
Good morning, Good morning. I'm just curious. This is sort
of blackluster after all the things you've been talking about
this morning. But I'm just curious as to all the
fish fries and whatever that they have in Omaha that
they do a lot of meals on Friday nights for
the churches. And I know there's huge fundraisers with a

(34:00):
tech with the churches being tax exempt, I understand that also,
but why are these fish fries tax exam They they
don't pay any taxes for the meals if they sell
to the city. And I'm sure no city council is
going to recommend this because there's too many Catholic votes
that lose. But if they paid, I'm not wrong there.

(34:26):
But if they paid, if they if they charged sales
tax in there, it would not cost the churches anything.
And I can assure you because I used to own
a business in West Omaha that on Friday evenings. My
business would be softer because of these fish fries. And
at one time I know that that one of the churches,

(34:49):
and it's been a while, but they were going through
like like fifty kegs of beer on a Friday night.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
And yes, they absolutely do.

Speaker 6 (34:59):
That's that's find that they do that. But that that's
revenue that's coming out of other businesses. Now, not all
those people are going to go out to eat, are
going to go out and have a beer someplace, but
that's that's tax revenue that's coming out really for no reason.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
And it's true that churches are tax exempt and so
and that is by law, and so that is why
they don't have to follow, you know, the rules of
sales tax and then the restaurant tax on top of it,
if you remember, that's for all prepared food and beverages,
and that's an extra two and a half percent. But
because of that, they don't have to because of being

(35:40):
sales tax and tax exempt for being a religious organization
or a church, that they don't have to charge that.
Now that the one thing is is if they yeah,
I could see that they might be hurting other restaurants
in the area because that is a thing in Omaha,
the fish fries. I mean, people wait three hours in
line to go to fish fries, and the churches make
a lot of money on that. But it's only for

(36:01):
a short period of time. It's only during Lent. And
so now I understand what you're saying and appreciate your call.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
We got one more caller to get to. Right now,
we're going to get to Larry. Larry keeps us real quick. Okay,
we have a little bit of time here. You're on
with Jean's author.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
But thank you, Stopford. I go back quite a way
as going to the Sydney council meetings and stuff. It
was very good when you were there. We had ten
minutes as a citizen. They seem to be restricting as
hard as they can the citizen's involvement anymore, down to
three minutes if you get to speak at all. And

(36:38):
I don't think the mayor is being transparent enough about
the homeless situation. There are some vacant apartment buildings along
the Northwest Radio or close to it that have been
vacant for a long time, the windows boarded death. The
mayor denies that there's anything along as people being there.

(36:59):
In fact, has that it was because there was a
broken water line. Well, they were completely vacant for a
long time, and the waterline being broken doesn't board up
all the windows, so they are not being honest about
I think the harmless got removed for mystery and moved
into there by order of the minor.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
I appreciate your call, Larry, and you know true that
when you're talking about speaking in public at the City
Council meetings, and I know you attend almost every single
one and you have for years and years and years,
and that's admirable that the people are engaged as you are.
But it is up to the city Council president. And
I know Chris Jerrem when I was first mayor, ran

(37:41):
a meeting different than Pete Festerson did, and now Danny
Bagley runs a different meeting than Pete Festerson did. They
have to follow Robert's rules of order. They do allow
public speaking, but I know the president can or sometimes
does not limit and sometimes they will cut off a
conversation if it is not germane to the issue that

(38:01):
they are on, to the agenda item they are on.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
The homeless situation is one that we have been dealing
with for years. We are never going to eliminate homelessness.
There's a reason why some people are unsheltered, and we
do have shelters in Omaha, but you know to That's
why I hired a homeless service coordinator. I think that
the situation hopefully is improving, but we're never going to

(38:26):
totally eliminate it.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
This is the Kfab comment line.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
Your host of the show, Jean Stauth.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
We had some really good guests this week, including Pete
Ricketts and Governor Pillen, so you can always go to
those on the kfab kfab dot com or the iHeartRadio app.
You had a quick story about Max here to end
the show.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yes, I do, because I have two guests here today.
My daughter Elizabeth and my son in law Tom are
in the studio and they are Max's parents. And I've
told many stories about Max before. He is my six
year old grandson who is so funny. But the last
Wednesday he got off the bus. I was at his house.
I take care of him every Wednesday, and he looks

(39:03):
at me like he is so disappointed in me, and
he goes, where's Jack. Well, Jack's my dog, and he
loves Jack. Jack loves him they roll around on the
floor and I forgot. I promise Max that I would
bring Jack. So Max looks at me very disappointed, rolls
his eyes, and he goes Grandma, get your Google calendar
out right now and write this, bring Jack to Max's

(39:24):
house every Wednesday. I can't believe this six year old
said this to me, but that's my little Max. Thank
you everybody for being with us today and thanks for listening,
and hope you join us again on Monday. And Happy
Easter to everyone.