November 3, 2025 • 35 mins
Omaha's former mayor comes in to answer our questions about streetcars, homelessness, how Mayor Ewing is doing, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Gordie with a special guest in the studio. It's
a former mayor of Omaha. Well, that could be anyone
that is true, but in this case it is Jean
Stothard and Mayor. I know a lot of people have
seen you recently and they said, wow, you look really great.
I'm telling you, these people are not your friends. You
(00:20):
look you look terrible, and only a true friend would
tell you that.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know, I do have a lot of people saying
they say they come up to me in the grocery
store and they say, you look great, And I'm thinking, geez,
what did I look like before? It must have been
really uptight.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Do you feel like now that you're I mean, because
you and I have had phone conversations, in studio, conversations,
text conversations, in person conversations off the radio. Going back
to end, Scot when that's what I'm afraid of. When
I started here, you were either just on the Omaha
City Council or running for city councils right in that.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
House nine as I went on the city council.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Okay, so it was before you were still on the
Mill School Board. Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So we've had a number of different conversations, and you've
been you have had no problem going throttle from zero
to sixty like that. You suddenly now with this last
election this past spring, had to go from sixty to yeah, zero,
slowing down. How does that feel? How has your life
(01:23):
been now as you were you had in retirement imposed
upon you.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You know, I love it, I truly do. I could
have so easily served four more years as mayor because
they knew what I was doing. I had a great staff,
I had a great office staff, all the directors. We
worked together well and we were accomplishing things. But now
that I'm not, it is, honest to gosh, it's like
the weight of the world is off your shoulders too.
(01:47):
Being mayor is a twenty four to seven job. And
everybody knows my age. That's no secret. I'm seventy one
years old. Yep, I am seventy one, and I was
remarried three years ago. My husband, Kevin, he's a retired
n A caesiologist. He's seventy three. A lot of people
are retired by this age, and Kevin loves to travel.
(02:09):
I haven't traveled that much because of my job. There's
just a lot that we could do together and just
really I'm enjoying this immensely right now. But I don't
want to disappear either, because I do love Omaha. I
still love Omaha. I think we've made a lot of
forward advances in Omaha, and I want to see it continue.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I thought that you did the classiest thing the day
after the election. You were scheduled to be on as
a guest with Gary in Kfab's Morning News, and the
election didn't go the way that you hoped it would,
and you kept that appointment and called in and you
were on the show the next morning, which I thought
was very classy as far as the next hour worth
(02:50):
the conversation. A lot of people are really curious because
I got a number of people emailing, Oh good saying,
what is she going to come in there and bash
John Ewing for the next hour? And I don't know
the answer to that question, but I'm going to find
out with this question, okay.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I saw a Facebook post.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Recently that Mayor John Ewing was out in public with
a group of people and either he was wearing or
they gave him a shirt that said coolest Mayor? Is
Johnny Wing the coolest Mayor?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh my goodness, what a question? Well, you know, well,
number one, I certainly as mayor wouldn't be wearing a
T shirt that said that. But as far as the
coolest mayor, I don't even know what people mean by that.
But what you know, I work for twelve years getting
Omaha in good shape. It is in good shape, it's clean,
(03:40):
it's safe, the economy's good, the development is just booming,
and I want to see it move forward. Since I
have been out of office, which was in June, I
have not said one negative thing publicly about John Ewing
until I don't want him to fail.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
How do you think he's doing?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
You know? I mean, I guess history will determine that
he hasn't been mayor that long. Yeah, there are things
how he handled him that I would have handled it differently,
of course there is. But I was in the office
twelve years and he's been in office, you know, a
few months now. So no, my goal is not to
sit and criticize what the job John Ewing is doing
(04:24):
right now. Would I handle things differently, a lot of it.
I would. But at the same time, whether it's the president,
the governor, or the mayor of Omaha, you want that
leader to do a good job because it's good for
the whole state, or it's good for the whole city,
or it's good for the whole country. So no, I
don't want to see him fail. I don't want to
see him do anything wrong. I wish, I will say this,
(04:46):
that he would have talked to me. I know when
I became mayor, I reached out to Mayor subtle, I
said can I come up and talk to you? I
spent time in his office. I never did hear from
John Ewing. We sent messages to him saying can we meet?
And he never did schedule anything. So he did not
talk to me at all since the election. I will
say that, but I certainly don't want him to fail.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
We have a line opened up here via Scott at
kfab dot com for you to email in your questions
for former Omaha Mayor Jean Stouth in the studio. At
what point are you going to get tired of me
referring to you as former Omaha mayor? Is there a
better thing has been? Is that better?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
You know?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I you surprisingly enough people come up to me all
the time and they said, what do I call you now?
And I said, you can call me anything. You can
call me Gene. I don't care. But you know you
do earn that title, the title of mayor, governor president.
You have it for a lifetime. Every time I see
Dave Heinemann, I say hello, governor.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Or.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You know, I mean, I call Hal Dob mayor Dob
every time I seem so you do earn that title.
So I don't care what people call me. I've been
called a lot worse that I won't say.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
On the air. The only title that Trump's, any other
title anyone ever has is the title of coach.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I there you go. If you ever were.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
My coach at any point in my life, you will
always be coach. And including some people who have other
titles now, I still call them coach.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Right And you know again, I don't care what people
call me. But I think as far as the other
mayor's former mayors, I saw Mayor Fayhee recently, I called
him Mayor Fayhee. I think it's just a sign of respect.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Were you down in the Ozarks? Is that what you saw?
We don't see Mayor Fate. Oh no.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So a lot of people are surprised here that you're
live in the studio in Omaha. They all thought maybe
you'd camped up, you know, packed up and moved to
Saint Louis or Baltimore or wherever it is that they
thought that you lived.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And you know what, I got to tell you that rumor.
I know how it started, but it shocked me that
it went so viral and people even after the election, Well,
I know for sure she's moving back to Saint Louis.
I don't look at the facebooks on say the TV station,
but my daughter does. She sent me a screenshot one
time and somebody said, well, I know for sure she's
(07:06):
not moving back to St. Or She is moving back
to Saint Louis because her husband lives there, because he
still has children in school. My husband's seventy three and
never has had children. And the fact of the matter
is my husband is from Saint Louis. He hasn't lived
there since the nineteen seventies. I lived in the Saint
Louis area. I lived in Saint Louis, but I grew
up in Wood River, which is about fifteen minutes from
(07:27):
Saint Louis on the Illinois side. I haven't lived there
since nineteen eighties. I don't own property, I don't have
a house. That was all a social media rumor that
started that was just false. And no matter what I said,
people still said, oh, I know she lives in Saint Louis.
Even after the election, I would have people come up saying,
are you going to go back to Saint Louis. No,
I live here. I've lived in the same house in
(07:49):
Omaha for thirty two years and I still do and
I'm still planning on staying here.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
In case you were wandering when you'd get the first
street car related question, it is coming up next Omaha
Mayor Jean Stock former Omaha Mayor Jean Stothard, our guest
in the studio answering your questions. Send him into Scott
at kfab dot com. We'll continue in two minutes.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Scott Voice News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Former Omaha Mayor Jean Stothard, and she is taking your
questions here. And this one comes from Michael says, thank
you very much for coming in, Mayor. I voted for
you every time you were on the ballot, but I'm
cursing your name every time I drive around Omaha because
there's road construction everywhere, and I know that's related to
(08:37):
your streetcar and begin.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, road construction everywhere is not related to the streetcar
Counttown and mid downtown Midtown it it certainly is. But
first of all, I get this all the time, and
people say, why can't you do just one project at
a time, Do one, finish it and then start in
another because I don't like all the construction. Well, if
(09:00):
we did that, we would be doing construction on these
roads for the next three centuries and never get done.
The thing of it is is we have five thousand
lane miles of road in Omaha. In May of twenty twenty,
I got a two hundred million dollars street bond issue
passed that allowed us to do two hundred million more
(09:20):
on our roads in Omaha than we did before. And
just last November that bond was reauthorized, so basically another
two hundred million. We bid them out in packages. We
do it every springtime. We figure out how much money
we have to spend that year, and we do as
many as we possibly can in the season that we have.
(09:41):
There's a short construction season in Omaha. We'll be doing
roads till December thirty first and into January if we can.
But when the snow starts falling, obviously you can't do it.
So to get these roads done that have been in
disrepair and have been really neglected for many, many, many years,
we do as much as we can now. I also
(10:01):
have the question ask a lot why don't you do
like this state and they do all the work in
the middle of the night, so it won't inconvenience me
if I go to work and we can't do that
in neighborhoods. You know, the state does it in the
middle of the night when they're working on the interstate
and there's nobody living up and down the interstate. If
we go into a neighborhood and start bulldozing the streets
at you know, one in the morning, I'd hear a
(10:23):
lot about that too. So that's why we have a
lot of road construction going on now all over the city,
because we have a lot of extra money and it
takes time. Now downtown Midtown, yes, there's a lot going
on because of the street car.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Have any tried to drive around downtown N Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's impossible, And I know downtown like the back of
my hand. I know where the streetcar construction is. I
just met a girlfriend of mine down at Home Grown
if you've not been there, that's really good at the
end the Blackstone Building. But for lunch the other day
and I got confused downtown and because the Harney exit
(11:00):
was shut down and I had to go around. So
I know what it's like and I know what people
are experiencing and when you have big projects, that does happen.
Fortunately it's temporary. It'll you know, the Harney Street Bridge
is the first one to come down, and I'm glad
we brought this up because that'll take about a year.
And then it'll be the Farnham Street Bridge and it'll
(11:21):
come down and that'll take about a year and then
it'll be done. Those bridges, there's six bridges on four eighty.
Those were already scheduled by the state to get done
because though you know, the state has a plan to
redo bridges all over the state, those six bridges on
four to eighty were already scheduled. It's just because of
the street car we move that construction up sooner.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well, I hope the construction goes just as fast as
whatever they're doing at I eighty and Giles.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Is Omahak closed anywhere you drive around anywhere around this town.
You can't get it around. How are we supposed to
welcome people into this town when you get you can't
get here or you.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Get stuck here.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You're talking eighty and job all of it. Yeah, yeah,
and you know I would if where I live, I
take the Q Street exit, so it's right there where
all that congestion happens. And it is that way at
noon every day now. So yeah, that's a project that
needs to get done. I think if people are familiar
with the area, if I want to go to Lincoln,
for example, or I'd love going to Ashland to a
(12:21):
restaurant in Ashland, I go the back way, you know,
and I go I go down on Harrison and out
by where Cabela's is, and then you bypass that whole thing.
But that is a problem. But that's what happens when
you're trying to move forward and to fix these roads. Again.
Omah is five thousand lane miles of road. They've been
neglected for years, and we have the extra money voter approved,
(12:44):
and so there's a lot of projects. I know it's inconvenient,
but it will get done and it'll be worth the
inconvenience when they're done.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Former Omaha Marrier jeans doctor with us here on eleven
ten kfab. So someone presents you with a time machine
and says, yeah, it's we're still working on the glitches
right now. This time machine can only do one thing,
and one thing only. It can go back to the
point in time where you decided we're going forward with
the streetcar or not.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Do you make the same decisions.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, I do. I totally support the streetcar. I understood
the value of the streetcar back when I was on
city Council. I kept on telling the staff and those
that wanted to do it, and that was the Urban
Core Committee that was developed by the Chamber. That was
their number one recommendation. And this was a lot of
(13:35):
leaders in Omaha that made that recommendation. And I said,
I understand the value of the streetcar, but show me
away to fund it that I will not have to
raise taxes. And they did. Now, this is a thing
that people challenge me about a lot, because they said,
I don't believe you my taxes are going to go up.
I live out in West Omaha and my taxes just
(13:56):
went up. My value my home went up, and I
know it's because of the streetcar. It is that the
streetcar is a catalyst for economic development, and it's already
successful and the rails aren't even in the ground. You know,
the first estimates were that there would be about two
billion dollars worth of new development in the first fifteen years.
That would more than enough have more than enough revenue
(14:18):
to pay for the construction of the street car. It's
going to be they've reevaluated that and it's about four billion.
Because even before the streetcar the rails are in the ground,
there's been about one point six billion of new development.
So that development is happening. It's happening along that streetcar quarter.
It's going to be good for downtown Midtown. But when
(14:39):
you bring in that extra revenue because of all that development,
it's good for the whole city. So I know they're
number one cheerleaders still.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Creighton Legal expert was on with Gary Seidelmeyer on kfab's
Morning News last week and said, some of these businesses
who said people can't even get to our business. True,
our ability to make money has been cut off due
to streetcar construction. And he thinks that they can sue
the City of Omaha.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Can they? Is that something that they should do.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I mean you're talking about we got all this great
business is going to be great. Well, if you've got
a pizza restaurant down there now and people can't get there,
what are they supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And that is so true, and that is something that
that construction is really disrupting a lot of those businesses
along the route. That is something that we thought of
and tried to plan for from the very very beginning.
There is a fund that was worked on, created, developed
and moving forward while I was still mayor. This is
nothing that just happened with the new administration. But to
(15:39):
have amount of money it's going to be, it's funneled
through the chamber that will help these businesses that are
suffering because of the lack of business because of the streetcar.
But I and hopefully we can help them get through this.
It is supposed to be set up so that there
is still a way to get to all of those businesses.
It's not just completely blocked off. But I always give
(16:01):
the example because I gave the streetcar presentation to probably
with Steve Jensen, probably about six thousand people in Omaha,
and I always give the example as there was a
business owner down in Kansas City that owned a men's
clothing store that was along the route, and he was
the biggest opponent of the streetcar. He was at all
the city council meetings. You're ruining my business. My business
(16:24):
is doing terrible. The streetcar is not going to be
beneficial to me. Now that it is up and running,
he said. I am the first to say I was wrong.
He said, my business is thriving. I have a whole
new set of client tele. I have a younger group
of people coming in because the transportation is available, and
their businesses along that route are just flourishing. So I
(16:46):
understand what they're going through now, I really do. And
I think that that plan that we had set up
to help funds for those business that are suffering through
this construction period, I think they ought to really work
at getting more Right now, there's about a million dollars
in that fund that doesn't go very far, so I
would have been working on getting more dollars to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I think that summarizes a lot of the questions that
came in this morning from kfab Nation related to the streetcar.
Here's one out of left field from Pete sent to
Scott atkfab dot com says, good morning. There are rumors
that someone on your mayoral staff was feeding information to
the John Ewing campaign during the race. Any comment on that, Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
You know what, I'll be honest with you here. I
was told that I don't know if that rumor is
true or not. I was told that by somebody that
worked in the Treasure's office and they said that that
was being said that John Ewing was being fed information
from somebody in my office about how what he could
(17:52):
use against me during the campaign. And I heard that.
I don't want to say who it was, but I
was told who that person. Was confronted that person and
I said, is this true? And this is this was
before the election, and they didn't confirm or deny it.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I'm curious, though, since you did all these town halls,
you always come on this radio station and other media
to answer questions. What would be there that would be
something outside of what you're already talking about all the time,
anyway that the uing campaign would have used against you.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Well, that's the million what.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I missed there, because I didn't see them come out
of left field with anything in the campaign against you.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's the million dollar question. But I think it's just
what are what are the issues that she deals with
every day? I deal with issues with the street car,
I deal with issues with public safety, I deal with
issues with the homeless. And I think it was just
what are these issues that really any candidate could find
out if they do a poll too. So that's why
(18:56):
I didn't make it a big deal. I thought, you know,
I will say this, and I've said this many times.
The one thing that I wanted myself to be and
my whole staff is honest with the public. And we were.
It's a thing of integrity meant a lot to me.
Integrity doesn't mean just being honest, but it means not
taking credit when credit is not due either, And so
(19:18):
I always tried to be very very honest with everybody.
And if I don't know, I don't know, but that
that rumor that was going around that people were feeding
John Ewing campaign information, it didn't concern me that much
because I mean it was a campaign.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
We have a number of questions also related to something
else that you just mentioned there, and that is homelessness.
As this past weekend started, Mayor Ewing's a pilot program
to deal with this in this down will pick your
brain on that subject as well. Good your question is
still coming into Scott atkfab dot com for our guest
in the studio, former Omaha may Or Jean Stouth. Scott
(19:58):
Voice comments as well. Here's a quick one from Carl says,
would you please share with mayristouthor that while I live
an hour east of Omaha and rarely get to Omaha,
I want to thank her for her service. I've always
been impressed with their knowledge on all the issues. From
the outside looking in, it sure seems Omaha is a
better place due to her leadership. That's from Carl. Now,
(20:22):
do you hear that and do you take it as
that's nice? Or do you hear that and go I
wish you live here in town. That would have been
another nice vote.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
That would have been another vote. No, I really appreciate that.
And you know it's funny. I do get a lot
of people saying nice things like that, Thank you, Carl,
but nice things. And I get more now than I
did when I was mayor. And I think it's because
I'm not making decisions anymore. But I do hear that
quite a bit, and I believe that Omaha is better
than it was in twenty thirteen when I first became mayor,
(20:51):
but I appreciate people saying that, Well.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
One of the big things we've seen explode in this
community since twenty thirteen is homelessness. There are visible home
homeless encampments, panhandlers, and even invisible homelessness that you don't
see until you start going back behind some treed areas,
behind businesses, even in West Omaha, underneath overpasses, even in
West Omaha. And this is something that you dealt with
(21:16):
during your time, Yeah, Mayor of Omaha. Mayor Ewing over
the weekend says, we get a six month pilot program
to deal with homeless encampments, and we feel like it's
going to be better at the end of six months.
With I have pointed out that's over the winter months,
where you're naturally not going to see as many homelessness.
That's exactly right, campments. What do we do about this issue?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And first of all, let me say this is the
homeless issue in Omaha, and there's two different kinds. They're
sheltered and unsheltered. But the unsheltered has increased since twenty thirteen,
but it was so low in twenty thirteen so compared
to other top fifty cities, we do not have the
homeless problem that other cities do. And you know, it
(22:00):
was easy to solve. We would have done it a
long time ago. I lived in Seattle, Washington in the
late nineteen seventies early eighties. My husband was doing his
fellowship there at that time, and there was homeless down
in Pioneer Square downtown Seattle. They used to call them bums,
the bums of Pioneer Square. They're still there. You know,
(22:21):
if this was an easy problem, it would have been
solved a long time ago. So what I did as
mayor is I studied it. I saw what was happening
in Omaha. It was increasing, but the numbers themselves aren't
that high compared to other cities. HUDD does a point
in time count about every January in all cities. I've
(22:41):
been watching that, but that is why I hired a
homeless service coordinator, Caamera Dwyer. I hired her about three
years ago. We created a job description and I wanted
her to coordinate all of the services that we have
in town. The street outreached, the services for mental illness,
for addiction, with the homeless shelters, and to coordinate it
(23:04):
under the Mayor's office. I will say this, she I
think she's done a fantastic job and I like her
a lot of She was really attacked during the primary
with when I was running for mayor by Mike McDonald
said she was just a DEI hire. She was not.
There was over one hundred applicants for that position. So
she's doing a great job. That thing of it is
(23:26):
is Mayor Ewing's pilot. I will say this, what his
pilot that I read is really nothing different than what
we were already doing. And we were already talking about
doing a pilot for rapid housing, so we are already
into that. So what he is doing he said, so
if you see an encampment, call the Mayor's hotline. Well
(23:47):
you could always do that if you saw an encampment.
So the plan that they are articulating now puzzles me
because it's really nothing different than TAMRA had already developed
and was working on with all of the services that
we already have here in Omaha.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Is it unreasonable since that program says if someone is
camping out living on city owned or manage property, you
call the Mayor's hotline. Someone will go out and say,
all right, you guys can't live here. You've got ten
days to clear out. Is it unreasonable for Omahans to
expect that perhaps this could be done in much fewer
(24:27):
than ten days.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Well, the thing of it is, again, this was already
being done. You could always call in in the hotline
and say there's an encampment. I would do that if
I would see them. Tamra has the ability, and she
already had the abil ability and was doing it the
last three years to give notices to vacate, and she
would do that. She would give them a notice to vacate.
(24:49):
We already, which is in Mayor Ewing's plan, We already
hired contractors over a year ago to come in and
do the cleanup because it used to be left up
to parks and public works and if they were busy,
they couldn't get out there. So we already hired the contractors.
All this was already underway. But I do think that
the issue is is if you give them less than
(25:10):
ten days, you can't just go in there and bulldoze
an encampment because they'll just go somewhere else. That's the issue.
So my goal and Tamera's goal was we would go
in there and give them a notice to vacate. We
would have a contractor to come in and safely clean
it up, but we would try to get them the
services they need so they're not just moving somewhere else.
(25:31):
If there was shelter, we would try to get them
into shelter. If there was permanent supportive housing, we would
try to do that. If they needed addiction services or
mental health service, we'd try to give them that. The
shelters will tell you that the need for more physical
help for physical ailments is actually greater with our homeless
than mental health. There's a lot of physical ailments from
(25:53):
living on the street that need to be attended to,
So we weren't going to address all of those things.
In fact, in my state of this city the last
two years, I talked about her progress, and we even
had a gentleman that was there that was homeless and
out on the corner somewhere down in South Omaha that
was beaten by someone, and Tamor has even taking this
(26:14):
person to their treatments at a physicians clinic. So there
was a lot of progress that we had made. When
I left, the number was about ninety families, we call
them homeless unsheltered, and it could be one person or
three people in a family. But there was about ninety
that she had gotten into shelter and gotten services to
(26:35):
so we were already making some progress. But to eradicate
it and say we will not have any more unsheltered
homeless again, that's very difficult to do because if you
had just come in and say, okay, you're out, we're
going to bulldoze you and you're out tomorrow. They're going
to move somewhere else. They need to get some services
to help them get out of this situation.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson was really big on this
issue during your time as mayor. Was he helpful or
a total pain in your neck?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Well, well, Sheriff Hansen, God love him, but he could
be both, let me tell you. But I did not
agree with him, nor did I agree with Mike McDonald
when he tried to get this passed in the legislature
that criminalizing homelessness was the way to go. When that
first came up in the legislature, I went and spent
some time with our city attorney and with our city prosecutor,
(27:28):
saying what would you think about if there was a
fine and if they jailed people that were unsheltered. This
even the city prosecutor said, not a good idea. Number One.
You know down at corrections downtown sometimes there's over a
thousand people and they're already. So if we start taking
all of our unsheltered, putting them in jail, giving them
(27:49):
a court date, who's going to take them to court,
Who's going to pay their fine? It's going to just
clog up the system and that's not going to help.
So I never was an advocate of criminalizing being home.
Us are finding them or putting them in jail. I'm
a big advocate of trying to deal with why they're homeless.
You know. The thing of it with the unsheltered to
a lot of them have pets. That's an issue, and
(28:11):
that's why Sheriff Hansen was asking people saying I will
take some of their pets. The thing of it is
is they won't allow the pets and shelters, and so
a lot of them say, no, I don't want to
go into a shelter because I have to follow rules
in a shelter and you cannot make an adult go
into a shelter. If it's an adult, you can't force
them to go into a shelter.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
That's the homelessness that we see. You're in Omaha with
the snap benefits apparently running out right now during the
government shutdown, Mayor Ewing City of Omaha organizing a big
food drive trying to.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Get food and resources to those who needed. What is the.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Hunger the assistance that we don't see how much you
need is there in Omaha?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Well, you know, I mean there is a big need.
And that's that's why we have great food banks. And
that's why the whole Shine the Light on Hunger campaign
that we do every Christmas that I was very involved
in for thirteen years, is to raise money for our homeless,
for our she not our shelters, but for our food banks,
the food Bank of the Heartlant And so there is
(29:18):
a need and that need is increasing. You know, there
are kids that get to school on Monday morning that
haven't eaten all weekend if it wasn't for our food
pantries and our food banks. But those already exist. Just
doing you know, a food drive because of this government shutdown,
it's very very temporary. I think the food banks are
doing a really great job, and if you want to donate,
(29:40):
you could certainly do that too. But I don't see
this as any different than when COVID hit. You know,
when COVID hit, that was one of the most difficult
things that I had to manage his mayor, because we
did not know what the hell was going to happen,
and with COVID, how bad it was going to affect people.
If people were going to lose their jobs, people weren't
going to be able to eat. And I got a
(30:03):
huge group of community leaders together from all factions of
the community saying, help me understand where the need is
the greatest, and that's where we are going to be
putting our COVID money. And I think you just have
to plan, you know, you have to plan for the
worst and hope for the best, and you always have
to be able to be flexible when these things happen.
(30:24):
And COVID was another big thing. But we got through it,
and we got through it with some people losing their jobs,
but we made sure that people were taken care of
during that crisis, and we'll make sure people are taken
care of during this too.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Our next question comes from Justin sent to Scott at
kfab dot com. Mayor Ewing got sued for blocking someone
on Facebook, But didn't she do that? I think he's
talking about you, didn't you block people on Facebook?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Well, you know that's gone even to federal court with
Donald Trump that if you have an official if you're
an elected official, and you have an official Facebook that
they're being basically paid for and managed by someone in
government or your administration, you cannot block people or you
cannot ban people. However, with my Facebook, I took questions
(31:14):
and I tried to answer them. I had somebody else
that would every post that went up on my Facebook.
I approved it. I did a lot of answering because
I wanted to have that communication open. Mayor Ewing doesn't
allow any comments on his Facebook, not just banning people
are taking off certain comments. He doesn't allow any. And
(31:36):
what I've been told is he said, if you have
a question called my hotline, well you can't get a
good answer, And I would answer people on my Facebook.
Now what I did though that concerned me a lot
with my Facebook is there would be some of the
most vile, vulgar, racist comments on my Facebook that I
did not want to allow on there, and I went
(31:57):
to the city attorney and I said, what can we
do and still not violate the law. So we put
in terms of use up and the terms of use
was on the front the page, main page of my Facebook,
and it says if you post a vile, vulgar, profane,
racist comment, your comment may be deleted. And that so
(32:17):
far worked for us. So I wasn't banning people, particularly
because I didn't like them or I didn't want to
hear what they had to say. It was the comments
that they were writing that I thought were inappropriate because
school kids look at by Facebook. I mean high school kids,
grade school kids look at it. And so I was
told that recently, Mary Ewing put my exact terms of
(32:40):
use that I had that was written for me on
his Facebook. So he's using the exact one that I
used and had written. So I do think that people
have to keep that in mind too. I wasn't just
going out and saying I don't like this comment, it's
critical of me. All he had to do is look
at my Facebook and know that there was a lot
of critical comments on there, a lot.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Of questions here.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Look back at the Stouthart administration all twelve years of it.
We have a question here next about your future and
we'll wrap up with that, and if you've got a
couple more send them in Scott atkfab dot com. We'll
try and get to a few of those as we
wrap up with former Omaha marriage Jean Stottht.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Next, Scott Bhees, Well you'll know it. News Radio eleven
ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Former Omaha mare Jean Stotht with me, Scott Voorhees on
eleven ten kfab. You were at that football game on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Use that was pretty cool. Everybody in black.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Wearing orange, like you know, an idiot.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I was wearing all black, but I had red sox on.
I said I had to wear red somewhere. But that
was That was fun. Too bad of the outcome, but
it was. It was great fun.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Ginger emails about your future says thank you for the
work you do. Could you ask Jeene Stothart would she
consider a run for governor? That's from Ginger. We also
have people saying what about Congress?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, absolutely not, I tell you I will. I will
announce officially on this. I have no desire to run
for an elected office. Again. I have been in an
elected office for twenty seven years. That's eleven on the
Millard school Board, four on city council, twelve is mayor.
You know, I've done what I wanted to do, and
(34:15):
so I do not want to run for another elected office.
I thought about governor several years ago for about ten minutes,
and then I decided, Nope, that's not for me. I
really liked what I was doing locally and that's what
I wanted to stay with. But I'm definitely not disappearing.
I do want to help candidates. I do want to
help other We've got a lot of good candidates, and
(34:36):
we need good candidates too. I want to say real quickly.
The morning after my election non election, my defeat, Kevin
McCarthy called me and he said, Jeane, number one, I'm
sorry you lost. I didn't think you would. But number two,
he said, this is what's going to happen to a
lot of Republicans in twenty twenty six, and he said,
(34:57):
we need to get good people to run for public office,
and I hope I can encourage people to do that.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I got a lot of emails, like from Dance. It's
just really nice to hear her voice again. Nice to
hear professionalism and knowledge of the city. He wants to
know why you don't have a street named after you,
like John Ewing, But you know what, we'll We'll have
to hold that for another day.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
There's no Dobbs Street either yet, and he deserves one too.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Out of time. Nice a lot for coming in and
doing that.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You bet this was fun. Thanks for having me. Jean
Stouthord here on eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Scott Voices mornings nine to eleven on news radio eleven
ten KFAB
Scott Gordie with a special guest in the studio. It's
a former mayor of Omaha. Well, that could be anyone
that is true, but in this case it is Jean
Stothard and Mayor. I know a lot of people have
seen you recently and they said, wow, you look really great.
I'm telling you, these people are not your friends. You
(00:20):
look you look terrible, and only a true friend would
tell you that.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know, I do have a lot of people saying
they say they come up to me in the grocery
store and they say, you look great, And I'm thinking, geez,
what did I look like before? It must have been
really uptight.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Do you feel like now that you're I mean, because
you and I have had phone conversations, in studio, conversations,
text conversations, in person conversations off the radio. Going back
to end, Scot when that's what I'm afraid of. When
I started here, you were either just on the Omaha
City Council or running for city councils right in that.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
House nine as I went on the city council.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Okay, so it was before you were still on the
Mill School Board. Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
So we've had a number of different conversations, and you've
been you have had no problem going throttle from zero
to sixty like that. You suddenly now with this last
election this past spring, had to go from sixty to yeah, zero,
slowing down. How does that feel? How has your life
(01:23):
been now as you were you had in retirement imposed
upon you.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You know, I love it, I truly do. I could
have so easily served four more years as mayor because
they knew what I was doing. I had a great staff,
I had a great office staff, all the directors. We
worked together well and we were accomplishing things. But now
that I'm not, it is, honest to gosh, it's like
the weight of the world is off your shoulders too.
(01:47):
Being mayor is a twenty four to seven job. And
everybody knows my age. That's no secret. I'm seventy one
years old. Yep, I am seventy one, and I was
remarried three years ago. My husband, Kevin, he's a retired
n A caesiologist. He's seventy three. A lot of people
are retired by this age, and Kevin loves to travel.
(02:09):
I haven't traveled that much because of my job. There's
just a lot that we could do together and just
really I'm enjoying this immensely right now. But I don't
want to disappear either, because I do love Omaha. I
still love Omaha. I think we've made a lot of
forward advances in Omaha, and I want to see it continue.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I thought that you did the classiest thing the day
after the election. You were scheduled to be on as
a guest with Gary in Kfab's Morning News, and the
election didn't go the way that you hoped it would,
and you kept that appointment and called in and you
were on the show the next morning, which I thought
was very classy as far as the next hour worth
(02:50):
the conversation. A lot of people are really curious because
I got a number of people emailing, Oh good saying,
what is she going to come in there and bash
John Ewing for the next hour? And I don't know
the answer to that question, but I'm going to find
out with this question, okay.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I saw a Facebook post.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Recently that Mayor John Ewing was out in public with
a group of people and either he was wearing or
they gave him a shirt that said coolest Mayor? Is
Johnny Wing the coolest Mayor?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh my goodness, what a question? Well, you know, well,
number one, I certainly as mayor wouldn't be wearing a
T shirt that said that. But as far as the
coolest mayor, I don't even know what people mean by that.
But what you know, I work for twelve years getting
Omaha in good shape. It is in good shape, it's clean,
(03:40):
it's safe, the economy's good, the development is just booming,
and I want to see it move forward. Since I
have been out of office, which was in June, I
have not said one negative thing publicly about John Ewing
until I don't want him to fail.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
How do you think he's doing?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
You know? I mean, I guess history will determine that
he hasn't been mayor that long. Yeah, there are things
how he handled him that I would have handled it differently,
of course there is. But I was in the office
twelve years and he's been in office, you know, a
few months now. So no, my goal is not to
sit and criticize what the job John Ewing is doing
(04:24):
right now. Would I handle things differently, a lot of it.
I would. But at the same time, whether it's the president,
the governor, or the mayor of Omaha, you want that
leader to do a good job because it's good for
the whole state, or it's good for the whole city,
or it's good for the whole country. So no, I
don't want to see him fail. I don't want to
see him do anything wrong. I wish, I will say this,
(04:46):
that he would have talked to me. I know when
I became mayor, I reached out to Mayor subtle, I
said can I come up and talk to you? I
spent time in his office. I never did hear from
John Ewing. We sent messages to him saying can we meet?
And he never did schedule anything. So he did not
talk to me at all since the election. I will
say that, but I certainly don't want him to fail.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
We have a line opened up here via Scott at
kfab dot com for you to email in your questions
for former Omaha Mayor Jean Stouth in the studio. At
what point are you going to get tired of me
referring to you as former Omaha mayor? Is there a
better thing has been? Is that better?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
You know?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I you surprisingly enough people come up to me all
the time and they said, what do I call you now?
And I said, you can call me anything. You can
call me Gene. I don't care. But you know you
do earn that title, the title of mayor, governor president.
You have it for a lifetime. Every time I see
Dave Heinemann, I say hello, governor.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Or.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
You know, I mean, I call Hal Dob mayor Dob
every time I seem so you do earn that title.
So I don't care what people call me. I've been
called a lot worse that I won't say.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
On the air. The only title that Trump's, any other
title anyone ever has is the title of coach.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I there you go. If you ever were.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
My coach at any point in my life, you will
always be coach. And including some people who have other
titles now, I still call them coach.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Right And you know again, I don't care what people
call me. But I think as far as the other
mayor's former mayors, I saw Mayor Fayhee recently, I called
him Mayor Fayhee. I think it's just a sign of respect.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Were you down in the Ozarks? Is that what you saw?
We don't see Mayor Fate. Oh no.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So a lot of people are surprised here that you're
live in the studio in Omaha. They all thought maybe
you'd camped up, you know, packed up and moved to
Saint Louis or Baltimore or wherever it is that they
thought that you lived.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And you know what, I got to tell you that rumor.
I know how it started, but it shocked me that
it went so viral and people even after the election, Well,
I know for sure she's moving back to Saint Louis.
I don't look at the facebooks on say the TV station,
but my daughter does. She sent me a screenshot one
time and somebody said, well, I know for sure she's
(07:06):
not moving back to St. Or She is moving back
to Saint Louis because her husband lives there, because he
still has children in school. My husband's seventy three and
never has had children. And the fact of the matter
is my husband is from Saint Louis. He hasn't lived
there since the nineteen seventies. I lived in the Saint
Louis area. I lived in Saint Louis, but I grew
up in Wood River, which is about fifteen minutes from
(07:27):
Saint Louis on the Illinois side. I haven't lived there
since nineteen eighties. I don't own property, I don't have
a house. That was all a social media rumor that
started that was just false. And no matter what I said,
people still said, oh, I know she lives in Saint Louis.
Even after the election, I would have people come up saying,
are you going to go back to Saint Louis. No,
I live here. I've lived in the same house in
(07:49):
Omaha for thirty two years and I still do and
I'm still planning on staying here.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
In case you were wandering when you'd get the first
street car related question, it is coming up next Omaha
Mayor Jean Stock former Omaha Mayor Jean Stothard, our guest
in the studio answering your questions. Send him into Scott
at kfab dot com. We'll continue in two minutes.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Scott Voice News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Former Omaha Mayor Jean Stothard, and she is taking your
questions here. And this one comes from Michael says, thank
you very much for coming in, Mayor. I voted for
you every time you were on the ballot, but I'm
cursing your name every time I drive around Omaha because
there's road construction everywhere, and I know that's related to
(08:37):
your streetcar and begin.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, road construction everywhere is not related to the streetcar
Counttown and mid downtown Midtown it it certainly is. But
first of all, I get this all the time, and
people say, why can't you do just one project at
a time, Do one, finish it and then start in
another because I don't like all the construction. Well, if
(09:00):
we did that, we would be doing construction on these
roads for the next three centuries and never get done.
The thing of it is is we have five thousand
lane miles of road in Omaha. In May of twenty twenty,
I got a two hundred million dollars street bond issue
passed that allowed us to do two hundred million more
(09:20):
on our roads in Omaha than we did before. And
just last November that bond was reauthorized, so basically another
two hundred million. We bid them out in packages. We
do it every springtime. We figure out how much money
we have to spend that year, and we do as
many as we possibly can in the season that we have.
(09:41):
There's a short construction season in Omaha. We'll be doing
roads till December thirty first and into January if we can.
But when the snow starts falling, obviously you can't do it.
So to get these roads done that have been in
disrepair and have been really neglected for many, many, many years,
we do as much as we can now. I also
(10:01):
have the question ask a lot why don't you do
like this state and they do all the work in
the middle of the night, so it won't inconvenience me
if I go to work and we can't do that
in neighborhoods. You know, the state does it in the
middle of the night when they're working on the interstate
and there's nobody living up and down the interstate. If
we go into a neighborhood and start bulldozing the streets
at you know, one in the morning, I'd hear a
(10:23):
lot about that too. So that's why we have a
lot of road construction going on now all over the city,
because we have a lot of extra money and it
takes time. Now downtown Midtown, yes, there's a lot going
on because of the street car.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Have any tried to drive around downtown N Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's impossible, And I know downtown like the back of
my hand. I know where the streetcar construction is. I
just met a girlfriend of mine down at Home Grown
if you've not been there, that's really good at the
end the Blackstone Building. But for lunch the other day
and I got confused downtown and because the Harney exit
(11:00):
was shut down and I had to go around. So
I know what it's like and I know what people
are experiencing and when you have big projects, that does happen.
Fortunately it's temporary. It'll you know, the Harney Street Bridge
is the first one to come down, and I'm glad
we brought this up because that'll take about a year.
And then it'll be the Farnham Street Bridge and it'll
(11:21):
come down and that'll take about a year and then
it'll be done. Those bridges, there's six bridges on four eighty.
Those were already scheduled by the state to get done
because though you know, the state has a plan to
redo bridges all over the state, those six bridges on
four to eighty were already scheduled. It's just because of
the street car we move that construction up sooner.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well, I hope the construction goes just as fast as
whatever they're doing at I eighty and Giles.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Is Omahak closed anywhere you drive around anywhere around this town.
You can't get it around. How are we supposed to
welcome people into this town when you get you can't
get here or you.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Get stuck here.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You're talking eighty and job all of it. Yeah, yeah,
and you know I would if where I live, I
take the Q Street exit, so it's right there where
all that congestion happens. And it is that way at
noon every day now. So yeah, that's a project that
needs to get done. I think if people are familiar
with the area, if I want to go to Lincoln,
for example, or I'd love going to Ashland to a
(12:21):
restaurant in Ashland, I go the back way, you know,
and I go I go down on Harrison and out
by where Cabela's is, and then you bypass that whole thing.
But that is a problem. But that's what happens when
you're trying to move forward and to fix these roads. Again.
Omah is five thousand lane miles of road. They've been
neglected for years, and we have the extra money voter approved,
(12:44):
and so there's a lot of projects. I know it's inconvenient,
but it will get done and it'll be worth the
inconvenience when they're done.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Former Omaha Marrier jeans doctor with us here on eleven
ten kfab. So someone presents you with a time machine
and says, yeah, it's we're still working on the glitches
right now. This time machine can only do one thing,
and one thing only. It can go back to the
point in time where you decided we're going forward with
the streetcar or not.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Do you make the same decisions.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, I do. I totally support the streetcar. I understood
the value of the streetcar back when I was on
city Council. I kept on telling the staff and those
that wanted to do it, and that was the Urban
Core Committee that was developed by the Chamber. That was
their number one recommendation. And this was a lot of
(13:35):
leaders in Omaha that made that recommendation. And I said,
I understand the value of the streetcar, but show me
away to fund it that I will not have to
raise taxes. And they did. Now, this is a thing
that people challenge me about a lot, because they said,
I don't believe you my taxes are going to go up.
I live out in West Omaha and my taxes just
(13:56):
went up. My value my home went up, and I
know it's because of the streetcar. It is that the
streetcar is a catalyst for economic development, and it's already
successful and the rails aren't even in the ground. You know,
the first estimates were that there would be about two
billion dollars worth of new development in the first fifteen years.
That would more than enough have more than enough revenue
(14:18):
to pay for the construction of the street car. It's
going to be they've reevaluated that and it's about four billion.
Because even before the streetcar the rails are in the ground,
there's been about one point six billion of new development.
So that development is happening. It's happening along that streetcar quarter.
It's going to be good for downtown Midtown. But when
(14:39):
you bring in that extra revenue because of all that development,
it's good for the whole city. So I know they're
number one cheerleaders still.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Creighton Legal expert was on with Gary Seidelmeyer on kfab's
Morning News last week and said, some of these businesses
who said people can't even get to our business. True,
our ability to make money has been cut off due
to streetcar construction. And he thinks that they can sue
the City of Omaha.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Can they? Is that something that they should do.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I mean you're talking about we got all this great
business is going to be great. Well, if you've got
a pizza restaurant down there now and people can't get there,
what are they supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And that is so true, and that is something that
that construction is really disrupting a lot of those businesses
along the route. That is something that we thought of
and tried to plan for from the very very beginning.
There is a fund that was worked on, created, developed
and moving forward while I was still mayor. This is
nothing that just happened with the new administration. But to
(15:39):
have amount of money it's going to be, it's funneled
through the chamber that will help these businesses that are
suffering because of the lack of business because of the streetcar.
But I and hopefully we can help them get through this.
It is supposed to be set up so that there
is still a way to get to all of those businesses.
It's not just completely blocked off. But I always give
(16:01):
the example because I gave the streetcar presentation to probably
with Steve Jensen, probably about six thousand people in Omaha,
and I always give the example as there was a
business owner down in Kansas City that owned a men's
clothing store that was along the route, and he was
the biggest opponent of the streetcar. He was at all
the city council meetings. You're ruining my business. My business
(16:24):
is doing terrible. The streetcar is not going to be
beneficial to me. Now that it is up and running,
he said. I am the first to say I was wrong.
He said, my business is thriving. I have a whole
new set of client tele. I have a younger group
of people coming in because the transportation is available, and
their businesses along that route are just flourishing. So I
(16:46):
understand what they're going through now, I really do. And
I think that that plan that we had set up
to help funds for those business that are suffering through
this construction period, I think they ought to really work
at getting more Right now, there's about a million dollars
in that fund that doesn't go very far, so I
would have been working on getting more dollars to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I think that summarizes a lot of the questions that
came in this morning from kfab Nation related to the streetcar.
Here's one out of left field from Pete sent to
Scott atkfab dot com says, good morning. There are rumors
that someone on your mayoral staff was feeding information to
the John Ewing campaign during the race. Any comment on that, Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
You know what, I'll be honest with you here. I
was told that I don't know if that rumor is
true or not. I was told that by somebody that
worked in the Treasure's office and they said that that
was being said that John Ewing was being fed information
from somebody in my office about how what he could
(17:52):
use against me during the campaign. And I heard that.
I don't want to say who it was, but I
was told who that person. Was confronted that person and
I said, is this true? And this is this was
before the election, and they didn't confirm or deny it.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I'm curious, though, since you did all these town halls,
you always come on this radio station and other media
to answer questions. What would be there that would be
something outside of what you're already talking about all the time,
anyway that the uing campaign would have used against you.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Well, that's the million what.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I missed there, because I didn't see them come out
of left field with anything in the campaign against you.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's the million dollar question. But I think it's just
what are what are the issues that she deals with
every day? I deal with issues with the street car,
I deal with issues with public safety, I deal with
issues with the homeless. And I think it was just
what are these issues that really any candidate could find
out if they do a poll too. So that's why
(18:56):
I didn't make it a big deal. I thought, you know,
I will say this, and I've said this many times.
The one thing that I wanted myself to be and
my whole staff is honest with the public. And we were.
It's a thing of integrity meant a lot to me.
Integrity doesn't mean just being honest, but it means not
taking credit when credit is not due either, And so
(19:18):
I always tried to be very very honest with everybody.
And if I don't know, I don't know, but that
that rumor that was going around that people were feeding
John Ewing campaign information, it didn't concern me that much
because I mean it was a campaign.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
We have a number of questions also related to something
else that you just mentioned there, and that is homelessness.
As this past weekend started, Mayor Ewing's a pilot program
to deal with this in this down will pick your
brain on that subject as well. Good your question is
still coming into Scott atkfab dot com for our guest
in the studio, former Omaha may Or Jean Stouth. Scott
(19:58):
Voice comments as well. Here's a quick one from Carl says,
would you please share with mayristouthor that while I live
an hour east of Omaha and rarely get to Omaha,
I want to thank her for her service. I've always
been impressed with their knowledge on all the issues. From
the outside looking in, it sure seems Omaha is a
better place due to her leadership. That's from Carl. Now,
(20:22):
do you hear that and do you take it as
that's nice? Or do you hear that and go I
wish you live here in town. That would have been
another nice vote.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
That would have been another vote. No, I really appreciate that.
And you know it's funny. I do get a lot
of people saying nice things like that, Thank you, Carl,
but nice things. And I get more now than I
did when I was mayor. And I think it's because
I'm not making decisions anymore. But I do hear that
quite a bit, and I believe that Omaha is better
than it was in twenty thirteen when I first became mayor,
(20:51):
but I appreciate people saying that, Well.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
One of the big things we've seen explode in this
community since twenty thirteen is homelessness. There are visible home
homeless encampments, panhandlers, and even invisible homelessness that you don't
see until you start going back behind some treed areas,
behind businesses, even in West Omaha, underneath overpasses, even in
West Omaha. And this is something that you dealt with
(21:16):
during your time, Yeah, Mayor of Omaha. Mayor Ewing over
the weekend says, we get a six month pilot program
to deal with homeless encampments, and we feel like it's
going to be better at the end of six months.
With I have pointed out that's over the winter months,
where you're naturally not going to see as many homelessness.
That's exactly right, campments. What do we do about this issue?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And first of all, let me say this is the
homeless issue in Omaha, and there's two different kinds. They're
sheltered and unsheltered. But the unsheltered has increased since twenty thirteen,
but it was so low in twenty thirteen so compared
to other top fifty cities, we do not have the
homeless problem that other cities do. And you know, it
(22:00):
was easy to solve. We would have done it a
long time ago. I lived in Seattle, Washington in the
late nineteen seventies early eighties. My husband was doing his
fellowship there at that time, and there was homeless down
in Pioneer Square downtown Seattle. They used to call them bums,
the bums of Pioneer Square. They're still there. You know,
(22:21):
if this was an easy problem, it would have been
solved a long time ago. So what I did as
mayor is I studied it. I saw what was happening
in Omaha. It was increasing, but the numbers themselves aren't
that high compared to other cities. HUDD does a point
in time count about every January in all cities. I've
(22:41):
been watching that, but that is why I hired a
homeless service coordinator, Caamera Dwyer. I hired her about three
years ago. We created a job description and I wanted
her to coordinate all of the services that we have
in town. The street outreached, the services for mental illness,
for addiction, with the homeless shelters, and to coordinate it
(23:04):
under the Mayor's office. I will say this, she I
think she's done a fantastic job and I like her
a lot of She was really attacked during the primary
with when I was running for mayor by Mike McDonald
said she was just a DEI hire. She was not.
There was over one hundred applicants for that position. So
she's doing a great job. That thing of it is
(23:26):
is Mayor Ewing's pilot. I will say this, what his
pilot that I read is really nothing different than what
we were already doing. And we were already talking about
doing a pilot for rapid housing, so we are already
into that. So what he is doing he said, so
if you see an encampment, call the Mayor's hotline. Well
(23:47):
you could always do that if you saw an encampment.
So the plan that they are articulating now puzzles me
because it's really nothing different than TAMRA had already developed
and was working on with all of the services that
we already have here in Omaha.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Is it unreasonable since that program says if someone is
camping out living on city owned or manage property, you
call the Mayor's hotline. Someone will go out and say,
all right, you guys can't live here. You've got ten
days to clear out. Is it unreasonable for Omahans to
expect that perhaps this could be done in much fewer
(24:27):
than ten days.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Well, the thing of it is, again, this was already
being done. You could always call in in the hotline
and say there's an encampment. I would do that if
I would see them. Tamra has the ability, and she
already had the abil ability and was doing it the
last three years to give notices to vacate, and she
would do that. She would give them a notice to vacate.
(24:49):
We already, which is in Mayor Ewing's plan, We already
hired contractors over a year ago to come in and
do the cleanup because it used to be left up
to parks and public works and if they were busy,
they couldn't get out there. So we already hired the contractors.
All this was already underway. But I do think that
the issue is is if you give them less than
(25:10):
ten days, you can't just go in there and bulldoze
an encampment because they'll just go somewhere else. That's the issue.
So my goal and Tamera's goal was we would go
in there and give them a notice to vacate. We
would have a contractor to come in and safely clean
it up, but we would try to get them the
services they need so they're not just moving somewhere else.
(25:31):
If there was shelter, we would try to get them
into shelter. If there was permanent supportive housing, we would
try to do that. If they needed addiction services or
mental health service, we'd try to give them that. The
shelters will tell you that the need for more physical
help for physical ailments is actually greater with our homeless
than mental health. There's a lot of physical ailments from
(25:53):
living on the street that need to be attended to,
So we weren't going to address all of those things.
In fact, in my state of this city the last
two years, I talked about her progress, and we even
had a gentleman that was there that was homeless and
out on the corner somewhere down in South Omaha that
was beaten by someone, and Tamor has even taking this
(26:14):
person to their treatments at a physicians clinic. So there
was a lot of progress that we had made. When
I left, the number was about ninety families, we call
them homeless unsheltered, and it could be one person or
three people in a family. But there was about ninety
that she had gotten into shelter and gotten services to
(26:35):
so we were already making some progress. But to eradicate
it and say we will not have any more unsheltered
homeless again, that's very difficult to do because if you
had just come in and say, okay, you're out, we're
going to bulldoze you and you're out tomorrow. They're going
to move somewhere else. They need to get some services
to help them get out of this situation.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson was really big on this
issue during your time as mayor. Was he helpful or
a total pain in your neck?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Well, well, Sheriff Hansen, God love him, but he could
be both, let me tell you. But I did not
agree with him, nor did I agree with Mike McDonald
when he tried to get this passed in the legislature
that criminalizing homelessness was the way to go. When that
first came up in the legislature, I went and spent
some time with our city attorney and with our city prosecutor,
(27:28):
saying what would you think about if there was a
fine and if they jailed people that were unsheltered. This
even the city prosecutor said, not a good idea. Number One.
You know down at corrections downtown sometimes there's over a
thousand people and they're already. So if we start taking
all of our unsheltered, putting them in jail, giving them
(27:49):
a court date, who's going to take them to court,
Who's going to pay their fine? It's going to just
clog up the system and that's not going to help.
So I never was an advocate of criminalizing being home.
Us are finding them or putting them in jail. I'm
a big advocate of trying to deal with why they're homeless.
You know. The thing of it with the unsheltered to
a lot of them have pets. That's an issue, and
(28:11):
that's why Sheriff Hansen was asking people saying I will
take some of their pets. The thing of it is
is they won't allow the pets and shelters, and so
a lot of them say, no, I don't want to
go into a shelter because I have to follow rules
in a shelter and you cannot make an adult go
into a shelter. If it's an adult, you can't force
them to go into a shelter.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
That's the homelessness that we see. You're in Omaha with
the snap benefits apparently running out right now during the
government shutdown, Mayor Ewing City of Omaha organizing a big
food drive trying to.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Get food and resources to those who needed. What is the.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Hunger the assistance that we don't see how much you
need is there in Omaha?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Well, you know, I mean there is a big need.
And that's that's why we have great food banks. And
that's why the whole Shine the Light on Hunger campaign
that we do every Christmas that I was very involved
in for thirteen years, is to raise money for our homeless,
for our she not our shelters, but for our food banks,
the food Bank of the Heartlant And so there is
(29:18):
a need and that need is increasing. You know, there
are kids that get to school on Monday morning that
haven't eaten all weekend if it wasn't for our food
pantries and our food banks. But those already exist. Just
doing you know, a food drive because of this government shutdown,
it's very very temporary. I think the food banks are
doing a really great job, and if you want to donate,
(29:40):
you could certainly do that too. But I don't see
this as any different than when COVID hit. You know,
when COVID hit, that was one of the most difficult
things that I had to manage his mayor, because we
did not know what the hell was going to happen,
and with COVID, how bad it was going to affect people.
If people were going to lose their jobs, people weren't
going to be able to eat. And I got a
(30:03):
huge group of community leaders together from all factions of
the community saying, help me understand where the need is
the greatest, and that's where we are going to be
putting our COVID money. And I think you just have
to plan, you know, you have to plan for the
worst and hope for the best, and you always have
to be able to be flexible when these things happen.
(30:24):
And COVID was another big thing. But we got through it,
and we got through it with some people losing their jobs,
but we made sure that people were taken care of
during that crisis, and we'll make sure people are taken
care of during this too.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Our next question comes from Justin sent to Scott at
kfab dot com. Mayor Ewing got sued for blocking someone
on Facebook, But didn't she do that? I think he's
talking about you, didn't you block people on Facebook?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Well, you know that's gone even to federal court with
Donald Trump that if you have an official if you're
an elected official, and you have an official Facebook that
they're being basically paid for and managed by someone in
government or your administration, you cannot block people or you
cannot ban people. However, with my Facebook, I took questions
(31:14):
and I tried to answer them. I had somebody else
that would every post that went up on my Facebook.
I approved it. I did a lot of answering because
I wanted to have that communication open. Mayor Ewing doesn't
allow any comments on his Facebook, not just banning people
are taking off certain comments. He doesn't allow any. And
(31:36):
what I've been told is he said, if you have
a question called my hotline, well you can't get a
good answer, And I would answer people on my Facebook.
Now what I did though that concerned me a lot
with my Facebook is there would be some of the
most vile, vulgar, racist comments on my Facebook that I
did not want to allow on there, and I went
(31:57):
to the city attorney and I said, what can we
do and still not violate the law. So we put
in terms of use up and the terms of use
was on the front the page, main page of my Facebook,
and it says if you post a vile, vulgar, profane,
racist comment, your comment may be deleted. And that so
(32:17):
far worked for us. So I wasn't banning people, particularly
because I didn't like them or I didn't want to
hear what they had to say. It was the comments
that they were writing that I thought were inappropriate because
school kids look at by Facebook. I mean high school kids,
grade school kids look at it. And so I was
told that recently, Mary Ewing put my exact terms of
(32:40):
use that I had that was written for me on
his Facebook. So he's using the exact one that I
used and had written. So I do think that people
have to keep that in mind too. I wasn't just
going out and saying I don't like this comment, it's
critical of me. All he had to do is look
at my Facebook and know that there was a lot
of critical comments on there, a lot.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Of questions here.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Look back at the Stouthart administration all twelve years of it.
We have a question here next about your future and
we'll wrap up with that, and if you've got a
couple more send them in Scott atkfab dot com. We'll
try and get to a few of those as we
wrap up with former Omaha marriage Jean Stottht.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Next, Scott Bhees, Well you'll know it. News Radio eleven
ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Former Omaha mare Jean Stotht with me, Scott Voorhees on
eleven ten kfab. You were at that football game on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Use that was pretty cool. Everybody in black.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Wearing orange, like you know, an idiot.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I was wearing all black, but I had red sox on.
I said I had to wear red somewhere. But that
was That was fun. Too bad of the outcome, but
it was. It was great fun.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Ginger emails about your future says thank you for the
work you do. Could you ask Jeene Stothart would she
consider a run for governor? That's from Ginger. We also
have people saying what about Congress?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah, absolutely not, I tell you I will. I will
announce officially on this. I have no desire to run
for an elected office. Again. I have been in an
elected office for twenty seven years. That's eleven on the
Millard school Board, four on city council, twelve is mayor.
You know, I've done what I wanted to do, and
(34:15):
so I do not want to run for another elected office.
I thought about governor several years ago for about ten minutes,
and then I decided, Nope, that's not for me. I
really liked what I was doing locally and that's what
I wanted to stay with. But I'm definitely not disappearing.
I do want to help candidates. I do want to
help other We've got a lot of good candidates, and
(34:36):
we need good candidates too. I want to say real quickly.
The morning after my election non election, my defeat, Kevin
McCarthy called me and he said, Jeane, number one, I'm
sorry you lost. I didn't think you would. But number two,
he said, this is what's going to happen to a
lot of Republicans in twenty twenty six, and he said,
(34:57):
we need to get good people to run for public office,
and I hope I can encourage people to do that.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I got a lot of emails, like from Dance. It's
just really nice to hear her voice again. Nice to
hear professionalism and knowledge of the city. He wants to
know why you don't have a street named after you,
like John Ewing, But you know what, we'll We'll have
to hold that for another day.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
There's no Dobbs Street either yet, and he deserves one too.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Out of time. Nice a lot for coming in and
doing that.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You bet this was fun. Thanks for having me. Jean
Stouthord here on eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Scott Voices mornings nine to eleven on news radio eleven
ten KFAB
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