October 24, 2025 • 19 mins
Scott talks with Council candidate Steve Goodin about why Aftab Purevall and Sheryl Long fired police chief Teresa Theetge before the investigation into her performance as chief has even begun.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you want to be an American? It's a Scott's Loan
show on seven hundred WIW and free everwhere you go
with the iHeartRadio app take Us with You podcast after
the show streaming. We Got You Covered. We got you
Covered on all those platforms. A mind up boggling example
of ready fire aim Chief Teresa Thiji placed on administratively
(00:21):
paid administrator to leave at that and an interim chief.
And Adam Henny named this before the investigation into the
effectiveness of our leadership as a city calls it that
any of this happens. It's the city is looking for
a reason to fire the chief. After they fire the chief,
it just goes from bad to worse. Too ridiculous at
(00:42):
this point with the City of Cincinnati, and it's a
leader appted Pierre Valscher along the city manager in just
more confusion and chaos when we don't need it. Steve
Goodness here is a consul candidate fromer council member attorney
and charter right and with his analysis here this morning, Steve,
how are you Steve there? Steve Gooden? Well wait, wait,
(01:07):
hold on, hold on, standby, let's go on there we go.
We got you awsked you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, first day
on the new job, first day on the new job.
For me, there's an irony here because it's the executive branch,
it's law enforcement. The irony is, of course, there's no
due process for the chief of police. This is conviction
before being charged. And on that they haven't even hired
(01:29):
a law firm yet. How does this make any sense legally?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well it doesn't. I mean, look, you know, I've had employees,
you know, for most of my career, and look, I
rule number one is, if you've got the goods on somebody,
you just go ahead and fire them, you know. And
so the idea that here they said, well, we want
you to resign. The charter clearly says that once the
(01:55):
chief has served more than six months, she can only
be fired for cause. So presumably, if they had any
kind of cause or bad behavior on her part that
had been documented, they would just gone ahead and fired
her and we wouldn't have this farce. So now they're
trying to create a ground, obviously, create grounds to fire
her after the fact, after they've already sort of gone
(02:16):
to her and asked her to resign. It is a
morale killer. It's more politics that the rank and file
see this. I talked to some officers yesterday who are
just disgusted by how this is playing out. I mean,
they're already short staff, morale was already bad. And I
got to hand it to mayor and the council. They
have done the impossible. They have taken a horrible situation
(02:38):
and made it yet worse. I always thinking like, there's
really no way it gets any worse. We have rampant
gun violence, businesses downtown is scared in down. We literally
have slots standing on Fountain Square. My office is right there,
was there yesterday. We don't really have a police chief.
How could we make it worse? And also, yeah, I've
never seen a situation we're bringing a bunch of lawyers
(02:58):
in billing by the apps makes anything. Let's say that
as a lawyer who builds by the hour, it never
makes things better.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Here's a great example. See here's a great example NBA scandal,
the betting of the gambling scandal. Chauncey Billups. Okay, how
it works all always is always is. All of a sudden,
there's a bombshell, Hey we're on a press count. Here's
what's gonna happen. It's like we caught all these players
in the gambling scheme and at the mobs involved, and
you have a press conference, you lay the charges out.
On the other side says that, oh, we deny, we deny,
we deny. Uh. That's how you don't go, hey, by
(03:30):
the way, uh chun, we're going to we're gonna we're
gonna do this, uh, and then go and find that
we're not sure we believe they did this, and now
we're gonna go and investigate it. It's it's completely backwards.
You don't do that. You have the charges that they
make the presentation. You don't present and say we're gonna
let we're Chauncey billups, We're we're gonna suspend you, We're
gonna come after, we're gonna charge you, but we're not
(03:51):
going to tell you what it is. We've got to
hire a team to do that. But we know you're
guilty of something. It just it doesn't even pass a
stiff test for most people. It's insane.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Right now, Well, it's a fundamental violation of it, just
even the most basic due process on her part. She
can't answer the charges because she doesn't know what they are. Now,
we know from the mayor's comments that they're hanging all
this on her quote and effectiveness. But what she's already
telegraphed very strongly is I think she acknowledges she was uneffective, okay,
(04:21):
because of the policies she was given an instructed to do.
I mean, we know that city Hall and the mayor
helped elect a set of judges over in the courthouse
that really didn't believe in cash bail, so they were
putting gun offenders back on the streets rapidly, and that
that contributed to the frustration in the police department, And
(04:41):
that she has clearly said that she went to the
mayor to try to correct the situation and he refused.
We also know that this whole bizarre compliance versus enforcement
thing on lower level offenses came right from the city
manager and the mayor. Now I fault the chief candidly
for not pushing back more on that. They stopped writing,
uh you know, wead tickets, stopped pursuing graffiti issues, stopped
(05:05):
dealing with the homeless situation downtown, and over time, the
failure to prosecute or deal with these low level offenses
created a sense of lawlessness that brought the real bad
actors with guns downtown. So we've seen that. But calling
her ineffective for because your policies were ineffective, I mean
that's ridiculous. And this just isn't the way you do things. OK.
(05:26):
I used to run a big law firm and there
were a couple of different instances where we had young
lawyers who had who had done bad things, and we
did an investigation and then we went to them and
laid it out and said, either resign or get fired,
and here are your options. And here's what we found.
Unless you have some answer, that's how it works. This
is they're trying to make up a reason to fire
after yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And now we have a
(05:49):
pattern of behavior, Steve Gooden. And when it's abuse of
due process, let's go back to the July street brawl
where you had a bit of white guy right who
has started this whole thing allegedly, and then the city
comes out and says, well are the concan Well you
know what, actually, a minute forty six prior they were
the victim of some very extreme racial attacks and physical
attacks and this was him blast so and you know
(06:11):
he had the ministers crying for Whitey to be charged
all this stuff, and they do that, and it's actually
Adam Henny, now the interim chief oddly enough, so you
see there's some quid pro quote at least, and I'm
not demeaning Chief Henny here. I understand it's a great
cops cops cop, but again, playing the game is that
now you cast dispersions on the integrity of the office,
because like, if you're willing to write a ticket for
(06:31):
something you didn't witness yourself, and the officers didn't want
to get jammed up, and he said, I'll take the
bullet from my officer, so to speak, and write the
citation that led to the charges.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
It's cut from the same colth like, Okay, we're gonna
wait a month to charge someone, and pretty clearly it's
someone who shouldn't be charged, but we're doing it because
of political correctness and political expediency, just like we're doing now.
We have a trend now.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Right well yeah, I mean, it's just what we've done
here is just it just undermines the sense of fairness
and of law and order in the town. It really
does look like the mayor and the city manager can
say I want this guy charged, so they go back
and charge him. Whether there's evidence or not, I don't know,
but certainly you had a guy who an officer who
signed the charge, who was not involved in the investigation,
(07:18):
wasn't there, It hadn't interviewed the guy even apparently. Now
you also have this scenario where they're saying, on these
low level offenses, we don't want people charge.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And how do you have a city that way.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
We have a charter that says our police chief and
city manager is supposed to be independent above politics. They're
supposed to be out there policing and do it, you know,
working going where the crime is, looking at real metrics
and trying to figure out what to do. And that's
what the neighborhoods are, you know, crying about.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Because I mean, I mean, we don't.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Even trust I don't trust the data coming out of
the police department in city Hall anymore. I think it's
clearly been manipulated to make the gun violence look less.
I mean, you know, from shot spot and we're on
track for twenty three thousand fire but that isn't reflected
in the other data.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
It's clear from the top right, I mean, the two examples.
I gain what you saided here too. It's like the
mayor is deciding what justice looks like. And I'm sorry,
but I wonder about those people who would support AFTAB
puricle and a heartbeat, who are down marching at the
No King's rally. Isn't this what you're allegedly fighting against?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, I mean, I mean, it could not be more
perfect of an analogy between Donald Trump and AFTAB. I mean,
it's exactly the same thing. It's just, you know, they're
on different sides of the aisle politically, you know, but
there is this sense on both sides that they are
like busting through some of the norms you know, that
we have out there. Is the critique people make of
(08:42):
Donald Trump is exactly the same critique that could be
made of AFTAB, which is somebody who really just doesn't
plan with the rules. And I would go a step further.
I mean, the thing that makes me the sickest is
we've had mayors in the past who have kind of
lost their way, but we've always had some diversity of
thought on city Council and some people with backbone that
we're willing to push back. These guys have been with
(09:03):
maybe one exception in the last twenty four hours, no
one's done anything. I mean in the old days, you
know a Chris smethermin or a Steve Gooden or even
maybe Alsie someone you know or you call someone like
that would have called for a hearing right a public
here and say like what happened here? They bring the chief,
and they bring the city manager in and say like, hey, look,
you know, with the cameras on, tell us what the
(09:25):
hell is going on here where? You know? And they
wouldn't have just accepted this nonsense day in and day out.
So there's a lack of oversight from council that really
really makes this even worse, because I mean, they have
a role in this process. They can you know, they
have the ability to shine a flashlight here and they
are hiding under their desk.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
But I would point out that we're being told to
add at nauseam from have to add peer of all
on others. This is not political. She's not a political scapegoat.
The election has nothing to do with the decision. The
decisions we take public safeties are number one priorities. We're
taking it seriously. This is not political all. As a
matter of fact, she's not even fired, she's unpaid administrative leave.
And there's another part of the of the absurdity Steve Gooden,
(10:06):
is that, all right, Fiji's on paid administrative, not fired.
She's had administrative leaders. She's stick in a paycheck while
we investigate her over the next one's going to take months,
apparently to solved this. Then why name a interim chief
instead of an acting chief? If you're suspended, it's an
acting chief, like if someone's hurt. You know, Joe Flacco
(10:26):
is the acting starting quarterback. He is not the interim
starting There's a difference in a nuance. There is interim
chief not acting. They essentially have given it like, well
we're done with the old chief, this is the innermundle
we find a new one. They've already stated that, and
then they go back and go, well, no, she just
doesn't leave.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Well, you know what's so funny is he actually slipped
up at one of his you know, he was sort
of ambushed coming out of council chambers yesterday and I
think it was Channel twelve or one of the other
reporters asked him, you know, some pretty tough questions, and
they said, well, whenever we move on and change leadership.
It's a tough time. And I said, okay, so you're
firing her? Oh no, I'm not saying that. And think
(11:07):
you just said we're changing leadership, you know, And it
was like, you know, you're like you can't even.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Keep your your Live Street interim acting, for God's so
you don't even know what the adjective you need at
this point. It's so comically bad in the and the
sad part about this is all right, it's going to
go on in for a months, okay, so put your
political hat on here. A second, good and from the
legal one, Okay, after the election, what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, you know after the election, I mean, Louwell, first, unfortunately,
I see this dragging into the next year. Uh. And
I mean I think number one, what the first time
we got to watch for is what law firm they choose.
So if they choose one of the go to law
firms that have represented AFTAB and Council in the past
and they've gotten in trouble, we're going to know the
fixes in you know, I we're hoping to go with
(11:54):
someone outside the area, if you have some integrity here,
who might actually push back. But I wouldn't hold my
rough for that. So Number one is we got to
watch which law firm. If it's one of these like
hyper connected democratic law firms, you know, then you know,
all bets are off as to what happens there. But
I would expect us to drag on at least through
(12:14):
the end of the year with us having you know,
a suspended chief and an interim chief and then some
sort of a search if there was any integrity here.
They wait and see what the new council is going
to look like so that they could have some input.
But my guess is that there's going to be like
a hurry up to try to resolve all this in
December before anybody can come in and shine a light
on it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
How much longer is she under contract? How much as
you do? How long does that last?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
My understanding is, and I haven't read it, but my
recollection is that they renew it every two years. And
that is where this gets funny from a legal standpoint,
is that if you recall, we have this thing called
Issue five that was passed back from two thousand and five,
which is deeply unpopular with the FOP and probably is
ripe to be revisited. That kind of takes the chief
(12:59):
out of some of for or most of the civil
service protections. So the idea is that the Sydney Manager,
with input from the mayor, actually could just fire the
chief for cause. And that's in the charter, and it
spells it out pretty clearly that once you're in the
job six months, it's kind of a probationary period. You
could be fired for any reason. After six months, they
have to actually prove that you've screwed something up for cause.
(13:22):
But they are, on top of that, have apparently been
issuing these two year contracts that somehow, you know, deal
with compensation and so forth, and apparently there's language in
there that contradicts the charter. So that's why she's lawyered
up and there's going to be some sort of a
court battle about what her rights really are. And even
this is a mess. I don't know how the Law
Department allowed this to happen, where you have something in
the contract that I guess the contract doesn't mention her
(13:45):
being fired for cause, but yet the charter says she is.
They're in conflict, and it's the classic sort of thing
that you end up I hate to say it. Having
lawyers fight out in court and the fact that we're
here and that we've been kind of doing business this
way for years, you know, just terrible. And again the
taxpayers lose. I mean, this is going to cost every
bit of a million dollars or about the salary and
(14:06):
benefits of five to six police officers the time this
is all said and doc.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, he is a Steve Goodin consul condidate, former councilman
and the Charter Rights Steve Gooden on the ready Fire
aim approach with Fiji. She is on paid administrative leave.
They name an interim chief, not acting interim, so there's
confusion there. And now they're going to hire a law
firm that could take months of them to investigate why
they fired her in the first place. Yeah, that's that's
(14:32):
real life. That's really happening in the city right now,
with an election happening, by the way, in just a
couple of weeks. And of course everyone is saying, I
have to have on down. This is not political. Is
it time for us to blow everything up the way
it works because we have a very inefficient If you
live in Cincinnati, been here long til you kind of
pay attention to but our government is so inefficient, and
it starts the fact there's so much overlap between Hamlin
(14:54):
County and the City of Cincinnati in fighting for their turf.
Of course you see stadium issu use and such, but
even within the design itself. You know, you men mentioned
the contentious issue five, but also how council works, how
the city manager integrates and all this stuff. Because there's
cover for everyone involved. Her council can go, well, we
have a strong mayor in the mayor goes, well, we've
(15:14):
got a city manager, and the city manager says, well,
we've got a mayor and a council. It's like no one,
there's no one the way we've got it wired right now.
It strikes the average person like myself, Steve goodin that
it's wired so there's no one accountable.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well, it's wired so that you end up with an
absurd result. And you know, and it would work. The
current system would work. It's not perfect, but would work
better if council would just step up. If we didn't
have like a you know, an all a nine member
politically ambitious democratic city council who would actually step up
and provide some of the oversight that they are allowed
(15:50):
to do. But I mean, to your larger point, I
have always been somebody who has been pushing for at
least some form of metro government so that we might
actually find some of these efficiencies. I mean, even Tyahoga County,
even Cleveland has gone to a limited form of metro government,
Indianapolis has, Louisville has. I mean, it's it's ridiculous that
(16:11):
we have all these turf battles. It's ridiculous that our
departments don't work well together. And I mean back when
I was in the Prosecutor's office as a young assistant prosecutor,
back in two thousand and one, post the Timothy Thomas
shooting and the riots that happened, we absolutely had a
level of cooperation between the city and the county then
that will be unheard of now. You know, we had
(16:31):
Operation Vtex. Now they were doing gun and drug sweeps
with CPD and Sheriff's patrols and Ohio State patrol and
it was wonderful and it really made a difference. But
now everyone is just in their silos and they don't
cooperate at all, and it's really silly, and that's something
that just desperately needs some fresh thought, and I can
(16:52):
tell you this current crew or there, that's not where
their head is. They're just all about protecting what they
have rather than trying to look at what would actually
serve the public by.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
This is the Maybe this is a catalyst for Steve.
I don't know, I'm trying to be optimistic here.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Well, well, I'm trying to be optimistic too, And I
think another part of it is that I'm hoping this
is the year and the timeframe where some folks in
the business community who I know have been talking for
some time about metro government and substantive reforms. I know
there's a working group down at the Chamber. It's very
quiet that they've been looking at and studying and pushing
(17:24):
these issues. And there's just got to come a time
where we're not not just you know, the citizens, but
the business community and all these other groups that kind
of feed in. They have to speak up on this
stuff too. I mean, because they have a right or wrong,
a louder voice, and it's been very easy for them
to kind of go along cynically and say, well, look,
you know, I have to have very you know, he's
going to win. It's a blue city, et cetera, et cetera,
(17:47):
and just to go along to get along, and some
people are going to have to stand up. I mean,
you know, we've been, our little group has been pretty
fearless about speaking out on these issues this year. We've
paid a price for it in terms of some lost
friendships and broken business relationships. But that's fine. I mean,
that's what it takes. We need more people to speak
(18:09):
up and say this isn't working, We're not happy, We're
not going to go along to get along. We need
real substance of change, just at every step of the way.
And it's just going to take some political courage and
some personal courage, frankly, because you know, in this world
of lobbyists and nonprofits and the people that really have
a lot of voices at city Hall, there's a lot
(18:31):
of personal relationships and you have to be willing to
just step on those at times if you're going to
do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Got all right, he's a consul candidate, Steve Gooden. We'll
see if this enacts any change, Probably not with the mayor,
but I you know, ask others about the trickle down here,
and I think it's I would think it's going to
be substantial that somebody's going to pay for all this
ineptitude that's happening at the hand of Aftab and cheer
along and forts. It's probably gonna be some decent people
on console for that matter. We'll see how it shakes out. Steve,
all the best and maybe you're part of that change,
(18:59):
hopefully and can bring some of these ideas to fruition.
All the best, men, have a great weekend. Thanks you too,
Take care, take care. We got to get to news
and we're a return. We have fun because it's Friday,
little heavy for a Friday, I apologize. But the insanity
what's happening in the city is it's unprecedented. It really
really is. Austin Elmore from ESPN fifteen thirty jumps in.
Next we'll talk football, football, and more football, plus the
(19:21):
NBA scandal, the latest on that. Next seven hundred ww
Scott Fun Show
Do you want to be an American? It's a Scott's Loan
show on seven hundred WIW and free everwhere you go
with the iHeartRadio app take Us with You podcast after
the show streaming. We Got You Covered. We got you
Covered on all those platforms. A mind up boggling example
of ready fire aim Chief Teresa Thiji placed on administratively
(00:21):
paid administrator to leave at that and an interim chief.
And Adam Henny named this before the investigation into the
effectiveness of our leadership as a city calls it that
any of this happens. It's the city is looking for
a reason to fire the chief. After they fire the chief,
it just goes from bad to worse. Too ridiculous at
(00:42):
this point with the City of Cincinnati, and it's a
leader appted Pierre Valscher along the city manager in just
more confusion and chaos when we don't need it. Steve
Goodness here is a consul candidate fromer council member attorney
and charter right and with his analysis here this morning, Steve,
how are you Steve there? Steve Gooden? Well wait, wait,
(01:07):
hold on, hold on, standby, let's go on there we go.
We got you awsked you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, first day
on the new job, first day on the new job.
For me, there's an irony here because it's the executive branch,
it's law enforcement. The irony is, of course, there's no
due process for the chief of police. This is conviction
before being charged. And on that they haven't even hired
(01:29):
a law firm yet. How does this make any sense legally?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well it doesn't. I mean, look, you know, I've had employees,
you know, for most of my career, and look, I
rule number one is, if you've got the goods on somebody,
you just go ahead and fire them, you know. And
so the idea that here they said, well, we want
you to resign. The charter clearly says that once the
(01:55):
chief has served more than six months, she can only
be fired for cause. So presumably, if they had any
kind of cause or bad behavior on her part that
had been documented, they would just gone ahead and fired
her and we wouldn't have this farce. So now they're
trying to create a ground, obviously, create grounds to fire
her after the fact, after they've already sort of gone
(02:16):
to her and asked her to resign. It is a
morale killer. It's more politics that the rank and file
see this. I talked to some officers yesterday who are
just disgusted by how this is playing out. I mean,
they're already short staff, morale was already bad. And I
got to hand it to mayor and the council. They
have done the impossible. They have taken a horrible situation
(02:38):
and made it yet worse. I always thinking like, there's
really no way it gets any worse. We have rampant
gun violence, businesses downtown is scared in down. We literally
have slots standing on Fountain Square. My office is right there,
was there yesterday. We don't really have a police chief.
How could we make it worse? And also, yeah, I've
never seen a situation we're bringing a bunch of lawyers
(02:58):
in billing by the apps makes anything. Let's say that
as a lawyer who builds by the hour, it never
makes things better.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Here's a great example. See here's a great example NBA scandal,
the betting of the gambling scandal. Chauncey Billups. Okay, how
it works all always is always is. All of a sudden,
there's a bombshell, Hey we're on a press count. Here's
what's gonna happen. It's like we caught all these players
in the gambling scheme and at the mobs involved, and
you have a press conference, you lay the charges out.
On the other side says that, oh, we deny, we deny,
we deny. Uh. That's how you don't go, hey, by
(03:30):
the way, uh chun, we're going to we're gonna we're
gonna do this, uh, and then go and find that
we're not sure we believe they did this, and now
we're gonna go and investigate it. It's it's completely backwards.
You don't do that. You have the charges that they
make the presentation. You don't present and say we're gonna
let we're Chauncey billups, We're we're gonna suspend you, We're
gonna come after, we're gonna charge you, but we're not
(03:51):
going to tell you what it is. We've got to
hire a team to do that. But we know you're
guilty of something. It just it doesn't even pass a
stiff test for most people. It's insane.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Right now, Well, it's a fundamental violation of it, just
even the most basic due process on her part. She
can't answer the charges because she doesn't know what they are. Now,
we know from the mayor's comments that they're hanging all
this on her quote and effectiveness. But what she's already
telegraphed very strongly is I think she acknowledges she was uneffective, okay,
(04:21):
because of the policies she was given an instructed to do.
I mean, we know that city Hall and the mayor
helped elect a set of judges over in the courthouse
that really didn't believe in cash bail, so they were
putting gun offenders back on the streets rapidly, and that
that contributed to the frustration in the police department, And
(04:41):
that she has clearly said that she went to the
mayor to try to correct the situation and he refused.
We also know that this whole bizarre compliance versus enforcement
thing on lower level offenses came right from the city
manager and the mayor. Now I fault the chief candidly
for not pushing back more on that. They stopped writing,
uh you know, wead tickets, stopped pursuing graffiti issues, stopped
(05:05):
dealing with the homeless situation downtown, and over time, the
failure to prosecute or deal with these low level offenses
created a sense of lawlessness that brought the real bad
actors with guns downtown. So we've seen that. But calling
her ineffective for because your policies were ineffective, I mean
that's ridiculous. And this just isn't the way you do things. OK.
(05:26):
I used to run a big law firm and there
were a couple of different instances where we had young
lawyers who had who had done bad things, and we
did an investigation and then we went to them and
laid it out and said, either resign or get fired,
and here are your options. And here's what we found.
Unless you have some answer, that's how it works. This
is they're trying to make up a reason to fire
after yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And now we have a
(05:49):
pattern of behavior, Steve Gooden. And when it's abuse of
due process, let's go back to the July street brawl
where you had a bit of white guy right who
has started this whole thing allegedly, and then the city
comes out and says, well are the concan Well you
know what, actually, a minute forty six prior they were
the victim of some very extreme racial attacks and physical
attacks and this was him blast so and you know
(06:11):
he had the ministers crying for Whitey to be charged
all this stuff, and they do that, and it's actually
Adam Henny, now the interim chief oddly enough, so you
see there's some quid pro quote at least, and I'm
not demeaning Chief Henny here. I understand it's a great
cops cops cop, but again, playing the game is that
now you cast dispersions on the integrity of the office,
because like, if you're willing to write a ticket for
(06:31):
something you didn't witness yourself, and the officers didn't want
to get jammed up, and he said, I'll take the
bullet from my officer, so to speak, and write the
citation that led to the charges.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
It's cut from the same colth like, Okay, we're gonna
wait a month to charge someone, and pretty clearly it's
someone who shouldn't be charged, but we're doing it because
of political correctness and political expediency, just like we're doing now.
We have a trend now.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Right well yeah, I mean, it's just what we've done
here is just it just undermines the sense of fairness
and of law and order in the town. It really
does look like the mayor and the city manager can
say I want this guy charged, so they go back
and charge him. Whether there's evidence or not, I don't know,
but certainly you had a guy who an officer who
signed the charge, who was not involved in the investigation,
(07:18):
wasn't there, It hadn't interviewed the guy even apparently. Now
you also have this scenario where they're saying, on these
low level offenses, we don't want people charge.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And how do you have a city that way.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
We have a charter that says our police chief and
city manager is supposed to be independent above politics. They're
supposed to be out there policing and do it, you know,
working going where the crime is, looking at real metrics
and trying to figure out what to do. And that's
what the neighborhoods are, you know, crying about.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Because I mean, I mean, we don't.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Even trust I don't trust the data coming out of
the police department in city Hall anymore. I think it's
clearly been manipulated to make the gun violence look less.
I mean, you know, from shot spot and we're on
track for twenty three thousand fire but that isn't reflected
in the other data.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
It's clear from the top right, I mean, the two examples.
I gain what you saided here too. It's like the
mayor is deciding what justice looks like. And I'm sorry,
but I wonder about those people who would support AFTAB
puricle and a heartbeat, who are down marching at the
No King's rally. Isn't this what you're allegedly fighting against?
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, I mean, I mean, it could not be more
perfect of an analogy between Donald Trump and AFTAB. I mean,
it's exactly the same thing. It's just, you know, they're
on different sides of the aisle politically, you know, but
there is this sense on both sides that they are
like busting through some of the norms you know, that
we have out there. Is the critique people make of
(08:42):
Donald Trump is exactly the same critique that could be
made of AFTAB, which is somebody who really just doesn't
plan with the rules. And I would go a step further.
I mean, the thing that makes me the sickest is
we've had mayors in the past who have kind of
lost their way, but we've always had some diversity of
thought on city Council and some people with backbone that
we're willing to push back. These guys have been with
(09:03):
maybe one exception in the last twenty four hours, no
one's done anything. I mean in the old days, you
know a Chris smethermin or a Steve Gooden or even
maybe Alsie someone you know or you call someone like
that would have called for a hearing right a public
here and say like what happened here? They bring the chief,
and they bring the city manager in and say like, hey, look,
you know, with the cameras on, tell us what the
(09:25):
hell is going on here where? You know? And they
wouldn't have just accepted this nonsense day in and day out.
So there's a lack of oversight from council that really
really makes this even worse, because I mean, they have
a role in this process. They can you know, they
have the ability to shine a flashlight here and they
are hiding under their desk.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
But I would point out that we're being told to
add at nauseam from have to add peer of all
on others. This is not political. She's not a political scapegoat.
The election has nothing to do with the decision. The
decisions we take public safeties are number one priorities. We're
taking it seriously. This is not political all. As a
matter of fact, she's not even fired, she's unpaid administrative leave.
And there's another part of the of the absurdity Steve Gooden,
(10:06):
is that, all right, Fiji's on paid administrative, not fired.
She's had administrative leaders. She's stick in a paycheck while
we investigate her over the next one's going to take months,
apparently to solved this. Then why name a interim chief
instead of an acting chief? If you're suspended, it's an
acting chief, like if someone's hurt. You know, Joe Flacco
(10:26):
is the acting starting quarterback. He is not the interim
starting There's a difference in a nuance. There is interim
chief not acting. They essentially have given it like, well
we're done with the old chief, this is the innermundle
we find a new one. They've already stated that, and
then they go back and go, well, no, she just
doesn't leave.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Well, you know what's so funny is he actually slipped
up at one of his you know, he was sort
of ambushed coming out of council chambers yesterday and I
think it was Channel twelve or one of the other
reporters asked him, you know, some pretty tough questions, and
they said, well, whenever we move on and change leadership.
It's a tough time. And I said, okay, so you're
firing her? Oh no, I'm not saying that. And think
(11:07):
you just said we're changing leadership, you know, And it
was like, you know, you're like you can't even.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Keep your your Live Street interim acting, for God's so
you don't even know what the adjective you need at
this point. It's so comically bad in the and the
sad part about this is all right, it's going to
go on in for a months, okay, so put your
political hat on here. A second, good and from the
legal one, Okay, after the election, what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, you know after the election, I mean, Louwell, first, unfortunately,
I see this dragging into the next year. Uh. And
I mean I think number one, what the first time
we got to watch for is what law firm they choose.
So if they choose one of the go to law
firms that have represented AFTAB and Council in the past
and they've gotten in trouble, we're going to know the
fixes in you know, I we're hoping to go with
(11:54):
someone outside the area, if you have some integrity here,
who might actually push back. But I wouldn't hold my
rough for that. So Number one is we got to
watch which law firm. If it's one of these like
hyper connected democratic law firms, you know, then you know,
all bets are off as to what happens there. But
I would expect us to drag on at least through
(12:14):
the end of the year with us having you know,
a suspended chief and an interim chief and then some
sort of a search if there was any integrity here.
They wait and see what the new council is going
to look like so that they could have some input.
But my guess is that there's going to be like
a hurry up to try to resolve all this in
December before anybody can come in and shine a light
on it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
How much longer is she under contract? How much as
you do? How long does that last?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
My understanding is, and I haven't read it, but my
recollection is that they renew it every two years. And
that is where this gets funny from a legal standpoint,
is that if you recall, we have this thing called
Issue five that was passed back from two thousand and five,
which is deeply unpopular with the FOP and probably is
ripe to be revisited. That kind of takes the chief
(12:59):
out of some of for or most of the civil
service protections. So the idea is that the Sydney Manager,
with input from the mayor, actually could just fire the
chief for cause. And that's in the charter, and it
spells it out pretty clearly that once you're in the
job six months, it's kind of a probationary period. You
could be fired for any reason. After six months, they
have to actually prove that you've screwed something up for cause.
(13:22):
But they are, on top of that, have apparently been
issuing these two year contracts that somehow, you know, deal
with compensation and so forth, and apparently there's language in
there that contradicts the charter. So that's why she's lawyered
up and there's going to be some sort of a
court battle about what her rights really are. And even
this is a mess. I don't know how the Law
Department allowed this to happen, where you have something in
the contract that I guess the contract doesn't mention her
(13:45):
being fired for cause, but yet the charter says she is.
They're in conflict, and it's the classic sort of thing
that you end up I hate to say it. Having
lawyers fight out in court and the fact that we're
here and that we've been kind of doing business this
way for years, you know, just terrible. And again the
taxpayers lose. I mean, this is going to cost every
bit of a million dollars or about the salary and
(14:06):
benefits of five to six police officers the time this
is all said and doc.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, he is a Steve Goodin consul condidate, former councilman
and the Charter Rights Steve Gooden on the ready Fire
aim approach with Fiji. She is on paid administrative leave.
They name an interim chief, not acting interim, so there's
confusion there. And now they're going to hire a law
firm that could take months of them to investigate why
they fired her in the first place. Yeah, that's that's
(14:32):
real life. That's really happening in the city right now,
with an election happening, by the way, in just a
couple of weeks. And of course everyone is saying, I
have to have on down. This is not political. Is
it time for us to blow everything up the way
it works because we have a very inefficient If you
live in Cincinnati, been here long til you kind of
pay attention to but our government is so inefficient, and
it starts the fact there's so much overlap between Hamlin
(14:54):
County and the City of Cincinnati in fighting for their turf.
Of course you see stadium issu use and such, but
even within the design itself. You know, you men mentioned
the contentious issue five, but also how council works, how
the city manager integrates and all this stuff. Because there's
cover for everyone involved. Her council can go, well, we
have a strong mayor in the mayor goes, well, we've
(15:14):
got a city manager, and the city manager says, well,
we've got a mayor and a council. It's like no one,
there's no one the way we've got it wired right now.
It strikes the average person like myself, Steve goodin that
it's wired so there's no one accountable.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well, it's wired so that you end up with an
absurd result. And you know, and it would work. The
current system would work. It's not perfect, but would work
better if council would just step up. If we didn't
have like a you know, an all a nine member
politically ambitious democratic city council who would actually step up
and provide some of the oversight that they are allowed
(15:50):
to do. But I mean, to your larger point, I
have always been somebody who has been pushing for at
least some form of metro government so that we might
actually find some of these efficiencies. I mean, even Tyahoga County,
even Cleveland has gone to a limited form of metro government,
Indianapolis has, Louisville has. I mean, it's it's ridiculous that
(16:11):
we have all these turf battles. It's ridiculous that our
departments don't work well together. And I mean back when
I was in the Prosecutor's office as a young assistant prosecutor,
back in two thousand and one, post the Timothy Thomas
shooting and the riots that happened, we absolutely had a
level of cooperation between the city and the county then
that will be unheard of now. You know, we had
(16:31):
Operation Vtex. Now they were doing gun and drug sweeps
with CPD and Sheriff's patrols and Ohio State patrol and
it was wonderful and it really made a difference. But
now everyone is just in their silos and they don't
cooperate at all, and it's really silly, and that's something
that just desperately needs some fresh thought, and I can
(16:52):
tell you this current crew or there, that's not where
their head is. They're just all about protecting what they
have rather than trying to look at what would actually
serve the public by.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
This is the Maybe this is a catalyst for Steve.
I don't know, I'm trying to be optimistic here.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Well, well, I'm trying to be optimistic too, And I
think another part of it is that I'm hoping this
is the year and the timeframe where some folks in
the business community who I know have been talking for
some time about metro government and substantive reforms. I know
there's a working group down at the Chamber. It's very
quiet that they've been looking at and studying and pushing
(17:24):
these issues. And there's just got to come a time
where we're not not just you know, the citizens, but
the business community and all these other groups that kind
of feed in. They have to speak up on this
stuff too. I mean, because they have a right or wrong,
a louder voice, and it's been very easy for them
to kind of go along cynically and say, well, look,
you know, I have to have very you know, he's
going to win. It's a blue city, et cetera, et cetera,
(17:47):
and just to go along to get along, and some
people are going to have to stand up. I mean,
you know, we've been, our little group has been pretty
fearless about speaking out on these issues this year. We've
paid a price for it in terms of some lost
friendships and broken business relationships. But that's fine. I mean,
that's what it takes. We need more people to speak
(18:09):
up and say this isn't working, We're not happy, We're
not going to go along to get along. We need
real substance of change, just at every step of the way.
And it's just going to take some political courage and
some personal courage, frankly, because you know, in this world
of lobbyists and nonprofits and the people that really have
a lot of voices at city Hall, there's a lot
(18:31):
of personal relationships and you have to be willing to
just step on those at times if you're going to
do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Got all right, he's a consul candidate, Steve Gooden. We'll
see if this enacts any change, Probably not with the mayor,
but I you know, ask others about the trickle down here,
and I think it's I would think it's going to
be substantial that somebody's going to pay for all this
ineptitude that's happening at the hand of Aftab and cheer
along and forts. It's probably gonna be some decent people
on console for that matter. We'll see how it shakes out. Steve,
all the best and maybe you're part of that change,
(18:59):
hopefully and can bring some of these ideas to fruition.
All the best, men, have a great weekend. Thanks you too,
Take care, take care. We got to get to news
and we're a return. We have fun because it's Friday,
little heavy for a Friday, I apologize. But the insanity
what's happening in the city is it's unprecedented. It really
really is. Austin Elmore from ESPN fifteen thirty jumps in.
Next we'll talk football, football, and more football, plus the
(19:21):
NBA scandal, the latest on that. Next seven hundred ww
Scott Fun Show
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!