12-3-25 Scott Sloan Show

Scott talks with Dean Clancy about how the GOP healthcare plan is not that different from Obamacare. Also Commissioner Alicia Reece comments on the ongoing property tax rebate dispute. Finally Councilmember Mark Jeffreys reviews the city's response to the snow removal yesterday.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you want to be an American? It's a Scott's Loan
show on seven hundred WLW. The biggest problem with the
Affordable Care at probably's the number of problems, but the
biggest one is it's subsidized healthcare costs that are unrealistically expensive.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
That's the problem.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
So instead of fixing prices, it gives people money to
make it less expensive for them personally. But as we know,
whether it's college or this subsidy just drives the cost
up even more. And it's an endless cycle. It's in
an endless loop. But the GOP has recently come on
with a plan to fix the problem, but does it
actually fix the problem. Dean Clancy's here is a senior

(00:36):
health policy fellow at Americans Prosperity.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Dean, how are you?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
I'm doing great? Thanks?

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, So I look at this. So I gave this
analogy not long ago. Hear me out. This may take
just a second, so you know, it's hard to follow
what's going on here for most folks, myself included. But
the ACA subsidies are like giving someone a discount coupon
at a nice restaurant. The proposal Republicans want is like
the HSA, So that's your health savings account. You get

(01:02):
the moneyset of insurance companies. You hand them cash, tell
them to figure out dinner on their own. So the
coupon guarantees you can eat at the restaurant, which is
basically like comprehensive insurance. Even if the menu prices keep rising,
the insurance company in the risk pool keep the restaurant running.
So the cash gives you freedom to choose. Maybe you
buy groceries, maybe you cook at home. Maybe you spourge
on a nice meal, which would be like an elective
procedure versus routine care. But if you need, i don't know,

(01:26):
buy an expensive five course meal at Boca because you
lost a bet on the Bengals or something like that
and you can't afford it. That'd be cancer treatment or
major surgery. That cash runs out pretty fast. So neither
approach really fixes the problem when the restaurant is charging
one hundred dollars for a hamburger in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Am I wrong about that?

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Well, your analogy is excellent, but I would just say
that the HSA idea and President Trump was brilliant about this.
He's basically flipped the politics of health reform on its head,
called the Democrats bluff. What he said was I want
money to go to your agasay so you can buy
the healthcare that you want. But he was not suggesting

(02:07):
that we take away people's health insurance or even that
we repeal Obamacare. Those would still exist. Obamacare would still
be very generous in terms of the subsidy, although as
you point out, it's very expensive as well. But now
people would have more resources that they could use for
the doctors and health care they want without having an

(02:27):
insurance company middleman. Obamacare gives lots of money directly from
the US Treasury to health insurance companies, often for people
who never visit the doctor, they never get a prescription filled.
The money just goes straight to the bottom line of
the health insurance companies. And Trump is saying, the Democrats,
why would we keep doing that when we could give

(02:49):
people that same money and it would lead to lower
prices because people would shop for value.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
They would, but I don't know how much you drop prices.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
And the fact that you know, again most people, as
you know, you look at consumer confidence, consumer pricing nexs,
things like that while the economy on paper is doing well,
you see a lot of people getting squeezed, especially gen zers,
younger people in the workforce, seniors and the like. In
the end result is you save a little bit of
money and you know, you get government money and you
put your own money into the HSA, but it's still

(03:19):
not going to be enough to care to cover stuff
in most cases. That's really the problem is that healthcare
costs is expensive because there's no incentive for them to
get the cost down.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Well, no, yes, and no, because first of all, most
people don't have more than one thousand dollars of out
of pocket medical expenses in a given year. Obviously, there
are people who have very high expenses. That's why they
have insurance, and they need insurance, and programs like Obamacare
are there to help make that affordable. But we can

(03:51):
do it in an efficient way. And of course, any
money in your ahsay that you don't spend, you get
to keep and you even get to invest it if
you want, so you can grow it into a NESTA,
you can earn interest on it like a bank account,
or you could put it into you know, mutual funds
or whatever, just like a retirement savings account, and you
can build it up and if if all goes well,

(04:13):
by the time you're further along in life, you're going
to have a real cushion there for any major shock.
And of course, an important thing about HSA is they
let you buy doctors, access, and healthcare that your insurance
company doesn't cover. One of the problems with Obamacare is
that it has shrunk access to the best doctors and hospitals,

(04:35):
and it has also increased tenfold the number of times
that an insurance company will simply deny the claim say
we're not going to pay for that care. It's now
twenty percent of the time the insurer refuses to pay
for your health care. Under Obamacare, the HSA gives people
an escape route so they can actually get access.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Part of the problem is, you know, one of the
big problems of many with ACAS the fact that it
counted on young people to put money into the healthcare
system and not use it. Much like the Social Security
or subsidy model in that regard to entitlements and the like,
is that well, we're hoping you don't use it, and
it's there for the people who do need it. Young
people are looking at this going well, healthcare costs keep rising.

(05:17):
I mean, employer sponsored insurance presums went up, I think
the highest level in fifteen years this year. Medicaid Part
B jumped almost ten percent this year. And these aren't
ACA enrollees. We need people to put money into the
system to keep it afloat. That's not happening under ACA.
How does that address this?

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Well, what the ACA Obamacare did was it basically drove
up the cost of health insurance for young people. It
did that by imposing a kind of price control on
the insurance, so you can't charge the oldest person in
the covered group more than three times what you charge

(05:55):
the youngest person. So that's a gift to older folks
who have higher health expenses, but it's a cost to
younger people and that has made them say, you know what,
this isn't worth the money. I mean, these Obamacare plans
are very expensive. If you don't get a subsidy, and
they have a deductible that's the part you have to
pay out a pocket before the insurance even kicks in.

(06:17):
It can be five ten thousand dollars a year. At
that point you begin to ask yourself is this really
even insurance? And that's why young people are staying away,
and that's why the Bombacare program is in what the
insurance folks call a death spiral. It's basically slowly winding down.
The only thing that's covered that up is these massive
extra subsidies that the government has been putting in since

(06:40):
the pandemic.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Well, that's the thing is, aren't we just swapping one
subsidy for another rather controlling provider pricing and drug costs,
administrative waste. We're still not addressing that issue. That's the core.
That's back to that one hundred dollars hamburger analogy.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
Right, Why does the hamburger cost one hundred dollars, Well,
we've got a a set of government mandates and rules
that have distorted the whole system and most importantly, separated
people from the price. Nobody asked the price of healthcare
because they're not the ones paying for it. Some third
party like an insurance company or their employer is paying

(07:15):
for it. And so as a result, they tend to
know that one hundred dollars hamburger It doesn't matter because
they're not paying one hundred dollars and that needs to change.
And if we put people in charge of the dollars,
as with a tax free health savings account. Now they're
going to start shopping for value because they know they
get to keep what they don't spend. They're going to
ask the question how much will this cost. That will

(07:38):
make prices transparent, just like at the grocery store or
the gas station, and that will force competition and that
will bring down prices. And then your health insurance, assuming
you deregulate the insurance, get rid of the worst mandates,
the price of insurance will come down, more young people
will buy in, and the risk pool will become healthy. Again,
that's the way insurance is supposed to work.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
It is in theory. But again you're still talking about subsidy.
And I guess maybe a parallel here Dean Clancy with
Americans for Prosperity is that President Trump issued an executive
order on price transparency that was like what six years
ago on his first term. Hospitals, Yeah, they're posting prices now,
but we haven't seen meaningful cost reduction. So the idea
there was, hey, we're going to have chrice price transparency

(08:20):
and help people. It's going to help lower cost and
it really hasn't. And well if I look at that
and go, well, that's an indicator the system is too
big to shrink.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Is this really going to move the needle that much?

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Well, I think I want to challenge that just a
little bit. He did mandate that hospitals have to publish
their prices. Eighty five percent of hospitals are not complying.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
They're hiding the prices.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
They make it difficult for you to find them, difficult
for you to compare across competing hospitals. And so as
a result, we really don't yet have that mandated price transparency.
But you know what, Americans for prosperity, we don't believe
in government mandates do this. We think you get price
transparency when you change who controls the dollars.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
When the patient controls the.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Dollars, prices become transparent.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Naturally.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
That's what's missing, and that's what Donald Trump I think
has brilliantly put his finger on when he says, let's
fund patients instead of insurance companies.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
I think that helps. I mean, I don't think that's
necessarily a bad thing. I just wonder if we're just
not trading one subsidy for another. And time will tell
if we can actually do this. You know, I always
pushed back it seems to you know, being a libertarian plan,
which I love, is to simply go listen, if you're
an employer, you're out of healthcare business. That's going to
save a ton of money. In the other area. When
it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse, and no, typically
when that's thrown about on the campaign trail by Republicans

(09:41):
and Democrats, but particularly Republicans, it's like, well, somebody scamming
the system. It's the biggest waste, right. There is an
administrative complexity that doesn't address this because you know, as
you said, the ACA is still going to be in effect,
and now we have the government with HSA accounts. It's
adding more administrative complexity to this thing. It doesn't that
doesn't address the issue of the bureaucratic state.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Well, you're absolutely right that the healthcare system is incredibly bureaucratic.
You know it because you walk into a doctor's office
and there's a lot of people behind the desk filing paper,
and often it is paper they haven't even entered the
twenty first century.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I got one doctor, I got one doctor and one
nurse and five people back there that are handled coding
and insurance and Medicare.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
And that's the result of the fact that because of
government policies, everybody relies on insurance, even for the small
things that are technically not the sort of thing you
insure for, like a routine doctor's appointment, you know, a
shoppable or schedulable thing. It's not an emergency. Insurance should
be for emergencies, big unexpected costs. But because we don't

(10:46):
do healthcare that way, you're right, it's just bloated with bureaucracy.
The number of administrative personnel and healthcare has exploded over
the last few decades, and we can change that by
getting market forces back into it. That's really the only
way forward. The Democrats alternative is more government. Let's put
the government in more subsish, more subsidy, more control, more mandates,

(11:10):
more price controls. To my mind, that's like putting the
Department of Motor Vehicles in charge of my health.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Here, I think, I know what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, we saw what subsidy did to the college market, correct,
I mean, it's the same thing. More SUBJCT drives cost
up is all it does. And Dean Clancy, you know,
I look at this and go Okay, well, we walk
into a doctor's office, routine visit and pay all this money.
I look at this, it's like several hundred dollars if
you look at the areas, and this further underscores my
id my idea, but the idea of getting everyone, get

(11:40):
your employer and government out of healthcare and put it
on the market like you buy your auto insurance, and
then you'd have plenty of money left over to take
care of the indigen and the people falling between the cracks,
and have money left over actually to maybe take a
bite out of the deficit. But I'm way ahead of
my skis on this one. I look at it and go,
you know, for example, I bring my dog into a veterinari. Well,

(12:02):
and now we've got, of course healthcare plans for pets
because they're going to make money off of this. But
I bory buy dog in for treatment. It's like, you know,
fifty to sixty bucks whatever, no problem, getting the same
X rays. I do it.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
It's thousands of dollars.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
LASiS with the diade surgery years ago was pretty expensive
and the cost is down to like ninety nine bucks
right now because guess what, most healthcare insurance policies aren't
covering that. You've got to pay out a pocket for
those elective procedures. I look at that and go, well,
if we did that with our healthcare overall, we'd be
in great shape.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Absolutely No, you are absolutely right. That is the way forward,
and healthcare would be much less expensive, and you'd have
lots more choice and the quality would be better all
because markets work in healthcare when we let them.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
The Affordable Care.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Act that the Democrats pushed through in twenty ten has
not made healthcare affordable. It's basically been a big failure.
And the Democrats have basically said the twenty twenty sixth election,
we're going to fight it on this issue of more
government subsidies for health insurance and the money goes straight
to insures. And Donald Trump and a lot of the

(13:07):
Republicans and we at AFP all agree that that's not.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
The right way forward.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
Let's start with shifting where money.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
From the government is going. Let's give it to patience.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Let's also let everybody have a.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Health savings account.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
We've been talking about HSA's, but the fact is eighty
percent of Americans don't have access to an HSA because
of excessive federal restrictions on who can have one.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Let's lift those.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Let's let everybody have an HSA if they want one.
That gives you a tax break on every medical purchase,
and it puts you in charge and gives you more options.
And yes, let's move towards a system where we're not
relying on third parties like employers. You know, employers are
wonderful and the employer based healthcare system is very popular,
but we could actually do better. It should be more

(13:53):
like auto insurance or home owners insurance. You know, you
just buy it and like the commercial says, buy only
what you need.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, right now, that's not allowed.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
As it should be. I mean, HSA works fine for
doctor visits, routine visit, sure, but catastrophic illness is something different.
Someone develops cancer and you're looking at two three hundred
thousand dollars bill. HSA doesn't really solve that problem. People
don't have that kind of money, and so we should
What we should focus on, though, is catastrophic here. And
then you know, for routine office visits, you go and

(14:24):
you pay for your annual wellness exam, whatever that cost is.
That's going to take a lot of the red tape
au bureaucracy out the more you pay out of pocket.
But everyone, of course wants insurance because hey, look I
got this at times where I get a prescription and
it's cheaper for me to pay out a pocket that
is for the insurance company.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Doesn't make any damn sense.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Absolutely, yeah, No, we still need insurance for sure, and
we still need government safety nets to help those who
cannot afford the insurance. And if everybody had an HSA,
we would still need the government to put some money
into the hsas of people who are indigent, very unfortunate,
can't afford it. And by the way, right now you
cannot use your HSA to buy insurance. If we change

(15:02):
that and we have these safety nets, then I think
you'd see a lot of people going and buying that
basic catastrophic style health insurance, just you know, buying only
what they need enough to protect them against the cancer
or getting hit by a bus, and then that have
the rest left over for the routine doctor's appointments and
so on. It would be a much better and more

(15:22):
efficient system.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
And I think the.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
Debate in Washington is moving towards that people are waking
up to the fact that a government run top down
healthcare system has only made things worse.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, I think if the government steps out and becomes
actually what they should be in the referee, and of
course that then takes politicians out, they lose their clout,
they lose their power, they lose their obviously you donation
focuses and all that stuff. That's a problem because you know,
if you don't need politicians, why we electing these guys
in the first place. It can't even bounds a budget
for crying out lot alone to manage healthcare. But nonetheless,
you get them out of this line of work and

(15:55):
lead people to buy their own stuff on the market.
I think you'd have more than I'm sure somebody studied
this to find out how much money you'd save in
just administrative complexity and pricing failures and schemes, and the
care cost of delivery of health care and over treatment
and low value care. All that goes away largely because
you're shopping on the free market for your healthcare like
you do with other forms of insurance. And that would

(16:16):
leave litterlely billions, if not trillions of dollars left over
to really take care of the people who fall through
the cracks and then they get good healthare everybody wins
this and the biggest winner your employers where they don't
have to offer you healthcare anymore. They're out of that
line of work.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Absolutely, that's it. You've put your.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
Finger on it. It's a pleasure talking with you because
you get it. Not everybody does, but we're trying to
spread the word. At AFP, we call what you're describing
a personal option approach to health perform reliable, hassle free
health care you can afford. And how do you get there?
Let markets work. Markets will work in health care if
we let them.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Of course it's all tied to elections re elections and
the GOP and the Democrats, and that is really the
prop Politics again are the problem, and sadly people are
reason will have a bit more young people want the
government to solve the problems they created in the first place.
Dean Clancy, senior health policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity,
Thanks for the time. I appreciate great conversation.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Oh my pleasure.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Take care news update on the way in just minutes
on seven hundred w W Oh we can bitch and moan.
Is anything going to change. No, because of our model. No,
it is a good no, not at all. Quick time out,
all right, Trump firing off on Somemalians. This time it
was Haitians on the campaign trail. Now it's to Mullions.
We'll get to that just ahead, right after news on
seven hundred w W scots Landsha are in the crazy

(17:38):
X portion of the Trump administration. Are in this first year.
Every day something new, for sure. So after holding all
the asylumn decisions, found the shooting the two National guardsmen
in DC. Trump said this yesterday regarding Somali immigrants in
the United States, go We're going.

Speaker 5 (17:56):
To go the wrong way if we keep taking in
garbage into our country.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
These are people that work.

Speaker 5 (18:01):
These are people that say, let's go, come on, let's
make this place great.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
These are people that do nothing but complain.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out, like everyone else,
scratching their head, going, well, I mean, you know, you
have people coming here in the nineties. And of course
this is addressed towards our representative, Illien Olmar part of
the squad. Of course, not a fan at all of
her politics, obviously, but you know she left them all
as a child refugee in ninety five, dually elected representing

(18:29):
her community. Whether you agree or disagree with her representation
of said community, a parent or constituents don't mind her,
So there you go. But by and large, you know,
the ideas of contributing nothing. You look at the fact
pattern and it doesn't stand the test, simply because now
number one being we our nation of immigrants and we're
you know, you can make a case for those who
come here illegally and our aliens and what they bring,

(18:52):
and I can make a case for you know, why
we need immigrant labor here, albeit we need it more legally.
We needed an easier path to get here into this country.
Better screening, use technology, AI, all that stuff to faster
track people because there's too much incentive. When it takes
anywhere between you know, ten and twenty years for someone
to legally gain entrance to the United States, there's more
incentive for them to skirt the system and get here illegally.

(19:15):
And that is a big part of the problem, the
court system and everything else. In the case of Somalis,
though and largely most Somalis anyway, it's a different path.
I mean, it's not like they're sneaking across the southern
border here. And so the end result is, you know,
have this policy of halting temporary protected status only like
I think seven hundred of them nationwide that fall in

(19:35):
that category. So you know, you way over estimate the
impact that this policy's going to have in the first place.
And like we saw with the Haitians in Springboro during
the election, and sometimes you got to write that off
as just you know, a lot of bluster on the
campaign trail because nothing ever came of that, and rightly
so too, But you know, you conflate unrelated incidents here.

(19:57):
It doesn't really matter where he was from. It's what
he did. And he was a United State, a US
soldier who was radicalized here at home. It's not necessarily
from abroad, but from at home. And I think what if,
you know, if you're really going to look at the issues,
is to find out how these people are getting radicalized.
And we know it's a lot of disaffected young men
that tend to get swept up in this, whether it's
that or any other radical group on the left or

(20:20):
the right for that matter. So why do young men
feel that they this is the only path for them?
It's because they've been marginalized in this country. And then
you know there's a lot Trump is he, quite honestly,
first president in a long time, if ever, to address that,
and rightly so is we have all or nothing mentality
in this country that somehow, because women have been pushed
down for so long, or any minority group, for that

(20:42):
man to push down, that their success has to come
at the expense of someone else, that lifting them up
means tearing someone else down. And we know that's not
the case and it shouldn't be that way, but it is,
and that tearing them down has become at the expense
of young men who have been left behind for tied
too long in this cut. So we solve the problem
of women and rising women lifting women up, but we've

(21:05):
done that at the expense of men. And you know,
at the end of the day, it's about what you
can produce, and you know, largely to me, ninety percent
of it is just showing up, willing, having the right attitude,
and willing to work hard. Are there going to be
setbacks and problems, Absolutely, there's no question about.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Everyone has that.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
And just because you have a setback as a woman
doesn't mean that there's a glass ceiling, and that everyone's
all manner out to get you. And I think that's
often conflated too. Also adds to part of the problem.
But relative to the situation here with some minds, I mean,
you know, you're an American soldier, you're served in this
country in the armed services, and then you're radicalized at home.
That much we know so far about why he did

(21:42):
what he did. It really doesn't have anything to do
where you come from. You know, we know that people
commit crimes all the time, whether they're black, white, immigrant
or natural born citizens of the United States. Crime certainly does
not know no border. Let's put it that way, whether
it's socioeconomic or where you immigrated from, or if you
live in this country a long time and have the
biggest crime we have, the biggest problem we have in Cincinnati,

(22:04):
or what has nothing to do with refugees. It has
every to do with people who are predatory criminals. So
address that issue. There's just no connection between the incident
and Somali immigrants. And you know, we've got in a
crazy ex spouse mode here at this point going on.
We're just going to they contribute nothing to society, not
really helpful.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
You know, I'm sure that appeals to a certain sector
of MAGA voters, but you know, by and large, it's
steady died of this stuff. It's exhausting, is what it is.
We have so many I'll point this out. I just
had a conversation with Dean Clancy from Americans for Prosperity.
You know, the healthcare is shoot in America. What happened
in DC with the shooting is it's a crime. It's tragic,
and certainly, you know, we shouldn't downplay that. But to

(22:45):
somehow think that this is a bigger problem because it's
Samali refugees, is like the Haitians or any other immigrant
group for that problem, or making the problem out to
be much bigger than it really is in that regard,
and who to blame? Who's the blame for it? You know,
sweeping all some allies togethers not part of the problem.
I don't, I don't. I think most people, like you
can't say everybody, but certainly als everyone is like, yeah,

(23:06):
that's not really it, man, And then we waste a
lot of energy and time talking about things like that
and distracts. It's because there are real problems out there.
We're not addressing the budget deficit. We're not addressing healthcare.
I mentioned. I just had Dean Clancy on from AFP saying, yeah,
the Republican solution to this, the plan finally after fifteen years,
by the way, better in some ways. Yeah, because it's

(23:27):
going to give you money to pay your health care.
But the problem is, and again just like what Trump's
doing with the Somali issue is it's like it's not
really addressing the core issue here.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
You know, why is healthcare so damn expensive?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
You can, okay, you can give money to insurance companies
which are just going to incentivize them to charge you
even more, like we did with college and everything else
we subsidize. But in this case, you're gonna give me
the money to buy my health care, and the free
market great. But if I have to have a procedure
done that costs thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars
more than it should have or more than should cost,

(24:03):
I don't have enough money in that kind of cover it.
So again it's you're shifting the money back, and I
appreciate you giving it to me as opposed to someone else.
I just don't see how that is going to help
people who and certainly it's not everyone, but a lot
of people who come up with some sort of debilitating illness, accident,
whatever it might be, and that they just don't make
enough money, enough money in that account to cover the
medical expense. How do we get that cost down? I

(24:26):
think addressing the issue of subsidy is the way to
go about that. But this is just part and parcel.
It's you know, we want quick changes overnight, and we
want to assess quick blame on something as to you know,
why healthcare is expensive. It's a fall of democrats wise.
You know, how did two soldiers get shot in DC?
Well we had so we got to get rid of
some molly's. I mean, it just it doesn't. It doesn't.

(24:47):
It's like hair on fire policy. And this is just
the first year. It's going to get a lot more exhausting.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
We'll we get time out in and more to follow
here coming up. At ten oh six on the show,
Alicia Reese jumps in. She's got lots of say about
the property tax rebate battle. There's something else going on there,
and you know you were promised at one point if
you're around in ninety six. A voter in ninety six,
you're promised a thirty percent tax rebate from the county
if you okayed the sales tax to build the stadiums.
Of course we've only done that a couple to handful

(25:16):
of times and the last thirty plus years. Uh, this
time around, you're gonna get a whopping four and a
half percent. She has issue with that and says the
money is there, and she'll explain where and how. Coming
up on the show at ten oh six, after a
quick time out seven hundred w WELWT, my wife was
watching the U for some reason. The Sean Combs, the

(25:36):
Reckoning documentary on Netflix said man, I I had no
idea how bad he just an awful person. Like, well, yeah,
you think you think they're gonna do a documentary to
make them look good. And there's a no, I'm not
downplaying what he did because it's horrific, but yeah, it's
not gonna not gonna make him look good.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
That's for damn sure.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Scott's show. This is seven hundred WLW. Thanks for checking
it out on the iHeartRadio app taking this wherever you go,
and of course the podcast following the show as well.
You know, you got to give credit where credits due.
Speaking to someone who was in Price Hill yesterday and
said for the first time that they can remember in
probably a decade that the side streets were actually cleared

(26:24):
in West Price Hill like that hasn't happened. I haven't
just used to residents. They're just used to snow up
to your ankles anytime we get four or five inches
of snow and no one is there to clear it.
And the streets were actually plowed in West Price Hill.
Now that we're twenty four hours past Snowmageddon, at least
the first round of it. Anyway, we spent a little

(26:45):
more flurries in the forte and certainly we're gonna get
our share of snow this winter. It's bound to happen.
But the first test for the new city services seemingly
went extremely extremely well. That eighty snow trucks snowplows operating
in twelve hour shifts yesterday morning. Cruz got to residential
streets at eleven am yesterday and anything left they're going

(27:08):
to get the shoulders of the roads and the like.
And they are very proactive in this whole thing. That
snow Tracker app, the plow tracker app and website rather
had some server issues because of high demand. So and
I'm sure if you logged onto that you saw some
black screens or little data or no data or whatever
it might be. Any interface is a little clunky, it's

(27:28):
not the best thing, but it's light years ahead of
where they were and where we were this time last year.
So I think it's important. You know, you got to
give credit where credit is due, and this was an
unmitigated train wreck last year and years previous for that matter.
You know, the big question still remains, and a lot
of people on console will tell you, well, I wasn't
there when I love when politicians do that. You know,
I wasn't there when we know, we know you've absolved

(27:52):
yourself that it's been ignored for twenty years. I mean,
all the money that was supposed to go to that
infrat structure went to other things, and that is just
a it's an incredible waste of money. As much as
we beat up on aft ed Pure Vault, it was
solved under his watch. Now one year and one snowstorm
doesn't make a trend, for sure, I get that, but

(28:13):
it seems like we've learned for those lessons and moved
past that. And it's typical with government is that once
they feel they've solved a problem, what happens is they
ignore the mechanism that got them to the point of success.
They go, well, why do It's just like the policing
problem in Cincinnati again, right, we had what happened in
two thousand and one with the Timothy Thomas shooting and

(28:35):
the riots and the unrest, and we had the collaborative agreement.
We did all that stuff and spent millions and millions
and millions of dollars, and in a period of time
became one of the best, if not the best, law
enforcement community in the United States, to the point where
under Obama, they were sending attorneys here, government attorneys to
learn what Cincinnati was doing.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
And I think the problem is when you hit success,
you go, okay, we just we don't need to spend
this much money. We can't justify the cost of this anymore.
And so we take the money intended for that and
send it elsewhere. And what happens is, you know water self, lovely, Okay,
We're gonna take the money and put it over here. Well,
now you've ignored it, and we've got a crime problem again.
And so it goes. And whether that's crime or snow plows,

(29:14):
it's the same thing. And maybe there's a time when
the roads to get all clear, go well, why are
we doing this? We don't give much too and Cincinnati,
let's spend the money somewhere else. We don't need to
fix that. You know, we'll fix the plows next year.
We'll get new plows next year. And then eventually the
equipment breaks down and you can't services anymore, and you
get what we got last year. So changes were made
and tip of the cap because from what I understand,
having not driven down there, you probably could tell me

(29:35):
better if you live in Cincinnati or drive downtown that
things were markedly better.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
But that's what we're hearing, so good for them. Anyway.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
We'll get a news update in Alicia Reese jumps on
the show next from Hamlin County Commission. She voted against
the four and a half percent property tax rebate. She
wanted the full thirty Why and she says the money's there.
She'll explain after this on the Home of the Best
Bengals coverage seven hundred WWT.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Since then, I want to be amic.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Lonely Buckoun seven hundred held up to the news yesterday,
the Hamlin County commissioned it is the topic that keeps
on giving. The property tax rebid in Hamlin County commissions
are proving four and a half percent for next year,
and that, of course, way far away from the thirty
percent promise. When voters approved the half cent tax levy
and the tax increase in ninety six to fund stadium construction,

(30:21):
the vote was two to one, and the no vote
on it, of course is from our good front Commissioner
Alicia Reese, who joins the show this morning on seven
hundred w ALW.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Madam Commissioner, glad to speak with you.

Speaker 6 (30:33):
Good, good to be heard.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, I gotcha, all right. So we've taught I think
we've talked this a lot.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
One year we had the thirty percent, got that back promised. Okay,
Now it's four and a half percent. The approved rate
of four and a half percent. If given it'd be
like thirty two million. This is just five million. And
I look at the numbers and you have been the
loan dissenting void a voice on this one too.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Two years ago. I think it was the full third
three percent.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
We got that back.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
What changed in the last couple of years.

Speaker 6 (31:04):
Yeah, well, let me just say that, you know, when
I ran this my sex time being re elected. But
when I ran, I got down there, they were at
single digits, which is where they're at now on the
property tax rollback that was promised.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
To the voters.

Speaker 6 (31:18):
And I had said that, you know, I came on
your show and your listeners and we were able to
get the thirty percent had never been really introduced, and
we had the thirty percent because we have to do
it every single year. One of the things that I
saw was that it was a promise made to the taxpayers,
but they never wanted to put it in writing, and
they were hoping that the taxpayers would not be paying attention.

(31:41):
And so I think what makes this one significant is
that when we started looking at the biggles, when we
start going to the Bengal negotiations, that's when this particular
county commission board they wrote the taxpayers out. They voted
for something to go against what the tax taxpayers were promised.

(32:01):
Because as you could see in the Business Courier, the
headline with county property tax rebate looks to take a
major hits. New Bengals lease is the factor, and that's
the factor we keep in the promise to the stadiums,
but not the promise to the over two hundred thousand homeowners.
We've got two sets of talking points. Long one when

(32:23):
it comes to the taxpayers and homeowners. They bring out
a set of talking points from the administrators and my
colleagues and they say, hey, we can't do this. It's
fiscally irresponsible. We don't have any money. They brought a
chart out. I'd never seen chart. It's going downward and
we might go bankrupt. My colleague Disease three House have

(32:46):
put in the paper that because we went with thirty percent,
which she voted against a tax break for the homeowners
and thirty percent because of that, we we just can't
do it and we're going bankrupt. Then they got another
set of talking points when the Bengals lease came, Oh,
this is a great thing.

Speaker 5 (33:06):
We got to do it.

Speaker 6 (33:07):
Over three hundred and fifty million dollars and an eight
hundred million dollar deal with interest, nothing for the taxpayers.
They were toasting it up. We did it, We did it,
and we and we screwed the Hamilton county taxpayers. That's
not irresponsible. They didn't say it was irresponsible when it's
a fund that does sales tax and the Bengals were

(33:29):
exempt from sales tax. Maybe that reason why the fund
is going down. But they got to set another set.
And then just the other day they had some talking
points and they said, oh, we've got to do this
redevelopment again of the banks, which is eight hundred million
dollars with some tables and chairs and some spaces where
people can hear free music. They went to clap it

(33:52):
and we got the money when we wanted to do
sundance and I supported sundance, but we didn't get it.
We came up the administrator said, and I got a
rabbit out of the hat. Here's another two million dollars.

Speaker 5 (34:04):
We can do it.

Speaker 6 (34:05):
Well, we were going to do another thing that we needed.
He went into the rabbit and the hat. We can
do it. So it's a magic show down at the
county that I have observed since i've been there. And
then it was said that my colleague said, well, maybe
if we don't do the thirty percent and we'll keep collecting,

(34:29):
we'll be able to do more in the future. Well,
we've done this for thirty years. Twenty four of those
years I wasn't even there. So where was this collection?
Because for twenty four years we've been in single digits.
Twenty four years, we haven't done the thirty percent, So
where is this collection of money that they're referring to.

(34:49):
We gave them twenty four years. I gave them twenty
four years before I got there, and then I introduced
the thirty percent. And now all of a sudden, you
say that because of the homew owners getting a break,
we're bankrupting the fund. So there's two sets of talking points.
It's a every time we get ready for this season,

(35:10):
as you know songs, it's a magic show the administrator
when certain people want something, my colleagues come out and jump.
We found the money for the Bengals. If we didn't
have the money, maybe we should have got a different deal.
If the fund was going bankrupt, maybe we should have said, no, Bengals,
you cannot be exempt from sales tax because we use

(35:33):
sales tax to fund the stadium. Maybe we should have
said no, we need a deal like Denver where less
public money. They almost have no public money going in
and they're going to have a brand new stadium. So
to say that it's the homeowner's fault, we got to
penalize the homeowners. We can't help the homeowners. The other

(35:56):
argument they said was a thirty percent. I mean, you're
not getting that much money back, Sloans. If Kroger's, I've
seen Krogers say we're gonna have five and ten percent off,
and people bust the door down to get that five
and ten percent. You use that little card because you
want to get a percentage off on your gas. People
are looking for affordability break and any break we can

(36:19):
give them as important right now now Sloan. Just yesterday
they went with not giving the homeowners the full thirty
percent rebate, right and then they're getting ready to vote
on a budget that will increase your sewer bill. So
now we're gonna that's that's adding another four percent. They

(36:42):
added four percent last year. I disagreed. I voted no.
So that's eight percent. You almost had to ten percent
in two years where your bill is going up. So
we're gonna make the bill go up. We're not gonna
give you the break that we that you were promised.
We're gonna keep the promise to the Bengals, but all
of a sudden, no promise of the homeowners.

Speaker 7 (37:00):
We have to pay for this.

Speaker 6 (37:02):
It's two hundred thousand homeowners that need a break. And
then we also the administrator has proposed in his budget
and it might go I'm gonna fight against it.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Now.

Speaker 6 (37:15):
We also want to add to the closing cost.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
The property transfer tax.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
I was going to bring that up as well, and
I'll fold in you know, you know, and again it's
a probably not fair to bring this up, but I
think it's the headline about more taxes, right, the one
percent tax around the convention Center district for food and bars.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
If you partake in that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6 (37:38):
So it it.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
And you know that's outside of the scope too, because
that's a choice. It's not mandatory like animals, you've got
to buy stuff. But at the same time, I mean
we add we add all that up stuff, we add
it all together. Right, It but still a fee that
people are going to pay.

Speaker 6 (37:52):
Now, wait a minute, So that's a good point you made.
You're gonna add a one percent tax if you eat
around a certain area. They have it in other areas,
but it's at a property that the county before I
got there now they voted it's there as a fifty
two million dollars Millennium hotel was there. It's fifty two

(38:13):
million dollars it cost to get rid of it and
tear it down, and then you're replacing it with something
that you're not making any money. This one percent doesn't
go to the county. This is going to three CDC.
You don't get no money back. Fifty two million dollars
down the two and you put something there that doesn't
make any money.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
That'll make money though, because you're going to bring people
from out of town to spend money and pay those taxes.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
That's that's why they're doing it.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Makes sense.

Speaker 6 (38:40):
Well wait a minute, hold that, Okay, fifty If the
taxpayers put out fifty two million, then we're not getting
anything from that that goes to the developers, so we
get zero. That's what I'm saying. What I said on
your show, and I broke in first with you, was
that I told the administrator, I said, why don't we
get the liquor like down there so that we can

(39:02):
get the funding back to the county coffer And he's
supposed to be looking at it. But anytime I say
something of that magnitude. He looking at it, and he's
looking at it like I said, it's a magic sho
You know, there's a movie out called Now You see Me,
Now you don't. That's what's happening down at the county.
One minute. If you have an idea to bring money

(39:23):
in to help the taxpayers, that all of a sudden,
we can't do it. If you want to give the
homeowners a break, you can't do it. If you want
to get a taxpayers a break, you can't do it.
Then all of a sudden, over here, like you just
say it, there's a tax but we're not benefiting for him,
and the homeowner's not benefiting from it. Nothing is going
back to help us get a break. Is going to

(39:45):
a developer. All of a sudden, it's a great idea,
we're moving in the wrong direction. And also there's a
lot of funds down there at the county. I've tried
to get my hands around it, because all of a sudden,
I said, give me, where are all the funds, our money?
What's in here? They don't give it to me. And
then all of a sudden, when certain people call, there's

(40:06):
a rabbit out of the hat. We can do it
big boos. Okay, don't worry about this, Well, Denise, we
can't do it.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Yeah, I think Denise Threehouse said that. By the way,
Alisha Reesa on the show the sprint of the property
tax rebate, she said, I think called the last time
we did the full three thirty one thirty two million
dollars rebate irresponsible. It is irresponsible back and they responsible
now and quoted some figures that they fund the reserve fund.
Is that forty seven percent of maximum at max manual

(40:33):
debt service the recommended numbers eighty five percent.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Uh So, who's to if you're.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Someone who listen to this right now and you're in
the county Hamlin County Lisha Reese, you're looking at going, well,
who am I supposed to believe on this?

Speaker 2 (40:46):
Either we have the money or we don't have the money.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yeah, well, it's.

Speaker 6 (40:50):
Well onless. We and her have a difference of opinion.
I am not for raising taxes, so we're gonna always disagree.
She voted again giving the homeowners the break. Last time
she was the one vote that voted against it. But
to put up that is irresponsible is disingenuous. Her and
the administrator are together. Every time you hear the administrator

(41:14):
is almost like an extension of the staff. Because, by
the way, where was the chart when you look at
that fund, you got to look at the stadium. So
before you do a stadium deal, you got to put
all the chips on the table. So it was irresponsible
to do a stadium deal knowing that you wouldn't be

(41:35):
able to give a break to the homeowners. That's why
I wanted to take it to the ballot. It's not
about who should have taxpayers believe. I'm for putting it
to the taxpayers and letting them.

Speaker 8 (41:46):
Have a say.

Speaker 6 (41:47):
If you take the taxpayers off the ballot and not
have a say, now you just turn it over down
to the administration. Now, I'll be honest with you. When
I came in, I came in. I'm the newest member
of and I came in because people said they wanted
me to shake it up, open up the process, and
fight for the taxpayers first. And so that's where I'm

(42:11):
coming from. So we all got differences of who we
you know, what we believe and so forth. But I'm
looking at the numbers the Bengals deal, and if the
headline was right in the courier is the reason the
fund is going the way it's going. The fact that
they're not paying any sales tax themselves is the reason

(42:33):
that the fund is going bankrupt. So her belief is
blame the homeowners. Mine is let's look at who's getting
who's benefiting from the fund, and it's not the homeowners.
And I believe that we could have done both if
we would have gotten a better deal. But if you
don't get a whole house away, and now you come
back to the people who elected us and you tell

(42:55):
them we can't do it. We can't keep your promise,
but we can keep the fromiss to the Bengals, I
think from the voters that voted for me the two
hundred eighteen thousand, they're saying, that's a bunch of crap,
and then to come back on the same thing and
pile on and say, now we're going to go up
on your stewer rate. The people that voted for me

(43:16):
two hunderd eighteen thousand said that's a bunch of bulls,
And then to come back and say, now we're going
to balance the budget by now even adding this real
estate transfer fee. You know, the realators, the investors real
estate investors, the real estate homeowners, all of them have
come out over seventy five two hundred members. And they

(43:39):
didn't even get the courtesy of even being talked to
the Board of Realtors. They didn't even get the home
Builders Association, they didn't even get the courtesy of getting
a phone call. And so they have come out. So
the experts who are in this have come out and
said this is going to hurt us as a county
because people will now move to other counties. The people

(44:00):
who do this every day for a living and also
pay taxes have said that rent will go up because
the landlords now got to pass this this property tax
on to somebody, and they're going to pass it on.
And then, as you know, Sloan, there was articles that
the in Choir is doing on these senior citizens, and
they had one of them that I brought up. Gentlemen

(44:23):
seventy three years old, always worked his whole life, painted bills,
had his home and now getting ready to lose his
home because the property tax has jumped up triple and
after his solid security check, he only has he pays
that right the property tax. He only has forty dollars

(44:44):
left to pay for medicine, gas and electric et cetera.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
And I know the state is the State's working on
a plan to help folks like that, which is a
good thing. Finally, Alisia Reese, I know you also started
to change that org petition for residents of voice. Does
that really carry that much weight? I mean it changed
dot org. It doesn't really influence it then, does it.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
Well, what we want to do is every year we
have to vote on this, and it always comes at
the last second, so people might can't get down there.
I want to start now and hear from the people directly,
and so therefore that's why we put the petition out there,
so we could hear from the people directly. I'm hearing
from them, am I out in the community, But I
want to make sure they understand my colleagues. They may say, oh,

(45:29):
it's two to one. No, it's not two to one.
I got two hundred and eighteen thousand voters. But now
let's hear from the I'm trying to let them hear
from the homeowners themselves. And so this petition will it
won't stop to thirty percent this time, but we would
be prepared next time. But secondly, it can also impact
the budget that we're getting ready to do with the

(45:52):
additional fee for the transfer tax, and so we'll be
fighting for that. So the reason we're doing this is
to try to give the people it's to be heard,
and then we'll be prepared so when we go in
they say, hey, here's what the people are saying. And
I do think it can make a difference, because Sloan,
they didn't. They told me we could never get thirty percent.

(46:14):
I came on here and we fought, like hell, we
got it my first year. We came on here, we
fought like hell, we got it another year, and so
we just got to keep fighting. But if you get quiet,
they're hoping you get quiet. They're hoping you don't know.
We're hoping that you only a few people know what's
going on, and then by the time you get your bill,

(46:36):
it's too late because the vote has already been teged.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
She is, she's preaching the gods with the lead show reason.
I know you had a health scare and I wasn't
aware of that, but I'm so glad that unfortunately got
great treatment, great healthcare, you see, and you're doing much
much better. So it's good to have you back in
the game and speaking truth of power.

Speaker 8 (46:54):
Great.

Speaker 6 (46:54):
Yeah, I got great health care. Mercy jew mercy. You're
saying the nurses and the doctors, and my doctor said
it could have been fatal. So I just want to
be very spiritual. I want to thank God, but I
want to say those doctors and nurses. And while I
was there, what are nurses? That came on the TV.
They didn't know who I was, and the property tax
came on and she says, oh, man, I me and

(47:17):
my husband we can't afford to go up. And so
that's why I went to the meeting yesterday, even.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Though you're not supposed to be doing it. Will you
get shut the hell up and get some rest?

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Would you go?

Speaker 6 (47:28):
I'll go lay down down, put your feed up.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
Elevate, get get the coughs on your ear legs to
keep the DVT away, and uh live to fight another day.
God bless you. Alicia, Thanks for coming on. Thank you,
take care of It's a Scott Slung show. One of
my favorite all time guests. Right there, Alicia, she just
she just spits, man, she just goes well, say hi,
and man, I can go get coffee.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Come on back. She's still talking. She's the best right there.
That's great Scott's Slung Show seven hundred WW.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Helping you navigate the rocky path of fulfilling employement.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Here's our career, sure about it, Julie Bouki.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Every Wednesday morning, this time we talked to our good
friend Julie Balki with the Bauki Group, the principal there. Uh,
and we've got news now that if you're a Kroger employee,
it's over. Now you've got to go back to work.
And they announced this at the same time we just
had five inches of snowfall, so now you got to
deal with that.

Speaker 8 (48:28):
Ms.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Bouki, welcome. How you been.

Speaker 9 (48:31):
Fantastic? Yes, it is. Uh, it's a bit confounding, not surprising,
but a bit confounding.

Speaker 8 (48:39):
Why is it you found it?

Speaker 6 (48:40):
Why?

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Why is that so confounded? We go back to because
there's there's something to be set up for human interaction.
You know, Okay, I got a zoom meeting and there's
delay and there's glitches like leaving.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Everybody on there. Somebody said about working in an office.

Speaker 9 (48:50):
Though you know there's Yeah, so let's let's take a
look at at the last fourteen months with Kroger. August
to twenty twenty four, they laid off one thousand administrative people.
In February they laid off two hundred corporate staff. And
they required people to be in the office three to
four days a week. So they already had a three

(49:12):
to four day requirement for being in And so now
we're saying, okay, so now you're getting rid of hybrid,
and you're getting rid of hybrid and flexibility for everybody.
And I'm just, I would just I'm curious, and I'm
sure they have an answer, but what does five days

(49:34):
do for you that three to four days didn't do
for you? And when we look at when we look
at the trends, it's just it's fascinating because it's right
now we're in a place where when you look at
the number of work days period done in this country,
twenty five percent of the work days are done remotely
and that number has not changed for two years. It

(49:57):
was sixty some percent during COVID. So I have always said,
hybrid is where we're going to land. Some flexibility, Hybrid
is where we're going to land. And when you look
at then you start looking at Okay, so what impact
does this have women have dropped out of the workforce.
Forty three percent of women who work full time are

(50:18):
the primary breadwinner. They are estimating by the end of
twenty twenty five, which were almost there, half a million
women will have dropped out of the workforce. Women were
their happiest and most engaged during COVID when they got
some time and flexibility. Right, and then you say, all right,
so half a million women leaving the workforce, that's going

(50:40):
to keep going. That's going to keep building. Seventy some
percent of women I was reading the survey said they
would consider changing jobs if they lost their flexibility. And
so it's it is. And then just on top of that,
it's attraction, retention and engagement strategy. And the experts in
this field, the people who are really they're studying the

(51:01):
companies that are trying this, that are doing kind of
ab groups to see what the difference is when they
have fully in the office and fully you know, and
some sort of level of hybrid. The numbers are very clear.
Turnover goes down, profitability goes up, and we're seeing as
over and over and over again, and no performance difference.

(51:22):
There was a study done by the Stanford economist Nick Bloom,
who's sort of.

Speaker 7 (51:25):
The guru of all this.

Speaker 9 (51:27):
And so when you say we want you in eight
to five, five days a week, Kroger perfectly, absolutely has
the right to say that, no doubt about it. Your
company you can run at how you want. But the
ripple effect on your ability to retain your people that
you currently have to attract new people, especially younger people,

(51:51):
and have them fully in absolutely diminish this. There's no
doubt about that. And if you're willing to live with that,
go right ahead.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
But that's just a fact of where we are right
and we have metrics now right as we have five
years of data. Multiple studies show that remote workers are
often more productive than those who work in the office.
For your distractions, can you time right, you've got a
better work life balance which keeps you engaged. If productivity
hasn't declined and arguable in many cases, has improved doing

(52:20):
remote work. What is Kroger or anyone's business justification for
forcing people back to the office.

Speaker 9 (52:27):
They use words like better teamwork, better, it is better that. Okay,
I get that, But what the studies are showing is
that when organizations who figure out how to manage inside
of a hybrid or flexible structure, learn to set expectations,
gain commitment, and really, you know, hold people accountable while

(52:50):
giving them autonomy. Those are the ones that are going
to attract and retain the best people. Your best people
want options on how to live their lives, and they
have options, so they're going to start you start losing
your ability to pull the best people into your applicants,
into your applicant pool. And it's just, yeah, I don't

(53:13):
it's I'd love to have a crystal wall and know
what's what it's going to be like in five years,
but you know, it's it's interesting to see. And part
of this too, is tied back to I mean I
was reading some things that said, well, they're just trying
to get that they're doing this to try to get
people to quit like that. Always, anytime I hear that,
I think that if that's true, that's dumb because you're

(53:35):
going to lose your best people.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, your best people have other options.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
If you're good, you have a But then again, I
mean the past, the way would work would be that Okay, hey,
we've got different roles for our best people, and that's
them as the rules, right, they can Griffy Jr.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Role, so to speak.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
It's like, if you're a performer and you're doing well,
we tend to look go out and give you plenty
of room that we wouldn't give other employees.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
But now you're not doing that doesn't make any sense?

Speaker 9 (53:59):
Yeah, I know. I'd especially love to know what the
impact is going to be on the IT department because
those are the ones. Those are the people who have
sent There is zero reason for me to come in
the office. I can see maybe a couple days a week,
but that's that's the department that it is, the function
that really was the that was the one who really
the canary and coal mine on remote work because they

(54:22):
work with technology all the time and it's not location dependent,
and so those how will you retain your IT people
and attract new IT talents when you're completely going against
the tide. So I'm sure they've thought through all these things.

Speaker 7 (54:39):
I hope so.

Speaker 9 (54:40):
But it's just interesting to watch because it will lead
to people are already pressured. So when you lays that
many people say twelve hundred or more in the last year,
who's doing that work right now? Who's doing work you are?
It's trickling down to the people who are still there,
and so you're you're you're putting your people in a
pressure cooker and it's just, you know, just from a

(55:01):
long term attraction, retention and engagement strategy, it's just a loser.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yeah, she's Julie Baki our career short on the Scotslon
Show on seven hundred welw Kroger announcing a return to
office five days a week rather than the remote work
starting in January, and they said that it's in person
teamwork is very very important. But you know, collaboration and
the argument is that if you collaborate, if you innovate,
doing all the stuff together as a team, face to face,

(55:29):
it suffers when you work remotely. But there are plenty
of companies in the world that are entirely remote from
all over the world that are extremely successful. So if
that's we're true, why are they the outliers.

Speaker 9 (55:43):
It's interesting. Spotify the music I think of a Spotify
Spotify they put up a big billboard in Times Square
someplaces said we hire adults, we don't hire children, so
you know, sort of a we try. We hire the
right people, we hold them accountable, we give them autonomy
and don't treat them like children, like we have to
be looking over the cube ball at them at all times.

(56:05):
All state insurance went entirely remote, and so there's it's
we're there's going to be I think that the bottom
line here is one size doesn't fit all. And so
of course you know your people who work in your
stores and your manufacturing facilities, of course they have to
be have to be there. And so but I think

(56:26):
where we start to lose it is we start to say, okay, well,
because our people in the stores have to be there,
all of you have to be in the office. And
that's comparing apples and oranges. If people will take those
jobs in stores, they know they have to be in
the stores, But what are you really doing in terms
of your corporate staff and administration? And I think it's
going to be interesting to follow because Elon Musk tried

(56:47):
that and went back the other way. He came back
on it and said okay, because he started losing talent
like really fast because recruiters got on LinkedIn, other companies
got on LinkedIn, just start picking off his best talent.
We're not going to make you. We're not going to
make you come in five days a week, and so
he had to backtrack that. And so sometimes what's happening
behind the scenes is they backtrack on that. But that's

(57:09):
never an announcement, that's not a clickable link. Oh you know,
they backtrack. Kroger backtracks and now people can work remotely.
You'll never hear that. So if that happens, it will
be on an exception basis. It will happen department by departments.
But I think you know it's it's I've seen in
some companies they say, well, this department, we had to
let them do that because they were going to lose

(57:30):
all their talent. Well no, dah, you know, I mean
it's we're in a different world right now, and we
can't do it the way boomers, myself included a net
group used to do it, because it's not only was
it not necessarily the right way then, but it was
the only way then.

Speaker 5 (57:44):
It's all we do.

Speaker 9 (57:45):
We're in a different place right now. We have to
look differently at how we manage people. Just because it
worked for you doesn't mean it can work forever or
it works for everyone, especially with women outcasing, men graduating
from college going into the workforce. We have to we
have to start doing things, being open to trying things.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Shall I say?

Speaker 2 (58:03):
All right, there's an issue of trust here.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
So I'd imagine there are many people betrayed because they're told, hey,
remote work, COVID comes along, it's permanent, now it's long term,
And so they make these huge life decisions. You may
move to a different city, you may obsorb some caregiving responsibility,
how you bought a home in a different area, and
all of a sudden, I a're like, okay, never mind,
that's over. Now you're got to come back. Don't you

(58:27):
lose all your trust? Would that work for us?

Speaker 9 (58:29):
Yes? And we wonder why when you look at how
people feel about their employer, trust is at a very
very is it a very low this belief that I'm
supposed to give one hundred and twenty percent for my employer,
but I know that I can be laid off at
any moments, or they can change the rules. They can,

(58:51):
of course they can, but don't don't do that and
then expect your people to operate with one hundred percent loyalty.
It's not a thing in the employment relationship.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
It is not a thing in the employment raiser because
you're like, well, this is this is kind of dumb,
but you know, I and Kroger's still a great company obviously,
but you got to wonder about the message it sends.
And of course this gives lead way to the other
employees go, well Kroger's doing it.

Speaker 8 (59:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (59:19):
Yeah, talk to your HR people about talk to your recruiters,
your people who are responsible for hiring in your corporate offices,
and ask them what they're seeing in terms of what
people want. If people say a lot of times it'll
say remote or hybrid. But then when you when you
have an interview, it's like, well we really want you
to okay, you know, I mean and so there's bait
and switch going on on job boards as well. So no,

(59:42):
the trust between employer and employee, no, you know, I
think it goes both ways. Well, the CEO of AT
and T took some heat for saying, you know, two
weeks pay for two weeks work, no loyalty.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Well you know, okay, that's kind of the way it
ought to be.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Frankly, yeah, yeah, that's it. I get a check, here's
what you pay me to do. And you know, if
you want to buff and beyond, it will cost you more.
If not, then pay good luck with it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Julie Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
I think the element here too is it's like, if
you're doing this some people are a lot of the
people coming back, it's going to feel like you're going
to get a pay cut. Let me explain, you now
have to commute. That's an expense. There, You got that
expense parking, transit or gas. You got to have the wardrobe,
so that's going to cost your money. You're probably gonna
eat out a few more times. That's going to cause childcare.

(01:00:30):
That's a significant pay cut, isn't it.

Speaker 8 (01:00:33):
Yep? Yep.

Speaker 9 (01:00:34):
And so you can decide Amazon or Google are one
of those companies that people just went not so. JP
Morgan like signing a petition blah blah blah, and Jamie
Diame is like, you know, you can shove that petition
because it ain't changing. So you can. You can make
your thoughts known where you are interesting and but then
you are, you have free will. You can also go

(01:00:57):
work elsewhere. And because the job market is what it is,
there's some betting on the side of employers that you're
just gonna keep your rear end right in that chair
because you don't have any of your options. That's not
necessarily true. But when the job market picks back up again,
and it will, those are going to be the first
people to leave.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Yeah, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
She's Julie Bowki, our career shrip on the Scotslan Show
every Wednesday morning. She and your team ready to go
to work for you. And that's Deboukigroup dot com be
a uk. E have a great week. We'll chat next Wednesday.
All right, be well, take care. News on the way
in just minutes. Council Member Mark Jeffers is here. I
fully believe in tipping the hat and giving credit where
credits due. Last year tore apart the city of Cincinnati

(01:01:40):
for it's a businal response to the January snowstorm, much
much different months later. We'll get to him about that,
and what else do you expect about this as well?
And how well it went with the new services plan
in place to battle the snow. Now that we're beyond it,
kind of look back and see how it went. Just
ahead seven hundred WLW. Do you want to be an

(01:02:01):
American idiot? It's got a flood show on seven hundred
w WELW Cincinnati. We got what two to four to
five some areas even a little bit more than five
five and a half inches of snow this week and
CBG's had a daily record, so we got a record
amount of snow in one day this early in the
season compared to last year where it was an unmitigated

(01:02:24):
snow disaster simply because well we didn't have enough plouse.
There was confusion to lack of communication. There were streets
admittedly weeks later that went unplowed and said well, you're
just gonna have to deal with it. Changes were made
and happy to report, and we love to celebrate the
wins we do because I love to criticize, but I
also love to tip the cap and go, hey, you know,
and we did good this time. Good for you would

(01:02:46):
be the city getting the snow removed and what most
people would say is a reasonable amount of time and
a good job done by all. Mark Jeffreys's council member
sits on the Infrastructure Committee and has sweated over this
for the better part of a year now, since last
January when we had the snow mageddon that caused so
much angst in pain. Mark, welcome back or.

Speaker 8 (01:03:04):
Are you doing well, thanks Scott, Yes, sir, so eighty.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Snowplod trucks, twelve hour shifts. You got it done.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
I was mentioned earlier in the show was talking to
someone from Price Hill and said, we haven't had our
side streets cleared when snow like this in probably a
decade or more. And I was happy when I came
out and got back home after work and saw that
the roads were cleared. Couldn't believe it. Took pictures and
posted it that when you hear that kind of feedback,

(01:03:31):
you deserve a pat on the back for a job
well done.

Speaker 5 (01:03:34):
Well, look what I would say is leadership matters, and
we have a new leader in Department of Public Works,
this guy Mark Riley came in and at the end
of the day, I mean, by seventeen years of PFG,
I learned, you know, there's input, measures and output, and
the output that we only care about is it snow
removed quickly?

Speaker 8 (01:03:52):
Is it all the rugues cleared?

Speaker 5 (01:03:54):
You know, But a lot of the stuff that he did,
his input really mattered, Like bringing in new technology baffled
all of our minds that you know. It was like
going on a road trip back in the seventies and
eighties where you had the paper maps. People had paper
maps until last.

Speaker 8 (01:04:08):
Year for doing snow removal.

Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
So now we've got all of the trucks outfitted with iPads,
so they have the technology, they know where to go,
what's been treated, what hasn't been treated.

Speaker 8 (01:04:19):
He mapped all the routes, which you know before we.

Speaker 5 (01:04:21):
Learned last year that some of the streets were just
not in the maps, which is mind boggling.

Speaker 8 (01:04:29):
So hence all the streets were cleared. He pre treated.

Speaker 5 (01:04:33):
Another insight, which makes total sense, is look, these storms
move west to east, so he pretreats west to east.
Makes complete sense, to the west side before you do
the far east regions, because that's how the snow is
going to.

Speaker 8 (01:04:45):
Move, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):
So all of these things, you know, leveraging new technologies,
weather stations, drones, I think they're the right things to do.
And ultimately the only thing that really matters are whether
the roads are cleared in a reasonable amount of time,
and in this case, you know, they certainly were. So
Kudo's the new director and the administration for really putting
in a lot of the work and training people. They

(01:05:08):
had obstacle courses where they were training the you know,
the drivers to make sure they knew how to drive
down these small streets and you.

Speaker 8 (01:05:16):
Know they put in the work and it really, it really.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Matters good to see. So ten years ago, my little
brother moved from Clifton out west but lived in Clifton
on a hilly street. Is most streets in Clifton are
pretty hilly, and as long as you lived in that house,
most of the people on that street, unless they had
a really really good vehicle or the way, literally would
be stuck home and couldn't go to work because they

(01:05:41):
couldn't get out of the driveway. And that went on
for the years that he lived there in Clifton, and
I thought, what an abysmal failure. And I talked to
some people, are like, yeah, it's just that's the way
it is. We don't have the equipment to get down
these streets. Somebody hears that and they see what's happening now,
and I think they're thankful for the.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Leadership we have. As you said, it's a leadership issue.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
I guess the big question would be looking back, and
maybe you studied this, maybe it didn't well before your time,
but how did the city get that neglected for that
long a period of time, and seemingly no one in
leadership cares.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
I mean, how did we get to this point?

Speaker 5 (01:06:12):
Yeah, I mean they'd pointed out yesterday we were one
hundred and twenty five more people TECH twenty years ago
in Department of Public Works.

Speaker 8 (01:06:20):
So you might ask yourself, why is it that we're
not doing as much literc cleanup. Well, we have a
lot for people. So these things gradually over time.

Speaker 5 (01:06:27):
It's kind of the boiling frogs Inrome, right, you know,
you just find you're like, all right, this happens. This happens,
you make little decisions before we know it. You have
this massive issue, you know, and I think, look, I
mean even last year, I live in a small side
street in Clifton and it is hilly, and I could
not get up my hill. And on the fourth day
of the storm, I eventually called to PS. I'm like, look,

(01:06:48):
I'm not going to be you know, one of those
CONSO members to get out there and say I need
my street cloud because it's a small resident. But by
the fourth day and I couldn't even get back and forth.

Speaker 8 (01:06:56):
This is ridiculous. And so this time one hundred percent cleared.

Speaker 5 (01:07:00):
Last year in January, all of us were getting texts complaining, rightfully,
this time I was getting text you know, saying hey,
look we can played last year, but thank you.

Speaker 8 (01:07:08):
So you know, you you they put.

Speaker 5 (01:07:11):
In the work. You know, it's like a professional sports team, right,
you know, they did all the training and then ultimately
what ultimately matters is how you perform in the field.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Yeah, what do you Mark?

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
There's there's a corollary here. I think I mentioned it
was crime too because it fits the same, uh same.
I've used the crime as an example. I think it's
true of streets so long ago. We had the riots
of two thousand and one and civil and arrest of course,
and we had to rethink how we did policing. We
did the uh uh, we did the agreement with the
collaborate agreement with the feds.

Speaker 8 (01:07:43):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
And at one point we were the literally the darling
of the policing community, where we had you know, White
House attorneys and people from the FBI, and they're from
the government coming in to Cincinnati learn how we're doing
it here in community policing. And I think what happens
is and government your rust out your laws and go okay,
well everything crimes do, everything's good, and then you take
the money that's Earmark for that and said, well, why
are we spending money on a problem we solved. We're

(01:08:04):
going to spend it on something else, something new and shiny.
You neglect it, And well, as a result, crime comes
back in and we're seeing levels because of the lack
of attention to detail, We're seeing those levels go back again,
and problems we thought we solved are now coming back
to roost. I think it's probably the same with snow removal, right,
It's like, hey, we're doing really good job. Let's just

(01:08:25):
take the money and spend it on something else because
we're doing a good job instead of continuing the care
and nurture and feed it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:08:32):
I mean, look, I mean, as you well know, we
have a lot of competing priorities in city, right, public safety,
you know, basic public services.

Speaker 8 (01:08:39):
You know our parks and our rec centers and.

Speaker 5 (01:08:41):
You know all of those things, and so it's always
trying to figure out what is the biggest priority. But
the priority always has to be on basic safety and
delivering core city services, picking up the trash, paving the roads,
filling the potholes, clearing the snow, keeping people safe like
that has to.

Speaker 8 (01:08:59):
Be and out always the number one priority.

Speaker 5 (01:09:02):
Before you go off and do something else, you know,
I mean I learned that at P and G. It's
like you can have this, you know, great new.

Speaker 8 (01:09:08):
Innovation that's all up here in the clouds, you.

Speaker 5 (01:09:11):
Know, but if you're not delivering your core business, you know,
what you're what you were about.

Speaker 8 (01:09:15):
Then everything else is meaningless.

Speaker 5 (01:09:17):
And so for us, our core is just that basic
public service, basic needs. So you know, that's where we'll
remain focused.

Speaker 8 (01:09:23):
And you know, on public.

Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
Safety, look, we just gave you know, CPD the largest
rays in forty years, you know, the lastation because we
want we have to retain and recruit new officers. You know,
we've authorized four x you know, two x more new
recruit classes. We have to continue to put uh you know,
put new officers on the street. And that's the investment
we need to continue to make in the next coumple
of years.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Yeah, Cosmember Mark jeffrees On a little victory lap here
after the successful snow removally Austria. It wasn't entirely perfect
for sure, but a far site better than we were
a year ago, and that should be applauded.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
I believe when you look at this and you know you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Hear stories from individuals, and I mentioned a couple of
people you talked to some folks, maybe that many per
What what metrics do you look at after this was done?
When you had the meeting yesterday and infrastructure about this
and is there actual data out there showing that we
improved significantly year over year?

Speaker 5 (01:10:15):
Yeah, I asked that question yesterday and as part of
our budget process will formalize it, Like what is the
key performance indicator the KPI? You know, and it should
be how quickly snow was removed? Like, ultimately that's the
only thing you ultimately care about shore. Are people showing up,
are you fully staffed?

Speaker 8 (01:10:32):
Are you know, do you have the right parts?

Speaker 5 (01:10:34):
All those things are important, But the only service clearing
the roads more quickly. And so I think you know
right now we've said, hey, they need to be cleared
within forty eight hours, and I think we hit that
this time.

Speaker 8 (01:10:48):
Obviously, you know what happened to.

Speaker 5 (01:10:50):
Jenny Org It was a lot more severe storm, you know, so,
but we need to the other thing I appreciate is, look,
I mean you said yesterday it used to be ten
years ago that snow urgencies were all hands on deck
across the city, and we're going back to that. I
don't know why we ever went away from that, you know,
because it makes absolutely no sense to staff up our
Department of Public Works for a once every five years

(01:11:12):
or ten years storm. What you could do is pull
staff from you know, a wreck center or parks or
other places where they can fill in where you need
extra bodies, which makes little sense. What I would also
say Scott is like, I really appreciate the wreck rally
getting out ahead of some of the pothole issues too.
So he is proposing buying this pothole patcher And basically

(01:11:33):
what it is it allows one person to operate it
versus four, so you have you've freed up three other
people's time to go else on potholes or whatever, and
you can fill one hundred potholes per day, so you're
filling a lot more.

Speaker 8 (01:11:47):
It's automating it with a lot fewer people, which allows
you to do more with you know, with less.

Speaker 5 (01:11:53):
So really appreciate that because that's going to be the
next challenge we have right after these snow emergencies. You know,
we always have potholes and getting ahead of that it's
going to be important.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
Yeah, and the technology helps too. You need less manpower
because it's a one person operation. Now you get four
of those units. You got four people out there filling potholes,
and uh now you you know it's a force multiplier,
which I think people listening go, Okay, that's a good
spending money right there, let's do that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
You got the pause where I know that the snowplow
tracker failed and I got in yesterday morning and in
the snowstorm, and uh so I don't see how they're doing.
And of course I got the black screen of death
and went, oh my god, really you got uh but
you know it was because so many people were looking
at it. But you know, you go, well, we weren't
expecting as many people. Well the I guess maybe the

(01:12:39):
way to if ore to poke holes in anything, go, well,
you guys, advertise a hell out of this. You knew
people were upset about the streets being plowed. They're going
to check this thing. Uh, it was allegedly stressed as
it didn't work out. How do we not repeat this
next time we had a significant snowfall.

Speaker 8 (01:12:52):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
I know that they're doing kind of an after action
review this week on it to figure that out, you know.

Speaker 8 (01:12:58):
I mean, look, it comes back to put out with measures.

Speaker 5 (01:13:00):
The thing that people really care about is when I
leave my house, is my street clean so I can
get to the hospital or a job, or do my
kids to school.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
That's the ultimate thing.

Speaker 5 (01:13:09):
The tracker is important and it's helpful for people to see,
and we have to fix it and we will and
it you know, it needs to be stress tested, you know.
But ultimately the thing that people care about at the
end of the day is just clear my clear, my
m street, you know, so I can get to where
I need to go.

Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
I mean if you look at it and every street
is clear to except yours, it's just going to take
you off. But I think it's a great tactile thing,
you know. You it makes sense you look at and go, wow, Okay,
they've done a lot of streets. Maybe mine is next
residence in and there guessing as to when it made manut.
But the best advertise you can have for the new
system you put in place totally, no, one hundred percent.

Speaker 8 (01:13:47):
I mean, there's a role for it.

Speaker 5 (01:13:48):
It allows people to be informed so they can see,
you know, where streets are or are not clear and
you need to a make sure that it's accurate.

Speaker 8 (01:13:57):
Last year was not accurate, and now it's accurate.

Speaker 5 (01:14:00):
And then b we need to make sure they have
enough room in the server to, you know, for to
handle the demands.

Speaker 8 (01:14:06):
And I think Fisher learned the lesson there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
Would you agree that the one of the biggest problems
of this whole thing has been communication?

Speaker 8 (01:14:15):
Yeah, I mean community.

Speaker 5 (01:14:16):
Well, I mean, at the end of the day, I
don't know if I would agree. I think last and
last Yearanuary, the issue was we just didn't get the
job done. You know, it starts there, like we did
not plow the streets, you know quick enough. We did
not plow all the streets, And the reason were all
these other you know issues, paper maps and all the
streets weren't mapped, et cetera.

Speaker 8 (01:14:35):
So that I think was the biggest issue.

Speaker 5 (01:14:38):
Now that we would through this new director, it looks like,
all right, we've got our act together, We've done this work,
we're actually executing. Now we have to like communicate effectively,
make sure we're communicating what we're doing, uh, and make
sure people understand where they can get information.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
Well, on that point, I mean, one of the easiest
ways to communicate pop but obviously social media it had
been easy to put out and we didn't maybe did
after the fact that we were looking like there's nothing
on there from the mayor's feed or anyone else, saying, hey,
well the system is overwhelmed. Right now, this is why
you're not saying we're treating streets et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
And that wasn't dime. I mean, that seems like an
easy one to do.

Speaker 5 (01:15:13):
Yeah, no, we need to communicate that right when it happens.

Speaker 8 (01:15:16):
I mean, I believe in proactive communication.

Speaker 5 (01:15:19):
If something goes right, communicated, If something goes wrong, communicated.

Speaker 8 (01:15:23):
And that's where you know, look, I said this yesterday.

Speaker 5 (01:15:25):
I have to give you know, I give the administration
credit doing this review of saying this is where we failed,
because it's not easy. We live very public jobs. You
know a lot of people have a private job. You
work in a restaurant or an office, and you know,
if you fail, the world to know about it, you know,
kudos to them. Like, the only way to make it
right is to own up to what you did and

(01:15:48):
where you did not do well so that we can improve.
And we did that, and then now you know, it
looks like we've taken it to heart and we've we've
definitely improved.

Speaker 8 (01:15:56):
And make sure I bring that up.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
Too, because it again, this isn't a vacumens it's the
crime issue too, And there were times where there was
no communication from the administration about what was happening, and
it was a it was a big concern for people
in a day and age when it's been easier than
ever before to communicate and get your message out.

Speaker 8 (01:16:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:16:13):
Look, I mean expectations have changed, right, you know, we're
not the pony Express. When people express here here, you know,
get something a couple of days later. When something happens,
you know, often people need I mean people need to.

Speaker 8 (01:16:26):
Know right away, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:16:28):
And it's just the nature of the world that we
live in, and understandably they expect them.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
All right, so people hear this are going great, But
in the future, if my road isn't plowed, what's my recourse?

Speaker 5 (01:16:40):
Yeah, I mean the first is, uh, you know, reach out.
I mean, reach out to your councilor verse, you know. Frankly,
I mean that's what we did last year. I had
countless people who emailed me, texted me and said, hey,
my road's not cloud and then we're painting the ass
and then we figure out like, okay, where did the
system go wrong? And that's where we really need to
because success I always say for me, I'm out of

(01:17:01):
here in eight years maximum, right, because we were term limitted.
And success is not that I'm just a pain in
the butt enough to like when I'm gone, then it
goes back to failure.

Speaker 8 (01:17:10):
Success is a change the system.

Speaker 5 (01:17:13):
And so if your street is not plowed, let us
know so that we can understand why where the system failed,
so we can fix the system.

Speaker 8 (01:17:19):
So long after all of us are gone, the system
is running more effectively.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Yeah, and it seems like, yes, it's very successful in
the rollout, and we'll see again how well we do
next time around. You're only good as the last crisis
you've you've been through now at this rate, of course,
this almost guarantees now, Mark Jeffries, that we will not
get any more significant snowfall the season. Of course, that's
that will works.

Speaker 8 (01:17:41):
The snowfall das right where you right, snowfall.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
Right, kids don't want to hear that, but it's it's
what it is. He is a council member.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
Mark Jeffreys and the Scots Lund Show on seven hundred
ww sits on Infrastructure Committee having a meeting yesterday and
addressing what happened with the two to five snowfall inches
that we received and a lot don't of course, in
the overnight hours. I think we had two inches in
one hour, and of course and when that happens, the
snowplows can't keep up. And it was one of those
odd situations where the earlier in the morning you had

(01:18:09):
had been on the road, the worst it was, and
then by you know, seven eight o'clock they were able
to catch back up, and of course by the commute
home it was fine and actually had a lot of
the shoulders clean and all the side streets done, which
is very refreshing considering we were back in January with
that snowstar Mark all the best, thanks again for jumping
on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
I appreciate you. Thanks all the best.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
News update coming up in just about four or five
minutes on seven hundred w W and then Sarah jumps in.
We've got the Bengals of the Bills this week. I'm
going up for the game there. We've got some Reds news.
She wants to get into as well.

Speaker 2 (01:18:40):
What Reds. It's never too early to talk about summer?

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
Is it now?

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
On the Home of the Reds and the Best Bengals
Coverage seven hundred WW.

Speaker 7 (01:18:57):
George, Sorry, oh my god. Every big holiday party here
and I heart today we do.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
Sarah will be snorting her way through sports this morning
here on seven hundred WW, jumping over the kid Chris Show.
It's US Sports of All Snorts aka the Snort Report,
talking about sports and social media and the like. And
I saw you had our good buddy Brendon Sajo, formerly
of wlw T News five sports.

Speaker 7 (01:19:25):
Channel five sports reporter, Yeah from Cincinnati, went to LISSU
and he's in Cincinnati for all of twenty four hours
and decided to start his time here with Chris and
I this morning bought that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
Was also wrong with Tom. He's making the rounds. He
really shows stuff right now. He's doing well. So it's
he was on Oprah's podcast yesterday.

Speaker 7 (01:19:42):
Yeah. So Oprah has a podcast, which I did not
know about until Brandon started to brok.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
She has a podcast, she has a show.

Speaker 7 (01:19:48):
Does she need a pun.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
Yeah, she needs all that she needs people doing.

Speaker 7 (01:19:52):
It for Yeah, I loved it. I'm like this thing
was over seven hundred thousand subscribers. But yeah, Oprah, she
had a bunch of men that have podcast on I
guess talking about men's mental health on there, and so
Brandon was invited to talk about that and then came
on our show to talk about the Mental Game podcast
as well, which is the one that he hosts.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Nice so good, doing good, doing great.

Speaker 7 (01:20:13):
So like our buddy, Dave, the producer said, oh, so
he went from Oprah to EBM this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
It's a little bit of a down dras wake till
Chris that.

Speaker 7 (01:20:26):
Yeah, so it was good to have him in this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
What do you think you are?

Speaker 7 (01:20:28):
Gail King?

Speaker 3 (01:20:30):
You know what?

Speaker 7 (01:20:30):
He did tell us that he got to talk to
Gail King too. She was there, I know. Anyway, Oprah
and Gail, So welcome back Brandon Saho for a day,
then he gets back out to La So one hundred
and thirteen days till opening day. If you're tired of
and you need a little bit of optimism in your life,
like all right, No.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
The Bengals are not out of it, They're just two games.

Speaker 3 (01:20:51):
Out of it.

Speaker 7 (01:20:52):
We're going to get to the Bengals here. We're going
to start with the Reds and then work our way
to the Bengals because we do have some things that
are trending in sports social media here in Cincinnati. That's
why we're starting with opening days. Let's go, no Reds caravan.
They made that announcement the other day. I guess it's
too close to when they're going to be doing the
Reds Fest in.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
The movement, because the conventions are the first thing they're
really going to go in.

Speaker 7 (01:21:17):
This is going to be the first big event happening
January sixteenth and seventeenth. So they said, you know what,
this year, we're going to do away with the caravan.
And uh so Sorrylima, Yeah, everybody, I know, how about this.
We're going to send Sarah to Lima to entertain that.
You know what, let's not do that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
Let's be at the Huntington Town Center.

Speaker 7 (01:21:35):
You think, are we going to see Saga Clause today
at this party?

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Of course you will, no, no doubt about it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
That suit.

Speaker 7 (01:21:42):
He didn't get a fresh cut, so I think it's
going down.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
And that's and the Saga Claws suit has not been
washing the Truman administration.

Speaker 7 (01:21:49):
Just so you know, chicken in the bocket.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
Oh my guy's got the salmon and the beard.

Speaker 7 (01:21:54):
Our buddy Tom Brenneman, he's here early for the party,
for that party, this first year. He goes what I expect.
I'm like, nothing but a good time, my friend.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
Can we put you down for a the old town
in the nineties Christmas parties.

Speaker 6 (01:22:07):
I can tell you that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
I had you down in the potlock Tom bringing the
jelly mold.

Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
Still do that?

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
Okay, all right, let's go.

Speaker 7 (01:22:14):
Yeah, get to cooking Tom.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
Tom and his magic crock pott.

Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
He's gonna go.

Speaker 7 (01:22:20):
I could see Tom doing some pretty good start the
crockpott balls. He comes off like a crockpot kind of
like he seems.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
Like one of those half assed meat balls with a
jelly in it.

Speaker 7 (01:22:31):
Hey, those are some really good apps.

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
He put the little tooth picking up damn straight, give
me a give me a spork.

Speaker 3 (01:22:37):
And let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:22:40):
So you know that he's you know that he's like
still new because he's very early to this party. Like
we saw three hours ago, three o'clock, he's here to
help set up everybody's actually, everybody hates an ass kisser.

Speaker 8 (01:22:51):
You got the job.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
Just ride the wake.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
God, the.

Speaker 7 (01:22:58):
Reds are trending because, according to a recent report from ESPN,
the Reds are continuing. This is what they say to
pursue Kyle Schwarberg, the agent. I can't even do it
with a straight face.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
Sure, what makes like the whole gross domestic product of Cincinnati?
I think got got that kind of money?

Speaker 7 (01:23:22):
Do we have a chance?

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
Ninety nine trillion dollars?

Speaker 7 (01:23:26):
They're they're only up against the Phillies, the Red Sox,
and the Mets.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
Yeah, how much of Schwarber one hundred million dollars? What
was the Reds perrol last year?

Speaker 7 (01:23:37):
Remember, like a couple of millions. You're gonna have to
look that up. Yeah, no big deal. Dig deep in
those pockets.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
Let's got's fifty.

Speaker 7 (01:23:49):
Six bombs last year? One hundred and thirty two RBIs
let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
I think they'll come out. Reds will make a tenor
and offer for him.

Speaker 7 (01:23:57):
Winter meetings are this weekend in Orlando. My friend, we shall.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
See seventy seventy percent of your budget.

Speaker 7 (01:24:03):
We could really use his arm. We need a hitter.

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
We need someone to hit the damn pearl seventy five
percent to get one guy. Do you really see is
that feasible for Cincinnati, Ohio.

Speaker 7 (01:24:14):
I think anything is possible.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
Pinkle'll take the hometown discount. Okay, I'll do it for
ninety eight five.

Speaker 7 (01:24:22):
You know what we almost got. We almost got through
talking about Kyle Schwarber without bringing up Agam.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Oh, Marty, Middletown, Oh, Middletown, Sir, It's like they go.

Speaker 7 (01:24:32):
Hand in hand. Talk to Seg about Kyle Schwarber. He
can't say his name without bringing up Middletown. Of course,
he said he's going to drive him to and from
the stadium. If the runs pick him up, they will.
And you know what, I believe them. I believe that
if anyone were to drive Kyle Schwarber around the city,
it would definitely be said.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
I've seen seg drive before.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
And if he had, if he had a day, a
night game and then there was get away the next morning,
he just sleep at the stadium, it'd be faster. Sure,
it'd be fast.

Speaker 7 (01:25:02):
For sure, Segould lightown his life for this business man special.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
I'll just sleep at the stadium, and by the time
I get home and get back, it's.

Speaker 7 (01:25:08):
Might as well. Kyle Schwarber above everything else, above sleep.
We know that cycle catch up in his little office,
So I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
I love it.

Speaker 7 (01:25:17):
Alrighty Aside from the Reds trending, the Bengals not really
much of an update yesterday except for the iced out
unis that they're going to wear this weekend in Buffalo.
Nice orange helmets, white jerseys, white pants, black Sociday. There
we go going to be a cool twenty nine degrees
in Buffalo. You're going to be there during Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
Yeah, that's June weather. It's summer in Buffalo.

Speaker 7 (01:25:37):
I feel like that's no big deal for Buffalo.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
It's not too bad at all. Chance of pre SIPs Saturday.

Speaker 7 (01:25:42):
I think you're going to get the snow on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
It's always snow, sir.

Speaker 7 (01:25:45):
Are you prepared to sit in a pile of snow?

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
I'm prepared. You know, this game is like a heat
wave compared the last three I've been to there.

Speaker 7 (01:25:51):
What was the temperature the last time that you were there?

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
It was in the single digits.

Speaker 7 (01:25:56):
Is that when it was a blizzard and you had
to like walk to mon.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
No, it was it was snowed a little bit. It
was a Casey playoff.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Game and the Bills lost, and when they were hiring
people snow snowhead led up by that point too, but
it was h Yeah, it was single digits and last
suff with the wind chill. So the wind comes off
the lake there and it's very cold. But this one
looks like not much wind and whether should be good.

Speaker 7 (01:26:18):
So you'll head up there this weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:26:20):
You're gonna go to your brother Friday. Yea brother and
some buddies.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
Very cool, gonna road trip it up there, have a
boy's weekend, taking Monday off coming back.

Speaker 7 (01:26:27):
I figured you would take Monday off and there's no
way he's going to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
That was initially at four o'clock game, four five games.

Speaker 7 (01:26:32):
Yeah, then they bumped it and.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Speaking of cold, i'd much where they have a one
o'clock h.

Speaker 7 (01:26:37):
Yeah, no kidding, because what is it now? It's the
Packers and Bears. Is that the one they switched with?

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
I think so.

Speaker 7 (01:26:42):
Yeah, yeah, But so the other day head coach Zach
Taylor held a press conference on Monday to get the
week started. He was asked about t Higgins. We know
that Tea took a really hard hit at the end
of that game against the Patriots. They were like, is
t going to be playing this weekend? He said he's
still in concussions.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
He's playing, he's playing.

Speaker 7 (01:27:00):
I'm leaning towards him playing because a lot of the
Bengals reporters are saying that, you know, t is walking
around the locker room, seems like he's doing fine. He
has been participating in some things here and there. I'm
leaning towards Tea playing. If I'm a betting woman, that's
not going to.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Say carrying an ice bag around on his neck and
rubbing his temples like, oh, my head's killing me.

Speaker 7 (01:27:18):
But it was really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):
It was a bad There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
It didn't we get Tea and Jamar and I think, honestly,
I mean, as big a Bill's fan as I am,
this is.

Speaker 7 (01:27:27):
Going to be a really good game on I'm excited if.

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
You can somehow corral James Cook. I think I think
Begal's a good shot to win this game.

Speaker 2 (01:27:36):
I really do.

Speaker 7 (01:27:36):
Yeah, I'm not even gonna put a prediction out there
because anytime I do what's wrong, and.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
That's a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
It's like, you know, I have a wide receivers and
they're so banged up at this point, they're they're vulnerable.

Speaker 7 (01:27:46):
Well in the Bengals defense has found a way to
turn it around.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
Yeah, we'll see if he can make it two in
a row. Though if people some people are acting like
this is a five game winning streak.

Speaker 7 (01:27:53):
We're still a four and eight team. Don't forget about that.
Somebody not playing this weekend, No surprise here, Trey Hendrickson.
Zach Taylor said he's doubtful. He's still working through that
hip slash. This is sketchy. Maybe they're store hanging out
the casino. I have no idea, but it's really sketchy.

(01:28:14):
But the reporters asked Zach, so what has Trey been
doing this whole time, because he's been out for weeks,
and he said that he's been rehabbing with Trainers. And
Zach did say he does anticipate trade return this season.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Hmm.

Speaker 7 (01:28:29):
But the rumor is is that Trade needs some sort
of off season surgery. That's the rumor. So why would
you even push him. I mean, they're winning without trade.
They beat the Steelers without Trade, they beat the Ravens
without Dray, and they're about to go to Buffalo this
weekend without him too. Trey's not even traveling with the team.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
Either, without him. I want to worry about that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
They are they're winning without absolutely.

Speaker 7 (01:28:55):
Just try to keep the defense off the field. First
homes you again, nobody wants their defense out there. As
much as the Bengals defense has improved, it's like, let's
keep all let's just keep the offense rolling. It's good
to see Joe back with those guys too. That game
on Thanksgiving was very exciting. A little rough in the
first half, but they were really clicking in that second

(01:29:15):
half and it was made me feel really optimistic about
the rest of the season, not that there's a whole
lot left, but be excited about it. I'm trying that
Joe's back. I think he just has this aura in
the locker room, like our leader's back. We're going to start.

Speaker 1 (01:29:30):
Yes, He'll go down and lead him down the field.
And that's the thing is, I think it's a different,
much better offense. On Sunday, we'll see with the Bengals
and the Bills.

Speaker 7 (01:29:37):
We also got our guy, Mike is Sticky back after
he had that peck injury, so Yoshi's starting to catch the.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
Ball again again.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
One game does not make a trend, I.

Speaker 7 (01:29:47):
Know, but this is the Bengals fanom me where I'm like,
all right, one game and everything is just really turned around. Yeah,
you win this weekend, and then you've got the Ravens
here next.

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
Easy schedule. After this, you already beat them. You got
them at home, right, you've got Miami.

Speaker 7 (01:30:01):
I don't even think the home field advantage matters though
it really doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
And sometimes you'd much rather play then.

Speaker 7 (01:30:07):
Yeah, then you're going to go to Miami. You finish
out this season against the Browns. Easy dub there right right? Yeah, exactly,
so as long as everybody can stay the brown No,
it's the Browns easy now. Why I believe in our.

Speaker 1 (01:30:23):
Guys after that game? One game at a time, baby,
one game at a time. But they've got a much
easier path there than the Ravens and the Steelers do,
that's for sure.

Speaker 7 (01:30:30):
And you know what, I don't believe in the Ravens
on the Steelers. I'm not buying what they're social.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
Terrible.

Speaker 7 (01:30:34):
The Steelers looked awful on.

Speaker 1 (01:30:36):
Sunday last week.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
You loved the Bills. Now this week you hate the Bills.
Such a woman, were.

Speaker 8 (01:30:41):
You?

Speaker 7 (01:30:42):
So I went out to I went to this new
bar in Covington, and we did like a watch party
there to watch the Steelers and the Bills really and
uh and the whole bar is like cheering on the Bills.
I said, this is going to be like a complete
one eighty next week and when we're eating the Bills.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
So I love it.

Speaker 7 (01:30:58):
Yeah, four team Team.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
Plus is filthy. Steelers you know, Cam Hayward.

Speaker 7 (01:31:03):
And Steelers are so dirty. I hate that team.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
Everybody hates the Steelers. Steeler fans, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:31:10):
I think a lot of Steelers fans start to turn
on their back. Aaron Rodgers is turning on his own guys.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
How about that fire tomblin chan.

Speaker 7 (01:31:18):
I know, I don't even think they're fans of their
own team.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
James half empty luck baby, That's.

Speaker 7 (01:31:24):
How it was at the end of that game on
not Even It was like the fourth quarter and they
showed an aerial shot of the stadium. I'm like, where'd
all the fans go? Not seeing a lot of terrible
towels now, So safe travels this weekend, my friends.

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
You're not going.

Speaker 7 (01:31:38):
I will not be there.

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
Now if you had like free tickets and we're in
the oh, of.

Speaker 7 (01:31:42):
Course, Yeah, I would sit out on the twenty nine
y gree weather. Yeah, it is a bucket list to
go see a game there in.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Buffalo last season for the old stadium. So yeah, yeah,
it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 5 (01:31:52):
Do the whole thing.

Speaker 7 (01:31:53):
Yeah, like I want to do the whole thing, Like
I want to wear snowsuit and sit in snow.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
Piles with ketchup and mustard o ron.

Speaker 7 (01:32:02):
Hey if it keeps me warm.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
I you're gonna jump through a table?

Speaker 7 (01:32:05):
Oh, are you gonna try to do that this? No,
you don't need another body part. No, you're too old
for the AJA.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
I'm gone. It's over for me.

Speaker 7 (01:32:12):
Michelle's listening, like, please, I'm dealing with my knee. We
don't need another body part getting replaced around.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
I'm on the back nine. Some days I'm at the
clubhouse getting a hot dog at the turn. Other days
I'm putting out at eighteen and You're gone, and I'm
gonna take a step off.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
And I'll be dead.

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
She's Sarah release It's the Snort Report this morning on
The Scott Sloan Show. Catch her over on The Kid
Chris Show. On one of two seven eb N weekday
morning Sarah Release the Snort Report on the Home of
the Best Bengals coverage seven hundred witty since