Aaron Weiner - For City Council

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If I had beat talk station, It's seven twenty nine
here fifty five KRSD talk station. Happy Tuesday. We get
the inside scoop from bright bart News on the situation
of Middle East peace. We'll get the Daniel Davis Deep
Dive coming up in one hour. In the meantime. Welcome
back to the fifty five CARSSE Morning Show run for
CINCINNTI Council as a Charter Right candidate Aaron Weiner, who

(00:23):
also has congratulations Aaron, welcome back the FOP endorsement on
the heels of ken Cobra being on the program. Good
to have you back on.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Sir, Thanks for having me. It's great to be back.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I guess one of the reasons you have the FOP endorsement,
and again, congratulations. I think that speaks volumes right. That's
a really good one. Now you've got an actual written
down for all to see and read proposal, which is
a two prong approach to deal with the police staffing
shortage and the problems we've got going on the city

(00:54):
of Cincinnati. One is the Frontline Home Advantage Program initial CAP,
and the other the Officer Retention Incentive strategy. Break these
down for my listeners because I think that, I mean,
we need more police officers. There's a shortage of officers,
stating the obvious for the world to hear. Everywhere. Everyone
has lost officers because of this whole crap about defunding

(01:16):
police and police are all racists and nobody wants to
be a police officer. Fine, so we're competing with every
other jurisdiction in the land for police officers. We're already
down a couple of one hundred liars. You got hang
a carrot of incentive out there, and I think that's
what your program is talking about. So let's talk about
the Frontline Home Advantage Program.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Erin great thank you. So when I got into this,
I wanted to actually have some plans. I didn't want
to just have ideas get on count. So I wanted
to make sure that I actually had a plan, and
I wanted to use what I knew, and that's real estate.
So the front the first prong of the Frontline Home
Advantage Program is a down payment assistance program. Let's bring

(02:00):
police officers back into our city. I don't think any
of many live in the city. And the first part
of that is a downtayment assistance program. So let's just
say that you save up to seven thousand, five hundred dollars,
we'll match seven thousand, five hundred dollars. All of a sudden,
you have fifteen thousand dollars to put down on a property.

(02:24):
So that's five percent of a three hundred thousand dollars house,
which is probably about the average price of a house
right now. The other portion of that is a rental
assistance program. Not all officers are going to be in
a position maybe they want to buy right away. So
let's develop a plan where we give some rental stipends,

(02:45):
you know, two hundred and fifty dollars up to eight
hundred dollars. Let's bring in some of our landlords in
the neighborhoods. Let's talk to town properties, talk to uptown and
see if they can give us some breaks on this
to to bring people into the city.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
And well, Darren, I got let me just introject real
quick on that component. I always thought, you know, having
a police officer in the neighborhood was a good thing.
Like when we were selling our house in Oak Park, Illinois,
there was a cop that lived about four doors down
the street, and so when someone would come to our house.
My wife would always make a point of the Hey,
you know there's a police officer. It's just a few

(03:22):
doors down. It's like, hey, you sort of have this
built in extra protection. Not that you're volunteering a police
officer to do law enforcement twenty four to seven, but
I think it is sort of a peace of mind
thing that goes along with the rental, like, hey, you
got a cop in the building. Isn't that a good thing?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Absolutely, you're touching on. Really one of the one of
the main byproducts in the holistic aspect of this of
this program is that it addresses lots of issues and
solving crime is not is not a quick fix. It's
a long term process. So what it does it does
it brings leadership into our communities all of a sudden,
people have someone that can look up to. Maybe children

(04:02):
have someone they can look up to, maybe want to
be a police officer someday. It also brings, like you said, visibility,
they're going to bring the cop cards home. You know what,
Lanlard wouldn't want a police officer living in they're building.
And I think also also to what it does Brian,
which is I don't think anyone would have a problem
with this, no matter where you are politically. It deals

(04:23):
with the issue of trust, right, so all of a sudden,
someone is your neighbor. It's hard to be indifferent when
someone's your neighbors. So you have that you build that
trust with with our police officers, which really speaks to
the community policing, which is which is a cornerstone of
our policing in the city. So to me, it's just
so many It solves so many issues in this process.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
I love the idea. The only counter argument to the
incentives you're suggesting for living in the city of Cincinnati
is does requiring a police officer to live within the
city limits operate as a disincentive for outside lateral hires,
Because clearly we have some issues in the city of

(05:06):
sin saying in terms of crime and living and all
that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Let me be clear, first of all, it's not even
legal to require them to live here. This is an incentive.
This is a way to it's a recruiting incentive, and
it's a way to add a carrot to our recruiting
process and just an incentive. And with the cost of
rents now, especially some of the younger police officers. If

(05:31):
they're getting a break on their rent, it might be
an easy incentive for them to want to come and
work with us. So it's absolutely not a mandate, and
I do not want that to be misconstrued. It's an incentive.
It's an incentive.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
It's there for the taking. If it operates as an
incentive for a lateral higher than bully for everybody, it worked,
So I like it. I really really like the idea
of having a physical police officer sort of in my
building or as my neighbor. I'll emphasize that yet again,
let's pause. That was the Frontline Home Advantage program. There's
another component to what Aaron's running on, and this is

(06:05):
the officer retention incentive strategy. We'll break that down. We
get back at seven thirty five right now, fifty five
K station at fifty five ar ce DE talk station
and find him online help out his campaign. Aaron Winer
on the program, returning It's Winer w E I N
E R four f O R Cincinnati dot com. Check

(06:26):
out his website. He's common sense guy and real quickly
before leaving the Frontline Home Advantage Program, providing some financial
assistance to police officers to get a home or some
rent assistance. You are you've been in real estate for
I understand like twenty five years, so you understand this component.
But the funding for this particular program you're you're suggesting

(06:48):
will be from, at least in part, participating realtors with
a reduction their commission to help deal with that rent reduction.
That's and the seventy five hundred dollars toward purchase of
a home. So do you have folks who are willing
to participate beyond you erin?

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Well, I think let's let's let's let's start with that.
That to be candid, I would I would recuse myself
from doing this program if I were an elected official, jute,
just to.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know, avoid the appearance of impropriety. Yes, I get it.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
In propriety correct, I would certainly be an ardent supporter
of it. But yes, so as a realtor, we we're
it's basically called an acinity program, and certainly they have
them with the hospitals, they have them with with UC
and we're used to if we're working with the relocation
company bringing someone in with Procter and Gamble, we're used

(07:43):
to paying a referral fee for that business. And certainly
it's not ideal and some agents like to do it.
Some agents don't like to do it, but it's certainly
a part of our business model. We're independent contractors. Either
you do it or you don't. But these referral fees
can be anywhere between thirty five and forty five percent
of the commission that's earned in the sale. So yeah,

(08:06):
people are gonna say, how are you going to pay
for this? Aaron, Well, we've got an industry that's willing
to participate. And I'll tell you I've I've talked to
local people here at called Wall Banker. You know, we're
a big company. It has to go up to flagpole.
But I talked to Scott Nelson, who's a dear friend
of mine and a brilliant mind in real estate. He
loved the idea. Has to obviously think through the strategics

(08:29):
of it, and I'm sure Sis Decline haven't talked to
them yet, and a lot of the other agents what
would have follow So yes, it's something that we as
an industry I think can easily do. And like I
said in the beginning of the show, I wanted to
do something that I could do. I wanted to have
action plans, and this is what I.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Know clearly, And we're not talking about a massive volume
of money here. I mean, how many police officers do
we have collectively? It's around nine hundred. We need about
twelve hundred or so. So the number of people that
would be able to participate in this is not significant
in terms of loss of commission. So I I it's
sound proposal. I really do believe erin.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Now.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
The other thing, yeah, I know, it's it makes great
sense to me and officers who choose to reside in
Since any one final component of that plan a thousand
dollars annual residency bonus, I think that seems to be
quite doable.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Absolutely, absolutely, and honestly, I want to offer this to
the police office that are currently serving our city but
maybe live out in the suburbs. Let's let's give let's
let's give it to them too. Let's bring them in
the city as well. I mean, we want people in
the city to let let's bring them there too. Maybe
maybe someone who lives in Green Township they're empty nesters.

(09:38):
Let's bring them to one of our condos downtown something
like that. Let's let's let's offer that to them too.
And I definitely want to expand on this. It's a
pilot program. Let's let's open it up to our fire
at some point. Let's let's maybe talk about do we
want this for teachers again, Let's it's bringing leadership into
the city for for these these long term goals. So

(09:59):
this is this is to where I see this going
long term. But this is my pilot right now.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Fair enough, now we are losing experienced officers. I am
painfully aware of people officers who are in the DROP program,
which I think last about five years. They're just saying,
forget about it. I'm done. I can't handle this anymore.
I'm dropping out a drop and I'm just going to retire,
or they're leaving for other police forces. Going back to
this lateral higher phenomenon, if you're a sinst police officers,

(10:25):
some other jurisdiction would love to have you working for them.
So how do we deal with this? You have an
officer retention incentive strategy to address this problem.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Correct, correct, So there's several facets to that as well.
And just to give a background, so you only got
like three pages of three or four pages of this report,
and it's a fifteen page report that we've done research
on me and my staff, and it's working in different
in different cities like Baltimore and Detroit and Los Angeles

(10:54):
and there have you. So we're used to hearing the
people who are getting buyofs to retire early. Well, this
is a buy in. So this is this is sort
of paying people to stay longer, just to give you
some data. So let's say you're you're getting ready to retire,
Maybe you'll get five thousand dollars if you stay an
extra year, Maybe you stay three additional years as we

(11:18):
ramp up on our staffing, up to twelve thousand dollars
to stay instead of leave. It involves one time retention
retention dollars. Let's say you're maybe you're working in a
more stressful location of the city and you're thinking about

(11:40):
a one time incentive targeted incentives. This is focused on
retention for officers with the five to fifteen years experience, who,
like you said, might be attracted to go to Blue
ash or Green Township or Springfield Township where I grew up.
So these are just some of the ways of keeping
people rewarding them for staying on and investing in our city.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
You know what an interesting concept erin. I know that
there are private businesses out in the world to offer
bonuses annually for you know, valuable employees. It's a wonderful
thing to know that if you have a big bonus potential,
it kind of keeps you on your toes and gives
you an incentive to work a little bit harder. So
I have no fault with paying our police officers a
little bit more, and I like the idea of keeping

(12:25):
them around longer. The experience is so so important. Aaron Winer,
it's a winerforth Cincinnati dot com. You know, how's the
campaign going. You're running as a charter right, and I
know you're a great alternative to the status quo we've
got on council. How you feeling out there as you
go from neighborhood to neighborhood and campaigning.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
You know, you know, I feel great and truthfully, this
has been has been a great experience for me. I'm
getting a lot of good reception. I'm listening to people.
I'm hearing their concerns. People are saying they hear they
see they've seen my name, they've heard me on the radio,
they've read about me, and also I you know, I'm

(13:05):
immersed in a lot of different communities throughout the city,
and I've been involved in a lot of different things
through throughout my lifetime, so I feel like my exposure
is good. I would say in terms of the new candidates,
I'm probably one of the strongest, if not the strongest.
So I feel good.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Bold statement that's great erin I'm glad you're that it's
all working out for you, and you an impressive resume,
and I'll strongly encourage my listeners to check out your
website and look what you've been up to for the
last twenty five years. Fourth generation in Cincinnati, and you're
involved in a lot of different things, including you have
a history and connection with the Cincinni Public Schools. Apparently
your mom a retired special education teacher with since A

(13:41):
public schools, so you have connection there, but also on
the boards of the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Federation
of Cincinnati, you served on the board of governors with
the Human Rights Campaign, on and on and on. A
demonstrably strong record and some sound ideas for policing. Aaron,
It's been a pleasure speaking with you again, and I
hope we get a chance to talk again before THEE
in November. And a reminder to listeners early voting is open.

(14:04):
Get over to the Board of Elections, cast a vote
for the ones that count, not all nine. I suggest
maybe throwing a vote Aaron Winer's way. Erin good talking
with the great ideas, and I look forward to talking
to you again real soon.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Thank you, thank you for the opportunity