Brian talks with Liz Keating this morning

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
John nine first Ony one. The forecast, I have variably
cloudy day to day, possible rain isolated. They say between
noon and five high of seventy seven overnight, a few clouds,
fifty seven for the low. We're gonna have a sunny
day tomorrow with the highest seventy eight, few clouds overnight.
They'll drop the fifty four and seventy six for the
high on Saturday with sunny sky fifty one. Right now,
let's get to a traffic out date.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Or not.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Somebody check on Chuck Ingram at b Friday E. Folks,
we have opportunities in November. Maybe you choose a different path.
Because what the definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again expecting a different result. One
of the results a high crime rate in downtown Cincinnati,
crumbling infrastructure. They think they might want to get on that.
Someone who may very well be able to turn the tide.

(00:50):
Liz Keating, former Counseloran. Liz Keating has made it. She
got enough signatures to be on the ballot in November,
and we're all going to vote for rite. Listeners, welcome
back to the fifty five KRSE Morning Show. Been too long,
list Keening. Good to have you on the program.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Thank you so so much for having me. It has
been too long, but still listening to you every day. Yeah,
I don't feel like I've gone very far.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, you know, time flies the older you get. Everybody
knows that it goes by so quickly. It was twenty
twenty when you were appointed by Judge Ralph Winkler to
take over PG sit and fell seat after he got suspended.
We got to go all the way back to the
PG sitting fell days. You're the last Republican to serve
on Council, and that's heartbreaking in and of itself, considering
all the problems we have in Cincinnati, which just keep

(01:32):
getting worse and worse every year. The roads are one
illustration of that. What were four hundred million dollars in
the hole? This is a problem that's been building for decades.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
It is it is.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
It is something that's been an issue for a while.
And when I did serve on council, that's what we
focused on. We focused on being much more efficient and
effective with the test pair dollars and making sure that
we were investing in in long term success of the
city and putting money away in the Rainy Day Fund
to be able to set us up when you know

(02:05):
you do have massive things happened like at COVID or
something like that, to be able to have that safety.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Net for the city.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
And honestly, things were a lot more calm when I
was on council, and in the last two years things
have gotten a little.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
A little wild.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
And I'm sad because I think that's hurt the reputation
of the city, and it's hurt our businesses and restaurants
and a lot of the family businesses and the people
who invest in the city and create jobs. And so
I want to go back and make sure that we
get things back in order so we can protect those
people of those families in those businesses, we can get

(02:40):
paychecks going home and create more stability for local government.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well miss allocation of priorities, and especially when I guess
you don't have enough money in any rainy day fund
or any money. Ken kob or FLP president, pointed this
out the other day, reminded me because I'd forgotten about it.
Apparently the city had already authorized. I believe he used
the figure seven and a half million dollars to replace
as opposed to delete the District five headquarters seventeen Joe seventeen. So,

(03:09):
but then Columbia Parkway collapsed, so they took the money
that was supposed to go to the district headquarters and
fix Columbia Parkway, suggesting to me then they don't have
enough money to do both.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, that was before my time, and I Columbia Parkway
collapses before my time. But that is a prime example
as to why we need to be putting the extra
dollars into a Rainy Day fund so that it doesn't
impact real investments that are needed, particularly for things for
public safety. It's creating that foundation that infrastructure to be
able to respond in emergencies and critical fixes when things

(03:44):
do happen and will happen like at Columbia Parkway situation,
and then make sure that it doesn't impact other areas.
And that's something that has been missing the last few
years and that's something that needs to come back.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
We put so much.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Money into the Rainy Day FID during my time. When
I started off a twenty twenty that was a different
era of council. I was on there with Christopher Smitherman,
the vice mayor at the time, and he was I mean,
he was so focused on fiscal responsibility, as was I,
and we put so much money into the Rainy Day
fives and my turn between twenty and twenty one and

(04:21):
twenty twenty three, we did the same thing. Continue to
invest in that and have that safety net, and things
have kind of fallen by the wayside.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, do we know where that money went loose?

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Keating that money went to, I mean it went to
fixes for the Columbia Parkway disaster. If you look at
some of the carryover money leftover money this past year
and in the budgets, are giving money away to all
kinds of different groups rather than investing in city administration

(04:51):
and investing in things that maybe the causes of crime,
that would help our law enforcement be able to go
after the violent criminal and other issues. We need to
be investing in the right things, not just you know,
pet projects, and you know friends of friends and other
groups that are just doing interesting things that may be
politically expedient to talk about.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, and whether they're doing interesting things things that might
benefit this or not, it seems to be a big
question mark. There doesn't seem to be any follow up.
And I've heard non governmental organizations and their hand in
the cookie jar or the city taxpayer dollars is a
huge problem, and that quite often that that money is
at least believed to be by folks like me sent
out to these NGOs who do a lot of campaigning

(05:34):
for the candidates who provided them with the funding, which
means they're not putting a lot of money and resources
to fix whatever problem is. They're getting money to fix
zero accountability.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
When I was there, we created a new system of
giving out leverage support, so that's money to these other
organizations in the community that can do things faster, more
efficiently because they're leaners than government and bureaucer to be
able to handle things that local government needs handled.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
And a lot of that is programs that help reduce
the causes of crime.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
And what we did is we had a system where
we used data. They had to apply, they had to
show their metrics, they had to show the exact project
that they'd be spending the money on and how it
was working and how effective they were, and then we
use the administration to help score that based on how
the administration you know, spends their money in the projects

(06:31):
they work on and how effective they thought those organizations
were in complementing the work that was going on with
local government, So we.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Really took the politics out of it.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
And used data, quantitative and qualitative to decide who gets
that money. And a lot of that has kind of
gone away this year. If you look at the budget,
a lot of organizations were put in there without having
to go through the Leverage support application, which creates much
more transparency for the public.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
And as I've been told, that's because the mayor and
the city the manager are the ones that pick and
choose which organizations get money and how much.

Speaker 5 (07:05):
Council Council is the one new votes on it, and
you can you can see the council motions that came
in with all kinds of organizations that were added in
and when.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
Council passed their budget.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
And that's why I am working really really hard to
get back on council to get much more structure and
transparency and more data driven approach to those organizations that
should have the money, because they're the ones that help
amplify and complement the work that's going on in the
administration to help support things like our law enforcement to

(07:40):
reduce crime and help them out, especially when they're so
short staffed.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
As opposed to what we currently perceive to have, which
is a rubber stamp. You have all Democrats, you get
a Democrat mayor and a Democrat city manager deciding which
organizations get the money. You set it over to council
for approval or rejection. It's going to get approved. That's
the bottom line. Nobody's going to buck the mayor for
all Democrats. Liz Keating pause. I'm going to bring it
back at your thoughts and comments about crime and what's

(08:05):
been going on lately with the beatdown and other issues
of crime, including Sarah Heringer's issue with the ankle monitor
situation seven thirty seven. Right now fifty five KRC detalk station.
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one forecasts variably cloud in Today, We're gonna go up
to seventy seven degrees and have an opportunity for isolated
rain starting at noon and lasting until around five over night,
a few clouds, and fifty seven for the low sunny

(09:33):
skies tomorrow with the highest seventy eight few clouds overnight
fifty four. Saturday is going to be sunny as well
with the highest seventy six fifty two degrees. Right now,
it'se what Chuck has on traffic.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Maybe from the UCM Traffics Center. Trusts the same team
for your care that keeps the uc Bearcats on the field.
Count on you see Health Northopedix sand Sports Medicine no
matter the injury visit U see health dot com. Heavy
traffic on the highways northbound fourth seventy one backing up
past Grand northbound seven twenty one now slow approaching the
lateral in Ginwood and southbound heavy from above Field Zirtle

(10:05):
passed Red Bank North Bend seventy five's over a fifteen
minute delayed turf way into town. Chuck Ingram Hunt fifty
five KRSS the talk station.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
It's seven forty one to fifty five krs de talk station.
You do have a choice. You've got a lot of
choices as we get forward closer November election for the
City of Cincinnati residence anyway, Liz Keating one of the choices.
She got enough signature she's on the ballot. Another opportunity
to steer the ship in a better direction, at least
give us some mixed ideas. One size does not fit
all when it comes to government, and you end up

(10:38):
with that rubber stamp concept I mentioned at the close
of the last segment Liz Keating pivoting over to crime.
I think most of the residents of the city of Cincinnati,
most notably depending on which neighborhood they live and are
going to argue that, you know, there is a real
crime problem in the city, that the officials, most notably
the mayor and other council people, seem to try to
convince us that we can't believe our own eyes. You know,

(11:00):
crime is down, crime is down amid swirling allegations of
manipulation of the crime statistics. Whether that goes on in Cincinnati,
I don't know. But I talked to Sarah Heringer and
it was really awful thing to hear her Over the
Rhine resident her husband murdered in their apartment building by
a guy who was off his ankle monitor for months
ahead of time. This local police didn't know that nobody
alerted him, but that she in her dead husband, her

(11:23):
late husband, her gunfires so often in over the Rhine
that they just practically ignored it. They became callous to
the reality it was a day in and day out occurrence.
That's terrible. You become callous to gunfire right next to
you in your neighborhood. Matter of fact, her husband, Patrick
had to hit the ground in their apartment because a
bullet came whizen by so close he thought it was

(11:44):
going to hit him. I mean, this is a genuine problem.
We can't argue, is not there.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
Absolutely not. You know, I'm a big data person.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
I think there's so many aspects of local government that
should be data driven to take the politics out. But
when it comes to crime and safety and the perception
of safety, it doesn't matter what the what the data says.
So long as there is one gunshot, so long as
there's one person getting hurt or robbed or anything, we
should not be satisfied with that. We should we cannot

(12:17):
be satisfied until we get it to zero. The number
one job of government is to keep people safe, and
the perception of safety is a key part of that.
If people don't feel safe, they're not going to be here,
they're not going to go out, they're not going to
go frequent The restaurants and businesses, particularly in downtown and
OTR that are hurting in this kind of economy. We've
got to be able to do better. And I want

(12:38):
to see not the excuses and not pointing to the
data that crime is going down. I want to see
people still taking action. Councils should be talking about this,
figuring out what we can what went wrong, and how
we can fix it, and now we can continue to
improve like there should be this relentless pursuit to continue
to improve safety and the perception of people's safety within

(13:02):
the City of Cincinnati. And until we get to that mindset,
I fear that it's just going to continue.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Well, and that necessitates hiring a whole bunch of additional
police officers, since our contingent of officers is off a
couple of hundred at least. And again going back to
FLP President Kencover on the program saying, we got people
retiring every day. We can't keep up with this attrition
that's going on. You know, we can line up all
the future classes we want, but it takes a long

(13:28):
time to certify a police officer, get them through the class.
Lateral hires. I don't know how that's going to work out.
I haven't even heard about any progress on lateral hires.
That seems the easiest way to get more officers on
the street. But will we be able to easily hire
lateral officers? I mean, I guess I'm kind of puzzling
over whether that can actually happen if there's a willingness
of officers out in the world to move to the
City of Cincinnati or otherwise become employed as an officer here.

(13:52):
I mean, it's possible that money isn't everything, and that
even though they may be making less elsewhere, it's a
safer job to perform.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Not just safer, but it's the.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
Politics of the job.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
And until we get to the point that the politicians
are standing behind law enforcement and supporting them and doing
their job and giving them the resources that they need,
it is a really, really hard job to do, and
the morale it's very very low, and particularly when no
one's going to back you up when you actually start
going after you know, the crime, the causes of crime,

(14:27):
and the violent criminals to get them.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Off the street, to keep people safe.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
It shouldn't be a question every single day if I
do my job, am I going to be supported are
people going to back me up? And am I are
people going to stand up for me and support me?
Like could you imagine going to work every single day
and not knowing whether or not your company, your bosses,
your managers are supporting you and encouraging you to do
your actual job versus being in fear all the time

(14:53):
of actually doing something that you're being paid to do.
It's a terrible situation right now, and so much that
is the role of counsel. They should consistently be supporting
law enforcement, giving them the resources that they need to
do their job. And while we're also while we're helping
law enforcement go after those who commit crime, we should
also be working with law enforcement to go after the

(15:15):
causes of crime and invest in the programs that show
help reduce crime to make their jobs.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Easier, demonstrably show that not just theoretically don't send the
money out, they have a plan that actually has shown
that it bears fruit. One more with Liz Keating. Hold on, yep,
one more with Liz Keating. We'll bring it back right
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Here's your channel nine first warning one forecast. We have
a variably cloudy day to day. I have seventy seven,
an opportunity for isolated rain between five and five tonight,
few clouds, fifty seven Tomorrow sunny and seventy eight overnight,
a few clouds and fifty four and a sunny Saturday

(16:47):
with the highest seventy six fifty two degrees.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Now let's get another traffic update from the UC up
Traffics Center. Trust the same team for your care that
keeps the UC Bearcats on the field. Count On. You
see howth orthopedix and supports medicine no matter the injury visit.
You see how dot com heavy traffic on the highways
now including inbound seventy four break lights from North Bend
northbound seventy fives over a fifteen minute delay out of

(17:11):
Florence in northbound fourth seventy one facts past Grand there's
a wreck on Tyler's Still below Hamilton, Mason chut King
Ramont fifty five kr seat the talk station.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Seven at fifty five KRSD talk station Brian Thomas enjoyed
my conversation with Liz Keating. You have an opportunity to
vote for our November and my resident friends in the
City of Cincinnati. Please do add Christopher Smithman to the list.
And we've got others that are worthy choices, demonstrably intelligent.
So uh, and not all Democrats. We have Charter rights.

(17:47):
We get some Democrats in a different option. We have
Liz Keating running as a Republican again, and I wish
you all the best in the world. You know, I
guess my my perception of crime as well as the
roads Liz and other problems. The City of Cincinnati doesn't
seem to be forward thinking. What they are doing is reacting.
You got a terrible situation. Oh my god, we have
this brawl in downtown Cincinnati the end of July. We

(18:08):
got Sarah Herringer getting her husband murdered in their own home. Obviously,
these kind of things get on everybody's radar, and people
start talking about, oh my god, we got to do
something about crime. Changing the narrative we are used to
from the mayor and the city council members, which is
to not even talk about police noneth You have much
less support them. So they react and mayor have to

(18:28):
have pro Wall goes out and now accepts Governor de
Wine's offer of assistance. On a variety of areas, some
of which seem to have nothing to do with the
problems that we've recently faced. But they reacted by talking
about supporting the police, talking about hiring new officers, talking
about giving additional two million dollars for lateral that came
after the fact, much like the roads, the roads deteriorate.
We're four hundred million dollars in the hole now because

(18:49):
they don't stay up in one of the primary jobs
they have, which is to deal with infrastructure. React, react, react.
It doesn't sound like me to me, you're a reactive person.
You're rather forward thinking, and you want to get in
in front of problems. Liz, do you know about any
other problems we need to get in front of before
it all hits.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
The fan, Because there's a lot of problems to get
ahead of. And that's what I did on council before
and that's what I look forward to doing when I
get back on this time around.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
You know, I have.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
Business experience, and you run a business being able to
forecast and understand what's coming and to spate what's coming.
You invest your money into the ideas, in the programs
and the processes that are going to be able to
help you navigate any future challenges that you may see
coming or may not see coming, like you talked about

(19:38):
Columbia Parkway earlier, to be able to manage that.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
You use data driven.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Approaches, to be able to figure out where the best
return on investment is for your money. It's so much
of that, and it's constantly thinking forward. What is the
best for Cincinnati, What is the best for our city?
What is the best to set us.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
Up for a better future.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
It's not what is most politically expedient, what is trending
on Twitter today. You can't get caught up in what
the talk is today. You constantly have to look much
further down the line. You know you talked about the signatures.
I got over seventeen hundred signatures in.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
Less than a week.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
So thank you to all those who there who helped
past petitions and sign them.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
But I had my four year old and my six
year old with me.

Speaker 6 (20:25):
For several of those hours that at Saint Mary's Festival
at at Farmer's Market, and they were carrying the clipboards
and the pens and helping me, and they were listening
to what all the voters were talking about when they
were signing the petition and my six year old said
to me, Mama, did city council fix all.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
The cracks in the ground? Is that what they're supposed
to do? And it's like if a six year old,
it shouldn't be that hard, it should not be that hard,
you know.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
That's that's our job is to take care of people,
take care of the taxpayer dollars and just you know,
fix the crass from the ground.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Well, in a demonstrable admission of absolute incompetence this contest,
they hired a firm at fifty thousand dollars to reach
out to the general public to see if the general
public had any ideas about how to better deal with
the pothole situation, you know, for a five thousand dollars
reward for a team or an individual who can come
up with a better way. I mean, isn't that an
acknowledgement that they don't know what the hell they're doing
if they have to ask the general public on a

(21:24):
better way to fix potholes?

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Liz, Well, you know what I will say, I actually
started that program several years ago, and what it is
is that the partnership with our startup.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
Ecosystem in Cincinnati.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Cincinnati has a very robust startup ecosystem that drives innovation,
and we have been rated as the region in the
country that is most likely to get a unicorn, which
means a startup that grows to over a billion dollars.
In my mind, if we partner with all those innovators
in Cincinnati, if we partner with our business community and

(21:59):
then take the problems of local government, we can probably
come up with new innovative approaches which then may be
able to create a new company and sell into other
municipalities because every municipality has the same problems. So that
program has continued. So that's that is part of that,
and it's taking something that the city has struggled with

(22:21):
that we haven't been able to solve internally, nor has
any other city across the country, and then working with
the startup ecosystem, and then getting the business community to
invest to create those prize that prize money, which is
what you see the five thousand dollars coming from. That's
from the private sector. To then create a new idea

(22:42):
and see if we can spin it off into a
business and create jobs while also solving this problem. I
did it when I was on counsel. We did it
with litter. We did it with housing, figuring out ways
that we can better build housing, prevent eviction, which costs
a lot of money when you're spending money on homeless shelters.

(23:02):
We you know, we looked at snowplows, and now this
is looking at potholes, which is.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
A huge problem, huge problem.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Hopefully it will result in new business and new jobs
and new revenue for the city.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Well, let's hope, and let's hope they advanced the idea
of maintaining roads, bridges, and infrastructure ahead of well for example,
I know Christopher Smillen has pointed this on AFT have
Provoll said he views every issue in the City of
Cincinnati primarily through and first and foremost equity and the environment.
I think if he's prioritizing equity and the environment before

(23:37):
maybe logical, rational, rational, reasonable solutions like how to fix
the potholes, then we're never going to get there. I mean,
this is his priorities. This is maybe why we are
in the state we're in right now.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Liz, Yeah, I mean we are constantly going out talking
to voters and hearing what they're concerned about, and that's
where government should be focused because if people don't feel safe,
if there cancerned about the roads, the infrastructure, you know,
that's where we should be investing our money to make
it a fun, safe, and a lively place for people

(24:11):
to live, to work, to raise their family.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
If we start losing.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
People out to the suburbs, we're really going to be hurting.
And those suburbs are going to hurt too, because Cincinnati
really is that epicenter and what happens in Cincinnati impacts
all the areas around us, the whole.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Tri state area. Liz Keating, real quick, what's your website
so people can help you out? Get a T shirt,
put the arts on in the front yard, or donate
to your campaign.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
Vote Liz Keating dot com.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
There you are, vote Liz Keating dot com. We'll have
Joe add that to the fifty five car seed page.
My page at fifty five car seed dot com. Liz,
we'll talk again before November, I hope, and I wish
you all the best in your effort to become since
a counselman.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
Again, thank you so so much.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
I appreciate you having me on and thanks to all
of those who helped sign those petitions and I will
not be outworked over the next two months.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
We are going to work our tailoff and get back
to council and get things back in order.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
I know you are good luck on that. I know
my listeners have your back. Seven fifty seven and fifty
five krs The Talk Station. John Barrett coming up after
the top of the hour News. We'll have a little
bit of time to talk and be on at eight
fifteen talk about Riverfest. He's the president's CEO of Western
and Southern. Of course they sponsored the fireworks. Then we'll
hear from Jay Ratliffe at eight thirty. Please stick around
today's top headlines coming up at the top of the hour.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
Something always happens when you leave expected.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Fifty five krs The Talk Station.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
This report is sponsored by Cincinnati