Cory Bowman - Running for Mayor of Cincinnati

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's seven thirty two fifty five KRCD Talks Station. I've
been looking forward to this since I found out from
West Side Jim Kiefer, who always seems to get the
information before anybody else. He's one of my favorite little
birds feeding me information in studio. Mayor old candidate Corey Bowman. Corey,
great to have you here. I'm glad you made the
trip into the studio.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
And you know, it's a parenthetical for me, because I
doubt you put it on your resume, but I think
it's important for my listeners to know your brother happens
to be the Vice president of the United States of America.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yeah, I'm considering putting on my resume just for the
heck of it, you know, maybe get some benefits there
as well. But yes, he is my half brother on
my father's side.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's inspiring to you or I think you have a
huge measure of pride for him.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
You know, I've just did an interview yesterday and I
just told people that the number one thing is that
he's a big brother to me, and he's a role
model to me.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
You know, he's four years older than me.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
And to be able to see what he's been able
to accomplish, and to be able to see it on
that big of a stage is just so inspiring.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
It's got to be incredible. And I mean, he you know,
I'll be speaking out loud. I'm fifty ifty sixty in September,
and I consider him and you know young young men,
and that I never in my wildest thank you. I
wouldn't imagine, I mean, even in my age, with my
life experience, I mean, taking on a role of even
being mayor of the City of Cincinnati.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I think I'd be out of my element or out
of your mind.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, or people have told me you're running as a
Republican in the city of Cincinnati, and I have to
give and sorry, Taylor, Uh, hold on, where's my reading
glasses on my head? Taylor whiter Weader from WCPO wrote
a little article about you, and he said Cincinnati has
not had a Republican mayor since Bill Gradison Junior in

(01:47):
nineteen seventy one, who was elected after Eugene Rouhman, but
no Ken Blackwell was mayor between nineteen seventy nine and
nineteen eighty. I think he was the last Republican. So
obviously a Sisyphian like challenge for a Republican to become
mayor of the City of Cincinnati. But you know what,
Donald Trump just got elected but and won the popular vote.
People are upset with the direction of the Democrat Party.

(02:10):
So you know, it's within the realm of possibility. Obviously
you wouldn't be taking a stab at running.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, I to be honest with you, this didn't even
cross my mind in recent days, but I put on
a post for my announcement that a few weeks ago
we landed in CVG from coming back from the inauguration.
And one thing, if you know me and my wife
and our family, is that we love the city of Cincinnati.
Oh yeah, and this is just our home. This isn't

(02:38):
a stepping stone. This is like we came here four
years ago, which I'm from the area. I was in
Tampa for nine years, but whenever I came back, we
came back because this is our home. That's where we
want to raise our family. And it wasn't even on
the outskirts. We love the downtown area in Cincinnati proper.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Then as time started, you know, going on and seeing
what happened at the inauguration. I just ended up saying, hey,
is this a realm that can help this city in
my life? And so I looked it up and the
last I saw was all the stats that you just said,
and no Republican mayor since the seventies. And it's basically
like bullies in my mind, and I don't like bullies. Well,

(03:18):
and we need a dissenting opinion. It's an echo chamber.
Since they counseling the mayor, all they do is talk
amongst themselves and say, yeah, you're right, No, you're right,
yet absolutely without anybody raising their hand, just sort of questioning,
like wait a second, hold on, let's contemplate perhaps.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
This or that angle to any particular solution. So that's
exactly how I saw it. Wonderful. All right, Well to
take a break at is break time. We're going to
continue this conversation with Corey Bowman. Corey needs signatures in
order to become a candidate for the mayor of City
of Cincinnati. He's got to collect and submit one thousand
qualified signatures. So everybody gets together and helps support Corey

(03:56):
in his effort along those lines real quick here though,
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(04:19):
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(05:03):
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Speaker 2 (05:13):
Have you taken your family to dip uh nine?

Speaker 1 (05:17):
First forecast? We have an overcast, downer hands with rains
showing up sometime around four pm, and we'll have a
high of thirty six then to thirty five. Overnight showers
and storms are possible, but north of the city northern
counties you may see freezing rain. Tomorrow's high sixty one
with a little rain in the morning, otherwise partly cloudy
over night, partly cloudy as well, with a little thirty
and a mostly sunny Friday, which is good but a

(05:39):
little cooler at a high of forty two to thirty
three degrees. Right now, let's do what Chuck has to
say about traffic. Chuck Ingram from the UC out Traffic Center.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
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If you're at risk, pruss the experts. Hey, do you
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Speaker 1 (05:57):
Expect more you see health.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Dot Com South Bend seventy five continues to build through
block from that there's an accident inbound seventy four after
you got pants north Bend on the left shoulder, slowing
traffic a bit and a wreck and ross on Cincinnati
Brookville at Bay High Chuck King, Vermont fifty five KR
scene the talk station.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Seven fifty five PARRACD talk station. What a great guy.
I'm having a good time talking on and off air
with Corey Bowman, who is running for mayor, at least
he hopes to. He needs signatures, and there's a way
you can help Corey get the signatures. He'll be at
his coffee shop in addition to being the pastor and
founder of the River Church. We're gonna learn about that
from Corey here at a moment. He also with his wife,

(06:39):
owns King's Arms coffee shop.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
He said, it's in the West End. Yes, sir, Yeah,
it's on Bay Miller.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Bay Miller in the West End on a website.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Nineteen hundred Bay Miller Street, and we are it's King's
Arms Coffee dot com.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Wonderful. So if you can show up at King's Arms.
He's actually working today, he said. His head Maurista, has
taken a couple of days off, so behind the counter
he will be, you get to shake hands with him,
meet him and sign a petition to have Corey run
for mayor now pivoting over in addition to the owning
King's Arms coffee shop, the River Church. Tell my listeners
about the mission, the denomination, if there is one, and

(07:15):
how you ended up founding that church.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Absolutely, So, you know, I grew up in the area.
I had what I would call as an encounter with
the Lord, just basically me making that decision for myself
for the first time in my life to follow whatever
God's plan was for my life. I think a lot
of people need to come to that place in themselves.
Don't just get your religion from what you grew up
when with, but you have to make that decision yourself.

(07:39):
So I got to that point about fourteen years ago,
still in Cincinnati area, but I felt, hey, I just
graduated from Miami of Ohio with business, but before I
venture off in anything, I'm going to go to Bible
School in Tampa, Florida. It was a ministry that helped
change my life. It was Pastors Rodney and Donica Howard
Brown in Tampa, Florida.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
That was The River Church.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
So long story short, we basically went to school there
that my wife there started raising our family there. I
was there for nine years, and in the final year
that I was there, COVID happened, and my pastor was
the first one in Florida to be arrested just for having.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Church leader of the resistance I just mentioned off. Eric went,
I mean, have you ever seen the First Amendment of
the United States Constitution trampled on more than during COVID.
Absolutely not freedom of assembly, a free exercise of religion,
freedom of speech, all thrown out the door in the
name of this nonsensical COVID nineteen thing we had going on.

(08:38):
But you could still go to Best Buy.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
No. Absolutely. That was during that time.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
That's when we realized how important local government was because
they could say things from the federal level. But if
the local government is fighting tooth and nail against those
or fighting against the constitution, then that's where the rights
are going to be hindered. And so what happened with
us was that we saw firsthand them trying to shut
down our church. During COVID. We were feeding a thousand

(09:04):
families a week. My wife was the head of a
call center. We were taking prayer calls we had student
body that we were helping as well, many members that
just needed that sense of community, and they were trying
to shut that down. So whenever we saw that firsthand
and all the craziness, that's probably what started a little
bit in me of realizing the importance of local government.

(09:26):
And when that happened during that time, our heart has
always been the people of Cincinnati. You can ask any
of my friends. Whenever I was going to Bible school
or even whenever I was at Miami is that downtown
Cincinnati was my heart. That's where I'm always gonna be.
That's where the Reds games are, That's where Skyline is.
That's where Skyline and Greaters have combined right now, hallelujah.

(09:47):
And so there's all these things that are just ingrained
in me about the city. Well, during that time, we
realized that people were suffering, that people needed that sense
of community, they needed that sense of belonging in the
downtown area. So in twenty twenty, we just packed our
bags and we started the River Church Cincinnati, right in
the middle of all of it.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
That's truly amazing, and I hate that we have taken
another break. We're gonna come back and find out what
Corey's ideas are for the City of Cincinnati if he
were mayor, and I'm looking forward to seeing that and
how he's gonna well deal with the challenges he invariably
will face given the makeup of the political makeup rather
the City of Cincinnati. First of calling electric Andrew Cullen

(10:27):
is an amazing team of electricians there to help you
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Speaker 4 (11:34):
UH.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Here's a nine verse twenty one to forecast cloudy skys today,
rain shown up around four pm and I F thirty six,
showers and storms overnight with maybe some freezing rain to
the north. Overnight low on thirty five sixty one the
high tomorrow, rain in the morning, clouds the rest of
the day, cloudy overnight as well, thirty for the low
and on Friday mostly sunny skies and if forty two
thirty three. Now, let's hear from Chuck Ingram.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
From the uc UP Traffic Center. Heart disease is the
eating cause of death in the US. If you're at risk,
trust the experts at you see help for innovative and
personalized herdcare. Expect more you see help dot Com. Southbound
seventy five continues to build through block when there's an
accident inbound seventy four after you got pants north Ben

(12:17):
on the left shoulder, slowing traffic a bit. And Arek
and Ross on Cincinnati Brookville at Bay High Chucking, Vermont
fifty five krc the talk station.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
A forty eight fifty five KRCD talk station in studio
mayoral candidate Corey Bowman. Assume you can get the thousand
signatures he needs and you can help him out doing that.
Just head on over at some point today or tomorrow.
He's going to be at his coffee shop, King's Arms
coffee Shop. And you can also consider checking out the
River Church, which is Pastor Bowman's church.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Where's the church located right in the west end Still,
it's right, it's about a block away from Taft High School,
and it's rock Cross Street from Stargul Football Stadium where
the CPS.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
And it's it is non denominational, it's just it's it's
christ base. It's it's Bible based, but you don't adhere
to like a Catherine doctor and Episcopalian doctrine or.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, no, I just tell people A lot of times
people ask if it's non denominational, but that's kind of
becoming a denomination itself, and people kind of assume something
about that as well.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Ross Roads exactly.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
I wish it, you know, not bad talking to any
of these others. I basically just tell people we believe
the Bible, we believe the power of God, and that's
something we've received and that we want other people to experience.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Father of three with one on the way, when's your
When does your wife do?

Speaker 2 (13:34):
For this is to do at the end of June
early July.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, I wish you all the best in the world
on that, Thank you, family man. He is all right.
Pivoting over to politics, of course, being the mayor of
the City of Cincinnati, of all's politics. You obviously perceived
the city to be going in the wrong direction. Otherwise
you wouldn't want to challenge mayor. I have to have purvall,
what's your plan for the city? What do you want
to accomplish? If you were in that role.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Well, I think what got me started on it was
the fact that there was wasn't really any opposition. And
like what we talked about earlier, you cannot be in
an echo chamber. There has to be conversation, There has
to be debate, there has to be differences of opinion.
Over the last years of being downtown, I've had a
chance to talk with people on the streets, leaders in

(14:19):
the community, but also just residents that are suffering. And
we don't start the conversation off with hey, I'm blue,
you're red or whatever. We actually just like talk about
experience and then whatever the conversation leads to. It was
not based on the side. It was based on the
experience and what common sense might.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Be perceived solutions as opposed to politics governing the discussion exactly. Yeah,
we live in such a divided society. You could come
up with the best idea in the world, but if
you articulate it by saying, you know, I'm a Republican
and I think we should do this, the other side
just can immediately say no, yeah, yeah, I hate that
about politics.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
And I believe a reporter asked me yesterday are you
running as a Republican or Democrat? And I just I
told her, I said, well, in the city, you can't
run as a Republican or Democrats a non parson you know,
you know, actual position. But I will say that my
views are on the side of more conservative, but that
doesn't mean that there isn't a room for debate and conversation.

(15:17):
What I've seen over the last four years of being
downtown is that first and foremost, I love the city.
I'm not here to say this. You know, city as
a hell hole and we need to fix everything. There's
a reason why I love the city so much. I
believe this is and people think I'm biased, which I am,
but I truly believe it's the greatest city on the
face of the earth. It's the queen City, It's the
epicenter of the Midwest. I really believe that has the

(15:39):
greatest potential of any city that we see in our area.
But I truly believe also that there's policies that have
been in place over the last four years that have
really hindered an acceleration of growth in our city and
also has left certain communities just left in the dust.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, that's typically the case, and you'll hear from those
communities every time a new election comes around. You know,
are you going to come over here and pay attention
to us for a change in terms of prioritization law enforcement?
You in favor and pro law enforcement, not as opposed
to being a defund police, kind of anti polity.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
We have to support our public offices and we have
to support our police department. I think one of the
biggest things is that you have to increase the morale
and the out how people perceive law enforcement is that
law enforcement we are at the coffee shop. When police
officers come by, they're there to help the community, they're
there to protect the community. And we're living in a

(16:35):
city to where people are actually afraid to make a report.
Businesses specifically sometimes are afraid for the cops to even
come because if it's a false alarm, instead of just saying, hey,
we're here to help, they get a fee because it
was a false alarm. And so these are things to
where that's on the individuals of the police department. Those

(16:56):
are just policies and a culture that we need to
kind of change. Just realize we back the police department,
we back our fire department, but they're here to help
the community.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Okay, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you what
your stand is on we already got one leg your
stance on a streetcar expansion.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
I believe that public transportation is a huge issue, and
I think that if you are in the city, infrastructure, roads,
these are things that have to be a priority. Sometimes
we put these blanket statements on things based on issues
that don't really affect the everyday people. The streetcar is
a huge topic. I will say this that being downtown,
the streetcar does benefit certain people and it is a

(17:39):
good thing. But there are certain ways that's been implemented
or perceived, or maybe putting too much effort into something
that could be put into something else. I believe that
you just got to look at it and kind of
just rethink some things.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Well, and we're not going to unring that bell, but
you know, my favorite gripe is, you know the sunset.
The road has been in a state of horrific districts
for probably fifteen years, if not longer, and no one's
ever bothered to fix it. And I'm not the only one.
We had a caller that used to call every once
in a while named Fred, and he's like, fix my street.

(18:12):
I just want my street fixed. And infrastructure seems to
be falling apart while the powers that be are pursuing
all these you know, bright and shiny objects.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
I also think too, that people wouldn't be as frustrated
about it if they weren't promised for the last four
years that the purchases and the money and the funding
that have come in will go toward infrastructure. If anything,
this last winter has showed that that money isn't being
used properly.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, I certainly echo that sentiment. And then of course
we have outstanding pension problems. Not sure that you're capable
of dealing with that, but it's got to be a
priority at some point because people are going to be
relying on that.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Well.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, I think that you know this term and this
is actually ring true with the federal government as well
as One of the biggest issues is we have to
manage my properly. We have to be able to look
at our budgets, we have to be able to look
at what's coming in. I truly believe that there's plenty
to be able to take care of our city, to
be able to take care of these issues, but it

(19:11):
comes down to money management. If you're not a good
steward of what you've been given, you know, I'll just
you know, quote the Bible says, if you're faithful with
a little, you'll be ruled over much. And so if
and I'm not saying that Cincinnati has little. We have plenty.
We have great people, we have great resources, and we
have great funding. But I truly believe that the management
of that needs to be reevaluated in order to focus

(19:35):
on the issues that are really important to people.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Corey Bowman, he is learning for mayor. If he gets
the signatures you can help him out. And doing that,
I'm sure he'll be other places beyond King's Arms coffee Shop,
which is where you'll find him today and tomorrow, behind
the counter making you up a great cup of coffee
and having a petition there to get him on the ballot.
I wish you all the best of luck. I really do.
It would be a refreshing alternative to the status quo

(19:58):
we've been dealing with for a long time, which is
led us to what some describe like me at a
pretty sorry state in terms of some of the issues
we talked about this morning. Corey, thanks again for making
the trip into the studio, and I'm sure you and
I will talk again.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Absolutely, thank you for having me I will. I do
want to say that the names on the petitions do
need to be registered voters in the Cincinnati Proper action
in the day in town area. So if you're planning
on coming, you stop by and visit me. I would
love to shake your hand. But if you're want to
sign the petition, it has to be a registered voter
in the city.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Important clarification. Corey, good luck man, Thank you again. We'll
talk soon, folks. Don't go away. Dan Claire's good. He's
chief communications officer for the Disabled Americans Veterans. They've got
a Patriot boot camp coming up with dats on that,
plus Judge inneda Polatano with eight thirty tariffs and the Constitution,
and then we're benefiting the homeless. And the last segment

(20:49):
that's a Marty Gras will learn the details about that
Marty Graus benefiting the homeless at the end of the
eight o'clock hour. I hope you can stick around. Huge
happens fast, stay up to date. At the top of
the hour, complicated, it's going to go very fast. Fifty
five KRC the talk station.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
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