January 7, 2026 • 19 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's six o five fifty five KERCD Talks station, and
I'll probably mention it a lot this morning because let's
see folks at Matt Treebrew today Summit Park location for
listener lunch and always enjoy the fellowship. They're kicking off
twenty twenty six on the right foot. Hopefully that all
these swirling bad news and the craziness going on months,
notably the swear again of FTV provol and his claim
(00:22):
that we need to raise the income tax. At least
he mentioned public safety, but also I guess money for
affordable housing. Welcome back to get it out of your system, Christopher.
I love being a therapy guide for you to help
deal with your mental health challenges, to deal with all
this news. Smither Event Volume two for this week, Christopher Smithman,
(00:43):
Welcome back to this show, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh, thank you so much for having me on. Brian,
you know, for your listening audience. You know, the city
budget is no different than your household, all right, and
every day you've got to wake up and pay for
the operation of your home capital improvements like fixing your
roof or putting in a new HVC unit, whatever it is.
(01:08):
Ling saying your Duke Energy billing radar, and you don't
walk in around the dinner table and look at your
your spouse or your significant other and say, listen, man,
you know we've got to make some tough choices here.
(01:30):
You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go out and buy
a really nice car, and at the same time, I'm
gonna I'm not gonna cut Netflix, or I'm not going
to cut my spectrum bill, or you know, I'm not
going to reduce something else. I'm not gonna take that
big trip. I'm gonna do all those things. The problem
with city Hall, it's a spending issue. Let's start with
(01:52):
the operation of the streetcar, not the capitol building of it.
This is what we talked about, Brian to. Oh yeah,
the chickens are coming home to roost, right, So I
estimate it's five million dollars a year just to operate
the street car. This council wants to take the second
(02:13):
leg up to UC. Here's what's really happening. They don't
care about police officers's there's nothing that shows you that
they care about law enforcement. This is about generating more
money because the COVID dollars that they've been patting the
budget with are now gone and so now they have
(02:34):
to sit back and really balance the budget. And instead
of balancing the budget, they're going back to the will
and they're saying, let's raise the income tax on the
three hundred and fifty thousand or three hundred and thirty
thousand citizens that live in the city of since that
knowing that our property taxes are already going through the roof.
This is just an irresponsible mayor and council that cannot
(02:57):
balance the budget. They keep putting out these off the
contracts like to an Irish rolely as an example, and
you say, well, what is she doing. She's hiring her son,
what's happening with that money? See, this is the kind
of stuff where if you're in the city and you're
watching how they manage their budget, and then you're watching
the mayor's personal cars be repolled, you don't trust that
(03:21):
they know what they're doing, And the fact is they don't,
Meaning why don't they make the hard decisions in front
of them, meaning show us that you're willing to reduce
your own spending prior to coming to the taxpayer and
saying will you bail us out for all the irresponsible decisions.
But no, they'll come right back and say, you know,
(03:43):
we've got to do the mural, the Black Lives Matter mural.
We're going to spend another million on that. We're going
to do a contract for IRIS. We're going to fire
people irresponsibly and just keep putting money out. We're not
going to reduce any hours on the street car. We're
going to continue to operate at the same level, meaning
at the same time we're going to talk about building
(04:03):
the second thing of the street car. And guess what,
we're going to tax all of you even more money
and tell you it's about cops. Well, it has nothing
to do with cops, nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, don't overlook the very large checks they're going to
be writing to the former fire chief and probably police
former chief Fiji when they settle out their employment dispute
discrimination cases. That's millions of dollars right there. I suspect
that will be.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Absolutely What they're really trying to do, what this mayor
pure val is really doing, is he's trying to pit
police officers against conservative voters. So what they're setting us
up to say is this is a narrative if you
vote against us raising the income tax. You're voting against
cops as if he's for cops. Right. So, there are
(04:51):
lots of things that are funded in the operating budget
outside of police officers. But what he's trying to do
is pit the profession against all of the citizens of
Cincinnati who say, we want to be safe and you
haven't been able to deliver safety to us. It's not
about raising taxes to the public. This is a council
with the mayor that you voted for. Elections have consequences,
(05:16):
and so whether it's the eight million dollar settlement for
those who were downtown who are acting crazy and we're
arrested and we're now paying them off on that settlement,
whether it's an Irish rolely contract, whether it's the operation
of the street car, you name it, I guarantee you
you and I could put a fine too to this
budget and cut things that they are going to be
(05:38):
uncomfortable with. But we can find ten or fifteen million
dollars a year in operating that we shouldn't spend before
we raise any taxes on the public. They'll never do it.
This is about this is a spending issue. This is
about raising our taxes Brian Thomas, and they just don't
ultimately care. The last thing I'll say is, remember this
(05:58):
is a Democratic council that said as they care about
the poor. This is it that Democratic council, we care
about affordable housing. How do they think that everyday people
can pay for increases in property taxes? The widow or
widower out there who's our fixed income, how do they
think on a Social Security check that they're going to
pay for these increases in property and income tax and
(06:21):
thieves that they keep slamming us with, which makes Cincinnati
one of the most expensive places in our state to live.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, you got a lot of unpackage on that there.
Christopher Smithman, I guess when you going back to your
comment about this as an effort to pitt conservative voters
against Democrat voters, you presume, and I think it's fairly accurate.
Conservatives tend to be pro law enforcement, and we certainly
agree that there should be more law enforcement officers in
downtown Cincinnati in order to improve the crime situation. That's
a logical response to crime. But this is so much
(06:52):
more than that. So first off, let me just say
there don't appear to be a whole lot of conservative
voters in the city of Cincinnati. As I stare at
my the chart in the aftermath the last election, where
it's basically solid blue with the exception of Californian Riverside
and saleor Park. So I'm not sure there are that
many conservatives out there to even vote one way or
(07:13):
the other. But when you start saying further prioritize public
safety investments, support police and fire, also empower us to
invest in affordable housing. I don't know what these words mean,
but he said them. Provol catalyze neighborhoods that have not
shared in our growth, and support programs that will help
build our minority owned businesses. All of that is going
(07:34):
to be accomplished with some percent increase in the income tax.
If it was just law enforcement, if they presented us
a budgetary scenario, going back to your budget comment, Look,
we're in trouble. We need to hire more police officers,
and in order to do that, we're gonna have to pay
them more because nobody wants to work in the city
of Cincinnati, where everyone thinks the police suck. It's only
for police. No other programs are going to benefit from
(07:54):
the money. It's going to bring in x millions of dollars.
We're going to use it all to hire police and
improve public safety, period end of story. That might sell
as a proposition, but this is have to have purvol
so it's not about public safety. In fact, check out
Todd Zenzer's post. Here's what he said just nine hours ago.
Apparently city Hall was wasting no time to try to
(08:14):
raise the earnings tax. The mayor and council would like
to keep spending more and more tax payer money to
quote disrupt poverty close quote until they get it right
or the city, its businesses, and its taxpayers go broke
trying I put my money on the ladder, Todd says,
to my point, disrupting poverty was basically the same purpose
the Mayor's cited for his twenty twenty two tax increase,
(08:37):
except then they raised property taxes in the city, and
there was no mention about public city in the mayor's
motion whatsoever. His motion post to bluss. We can even
read what he wrote back then. So instead of increasing
the earning tax, Todd says the city should increase fraud
prevention and detection. He says, there are quite a few
of us out here who would be willing to help
the city to do that, I e. Todd Zenzer. Same time,
(09:00):
it would help the mayor keep this twenty twenty three
promise of no new taxes, which is another reference going
back to what the mayor previously said, no new taxes.
Remember George Bush said that and he ended up losing
an election over raising taxes. Hey, I have to have
provall what about your twenty twenty three promise.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Corey Bowman was on the ballot and we had an
opportunity to elect a new mayor, and that was in November.
We're talking about this in January. The mayor knew all
of this prior to the election. This is absolutely a
bait and switch. And the other thing that I want
to want to highlight about this, and I agree with
(09:39):
what Todd is saying, but if this mayor really wanted
this to be about public safety. And I hope the
president of the FOP is listening our signal ninety nine,
who I know will be on on Friday. I'll be
listening at eight am.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah. Den Cooper is on at the bottom of this hour,
so we're going to be hearing from him shortly.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, I'll to your entire show. What I'm saying is
why not then do a dedicated income taxes is what
you're leading to, or say just for cops, meaning if
this is about cops, why not say, Okay, we're going
to raise the income tax for this amount of money,
and it is just for police officers. It cannot be used.
(10:20):
It is restricted just for cops. That's not what they're
trying to do. And that's what you're talking about, Brian Thomas,
and to the public. It's something they can do. There
are other cities that have done it because it's not
what they're trying to do. They're worried about the operating
budget and this is fungible and they're trying to operate
the street car and do all these other little special
(10:42):
programs and pay all these people all this money. They're
not interested in cops. They're trying to pit mean, you
are people like myself who support law enforcement. When we
come out and we say vote no on this, or
we decide to pick up a petition and collect signatures.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Oh I like that. Let's hold on, Christopher, Let's elaborate
on a little bit. Let's paust I'll bring it right
back to this. I sort to ask you an out
loud question about where's the railroad money? One more with
Christopher Smith before we get to Ken Cober at the
bottom of this hour. First plumb type plumbing. It's always
viactation A very happy Wednesday to You're gonna be an
especially happy Friday. I was just talking with Joe Strecker
about this and Christopher mentioned it out loud. I was
(11:22):
going to bring it up this morning before we get
back to Christopher Smith and with volume two of the
Smith Event this week, Signal ninety nine will be on
the program eight A I'm on Friday. If you're not
familiar with Signal ninety nine, you need to be go
over to Facebook and just follow her. Former police officer
Carolyn will be joining the program. Outspoken and well connected
she is in terms of the information that she shares
(11:43):
to her followers. It's just it's hilarious stuff and quite
often it's a little painful to see the reality of
what's going on in the city. Back to Christopher, Hey,
where's the railroad money? Christopher, I thought we were going
to get a big wind fall from that billion dollar investment,
and what wouldn't that solve some of the finances pro
and why do we need a tax increase. Have we
got all this new revenue coming in, Christopher.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, those are capital dollars, but it's a big pot
and I agree with you. There's no transparency around those dollars,
how they're being invested, how much money is coming in.
And this was my big issue too, was the land,
the three hundred miles all the way to Tennessee that
our forefathers had for us. There was no other city
(12:27):
that I know of in the United States of America,
but definitely in the state of Ohio who had three
hundred miles of rail that we own. And we were
bringing in about thirty six million dollars and it would
have been forty six million before we clicked our heills
three times. It was a terrible transaction by this mayor
to sell our railroad. But here's going to be the
result of this, Brian Thomas. People are leaving Cincinnati. Those
(12:52):
who can get out are leaving. They're selling their businesses
that they don't want to pay the income tax, and
they are taking their residents outside of the city of Cincinnati.
So the reality of it is they're going to be
more and more people. Now, how do I know this?
How do I say that with certainty because of the profession.
I'm a financial planner. I'm telling you what my clients
(13:14):
are telling me. They're saying, I'm out of here. I
cannot afford the property taxes, or I don't want to
pay the property taxes.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Or maybe the crime or maybe it's crime too, or.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It's crime too. But they're saying, listen, I would be
willing to pay. I just did it. I'm looking. I'm
thinking about a clinic. I just did a financial review
of crimes, and the client said to me, I would
be willing to pay the taxes if I got the service.
But the problem is the city is so dog gone dirty.
When they miss my trash or they don't pick up
(13:45):
my trash, they won't come back and get it. I've
got potholes all around me, tearing up my nice car,
my nice vehicle. Right, Or if I call the police,
I don't get the response I want. Not because it's
the police is because they will not invest in officers.
If I just moved out into the county, I'm gonna
(14:06):
get better services. I'm even gonna pay lower taxes, right,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be safer, and so
what's happening is people are leaving those who can leave
relief this move that the mayorage making. Watch what I'm
telling you, population is gonna drop, It's not gonna go higher.
People are gonna say I can't afford it, and I'm
(14:26):
just gonna move somewhere else. People who are earning, they're
gonna take their businesses right.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
People who are earning a living and paying income tax.
You can't lose those people. Wasn't that the point of
gentrifying over the Rhine and building all the urban hipster
paradise places to live so they would bring in people
who actually worked and paid taxes in the city. Christopher,
That's exactly that. That's the sweet spot those that you
(14:51):
need to make it a more welcome environment for people
who are paying into the system. It's a great point
your client made. You know what, I'm not getting a
return on my taxpayer investment. I mean, you'd be willing
to pay taxes if it resulted in something positive in
your world. It's like going out and buying something. You
choose to purchase something because it's going to benefit you
in some way. You get value for the money. You're
not getting value for your taxpayer dollars in the city.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Correct, And then they'll say to me, well, Christopher, I'm
already sending my kid to say that I'm already sending
my kids deceit. And so my kid is not in
the Cincinnati public school system, but sixty five percent of
my property taxes are the public school system. Why am
I paying all these taxes? And then if I then
those who are living in the county are frustrated because
(15:35):
they say, I work in the city and I'm paying
for ear tacks. I work for proper example, But I
can't vote for any of these people. I can't vote
any of them out. I have no control over it.
So what you're seeing is businesses are saying and my
heart goes out to Taste of Belgium who's filing for
bank Trusty at what their situation too was. But all
I can tell you is the lack of foot traffic
(15:56):
certainly didn't help their situation. The crime levels in the
downtown area on the banks and then over the Rhine
didn't help them. And to your point, Brian Thomas, all
of those people that have invested not one hundred thousand
millions of dollars in their housing. They have reached in OTR.
There are beautiful spaces that people have retired, their children
(16:18):
have moved. They said, I'm going to move into the OTR.
I'm going to create this really cool space. But guess what.
The crime is out of control, and their investments that
they've made are at risk, and you're going to see
those people say what you're talking about, I'm getting the
heck out of downtown. I thought this was going to
be cool. The city sold me a bill of goods.
(16:39):
They're raising my coxtus, my property taxes, but they also
can't keep me safe. This increase, this increase, Brian Thomas,
isn't going to make anybody safer. And there are people
out there, because my phone is already ringing, who are considering,
why don't we just drop a petition on them, stop
them at the gates, at the barbarian at the gates.
(17:00):
I'll tell them, no more, no more, no more. But
what we don't want are cops pitting cops against the issue,
and that's what the mayor is trying to do. This
is not about cops for him. This is about all
of that other stuff that you're talking about, and cops
are the lowest in his mind that on the total
poll as car as what he's interested to.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Take for And in terms of the businesses you're referring to,
and I think it's implicit in your comments, but I
want to say it straightforward and out loud. Those businesses
relied not just on residents that live within the city.
They rely on people who want to come into the
city to spend money, who want to come into the
city and go to Ruby's or some of the other
restaurants that are down there that are great. But you
(17:42):
know what, who among us has not talked to a
person who said, I am not going to the city
anymore because I'm afraid of the crime. I have heard
that from so many people. It's almost like the norm.
Whether or not it's an appropriate conclusion, because I like
downtown and I think there's some great stuff down there
that it is definitely either that is attractive to me.
But you know what, lingering in the back of my
(18:03):
mind is the same thing. You know, I saw the
beat down on film, you know from last year. I've
seen the crime statistics. Eleven year old gets a randomly
shot that could be anybody, doesn't have to be eleven
year old girl in a park. It could be literally
anyone who's the victim of random gunfire. Do you want
to be that person?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
No?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Are you going to be subjected to that in Oh,
I don't know, Westchester or Anderson or Hyde Park. Probably not,
but it may very well happen in the high crime
areas of the city where a lot of businesses have
invested a lot of money hoping people will come in
and spend it. It's a downward spiral.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's so frustrating. Brian Thomas is, then how do they
respond to those things? Meaning when the eleven year old
girl is shot, how do they respond to it? Right?
When when when the citizens were beat up in the downtown,
how did they respond? They deserved it, they got what
they was coming to them. That is how city council
and this mayor responded to it. So the reality of
(18:56):
it is I feel bad for those businesses that are
a down town. I absolutely we do. My heart goes
out to this. But I'm also not going to get
on this radio station in lie and say that Cincinnati
is safe until it is safe, until the reality of
it is of many of these neighborhoods have voted for this.
They voted for this mayor, they voted for this council.
Elections have consequences.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Christopher Smithman, you have consequences too. That's why I love you.
Have it on the program smith Event Volume two. Find
the podcast for Fivecarresey dot com. You are my brother, indeed,
and you're more than welcome, and I thank you for
helping out. We're going to continue this conversation.
It's six o five fifty five KERCD Talks station, and
I'll probably mention it a lot this morning because let's
see folks at Matt Treebrew today Summit Park location for
listener lunch and always enjoy the fellowship. They're kicking off
twenty twenty six on the right foot. Hopefully that all
these swirling bad news and the craziness going on months,
notably the swear again of FTV provol and his claim
(00:22):
that we need to raise the income tax. At least
he mentioned public safety, but also I guess money for
affordable housing. Welcome back to get it out of your system, Christopher.
I love being a therapy guide for you to help
deal with your mental health challenges, to deal with all
this news. Smither Event Volume two for this week, Christopher Smithman,
(00:43):
Welcome back to this show, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh, thank you so much for having me on. Brian,
you know, for your listening audience. You know, the city
budget is no different than your household, all right, and
every day you've got to wake up and pay for
the operation of your home capital improvements like fixing your
roof or putting in a new HVC unit, whatever it is.
(01:08):
Ling saying your Duke Energy billing radar, and you don't
walk in around the dinner table and look at your
your spouse or your significant other and say, listen, man,
you know we've got to make some tough choices here.
(01:30):
You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go out and buy
a really nice car, and at the same time, I'm
gonna I'm not gonna cut Netflix, or I'm not going
to cut my spectrum bill, or you know, I'm not
going to reduce something else. I'm not gonna take that
big trip. I'm gonna do all those things. The problem
with city Hall, it's a spending issue. Let's start with
(01:52):
the operation of the streetcar, not the capitol building of it.
This is what we talked about, Brian to. Oh yeah,
the chickens are coming home to roost, right, So I
estimate it's five million dollars a year just to operate
the street car. This council wants to take the second
(02:13):
leg up to UC. Here's what's really happening. They don't
care about police officers's there's nothing that shows you that
they care about law enforcement. This is about generating more
money because the COVID dollars that they've been patting the
budget with are now gone and so now they have
(02:34):
to sit back and really balance the budget. And instead
of balancing the budget, they're going back to the will
and they're saying, let's raise the income tax on the
three hundred and fifty thousand or three hundred and thirty
thousand citizens that live in the city of since that
knowing that our property taxes are already going through the roof.
This is just an irresponsible mayor and council that cannot
(02:57):
balance the budget. They keep putting out these off the
contracts like to an Irish rolely as an example, and
you say, well, what is she doing. She's hiring her son,
what's happening with that money? See, this is the kind
of stuff where if you're in the city and you're
watching how they manage their budget, and then you're watching
the mayor's personal cars be repolled, you don't trust that
(03:21):
they know what they're doing, And the fact is they don't,
Meaning why don't they make the hard decisions in front
of them, meaning show us that you're willing to reduce
your own spending prior to coming to the taxpayer and
saying will you bail us out for all the irresponsible decisions.
But no, they'll come right back and say, you know,
(03:43):
we've got to do the mural, the Black Lives Matter mural.
We're going to spend another million on that. We're going
to do a contract for IRIS. We're going to fire
people irresponsibly and just keep putting money out. We're not
going to reduce any hours on the street car. We're
going to continue to operate at the same level, meaning
at the same time we're going to talk about building
(04:03):
the second thing of the street car. And guess what,
we're going to tax all of you even more money
and tell you it's about cops. Well, it has nothing
to do with cops, nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, don't overlook the very large checks they're going to
be writing to the former fire chief and probably police
former chief Fiji when they settle out their employment dispute
discrimination cases. That's millions of dollars right there. I suspect
that will be.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Absolutely What they're really trying to do, what this mayor
pure val is really doing, is he's trying to pit
police officers against conservative voters. So what they're setting us
up to say is this is a narrative if you
vote against us raising the income tax. You're voting against
cops as if he's for cops. Right. So, there are
(04:51):
lots of things that are funded in the operating budget
outside of police officers. But what he's trying to do
is pit the profession against all of the citizens of
Cincinnati who say, we want to be safe and you
haven't been able to deliver safety to us. It's not
about raising taxes to the public. This is a council
with the mayor that you voted for. Elections have consequences,
(05:16):
and so whether it's the eight million dollar settlement for
those who were downtown who are acting crazy and we're
arrested and we're now paying them off on that settlement,
whether it's an Irish rolely contract, whether it's the operation
of the street car, you name it, I guarantee you
you and I could put a fine too to this
budget and cut things that they are going to be
(05:38):
uncomfortable with. But we can find ten or fifteen million
dollars a year in operating that we shouldn't spend before
we raise any taxes on the public. They'll never do it.
This is about this is a spending issue. This is
about raising our taxes Brian Thomas, and they just don't
ultimately care. The last thing I'll say is, remember this
(05:58):
is a Democratic council that said as they care about
the poor. This is it that Democratic council, we care
about affordable housing. How do they think that everyday people
can pay for increases in property taxes? The widow or
widower out there who's our fixed income, how do they
think on a Social Security check that they're going to
pay for these increases in property and income tax and
(06:21):
thieves that they keep slamming us with, which makes Cincinnati
one of the most expensive places in our state to live.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, you got a lot of unpackage on that there.
Christopher Smithman, I guess when you going back to your
comment about this as an effort to pitt conservative voters
against Democrat voters, you presume, and I think it's fairly accurate.
Conservatives tend to be pro law enforcement, and we certainly
agree that there should be more law enforcement officers in
downtown Cincinnati in order to improve the crime situation. That's
a logical response to crime. But this is so much
(06:52):
more than that. So first off, let me just say
there don't appear to be a whole lot of conservative
voters in the city of Cincinnati. As I stare at
my the chart in the aftermath the last election, where
it's basically solid blue with the exception of Californian Riverside
and saleor Park. So I'm not sure there are that
many conservatives out there to even vote one way or
(07:13):
the other. But when you start saying further prioritize public
safety investments, support police and fire, also empower us to
invest in affordable housing. I don't know what these words mean,
but he said them. Provol catalyze neighborhoods that have not
shared in our growth, and support programs that will help
build our minority owned businesses. All of that is going
(07:34):
to be accomplished with some percent increase in the income tax.
If it was just law enforcement, if they presented us
a budgetary scenario, going back to your budget comment, Look,
we're in trouble. We need to hire more police officers,
and in order to do that, we're gonna have to pay
them more because nobody wants to work in the city
of Cincinnati, where everyone thinks the police suck. It's only
for police. No other programs are going to benefit from
(07:54):
the money. It's going to bring in x millions of dollars.
We're going to use it all to hire police and
improve public safety, period end of story. That might sell
as a proposition, but this is have to have purvol
so it's not about public safety. In fact, check out
Todd Zenzer's post. Here's what he said just nine hours ago.
Apparently city Hall was wasting no time to try to
(08:14):
raise the earnings tax. The mayor and council would like
to keep spending more and more tax payer money to
quote disrupt poverty close quote until they get it right
or the city, its businesses, and its taxpayers go broke
trying I put my money on the ladder, Todd says,
to my point, disrupting poverty was basically the same purpose
the Mayor's cited for his twenty twenty two tax increase,
(08:37):
except then they raised property taxes in the city, and
there was no mention about public city in the mayor's
motion whatsoever. His motion post to bluss. We can even
read what he wrote back then. So instead of increasing
the earning tax, Todd says the city should increase fraud
prevention and detection. He says, there are quite a few
of us out here who would be willing to help
the city to do that, I e. Todd Zenzer. Same time,
(09:00):
it would help the mayor keep this twenty twenty three
promise of no new taxes, which is another reference going
back to what the mayor previously said, no new taxes.
Remember George Bush said that and he ended up losing
an election over raising taxes. Hey, I have to have
provall what about your twenty twenty three promise.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Corey Bowman was on the ballot and we had an
opportunity to elect a new mayor, and that was in November.
We're talking about this in January. The mayor knew all
of this prior to the election. This is absolutely a
bait and switch. And the other thing that I want
to want to highlight about this, and I agree with
(09:39):
what Todd is saying, but if this mayor really wanted
this to be about public safety. And I hope the
president of the FOP is listening our signal ninety nine,
who I know will be on on Friday. I'll be
listening at eight am.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah. Den Cooper is on at the bottom of this hour,
so we're going to be hearing from him shortly.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, I'll to your entire show. What I'm saying is
why not then do a dedicated income taxes is what
you're leading to, or say just for cops, meaning if
this is about cops, why not say, Okay, we're going
to raise the income tax for this amount of money,
and it is just for police officers. It cannot be used.
(10:20):
It is restricted just for cops. That's not what they're
trying to do. And that's what you're talking about, Brian Thomas,
and to the public. It's something they can do. There
are other cities that have done it because it's not
what they're trying to do. They're worried about the operating
budget and this is fungible and they're trying to operate
the street car and do all these other little special
(10:42):
programs and pay all these people all this money. They're
not interested in cops. They're trying to pit mean, you
are people like myself who support law enforcement. When we
come out and we say vote no on this, or
we decide to pick up a petition and collect signatures.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Oh I like that. Let's hold on, Christopher, Let's elaborate
on a little bit. Let's paust I'll bring it right
back to this. I sort to ask you an out
loud question about where's the railroad money? One more with
Christopher Smith before we get to Ken Cober at the
bottom of this hour. First plumb type plumbing. It's always
viactation A very happy Wednesday to You're gonna be an
especially happy Friday. I was just talking with Joe Strecker
about this and Christopher mentioned it out loud. I was
(11:22):
going to bring it up this morning before we get
back to Christopher Smith and with volume two of the
Smith Event this week, Signal ninety nine will be on
the program eight A I'm on Friday. If you're not
familiar with Signal ninety nine, you need to be go
over to Facebook and just follow her. Former police officer
Carolyn will be joining the program. Outspoken and well connected
she is in terms of the information that she shares
(11:43):
to her followers. It's just it's hilarious stuff and quite
often it's a little painful to see the reality of
what's going on in the city. Back to Christopher, Hey,
where's the railroad money? Christopher, I thought we were going
to get a big wind fall from that billion dollar investment,
and what wouldn't that solve some of the finances pro
and why do we need a tax increase. Have we
got all this new revenue coming in, Christopher.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, those are capital dollars, but it's a big pot
and I agree with you. There's no transparency around those dollars,
how they're being invested, how much money is coming in.
And this was my big issue too, was the land,
the three hundred miles all the way to Tennessee that
our forefathers had for us. There was no other city
(12:27):
that I know of in the United States of America,
but definitely in the state of Ohio who had three
hundred miles of rail that we own. And we were
bringing in about thirty six million dollars and it would
have been forty six million before we clicked our heills
three times. It was a terrible transaction by this mayor
to sell our railroad. But here's going to be the
result of this, Brian Thomas. People are leaving Cincinnati. Those
(12:52):
who can get out are leaving. They're selling their businesses
that they don't want to pay the income tax, and
they are taking their residents outside of the city of Cincinnati.
So the reality of it is they're going to be
more and more people. Now, how do I know this?
How do I say that with certainty because of the profession.
I'm a financial planner. I'm telling you what my clients
(13:14):
are telling me. They're saying, I'm out of here. I
cannot afford the property taxes, or I don't want to
pay the property taxes.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Or maybe the crime or maybe it's crime too, or.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It's crime too. But they're saying, listen, I would be
willing to pay. I just did it. I'm looking. I'm
thinking about a clinic. I just did a financial review
of crimes, and the client said to me, I would
be willing to pay the taxes if I got the service.
But the problem is the city is so dog gone dirty.
When they miss my trash or they don't pick up
(13:45):
my trash, they won't come back and get it. I've
got potholes all around me, tearing up my nice car,
my nice vehicle. Right, Or if I call the police,
I don't get the response I want. Not because it's
the police is because they will not invest in officers.
If I just moved out into the county, I'm gonna
(14:06):
get better services. I'm even gonna pay lower taxes, right,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be safer, and so
what's happening is people are leaving those who can leave
relief this move that the mayorage making. Watch what I'm
telling you, population is gonna drop, It's not gonna go higher.
People are gonna say I can't afford it, and I'm
(14:26):
just gonna move somewhere else. People who are earning, they're
gonna take their businesses right.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
People who are earning a living and paying income tax.
You can't lose those people. Wasn't that the point of
gentrifying over the Rhine and building all the urban hipster
paradise places to live so they would bring in people
who actually worked and paid taxes in the city. Christopher,
That's exactly that. That's the sweet spot those that you
(14:51):
need to make it a more welcome environment for people
who are paying into the system. It's a great point
your client made. You know what, I'm not getting a
return on my taxpayer investment. I mean, you'd be willing
to pay taxes if it resulted in something positive in
your world. It's like going out and buying something. You
choose to purchase something because it's going to benefit you
in some way. You get value for the money. You're
not getting value for your taxpayer dollars in the city.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Correct, And then they'll say to me, well, Christopher, I'm
already sending my kid to say that I'm already sending
my kids deceit. And so my kid is not in
the Cincinnati public school system, but sixty five percent of
my property taxes are the public school system. Why am
I paying all these taxes? And then if I then
those who are living in the county are frustrated because
(15:35):
they say, I work in the city and I'm paying
for ear tacks. I work for proper example, But I
can't vote for any of these people. I can't vote
any of them out. I have no control over it.
So what you're seeing is businesses are saying and my
heart goes out to Taste of Belgium who's filing for
bank Trusty at what their situation too was. But all
I can tell you is the lack of foot traffic
(15:56):
certainly didn't help their situation. The crime levels in the
downtown area on the banks and then over the Rhine
didn't help them. And to your point, Brian Thomas, all
of those people that have invested not one hundred thousand
millions of dollars in their housing. They have reached in OTR.
There are beautiful spaces that people have retired, their children
(16:18):
have moved. They said, I'm going to move into the OTR.
I'm going to create this really cool space. But guess what.
The crime is out of control, and their investments that
they've made are at risk, and you're going to see
those people say what you're talking about, I'm getting the
heck out of downtown. I thought this was going to
be cool. The city sold me a bill of goods.
(16:39):
They're raising my coxtus, my property taxes, but they also
can't keep me safe. This increase, this increase, Brian Thomas,
isn't going to make anybody safer. And there are people
out there, because my phone is already ringing, who are considering,
why don't we just drop a petition on them, stop
them at the gates, at the barbarian at the gates.
(17:00):
I'll tell them, no more, no more, no more. But
what we don't want are cops pitting cops against the issue,
and that's what the mayor is trying to do. This
is not about cops for him. This is about all
of that other stuff that you're talking about, and cops
are the lowest in his mind that on the total
poll as car as what he's interested to.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Take for And in terms of the businesses you're referring to,
and I think it's implicit in your comments, but I
want to say it straightforward and out loud. Those businesses
relied not just on residents that live within the city.
They rely on people who want to come into the
city to spend money, who want to come into the
city and go to Ruby's or some of the other
restaurants that are down there that are great. But you
(17:42):
know what, who among us has not talked to a
person who said, I am not going to the city
anymore because I'm afraid of the crime. I have heard
that from so many people. It's almost like the norm.
Whether or not it's an appropriate conclusion, because I like
downtown and I think there's some great stuff down there
that it is definitely either that is attractive to me.
But you know what, lingering in the back of my
(18:03):
mind is the same thing. You know, I saw the
beat down on film, you know from last year. I've
seen the crime statistics. Eleven year old gets a randomly
shot that could be anybody, doesn't have to be eleven
year old girl in a park. It could be literally
anyone who's the victim of random gunfire. Do you want
to be that person?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
No?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Are you going to be subjected to that in Oh,
I don't know, Westchester or Anderson or Hyde Park. Probably not,
but it may very well happen in the high crime
areas of the city where a lot of businesses have
invested a lot of money hoping people will come in
and spend it. It's a downward spiral.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
It's so frustrating. Brian Thomas is, then how do they
respond to those things? Meaning when the eleven year old
girl is shot, how do they respond to it? Right?
When when when the citizens were beat up in the downtown,
how did they respond? They deserved it, they got what
they was coming to them. That is how city council
and this mayor responded to it. So the reality of
(18:56):
it is I feel bad for those businesses that are
a down town. I absolutely we do. My heart goes
out to this. But I'm also not going to get
on this radio station in lie and say that Cincinnati
is safe until it is safe, until the reality of
it is of many of these neighborhoods have voted for this.
They voted for this mayor, they voted for this council.
Elections have consequences.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Christopher Smithman, you have consequences too. That's why I love you.
Have it on the program smith Event Volume two. Find
the podcast for Fivecarresey dot com. You are my brother, indeed,
and you're more than welcome, and I thank you for
helping out. We're going to continue this conversation.
Brian Thomas News
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