Special Smither-"Vent"-Theetge to fall on the sword for Aftab and City Hall

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dear fifty above Karrose de talk station. Brian Thomas right
now wishing every potty happy Thursday, slave Friday Eve, looking
forward the bottom of the hour. Dan Hill's former FOP president,
of the outstanding swirling controversy about police chief three so
Thiji being hauled into the Principal's office yesterday. City Manager
Cheryl Lung said that yes, the chief was asked to

(00:20):
return to the city immediately to immediately address departmental matters,
but they did not fire her, although it does appear
as if they're heading in that direction blaming the chief
of police for perhaps failures of the administration. Congressman Warren
Davidson in one hour on the shutdown the Israeli Hamas
peace deal, question mark piece deal. I know things that
are not going real smoothly within Gaza. We'll get to

(00:43):
Congressman Davidson in an hour, follow by Andre you and
Andre Brother dre Hurst Breaker's three hundred an outspoken observer
of the craziness going on in downtown Cincinnati. I strongly
encourage you to follow brother Drag on Facebook. He's got
to be back at seven point thirty. And if you're
out there listening, man, sorry, I couldn't get back to
your phone call last night, but I was really excited

(01:04):
to learn you're going to be on the show today
when I woke up this morning. Liz Keating running for
sinc A City Council. How's a campaign going? Get her
thoughts on the of course, local topics, including her position
on the police chief. Jay Ratliffe, I heard me the
aviation expert every Thursday day thirty today, not deviating from
the norm. Looking forward to Jay as I always do,

(01:24):
and I always love talking to former Vice mayor of
the City of Cincinnati running for Cincinna City Council. You
have a choice. Let's go a different direction. Let's vote
Smithaman back into office. Welcome Christopher Smithman. It's a pleasure
hearing from you this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Hey, thank you, Brian. I just want to spend a
few minutes kind of weighing in and I might have
a different perspective than others about what I see happening.
I see the police chief being used as a scapegoat
right before an election, and it's really troublesome to me.

(02:01):
And I've been talking about issue five and what I
think the shortcomings are with Issue five.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
All Right, real quick Chris Christopher remind my listeners what
issue five is. This came up in our conversation I
had with Ken Kober earlier, and I had forgotten the
way things used to be versus how they are now,
which means the I guess the mayor and the city
manager are solely responsible for determining who the police chief is,
selecting that person and firing the chief.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
That's correct. And what used to happen is you know
when Striker chief Striker was the last chief under the
old system, which had its pluses and minuses, but the
reality was you knew who the police chief was, and
the police chief made the decisions, the best decisions for

(02:51):
the department, and without fear of termination. And so what's
happening now is this to me is like the the
loophole here that is personality driven. The issue five is
as good as the mayor is and as good as
the city manager is. And so what I see here now,
and I'm letting you know publicly that I don't think

(03:14):
the police chief nor the fire chief should be terminated
without the consent of city council. I think seven members
of council should have to weigh in on the termination
of what I would say the most important job, our
fire chief and our police chief. And so what you
see here is right before an election, a mayor in

(03:36):
panic mode, a mayor trying to figure out what he
needs to do politically and willing to destroy somebody else's career. Now,
let's give a context here, right Well, first, Fiji Chief
Fiji has given a life to the Cincinnati Police Department,

(03:58):
and she is from the Neville fan She's a Neville
and the Neville family has given so much as police
officers to the city of Cincinnai. So let's make sure
that we put her in the right context and that
we at least what I want to do is if
she decides to leave, resign, or she's fired, that is

(04:18):
done with dignity. All of this is not on her,
because what I've seen the mayor do is send all
kinds of different messages. One of those that's the hiring
of Irish Rolli in this consultant position, and nobody quite
knows what she's doing and what kind of pressure she's
putting on the chief. What we do know is that

(04:39):
the city manager has really empowered her in a way
that I've never seen before. We have a Chair of
Law in Public Safety. That's Scottie Johnson. He's elected, he goes,
his name is on the ballot. That's the person that
is providing the civilian oversight, not Irish Rolly, a consultant.
And it seems like the lines of being blurred here

(05:01):
for me, and I think they were blurred for the
chiefs on who is actually who should she be listening
to and what is the direction now ultimately to the public.
Our our police chief is ultimately responsible for those decisions.
I just want everybody to know that this is part
of the chaos that I think is a problem because

(05:24):
if the police chief had to come before Council right now,
I don't know if they could get seven votes to
fire her, and definitely fire her right before an election
on November fourth. That's the rub for me. It's it's
the timing of this public it's the timing of it,
Brian Thomas, that we should all be concerned about.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Well, and I'm glad you brought up that the full
Council having a say in this point, because I was
going to counter your suggestion. How can we expect things
to be different if all the counselor the same party
you've got a Democrat mayor and who I presume has
a tremendous amount of sway over the individual Democrat council members.

(06:08):
How much maybe that would come down to how they
would ultimately vote on firing or not firing the police chief.
But as it is right now, I think they probably
would all vote if the mayor wanted to fire the
chief and city manager wanted to fire the chief, they
probably all follow lead and do so along the same lines.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, I think you are, you think you're right about that.
But here's the difference. You've got the FLP President Kober
who's coming on and he has people that they have supported,
they've endorsed. So I would think that the FLP would
be able to go to those members of council and say, listen,
here's here are our thoughts on what you should do,

(06:49):
and those things would be taken under consideration. They wouldn't
be done outside of the electeds, who the people have
put there to provide oversight for police and fire. I
just think there should be an extra step here, and
particularly Brian, the timing of this, we had a shooting
off Fountain Square, we had a shooting on Fountain Square,

(07:13):
We've had shooting in Westwood, all over the city, you know,
and the mayor is under tremendous pressure here because he
didn't have a plan at the beginning of the summer.
I've had many opportunities to talk to the Governor's office
about when they came and made the first offer, which

(07:33):
was somewhere in May of this year, and the mayor
continue to turn down those offers from the governor. Right,
so he has played a role. He has made the decision.
Why is the Governor's office only doing two times a
month now?

Speaker 1 (07:52):
It's four now? Apparently the single ninety nine and again
recommend people follow single ninety nine on Facebook. She does
a great job. Pointed out, well, I guess the mayor
has just recently decided we're going to take four days
to deal with a twenty four hour days, seven day
week problem.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
I'm trying, I'm trying not to laugh at such a
serious matter. But it's crazy that you would think that
the governor is saying, listen, we'll do whatever we can
to help you, and the mayor saying I'll only accept
four times, but prior to that it was only two
times a month. The point that I'm trying to make

(08:28):
here is that members of council who are up for reelection,
this mayor who is up for reelection, right, they are
as responsible for where we are with crime in our
fifty two neighborhoods. We just heard one of the biggest
restaurants right signal I think he's signal and Jeff Ruby

(08:50):
saying listen, I'm moving my catering part on Seventh Street
somewhere else. Now. They made a nice flowery statement, but
at the end of the day, everybody unders that they're
concerned about their employees, their cars coming in and out
of that location we had with the taste of Belgium

(09:10):
in OTR. They said they were moving, but they gave
some flowery you know, pressure relief and excuses why they
were leaving. At the end of the day, it's coming
down to crime. People are concerned about their cars, their
well being, their quality of life as they are interacting
in the downtown area. And you and I and so

(09:31):
many people have been raising concerns about the escalation of this.
This mayor has said it's his perception, it's our perception
that crime is down. Nobody believes that, Brian Thomas and
so if it's our perception. Meaning if he's saying crime
is down, think about what I'm about to say here.
You're saying the chief is doing a good job. That's

(09:53):
been your message through the entire campaign. So why are
you pushing to fire the police chief. Listen, I can
end on that note. You can if that's his narrative
that hey man, this police chief has been doing a
great job, that crime is down. It is all of
our perception, right, not our reality. And please explain to

(10:18):
me why in the world would there be a need
to fire the police chief.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Drop the mic right there. This is a profound.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, this is a scapegoat from this mayor to try
to change the narrative that he's doing something or that
this counsel is doing something. And all I will tell
all of our fifty two neighborhoods we have an opportunity
to do something different. You're the jury out there. You
have to make the decision, and I would say, elects

(10:52):
four or five new members of council that can bring
balance to this city and can move the needle in
the area of safety and making sure that we are
able to bring crime down with a plan, and it
includes accepting help from our partners, like the governor or
the sheriff, or whom ever would like to weigh in

(11:15):
out in there. Brian, thank you so much. I don't
put this all at the head of this chief. I
think it's easy to do that. If she does leave
the position, and she's hearing my voice right now, I
want her to know that she's done a great service
to the city of Cincinnati, just like Chief Washington did.
They fired Chief Washington. Most people don't know the fire

(11:37):
chief was fired and that he has won his lawsuit.
He's won the appeal, and.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Then he may be back Christmas, God bless you, my friend.
Six seventeen vote Smithman Galaxy Concrete Codings