Todd Zinser - Citizen Watchdog

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Ayo mine the fifty five karri Cede Talk Station. A
very happy Friday to everybody. Brian Thomas right here hosted
the fifty five KRSSEE Morning Show, reminding you fifty five
Karasee dot com get podcasts and please download that. iHeartMedia,
get all your content whatever you happen to be at
any time. And it is so nice to look up
and see Todd Zenzer in studio. Citizen Watchdog is the
name of his podcast, produced by Joe Strecker. He's always

(00:25):
following what I will just boil down to call shenanigans
in the city of Cincinnati. He looks for records, he
follows the money, He asks for documents that are supposed
to exist. He finds out that, well, we don't have
a very transparent administration in spite of the fact I
believe camp have to have provol ran on transparency. We
will get to a con and a point on that
later in the program. Todd Zenzer, it is a pleasure

(00:45):
to have you back in former Inspector General for the
United States of America. Good to see you. Thank you, Brian,
and thank you so much. And I sang your praises
this morning. I don't think the city of Cincinnai knows
how blessed they are to have you and your understanding
of how things work behind the scenes, coupled with in retirement,
your willingness to go after and look for all these
things and do all this legwork and hea you lifting

(01:08):
to get the answers that you're looking for for the
residents of the city, Like, what the hell are tax
payered dollars being used for?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, I think that's what people want. My view is
if people don't mind paying taxes as long as the
taxes that they're paying are being used properly and for
things that are needed to be done, right.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I mean, you know, in the private industry world, we
get to pick and choose who is going to be
the recipient of our hard earned dollars. We don't get
any choice in the matter. At minimum, these people should
have some measure of understanding or some concept of a
fiduciary obligation that it owes to you, me and everybody
else who works and pays taxes to keep them well,

(01:48):
keep them in their salaries and all these other programs
that we fund.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And actually that's one of the
big issues I have with the way that iris Rollie
was contracted with and the way they manage that contract.
I have to believe that the contracting staff and the
management staff at the city are better than that. Did
they they let they let a very lax process go

(02:12):
through and you know, make all these payments to this contractor,
and the paperwork is.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Terrible, terrible, And if you're scratching your head going, wait, huh,
who iris Roli is? Well, it was involved with the
establishment of the Collaborative Agreement after the riots back in
what was it two thousand and one? Yes, long time ago.
She has been a constant presence in activism, if I
can boil it down in the city since that time.

(02:40):
She has been under contract. She's like a a ten
ninety nine employee of sorts, right, I mean she does
she doesn't have a direct job with or for the city.
She's not a city employee. She's a subcontract the city,
like an NGO that we're paying to do work in
the community.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So her current role is is what she's getting fed?
How many what's the terms of our contract? How many years?
And how much money is she going to make it?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Well, the current contract is a is a three year
contract that was signed off in two thousand and twenty four,
and that was an amendment to a twenty and twenty
three contract. But the current contract is for three years,
and that includes a salary for miss Rowley that is

(03:31):
over three hundred thousand dollars. And then the contract also
includes money for a initiative on Government Square. They call
it the Government Square Initiative, and that's another I believe
it's two hundred and twenty five thousand. The math on
it that I calculated was the value of the contract

(03:54):
was five hundred and seventy thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Right, is there a job description in there, like normally,
here's what you're expected to do? And also is she
paid an hourly rate? Is how does she charge the city?
Because we're going to talk about some of the bills
that she submitted to the City Cincinnati invoices. So what
within the contract explains how these invoice processes work, how

(04:17):
much she's supposed to get, what her day to day
responsibilities are. I mean, are we getting an eight hour
work day in return for all of this money? That
kind of thing, the basic conditions.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, well, a lot of that I can't answer but
the scope of services in the contract, there were three
basic scope of services. One was to kind of refresh
the what's called the Management Advisory Group, which was established
under the Collaborative Agreement and which iris ROLLI was a
member of that management group, and I believe she either

(04:51):
is still a member or is responsible for kind of
managing that group under this contract. The second one is
to engage the community one way or the other. Uh,
it's not very specific, but there's community engagement that that
she's required to to to engage and.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
And I could go all day long on what in
the hell that means? Right, community engagement.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Well, it's spelled it is spelled out a little more
in the contract itself, but when you look at the
invoices it gets much broader.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, you're we're going to get to that, folks. Just
wait wait for that bomb. That's the bomb that's going
to drop here.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
And then there's a there's an aspect of the collaborative
Agreement called problem The big thing about the Collaborative Agreement
is this problem solving community problem solving, and they use
a technique called SARAH, which stands for scanning assessment or
scanning analysis Response and assessment. So and she will she'll

(05:58):
train groups on how that works. You know what can
be accomplished with that method. And those are the three
big ticket items in the in the contract.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
As to the latter, since the collaborative agreement dealt with
policing in the city, this scanning and reviewing or whatever
this protocol is that it relates to individual police interactions
with the community, arrests and issuance of citations and things
like that, or does it go outside of police activity.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Oh, it definitely goes outside of police activity. It's it's
to identify problems in the neighborhood or in the community.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Like the breakdown of the nuclear family for example. Well,
I don't know if it goes to that point, but
I'm sorry, I go there.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
And you know, how do we how do we deal
with this problem that? And so the police are involved
the community. It's supposed to be kind of a collaborative.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Effort, okay, But at its core, does it relate to crime,
like getting ahead of things that cause or create problems
that result in criminal activity? I guess I'm I think
a collaborative agreement. What started it? The riots, the accusations
of racism, the accusations of pulling over people over driving
while black. I mean, we know all the genesis behind it,
but it had to do with law enforcement. It sounds

(07:18):
to me like she's been hired in a role that's
much broader than her initial involvement.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
If you look at her invoices. The answer to that, yes,
it's much much broader than what it looks like in
the contract.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
But here we go. Can we tell from the invoice
is exactly what she's doing out in the world on
a day to day basis?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
I would say, no.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, let's talk just you got a whole bunch of them.
You looked into this. Yeah, and she submits a monthly
invoice correct, correct, and to best of your knowledge, it's
all been paid correct.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yes, So.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
What what are we talking about here? And I mentioned
you when I was an attorney billing hours, you had
a certain obligation to put enough information on your billing
form to justify the hourly charge you were going to do.
Like I reviewed documents, you know X through Y, you
know tax years nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty five. You
had to put a sufficient explanation of what you did

(08:12):
to justify the bill. You're set into the client. Does
her invoice show any of that kind of detailed information.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Well, the contract requires a detailed timekeeping and an activity log,
so the invoices don't reflect any timekeeping. The invoices identify
maybe seven or eight different areas or things that she
devoted time to. There's no details to it, and there's

(08:42):
no time associated with any of those activities. And in
twenty twenty three, for example, there are five invoices, five
monthly invoices that say the exact same thing, and so
without those kind of activity logs, you don't know whether

(09:03):
those five things are duplicates, or whether there's different activities
under each of those categories. There's just nothing there to
really determine what she worked on.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Well, you indicated also your research determined that five of
the seven invoices also had identical misspellings, meaning the only
thing that's different between them is maybe the date that
it was sent out.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yes, that's the only difference. And you know the real
problem is that there's no information underneath each item, each
of those seven items on these invoices to say how
this month is different than last month. Because if you
can't differentiate between the activities on each of the invoices.

(09:56):
It looks like you're paying for the same thing five times.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well that's the appearance. That's what I came away with
after I was looking at your analysis on this.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Right and see I had to be. I waited to
disclose all these invoices because I was hopeful that the
city would come through with some additional documentation and some
additional information to give us a better picture of it.
But it's been over a month since I had since
I had received the initial a batch of documents, and

(10:25):
I don't know how long I'm supposed to wait before
I report out on this stuff. So I just reported out.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Right, which means if they have additional documents that fill
in the missing information back behind the scenes, they can say, oh,
todds In's or you jump to conclusions. Here's all the
details supporting the monthly bill, which contains literally no information
we can use. Yeah, well, you don't expect that day
to come.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
I unfortunately I don't, But I would be happy to
take that information and revise what you know my conclusions here.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
I know you will. We have much many more shenanigans
to reveal here. With Todd Sen's or Citizen watch Dog
in the fifty five CAREC Morning Show. He'll be in
studio for the full hour. Please do not go away.
Fifty five KARC dot com neat station. They take twenty
here fifty about car City Talk Station, Citizen Watchdogs, the
name of the podcast. Todd Zenzer, host of that podcast

(11:14):
and the one that's doing all the work to gather
the information that he talks about with the Citizen Watchdog
podcasts and our podcasts and also talking about here in
the fifty five krsee morning show and studio today. Now,
Todd going back to this Irisroli contract paid a handsome
amount of money to be a some sort of outside
contractor fine. The contract requires detailed timekeeping. That's in quotes

(11:40):
from the contract, yes, as well as in quotes activity logs.
So when you submit an invoice under this contract, you
must have detailed timekeeping where you were, how much time
he spent, what you did, as well as the activity logs.
You say there are no activity logs. No, there's not,
clearly from what you told me, like for example, quote
police chief close. Quote does not sound like detailed timekeeping either. No,

(12:06):
no hours specified for example, correct, just detailed timekeeping. What
was the invoice I mean, what are these invoices run
like four or five, six or six thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Or the monthly payment that she received initially was eight thousand,
three hundred and something, and then this contract what the invoices?
Monthly invoices are eighty seven fifty.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Okay, Now I don't believe and I've never heard it
said that Iris Rowley has the City of Cincinnati's checkbook
so she can write herself checks. Someone has to approve
and authorize these payments. Yes, she submits the invoice. See
I'm going real slow, and I'm mansplaining. I see I'm

(12:46):
recognizing it. Who signed off on these? Considering it does
not meet on its face the contractual requirements.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Right well, under the contract she reports directly to the
city manager or an assistant city manager. And most of
the invoices that i've I didn't see any invoices that
share a long initial off on. It's usually a assistant
manager the best I can tell. But there's only initials.
Somebody will initial it or say good to pay or

(13:16):
something like that.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
But if the buck stops at the head of the
head of the class's desk, like the buck stops here,
that will be Cheryl Long. This is under her watch.
She bears ultimately responsibility for these invoices being paid.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Correct, she signed the contract.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Well, doesn't one really kind of puzzle over I know
you're puzzling over it. I'm puzzling over it. Have you
asked that question of the mayor or anybody else in
the administration.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, I did send them a letter back at the
beginning of October, like I don't know, ten days ago,
twelve days ago, and I lined out all of my
issues with the contracts and I all suggested things that
they need to do to fix them. And I haven't

(14:07):
heard anything back. But that's not unusual either.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
Okay, Well, my recollection, and I know it's right because
you just showed me the quote from have to have
Pervoll when he was running for mayor back in twenty
twenty one. Didn't he promise and pledge to ferret out
corruption and to be transparent? I mean you can feel
free to read his own words.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Okay, Yeah, the WKRC interviewed all the candidates running for
mayor back in twenty twenty one. I guess it was
just a mayor of pervoll in, mistery David Mann. But
they asked him. Four city council members have been indicted
on felony charges, including three for corruption charges. What will
you do to restore trust in local government? So part

(14:50):
of his response he says, I think we've got to
be laser focused on finding the corruption before it starts,
and that means more transparency. And then he ended saying,
I think we've got to raise the level of our
ethical standards, make them more transparent so we can weed
this corruption out before it begins.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
How's that working out for you?

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Well? I think I mentioned that. A big issue is
I did send him a letter earlier in the summer
to help get disclosure on what Norfolk Southern spent that
six million dollars.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Oh, Todd Sensor, Yeah, you're doing great with a teas because, wow,
do you have a bombsittle drop about the Norfolk Southern money?
If this is folks, it just keeps getting better and better.
The hits keep coming. We'll do more with Todd Zenzer
on Norfolk Southern Shenanigans. Oh yeah, I think Provol's got
a problem on his hands. I just wish it was

(15:47):
more widely reported beyond Citizen Watchdog. We'll be right back.
It's eight twenty five. This is fifty five KRC and
iHeartRadio Seey Talk station. Brian Thomas with former US Inspector General,
citizen watchdog for the residence of the City of Cincinnati,
trying to ensure that your taxpayer dollars are being well spent,
but revealing day in and day out with what he does.

(16:09):
Apparently they're not Todd zenzer Up. I know we're going
to get the Norfolk Southern craziness here in a second.
But since we were talking about Irish Rolly, that contract,
one of the components of it, as you laid out,
I believe it was roughly two hundred or so thousand dollars.
Of this north of five hundred thousand dollars contract relates

(16:31):
to some program or something at Government Square. Now. Government
Square has been making into the news a lot lately,
and it's become a hotbed of crime in downtown Cincinnati.
That's where the kids hang out, that's where the fights
break out, a lot of terrible things, and of course
people who are going back and forth from the various businesses.
Steve Gooden commented on this. His law firm is real
close by. They're afraid. Yeah, what did she do or

(16:55):
what it looks like things have gotten worse over the
past several years. If this is part of her responsibility,
what does she have to show for it and what's
being done right?

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, back in twenty twenty four, I think they that
was the first time they initiated this Government Square initiative,
which involves in the specific case of Iris Rolly's contract,
they have four I think they call them community counselors

(17:26):
or community collaborative counselors or something like that. They have
those those individuals positioned at Government Square for certain hours
when the kids will be a changing buses or whatever
it is they do down there.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
In lieu of a police presidence.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Correct, And they they have snacks and drinks that they
give to the kids. I guess they have some type
of interaction with the kids to talk to them and
get to know them and things like that. And it's
another one of these alternative approaches to police that if
they interact with these kids in a certain way rather

(18:04):
than in a law enforcement way, they're going to reduce
they're going to reduce attentions. And the issue is really
whether this whole collaborative agreement really is working, because it
sure doesn't seem like it.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
No that, I mean, that's my point, right, there's a
specified component in the contract that it talks about the
problems we're having a government square. Again, I don't think
anybody can say anything, but it has gotten worse. So
do this people have a special hat or something that
they're issued easily identifiable government square, you know, civil service.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
I do think they have T shirts or something like that. Yeah, okay,
But the real problem is the way they contracted that.
The original contract with IRIS was for consulting, and when
they amended the twenty twenty three contract to include the
Government Square initiative, that should have been a separate, competitive contract.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Absolutely, the sole.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Source justification to begin with is deficient. But it's especially
deficient to say that only IRIS Roley LLC can carry
out the work at Government Square. I liken it to
the Authorization for the Use of Military Fish. It's like,
we can use this for anything we want to use anything.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, don't give her any ideas. We gave the drone
strikes lawn drone strikes launch. And then there's the other
nefarious component in here. And I'm not suggesting that all
nepotism hires are always bad in all times, but they
do draw an eye of scrutiny, like, wait a second,

(19:49):
how did their son or daughter or best friend end
up in that particular role? Do they have the requisite
skill sets to bring about whatever it is they've been
charged with doing right? Enterly's son, I believe, and he's
a convicted felon correct. Yes, does that qualify him to
work on government square project?

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Well, they don't line out the qualifications, but they should
be considered subcontractors. They're not employees of Iris Rolely LLC.
They're subcontractors and under the procurement rules, the contractor is
supposed to get permission from the city manager for any subcontractors.

(20:28):
I didn't get any of those documents either, so I
really don't know what who knows what about who Iris
Roly is hiring. Her son is not the only one
that's had trouble with law enforcement. There's another individual who
and this individual's brother also is one of the four.

(20:50):
He was prosecuted for tax issues about ten years ago
or fourteen years ago, and that involved tens of thousands
of dollars that were withheld from this person's employees that
he didn't remit to the IRS and then.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
I takes their tax dollars out and he doesn't hand
him over to the irs.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Right. I think that is a very common problem with
some employers. But the other issue is he apparently still
owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to the irs. Probably
a lot of that is penalties and interest, but a
couple of years ago it was like eight hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, and getting money directly from the City of Cincinnati.
It sounds to me like she submits the invoices as
lacking in detail as they are, gets paid the eight
thousand dollars or whatever, and then pays her son and
the other people that are on this government square board.
The money is flowing from Iris roly LLC.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yes, one of the invoices that was provided by the
city includes copies of four canceled checks pay to these
four individuals, and that that was the extent of the
paperwork provided in connection with those four people.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Well, that's you know, that's a lot of process and
the idea that this could go on and this could happen.
And then going back to the idea that the invoices
were specifically signed off on while they lacked all this information,
there's multiple layers of violations and built into this from
what I hear.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, and what I can't what I can't figure out,
is it it is common for bureaucracies to do catch
me if you can, where they go ahead and they
bend the rules or even break the rules, and if
you catch them, they say, oh, we're sorry, well we
won't do it again. But in this case, I don't
know if it's really you know, catch me if you can.

(22:44):
I think it's just you.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Know, set up intentionally loose so this kind of thing
can happen.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Well, yeah, that's what I would look for.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
That's why we've got Todd Zinzer. That's why we need
to keep him around. And if you vote Corey Bowman,
maybe we'll get him as city manager. I'm praying for
that day, don't. I'm not hanging you out to dry there, Todd.
I think you would help us out immeasurably. Eight thirty
five We are going to talk about the get ready, folks.
I think it's getting worse as the conversation draws longer
in terms of how bad things are in terms of improprieties.

(23:13):
A thirty five Right now, if you have kersite talk
station fifty five KRC DC Deep Talk Station A thirty
nine if you have Kersite talk station, Happy Friday, Brian
Thomas Swift, Citizen Watchdog, Todd Zinser and Studio just Man.
And the more I talk to Todd and the more
he reveals, the worse I feel about the City of
Cincinnati going to be a current administration. And since we

(23:35):
do have an election coming up beginning in November, early
voting going on right now, we have a choice on mayor.
And I know Corey Moowman's fighting an uphill battle as
a Republican in a very blue city, but so many
of the residents of the city seem to be so
upset about so many things, and we're just adding multiple
layers onto that. You got to be a weed dweller
to talk about engage in the level of detail that
Todd Sendser is working with. But as we're talking about DC,

(23:58):
this is actually going on behind the scenes. Have processes
in place for contracting and the like, they're not following them.
They have contractual obligations built into that contract. For example,
with Iris Roley, they're not being followed. That's a huge
red flag. And I'm just wondering as we move out
to Northfolk Southern, todd anything by way of civil or

(24:20):
criminal statutory violations that are suggested by what you're revealing on.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
This, well, I think I think that there are opportunities
to file lawsuits under Ohio code for their you know,
their breaching their fiduciary duties basically.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Okay, So this might have legs along some light because
I know we have some really you know, activist lawyers
out there who are usually more than happy to see
the city for a variety of reasons.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, the question, the reason I was hesitant in writing
about this is because there should be additional documentation and
it's not forthcoming. So maybe the only way to get
that is through some kind of.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Lawsuit, discovery request, pursuantal litigation toizends are pivoting over to
Norfolk Southern. Now, there was this swirling issue about the
money that was involved the marketing campaign, wasn't it. Yeah,
we were deciding whether or not we're going to sell
the railroad. Christopher smithm was a big no. A lot
of members accounts were big. As we ultimately sold it,
Oh my god, everything's great. One point six billion dollars
an interest bearing account but lots of people were wondering

(25:24):
who in the hell funded the six million dollar ad
campaign for this one issue. You got the bottom of
that too, didn't you.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah. The sole contributor to the to Build Cincinnati's Future,
the Political Action Committee. The sole contributor was Norfolk Southern,
and they contributed six million dollars. And the reason they
were able to do that is because under Ohio law
on ballot issues and those campaigns, there is no limit

(25:55):
on corporate contributions.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
So and there is no thing such as a com
inflictive interest. Norfolk Southern is entitled to do an AD
campaign that operates in its best interest.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yes, and early on it certainly looked like both the
city and the Railway Board was just going to step
back and let Norfolk Southern handle the campaign. That's basically
what happened, except that Norfolk Southern engaged the mayor to
appear in a set of TV commercials on the sale
of a public asset that is going to benefit Norfolk Southern.

(26:30):
And it was just kind of outrageous. And when PG.
Sittenfeld got pardoned and there was a big hoopla over that,
I wrote an op ed and I said, well, that's fine,
but what has the city done about all the anti
corruption efforts that were made under the previous city council,
under the previous mayor. Have they followed through on it?

(26:51):
And the answer was no. So in June I sent
a letter to the city Council and to the mayor,
and I asked the city council to take all the
anti corruption recommendations that had been made prior to them
coming on board, line them out, and tell us what
the status is. So that was the request to the council.
To the mayor, I asked him for help in going

(27:15):
to Norfolk Southern's pack and getting greater disclosure on how
the pack spent six million dollars on that campaign, because
I do not think it cost six million dollars five
point four million, ninety percent of that Here we go,
folks went to a consulting firm in Washington, d C.
Called sk D Knickerbocker, and they are a big time

(27:38):
consultant in DC. They happened to be on the Democrat
side or a Republican consultants just like that. Sure for example,
they were big from what I understand, we're big on
Hillary Clinton's campaign. And they were given five point four
million dollars by the pack and the description of what
that money was used for was basically described in a

(28:00):
handful of words advised consulting, printing, and apparently under the
rules because I did consult with an attorney under the rules,
that's that's complying with the campaign financial rules.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Well, that's less disclosure than IRIS were really supposed to require.
When she's submitting her invoices under her contract.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's not much different.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
So ad bys printing and quote unquote consulting whatever. That
is five point four million dollars, Yes, on a single
issue campaign. Now you're in Hamilton County.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Now there's two big coincidences. Number one is that f
tab Purvol's campaign treasurer was also the treasurer for Norfolk
Southern's Political Action Committee. And I actually filed a complaint
with the Elections Commission about disclosures there and how can
you have one person being a treasurer for both parties.

(28:57):
There's something called coordinated communication between campaigns, and the Election
Commission couldn't handle that issue, so they denied my complaint.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Well, you don't have to have any coordination if you're
the same guy exactly. It's like you're writing yourself a
letter exactly, so damn well what you're planning on doing.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
So what happened is the treasurer did produce an affidavit
where he claimed he had nothing to do with who
appeared in those TV commercials. It was the packs steering committee.
But we don't know who's on the steering committee. We
don't know whether those folks are all campaign contributors to
mayor Provol or whether they're just one person from Norfolk Southern.

(29:42):
They don't have to disclose that. So I asked the
mayor for help and identifying those people too.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
And what did mister transparency say in response to.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
That, Well, he has not responded. That was June one,
so that was several months ago.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Several months ago. That'd be have to have Provol's way of,
you know, basically doing what my dad do, which say
I've got two words for you, and it ain't happy birth.
The other words no to your response for the information.
So just by ignoring it you get the same effect.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yes, and that's basically how they treat a lot of
people that come to them with issues.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Well, we know how they treat everybody. Look at the
residents of Hyde Park bond Hill. Yeah. One more with
Todds ends or Citizen Watchdog. Get his podcasts and definitely
listen to it regularly. Eight forty six Right now fifty
five ker CIT Talk station fifty five KRC and talk station.

(30:37):
All apologies. Eight forty nine if you have car CIT
talk station. One more segment here with Citizen Watchdog Todds
inz or tob We were having a conversation off and
we I think you and I can agree, and probably
people who have been paying attention to where the city
dollars are going can agree. We're funding a lot of
non governmental organizations, yes, and we've been down this road before.

(30:58):
The mayor and the city manager have a huge amount
of discretion to pick and choose which NGOs get taxpayer dollars.
Is that a fair statement?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Among these NGOs is an NGO called Centrifuse, Right, they
have a board of directors. What is Centrifuge being paid
by the city to allegedly do?

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh my gosh, that's a good question, Brian. It's really
it's it would definitely be spelled out in like an
application for funding, but I haven't tracked that down. But
what Centrifuse does is they help businesses start up. They
help start up businesses.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Okay, So if you a young person entrepreneur, you go
to Centrifuse I need some help starting a new business.
They provide you with some resources or send you over
to some folks that can help you out, maybe hook
you up with a financial lending company, that kind of thing. Right, Okay, fine,
we can agree that the purpose may be noble. Whether
or not there should be an NGO out there with
taxpayer dollars doing it is another thing. They're getting. How

(31:57):
much money from the city.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
They've been get ivan two hundred and fifty thousand a
year for the past four or five six years. Well,
it's well over a million dollars over that period of.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Time, Okay. And those board members have a fiduciary obligation
to serve the interest that they are being paid to do.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Who sits on that board among the members of the board.
Who is on the board at Centerviews.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Well, I found out earlier this year that the mayor
have to have provol sits on the board and has
sat on the board for his entire term. And what
was surprising is that last year at the beginning of
the year. The City Council actually went through this issue
of council members sitting on the boards of directors of nonprofits,

(32:46):
and the city mayor, supported by the city solicitor, wrote
a memo that said that is not a good idea.
It's possible to do that, but there are so many
things that you would have to accommodate to comply with
the ethics rules that it was not recommended that the
members of city council sit on the boards of directors
of nonprofits, and all the while the mayor is sitting

(33:09):
there overseeing this deliberation. He got a copy of the
city manager's memo like everybody else, And as far as
I know, there's been no disclosure by the city by
the mayor that he sits on this board.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Now, you're not he's not paid in this position.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
No, no, he's not.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
But as mayor, a separate set of ethical and fiduciary
obligations exist to the taxpayers.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
That's correct.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
How can he be in a position of deciding that
his own NGO or on which he sits on the
board anyway gets money, right? Isn't that just an outrageous
conflict of interest?

Speaker 2 (33:46):
It does seem like that, Brian, I don't. I don't
think Centrifuse has done anything wrong, and I don't know.
I don't want to suggest that, but I think it's
incumbent on the city to make sure that there's no
conflicts of interest going on. In fact, back in May,
I think I went down to city Hall because of
all the money they spend on these NGOs and nonprofits,

(34:09):
and I said, the least you could do is everybody
that submits, you know, input on how these NGOs should
be funded, everyone should sign a certification that they do
not have a conflict of interest.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Right, because here's how it might play out aftebs. I
don't get any money from them. Yeah, I got some
money going into this Centrifuse. Yes, I'm on the board
of directors parent. You had mentioned off Ara that the
head of centrifuse makes three hundred grand a year.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, just about that.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Okay, Now, what if he's looking for some campaign money
he ends up sending money over to centrifew centreviews agree
used to pay. Maybe you have tab has no connection
with the amount of money that that guy pays. Maybe
that guy's friends with atab pro Ball and maybe in
return for getting a three hundred thousand dollars years paycheck
from centrifuse being doing NGO work, he decides that, you

(34:56):
know what, I Am going to peel off a few
thousand dollars of my FATS salary and give it a
mayor to be re elected. So there is a money
trail that could be easily created by virtue of the
allocation of money to an NGO, upon which after that
pur ball sits right.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
And this is just one ease. This is just one
example of all of this spending that they do with
these nonprofits. It's a very high risk area in terms
of fraud, waste, and abuse because there's no internal controls,
there's no oversight of what these folks are doing with
their money. Some high level reports back about what we did,

(35:33):
but nobody's really looking at these and even the internal
auditor for the city has identified problems with these nonprofits.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Well, and going back to this roly contract that involves
government square specific work, I think we can all figure
out perhaps that they haven't been able to accomplish anything.
So the return on our taxpayer investment for that one
subset isn't paying off.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, I don't think it's paying off.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Well, need do I. I know it's a subjective conclusion.
We can't be held accountable for that, but crime and
government square. Government square as a concept has been in
the news time and time and time and time again.
I have to have pear Ball's been talking about it.
The police resource has been allocated to government Square. That
sounds like a bigger problem that they're trying to address
than it was maybe several years ago. So I'm gonna

(36:20):
call it a failure. Whatever they thought they were going
to accomplish. Todd zinzer Man, we unloaded a hell of
a lot today. I can't thank you enough for the
work that you're doing. Maybe maybe maybe other local news
will take the time to report on all of this
because it seems very newsworthy and maybe, just maybe this
will end up in court my hope. Anyway, Todd, thank

(36:42):
you again.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Okay, thank you, Brian.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
You're always welcome here, my friend. Always. We'll keep listening
to your podcast, Citizen Watchdog. Folks, you can get a
chance