Transcript

Joe Motil · Chuck Douglas

0:00
Speaker 1: And we are back, second half of the Power Hour
0:02
Speaker 1: on this Monday evening. I'm Chuck Douglas. As I said,
0:04
Speaker 1: you know who you are. Do you know who this
0:05
Speaker 1: guy in the studio is? His name is Joe Motil.
0:08
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what, we met, dear heavens, 15
0:13
Speaker 1: years ago maybe. He was a candidate at that time.
0:17
Speaker 1: And I know he's no spring chicken now, but he's
0:21
Speaker 1: in great shape. He's very energetic. And if he were
0:24
Speaker 1: to make that announcement again, I'd be jumping for joy,
0:27
Speaker 1: quite frankly. He did run as a Democrat. I I
0:30
Speaker 1: don't care. It's about substantive people as far as I'm concerned.
0:34
Speaker 1: And he brought something to the table as far as
0:36
Speaker 1: being a watchdog over how money was being thrown away,
0:39
Speaker 1: given away, misspent, hidden. There needs to be that kind
0:43
Speaker 1: of watchdog at 90 West Broad Street. So I have
0:46
Speaker 1: always loved him for that reason. And tonight he is
0:49
Speaker 1: here because it's not a candidate night. It's an issue
0:52
Speaker 1: night for me. On the ballot, if you are a
0:55
Speaker 1: voter in the city of Columbus, you are going to
0:56
Speaker 1: see issue eight and issue nine now. Issue 8, if
1:00
Speaker 1: I'm understanding this correctly, and if not, he'll throw a
1:02
Speaker 1: shoe at me. Issue 8, essentially a grassroots effort to
1:07
Speaker 1: increase the representation that we have as citizens of Columbus
1:10
Speaker 1: in the Columbus City Council. Issue 9, no surprise, is
1:16
Speaker 1: Columbus City Council's version that is made to look like
1:21
Speaker 1: you're getting increased representation. However, they threw in a couple
1:25
Speaker 1: of little extras there. that essentially allows them to maintain
1:28
Speaker 1: their one-sided, one-vision control, and I don't care for that. So,
1:33
Speaker 1: Joe Motile, in the studio, thank you, sir, for making time.
1:35
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
1:36
Speaker 2: Oh, you're very welcome, and thanks for the kind words.
1:39
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
1:40
Speaker 1: Am I adequate in my description of Issues 8 and 9?
1:43
Speaker 2: Pretty much, yeah. There's, of course, a lot to that.
1:47
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Well, that's why I got you in here,
1:49
Speaker 1: so we can get to a lot to that. You
1:51
Speaker 1: were part of the formation of the Issue 8 deal, right?
1:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I want to make it clear I'm speaking
1:56
Speaker 2: on behalf of myself.
1:57
Speaker 1: Yourself. I know.
1:59
Speaker 2: I was a part of the coalition for Issue 8,
2:02
Speaker 2: and I was also a part of the previous issues
2:05
Speaker 2: that have been on the ballot in the past in
2:08
Speaker 2: 2016 in terms of trying to change to make up
2:11
Speaker 2: a city council.
2:11
Speaker 1: We have done this in the past several times as citizens,
2:14
Speaker 1: saying we believe we deserve more than seven at the
2:18
Speaker 1: time at-large representatives on city council. We're the capital city,
2:22
Speaker 1: for goodness sakes. Do we need Cleveland size? No, maybe not.
2:26
Speaker 1: But we need more than what we had with seven.
2:29
Speaker 1: So what we got was nine. But before we got
2:32
Speaker 1: those nine at-large seats, they threw something at us called
2:36
Speaker 1: area commissions, which are toothless lions that do nothing. But
2:40
Speaker 1: essentially what they did is tell the community, you'll have
2:43
Speaker 1: residents who live in your community, and they'll hear issues
2:46
Speaker 1: and give their recommendations before those issues come to city
2:49
Speaker 1: council or the zoning board or whatever. The trouble is,
2:53
Speaker 1: I speak as a former area commission chair far too often.
2:58
Speaker 1: What you tell the city of Columbus, the recommendation is
3:00
Speaker 1: from that body is ignored for whatever the hell city
3:04
Speaker 1: of Columbus wants to do. And so the area commission
3:06
Speaker 1: was just it was a bone thrown to a hungry dog,
3:08
Speaker 1: but it really never accomplished anything. Nine people at large
3:13
Speaker 1: never accomplished anything. The argument that, well, if you have
3:16
Speaker 1: this kind of representation, the south side is going to
3:19
Speaker 1: be fighting with the west side about who gets what
3:21
Speaker 1: and who does what.
3:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
3:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you're exactly right. And that is America. That
3:26
Speaker 1: is what happens in the halls of Congress. That is
3:28
Speaker 1: what happens in the statehouse. That's what happens at your
3:30
Speaker 1: blasted homeowner association meetings. People advocating on behalf of the
3:35
Speaker 1: people they represent. And I don't see how anyone can
3:37
Speaker 1: argue with that, Joe.
3:39
Speaker 2: No, I can't either. And it's, you know, this goes
3:42
Speaker 2: back to the history of the city of Columbus and
3:44
Speaker 2: how they've elected city council members. And just so people know,
3:47
Speaker 2: clear back in the 1800s, we had as many as
3:48
Speaker 2: 38 district council representatives. And that was made up of
3:56
Speaker 2: people like Germans, Irish, Poles, Eastern Europeans, immigrants, African Americans.
4:01
Speaker 2: And the powers to be felt that they didn't want
4:05
Speaker 2: those people to have any input in terms of city policy.
4:08
Speaker 2: So clear back in 1914, that is when they started
4:12
Speaker 2: seven at-large city council member makeup. They eliminated all the
4:17
Speaker 2: district elections and This is an interesting quote from the
4:21
Speaker 2: Columbus Evening Dispatch on May 1st, 1914. The former assistant
4:26
Speaker 2: city of Columbus law director, George Jones, who basically was
4:30
Speaker 2: a city attorney, said, quote, the laboring men will not
4:33
Speaker 2: be benefited or represented in a council of seven men
4:37
Speaker 2: elected at large, four of whom at least will be
4:40
Speaker 2: corporation handpicked and will vote as the corporation dictate as
4:45
Speaker 2: against the interest of the men who work. I mean,
4:48
Speaker 2: this is somebody who actually worked at City Hall, a
4:50
Speaker 2: city attorney, in 1914. They saw clear back then what
4:54
Speaker 2: this was all about and the corruption that this would
4:57
Speaker 2: create and the lack of input and policymaking from the citizens-to-be.
5:02
Speaker 1: Not a daggone thing has changed since 1914. After you
5:05
Speaker 1: read that, I'm sitting here, that could have been written yesterday.
5:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yep, they saw it back then, and we've
5:11
Speaker 2: been seeing it ever since for over 100 years.
5:14
Speaker 1: So, Issue 8... if you were to vote affirmative on
5:19
Speaker 1: issue eight and it would indeed pass here in the
5:22
Speaker 1: city of Columbus, what does that accomplish for the citizens?
5:25
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, well, issue eight will just create
5:28
Speaker 2: nine districts. Okay. Okay. Create nine districts. And only those
5:31
Speaker 2: people that live in those districts can, will elect their
5:34
Speaker 2: district representatives. So that's going to allow for your, you know, your,
5:38
Speaker 2: your regular day, Joe common person. Who's not who's not,
5:43
Speaker 2: you know, a member of the Franklin County Democratic Party
5:46
Speaker 2: and under the control of corporations, developers and city hall
5:48
Speaker 2: and the powers that be that actually control the city
5:51
Speaker 2: policy to represent the people and the people's interest. And
5:55
Speaker 2: of course, the powers that be don't want that. They
5:58
Speaker 2: don't want that, which is why the city council created
6:01
Speaker 2: issue nine. But we'll get into that a little bit better.
6:03
Speaker 2: So it's also going to be less expensive for candidates
6:06
Speaker 2: to run. people that live in these districts are actually
6:09
Speaker 2: going to know who their city council member is. It's
6:11
Speaker 2: going to create, I think, a lot more people getting
6:15
Speaker 2: involved with city politics because they see that they actually
6:18
Speaker 2: do have a voice in their community because they have
6:21
Speaker 2: a city council member that they can actually go knock
6:23
Speaker 2: on their door and know exactly who they are. So
6:26
Speaker 2: it's going to create a movement, if you will, in
6:28
Speaker 2: terms of, I think, involvement in this city in terms
6:31
Speaker 2: of policy and how policy should be changed. And as
6:34
Speaker 2: you stated, It's a farce. It's such a lie and
6:38
Speaker 2: falsehood to say that these district candidates and representatives are
6:44
Speaker 2: going to only represent their district. I mean, it's like
6:47
Speaker 2: you said, House of Representatives, state senators in our state legislature,
6:51
Speaker 2: they're voted by a district. They represent the entire state
6:54
Speaker 2: of Ohio and what happens in the entire state of Ohio.
6:57
Speaker 2: Those people running in a district in Columbus, Ohio, one
7:01
Speaker 2: of those nine districts, They have to be aware of
7:04
Speaker 2: what takes place in the city, looking out for the
7:06
Speaker 2: overall good of the city, not just their district. So
7:11
Speaker 2: first of all, voters need to be made aware, and
7:13
Speaker 2: they should also know what their candidate that they're voting
7:17
Speaker 2: for understands city politics or city government as a whole
7:21
Speaker 2: and what is in the best interest. But of course
7:23
Speaker 2: they're representing their district, but they also are representing the
7:26
Speaker 2: entire city. And the argument that city council and some
7:29
Speaker 2: of the people that are in favor of Issue 9
7:31
Speaker 2: are saying, well, they don't understand the city as a whole.
7:34
Speaker 2: It's going to impact affordable housing. Affordable housing is dictated
7:38
Speaker 2: by legislation at City Hall.
7:40
Speaker 1: That's it.
7:40
Speaker 2: That's zoning. That's what dictates housing. It's not, you know,
7:44
Speaker 2: a District 8 representative has the ability to reject housing
7:48
Speaker 2: in their neighborhood because it's already in its legislation. It's
7:52
Speaker 2: like we're allowed to build a parking, you know, and
7:56
Speaker 2: things like that. That's the rule of law. So they
7:59
Speaker 2: can't say no to affordable housing or housing in their neighborhoods.
8:03
Speaker 2: It's already dictated by law. So to say that is, again,
8:07
Speaker 2: another disingenuous lie that's being told by council and their representatives.
8:13
Speaker 1: And that phrase affordable housing, quite frankly, at City Hall,
8:16
Speaker 1: that's thrown in there like it's for the children. You know,
8:19
Speaker 1: it's one of those They're attempting to elicit some sort
8:23
Speaker 1: of emotional response. Every time they bring that up, I
8:26
Speaker 1: chuckle because what they consider affordable and what the people
8:29
Speaker 1: on my beloved West Side consider affordable, trust me, are
8:33
Speaker 1: two very different things. So it's a farce term to
8:36
Speaker 1: begin with, but it's always thrown out there as some
8:38
Speaker 1: sort of justification. We're going to do something you really hate,
8:42
Speaker 1: but affordable housing. So quickly here, because I want to
8:48
Speaker 1: get the other one in, too. How are the boundaries drawn?
8:51
Speaker 1: Who's responsible for determining the boundaries of those districts?
8:55
Speaker 2: Well, there was there was like an open discussion and
8:59
Speaker 2: people could there was maps drawn and you could put
9:03
Speaker 2: in your your questions about the maps and where they
9:05
Speaker 2: should be and where they shouldn't be. And that was
9:08
Speaker 2: all done a few years ago. And that's how the
9:11
Speaker 2: maps were actually determined. They had public hearings and stuff
9:13
Speaker 2: like that. So you could say, you know, this area
9:17
Speaker 2: shouldn't be in this district, blah, blah, blah. And that's
9:19
Speaker 2: how those maps came to be. So according to legislation
9:23
Speaker 2: that was passed when that happened, those those maps would
9:26
Speaker 2: be redrawn when the U.S. Census Bureau would next be
9:31
Speaker 2: in 2030. So issue nine, the city council's issue nine
9:37
Speaker 2: is actually moving that up to 2028. I mean, they
9:40
Speaker 2: could have done that last year. They could have redrawn
9:43
Speaker 2: the maps anytime they wanted. So they just kind of
9:46
Speaker 2: threw that in there as a bone for. For certain
9:49
Speaker 2: people who think that the draft, the maps aren't properly
9:52
Speaker 2: redrawn to represent minorities. So this was their attempt to
9:56
Speaker 2: try to get the minority support to support their issue nine.
10:00
Speaker 1: All right so issue nine let's go to that differs
10:04
Speaker 1: from eight in some pretty significant ways what what is
10:06
Speaker 1: the most prominent way.
10:08
Speaker 2: First of all they they they they always like to
10:10
Speaker 2: say that it's complimentary complimentary to issue eight and what
10:14
Speaker 2: our city our say uh presented and stuff almost like
10:18
Speaker 2: both uh city council and our city and our say
10:20
Speaker 2: we're in bed with each other. They try to make
10:22
Speaker 2: it sound like that, but they weren't. There was a
10:25
Speaker 2: lot of different opinions on, uh, from people with issue eight.
10:29
Speaker 2: And so, uh, they, they said, so what they did
10:32
Speaker 2: was they say, okay, we'll go along with the district, uh,
10:35
Speaker 2: nine district elections. And we're also going to throw in,
10:38
Speaker 2: we're going to move up the date for the, uh,
10:41
Speaker 2: to 2028 to redraw the maps, which should they're claiming
10:45
Speaker 2: will be more minority friendly, uh, Now, some people say
10:48
Speaker 2: that those maps are already minority friendly, where there's four
10:51
Speaker 2: districts that are already a majority minority. There's dispute over that, blah, blah, blah.
10:57
Speaker 2: Then people say, well, look how many minorities we have
11:00
Speaker 2: on city council, blah, blah, blah. But as we all know,
11:02
Speaker 2: those are all self-appointed people from the power structure. They
11:06
Speaker 2: weren't four minority or five minority people that were actually
11:10
Speaker 2: supported and put in office by the people.
11:15
Speaker 1: And I've never seen any of them at the fish
11:16
Speaker 1: and chicken place out on Livingston Avenue. I'm just going
11:18
Speaker 1: to say that.
11:21
Speaker 2: So they threw that in there, threw that in as
11:24
Speaker 2: a bone for people. And then they also, which is
11:27
Speaker 2: not part of the legislation, but they created new legislation about,
11:32
Speaker 2: I think it was about a month ago, I went
11:33
Speaker 2: down and testified about campaign finance. And they said, this
11:37
Speaker 2: was an issue with Our City, Our Say. So we're
11:39
Speaker 2: going to address campaign finance. They lowered the individual campaign
11:44
Speaker 2: contribution from $ 16, 707 to I think it was like $ 8, 200,
11:51
Speaker 2: something like that. And then in-kind contributions used to be unlimited,
11:56
Speaker 2: and they're going to reduce those to $ 32, 000. So neither
11:59
Speaker 2: one of those can a common person actually contribute, anybody.
12:03
Speaker 2: And plus the $ 8, 000 individual contributions, those go up every
12:08
Speaker 2: two years according to the Consumer Price Index. So the
12:12
Speaker 2: current individual campaign finance limits were around $ 12, 700 back seven
12:21
Speaker 2: years ago. Now they're up to $ 16, 000. So they've increased
12:24
Speaker 2: by $ 4, 000. So that $ 8, 000 limit is going to continue
12:27
Speaker 2: to increase every two years, according to the CPI. So
12:31
Speaker 2: it's why, first of all, it should be lower and
12:34
Speaker 2: it should be fixed. It should not be able to rise. Secondly,
12:38
Speaker 2: the in-kind contribution thing was brought up. and I brought
12:41
Speaker 2: it up eight, 10 years ago when it should have
12:44
Speaker 2: been restricted, limited, that the city council members during the
12:48
Speaker 2: Tierra Ross, Jesse Vogel race, they contributed hundreds of thousands
12:53
Speaker 2: of dollars of in-kind contributions to Tierra Ross's campaign. And
12:58
Speaker 2: they've been doing this for years, but nobody's mentioned it
13:00
Speaker 2: until Jesse Vogel raised $ 700, 000 and lost an at-large city
13:07
Speaker 2: council seat, which was basically an at-large seat. It was
13:10
Speaker 2: District 7, but again, that was the way that the
13:14
Speaker 2: districts were voted on at-large. They called them district elections,
13:17
Speaker 2: but they were at-large. And he raised $ 700, 000, still lost.
13:21
Speaker 2: So that's just another reason why the at-large voting is
13:25
Speaker 2: a joke.
13:26
Speaker 1: All right. Music's playing already, which means we are running
13:28
Speaker 1: out of time in this segment. I'm going to ask you, though,
13:32
Speaker 1: can we continue talking and let me post an additional
13:35
Speaker 1: podcast because we are nowhere near done with this.
13:37
Speaker 2: Right.
13:37
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that needs to be explained, okay? Tomorrow, Tuesday,
13:42
Speaker 1: early voting begins. Educate yourself and go vote. Please don't
13:48
Speaker 1: go to the polls stupid. You do a disservice to
13:50
Speaker 1: yourself and to everyone else around you. Back in with
13:53
Speaker 1: Blazer tomorrow beginning at 3. Join us on 610 WTBN.