Latest / Brian Thomas / Todd Zinser - Citizen Watchdog

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Todd Zinser - Citizen Watchdog · Brian Thomas

0:00
Speaker 1: Seven oh six. Happy Friday. E Frank Thomas right here
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Speaker 1: in the studio with Todd Zenzer Citizen Watchdog. You got
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Speaker 1: to follow his podcast, Citizen Watchdog. Former Inspector General for
0:10
Speaker 1: the United States of America. He is just a voluntary
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Speaker 1: inspector General for everything that's going on in the city
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Speaker 1: of Cincinnati, and man, do we have a mind blowing
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Speaker 1: list of I cannot believe this is actually going on topics.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back, Todd Zenzer. I always appreciate what you're doing.
0:25
Speaker 1: It was great Senior listener lunch yesterday at Rod's US.
0:28
Speaker 1: So much fun and just a real delight seeing you
0:31
Speaker 1: show up. And thanks to everybody else who was able
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Speaker 1: to make it. I had a wonderful time there. Anyway,
0:36
Speaker 1: we are you stick around the whole hour. You're gonna
0:38
Speaker 1: get an eye full of I don't know if I
0:41
Speaker 1: call it corruption in government, lots of incompetence and huge
0:44
Speaker 1: declarations of shenanigans, which is how I like to boil
0:46
Speaker 1: these things down, including the three hundred million dollars in
0:51
Speaker 1: funding that the city got for pandemic relief. Wait till
0:54
Speaker 1: you here where that went and what's in store force
0:56
Speaker 1: in the future. We'll determine what's going on with the
1:00
Speaker 1: railroad money. Wow wow, Cincinnati, Yes, they want another solar
1:07
Speaker 1: energy farm virtue signaling from the City of Cincinnati. And
1:10
Speaker 1: what is an emergency which the city uses for emergency ordinances?
1:14
Speaker 1: Todd Zinzer, You know, I like say, just I'm gonna
1:17
Speaker 1: pick the solar panel. Can we go without this to
1:21
Speaker 1: start with? Because they're all equally mind boggling? Yes, all right,
1:26
Speaker 1: the City of Cincinnati is it's just part of that
1:28
Speaker 1: green energy policy that they're pursuing, right, that's right? Okay?
1:32
Speaker 1: Is this? Do they have a date by which we're
1:34
Speaker 1: supposed to be carbon neutral or some other odd nonsense.
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Speaker 2: The goal is to be carbon neutral and Cincinnati by
1:41
Speaker 2: twenty fifty.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Now, just let me throw out there. Does anybody
1:45
Speaker 1: outside of the city limits in Hamilton County or Butler
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Speaker 1: Warren Adams County, my friends in northern Kentucky, any of
1:53
Speaker 1: those folks striving to be carbon neutral by the same date?
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Speaker 2: Not that I know of.
1:57
Speaker 1: Do we all breathe the same mayor? Does it kind
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Speaker 1: of blow across areas? Okay? And we even get win
2:03
Speaker 1: from China, don't we? In India and Turkey and other
2:05
Speaker 1: countries who don't even lift a finger to get carbon
2:07
Speaker 1: dioxide out of the plant off out of the atmosphere.
2:09
Speaker 2: As far as I know.
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Speaker 1: It's one big round globe, right, Okay, because I've heard
2:13
Speaker 1: those arguments made before. Okay, will this accomplish anything by
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Speaker 1: way of global carbon dioxide reductions given the realities of
2:24
Speaker 1: what we just talked about. I know, I'm just asking
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Speaker 1: sort of you know, rhetorical questions here, Todd.
2:28
Speaker 2: But yeah, if you read the city manager's January fourteenth memo,
2:33
Speaker 2: it is going to produced carbon neutrality by globally.
2:39
Speaker 1: Oh that's good.
2:40
Speaker 2: No, it's I think it's only going to be in
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Speaker 2: a sense.
2:43
Speaker 1: This is the dumb part about it. You got a
2:45
Speaker 1: finite number of dollars. Are we still thirty one? True?
2:48
Speaker 1: A million dollars in the hole in terms of our budget.
2:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's still the projected deficit.
2:51
Speaker 1: All right, So we have we are underwater, we have
2:53
Speaker 1: no extra money. And yet they're pursuing the building of
2:58
Speaker 1: a solar panel array and they already have one, don't they.
3:01
Speaker 2: Yes, they do.
3:01
Speaker 1: Okay, let's walk through that one real quick rewind history,
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Speaker 1: and the city of Cincinnati paid for a solar panel
3:07
Speaker 1: farm somewhere.
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Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's out east a little ways. I forget
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Speaker 2: which county it's in. It's called the new Market Solar Array,
3:14
Speaker 2: so it's new Market, Ohio, I think.
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Speaker 1: And you got a power line hooked up from out
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Speaker 1: there into the city.
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Speaker 2: Well that's interesting because and their proposal for the new
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Speaker 2: solar array they say they already have a distribution network
3:28
Speaker 2: that exists there. So I don't know. I don't know
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Speaker 2: what that is. But I don't either, I don't really
3:33
Speaker 2: know how it all works.
3:34
Speaker 1: Brian, Okay, Well, good because if you don't know, I
3:37
Speaker 1: take great comfort in that because I truly consider you
3:40
Speaker 1: to be a brilliant man, and you've been demonstrably brilliant.
3:43
Speaker 1: So we got a solar panel array. Is there any
3:46
Speaker 1: information that's been produced that shows how much that solar
3:51
Speaker 1: panel array that we've already paid for the one that
3:52
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, how much power generates, and whether there
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Speaker 1: was the return on investment that I presume we were
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Speaker 1: promised from it.
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Speaker 2: Well, I and this proposal was put on the agenda.
4:02
Speaker 2: I went ahead and looked for performance information for the
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Speaker 2: existing solar panel array, which if.
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Speaker 1: It worked great, they'd be waving it around everywhere, wouldn't they.
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Speaker 2: I would think, so, yeah, they're they're pretty good at that,
4:14
Speaker 2: Yeah they are. But my problem with the way this works,
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Speaker 2: and this is also an emergency ordinance, which is a
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Speaker 2: whole other issue.
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Speaker 1: So we got to hurry up and build another solar
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Speaker 1: array up panel. Yes, okay, okay.
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Speaker 2: And I didn't see any information that the city council
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Speaker 2: members relied on to make this decision. You have a memo,
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Speaker 2: a two page memo from the from the city manager,
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Speaker 2: and they were presented with a fifteen page PowerPoint presentation
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Speaker 2: with a lot of photos and big print. And that
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Speaker 2: that presentation I looked and that was from twenty twenty four,
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Speaker 2: So that was that was presented before or the federal
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Speaker 2: government withheld a ten million dollar grand for the project.
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Speaker 2: And so now rather than say, you know what, we're
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Speaker 2: gonna wait and see what happens here, they're gonna spend
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Speaker 2: the city's own money to put that solarray panel to
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Speaker 2: the two to twelve million dollars.
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Speaker 1: Right a new solary And by the way, Jus Trecker
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Speaker 1: looked it up. New Market Solar Array is in Highland County.
5:24
Speaker 1: He says, it's over near the Serpent Mound. Oh yeah, okay,
5:27
Speaker 1: it's up there, removed from the city limits and outside
5:30
Speaker 1: of the Hamilton County even. Yes, all right, So with
5:36
Speaker 1: no information about whether that one works or even met
5:39
Speaker 1: the expectations, they're going to build another one. They were
5:44
Speaker 1: expecting federal grant money to cover the whole thing, basically
5:47
Speaker 1: so they could virtue signal without it costing anyone any
5:50
Speaker 1: money within a budget for it within the city's budget.
5:53
Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: The plug got pulled on it for a multitude of reasons,
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Speaker 1: most notably that they don't produce the electricity that they promise,
6:01
Speaker 1: and they are more expensive to build and operate. And
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Speaker 1: yet the city is going to move forward in spite
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Speaker 1: of the fact they got a thirty one million dollar
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Speaker 1: hole to fill going forward, it's twelve million dollars.
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Speaker 2: I think you had said, that's what the city has
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Speaker 2: put aside now to spend on that. Yes, twelve million.
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Speaker 1: And all for an objective that is like trying to
6:21
Speaker 1: chase your tail and the reduction of carbon dioxide by
6:25
Speaker 1: one city, as if it's going to have any impact
6:27
Speaker 1: on the globe at all whatsoever.
6:28
Speaker 2: Right, that's my perspective anyway, Okay.
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Speaker 1: I'm having trouble making sense of how they can support
6:34
Speaker 1: moving forward to this tot. I mean, come on, do
6:36
Speaker 1: we not have potholes that continue to need to be filled.
6:39
Speaker 1: Is there not infrastructure that is still crumbling? Are there
6:42
Speaker 1: not neighborhoods that are in need of law enforcement and
6:44
Speaker 1: maybe some street cameras or whatever we do to help
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Speaker 1: improve neighborhoods and make communities safer.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I went down to city Hall and
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Speaker 2: claim my two minutes to talk to the council, and
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Speaker 2: that's what I said. I said, don't you have better
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Speaker 2: things to do with twelve million dollars? That's say a
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Speaker 2: lot of money.
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Speaker 1: But they're not obliging to answer your questions, are they.
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Speaker 2: No, they don't. It's not a back and forth.
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Speaker 1: So it's like talking to a wall.
7:07
Speaker 2: Uh you could say that, yeah.
7:09
Speaker 1: Did you send them a letter or anything that would
7:11
Speaker 1: obligate them to follow up? I mean, I know they're
7:13
Speaker 1: freedom of information and actor questions and things of that nature,
7:15
Speaker 1: but you can't force them to answer a logical, reasonable question,
7:18
Speaker 1: can you.
7:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think I send a letter after after
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Speaker 2: that two minutes, but I have sent letters in the
7:24
Speaker 2: past just to kind of confirm what I've said in
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Speaker 2: my two minutes. I never get a response. They don't
7:31
Speaker 2: respond back, even though the council rules say they they
7:34
Speaker 2: should take these correspondent seriously and do their best to respond.
7:40
Speaker 2: I haven't brought that up to them one time.
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Speaker 1: Well, Todd, I'm I'm struggling to find I mean, I
7:47
Speaker 1: can't see literally anything that the city's going to benefit
7:51
Speaker 1: from this at all. Well, I know there's I mean,
7:54
Speaker 1: there's some people that there's got to be a bunch
7:56
Speaker 1: of very far hardcore Blue voters out there who live
8:00
Speaker 1: in one of these neighborhoods where they just believe that
8:02
Speaker 1: the Democrat answer is gonna They're gonna solve every problem
8:05
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. Oh, we just gonna vote for Democrats.
8:07
Speaker 1: They're gonna come over here and whatever they think is
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Speaker 1: going to happen in any given neighborhood. Does anyone truly
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Speaker 1: believe that those folks in those neighborhoods that need some
8:16
Speaker 1: attention put this on their priority list at all? In
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Speaker 1: the top ten things that any person in any neighborhood
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Speaker 1: in the fifty two in the city of Cincinnati got
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Speaker 1: a list, what do you think the city should do
8:26
Speaker 1: here to make my life better, I garon blanc and Tee.
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Speaker 1: As I sit here, not one is going to say
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Speaker 1: we need a solar panel farm, right.
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Speaker 2: No, it's it's it's definitely just dogma. You know that
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Speaker 2: all this stuff about you know, carbon neutrality, and you know,
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Speaker 2: may maybe it'll do some good. I don't know, but
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Speaker 2: I don't think it's a very good business business decision.
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Speaker 1: It's going to do good for the solar panel manufacturers,
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Speaker 1: which is ultimately China, the individuals who will be installing
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Speaker 1: the solar panels, and the people who are left to
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Speaker 1: maintain and upkeep the solar panel which I spect will
9:01
Speaker 1: be a higher priority than the roads in the city
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Speaker 1: of Cincinnati.
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Speaker 2: We just got a foot of snow.
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Speaker 1: We could go. I wonder what that panel farm up
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Speaker 1: in Highland County look like? And did they have to
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Speaker 1: hire people to shovel the snow off of the panels,
9:12
Speaker 1: because I have to guess, Todd, and I am a
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Speaker 1: dumb man. I'll admit I'm not versed in matters of
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Speaker 1: scientific or how solar panels of the sun transform the
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Speaker 1: sun is transformed into the flow of electricity. But as
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Speaker 1: I sit here, I'm wanting to bet every single dime
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Speaker 1: I have that if the solar panels covered by a
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Speaker 1: foot of snow, it's not going to generate electricity seven
9:32
Speaker 1: to fifteen. Right now, if you have ker City talk station,
9:34
Speaker 1: what do you hear what they did with the the
9:37
Speaker 1: talk station seven nineteen If you have ker Cite talk station.
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Speaker 1: Brian Thomas was Citizen Watchdog. Todd sinser. Citizen Watchdog the
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Speaker 1: name of the podcast, and of course defines Todd's role,
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Speaker 1: a self appointed role in pointing out the batcrap insanity
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Speaker 1: of the city of Cincinnati and its priorities. Okay, so
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Speaker 1: we dealt with the epic epic fail that is the
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Speaker 1: solar panel array, the list of priorities we have in
10:01
Speaker 1: the city, God Almighty, let us pivot over to three
10:06
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars the city of Cincinnati received as a
10:10
Speaker 1: for pandemic relief. This is COVID nineteen money. This was
10:13
Speaker 1: episode forty five of Todd Zenzer's Citizen Watchdog. Find Citizen
10:17
Speaker 1: Watchdog and listen to what he has to say about it,
10:19
Speaker 1: which we will scratch the service of right now. What
10:23
Speaker 1: was the money designed for? Todd? I've always been of
10:25
Speaker 1: the mindset that that was a sort of a nefarious
10:29
Speaker 1: way using COVID nineteen as an excuse to shovel massive
10:33
Speaker 1: millions of dollars to a lot of underwater leftist leaning
10:37
Speaker 1: cities like New York was having budget problems Los Angeles.
10:40
Speaker 1: Then you enter COVID, nobody's working. The problem gets worse.
10:44
Speaker 1: All the things that had already dug them into the
10:46
Speaker 1: hole got worse. So if we just throw all kinds
10:48
Speaker 1: of money at these cities, they can level their budgetary
10:50
Speaker 1: whole playing field and then maybe choose a better path
10:53
Speaker 1: and direction going forward. So we've reset things, we've started
10:57
Speaker 1: from scratch. You no longer are infinitetial peril because of
11:01
Speaker 1: your COVID nineteen money. So we were in a similar position,
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Speaker 1: not as bad as in New York or Los Angeles
11:07
Speaker 1: or Chicago, but we had our budget problems going into
11:09
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. So lo and behold how much? How many
11:12
Speaker 1: millions of dollars did we get in COVID nineteen money.
11:14
Speaker 2: Well, there's two different tranches. There's the first tranch was
11:17
Speaker 2: called the Cares Act, and that was under Trump and
11:20
Speaker 2: Trump's last year, right, and that was like the payroll
11:24
Speaker 2: protection plan. Everybody got us a check sometimes stimulus check
11:30
Speaker 2: fraught in that and different different things about immediate needs
11:35
Speaker 2: that the cities were going to suffer because of the
11:38
Speaker 2: they shut down commerce, et cetera. So that was the
11:41
Speaker 2: CARES Act. And then when Biden comes along, they passed
11:45
Speaker 2: the American Recovery Plan Act, and that put two point
11:50
Speaker 2: five trillion dollars into the economy, and about five hundred
11:57
Speaker 2: a billion of that was to the state and local governments.
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Speaker 2: So that's the pool of money. And the city got
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Speaker 2: about three hundred million dollars and two tranches, one in
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Speaker 2: twenty twenty two and one in twenty three, and so
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Speaker 2: they had until December of twenty four to obligate it all,
12:18
Speaker 2: which they've done. They've obligated one hundred percent of it
12:21
Speaker 2: from what I can tell, and they claim I'm trying
12:24
Speaker 2: to figure out how much they have left. It's very difficult,
12:29
Speaker 2: and I'll get into that, I guess, but I think
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Speaker 2: they have about twenty five to thirty million dollars left
12:37
Speaker 2: to spend. But what they did is the Treasury Department
12:43
Speaker 2: let the cities put their funds in four different groups,
12:48
Speaker 2: and each group had different levels of kind of accountability.
12:53
Speaker 1: So here we go the cities.
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Speaker 2: The city decided to put two hundred and it got
13:00
Speaker 2: three two hundred and eighty million dollars. Let's say they
13:03
Speaker 2: put two hundred and forty million of that into what's
13:06
Speaker 2: called revenue replacement, and revenue replacement is this catch all category.
13:13
Speaker 2: And as a result of that, they the city announced
13:16
Speaker 2: in their twenty twenty five report to the Treasury Department
13:20
Speaker 2: that they had created sixty new programs and contract signings.
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Speaker 1: We're talking NGOs here, aren't we.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's sixty new ones, sixty new programs. So I
13:38
Speaker 2: when you look at it, so I went to their
13:41
Speaker 2: financial statements to see, okay, how did what was the
13:45
Speaker 2: increase in revenue during those years? And what I looked at.
13:49
Speaker 2: What I looked at was the grants. What was the
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Speaker 2: level of federal grants that the city received in twenty
13:55
Speaker 2: twenty two versus twenty nineteen. Before COVID twenty nineteen, the
14:02
Speaker 2: city got forty four million dollars in grants. In twenty
14:06
Speaker 2: twenty one with this COVID money, they got one hundred
14:09
Speaker 2: and ninety eight million dollars, and then the following year
14:13
Speaker 2: they got one hundred and seventy one million dollars so
14:16
Speaker 2: each year they got between one hundred and twenty and
14:19
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty million dollars more than what they
14:22
Speaker 2: had received prior to COVID. And you see programs like
14:27
Speaker 2: an Act for Sincey, the Financial Freedom Blueprint, which has
14:32
Speaker 2: all these different programs to help the underserved. You have
14:38
Speaker 2: the Green Cincinnati Plan. All of that appears to have
14:41
Speaker 2: been funded by this COVID money that the city received.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's a finite number of dollars. It's COVID related.
14:51
Speaker 1: COVID's gone. We're not getting any more big piles of
14:54
Speaker 1: money from the federal government. So that means, right, Todd Zensert,
14:57
Speaker 1: that all of these plans that were funded by by
15:00
Speaker 1: that short term injection or infusion of cash won't be
15:04
Speaker 1: funded going forward. They'll have to close shop and go away, right,
15:07
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that the normal course of matters, Todd Zenzer.
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Speaker 2: Right? What happened is they took these one time pots
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Speaker 2: of money and they established continuing programs with that instead
15:20
Speaker 2: of one time uses.
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Speaker 1: I knew the answered My question was no, they're going
15:23
Speaker 1: to continue. So I guess the other weird thing about
15:26
Speaker 1: this are you telling me that at the time these
15:30
Speaker 1: sixty new grant programs were set up that there was
15:34
Speaker 1: no other prior program that was out there that was
15:36
Speaker 1: designed to serve whatever need they identified. Well, these outstanding
15:41
Speaker 1: needs had existed for such a long time and were
15:43
Speaker 1: finally getting around to them sixty different NGOs. Right, Well,
15:49
Speaker 1: I can't say that because, of course the SEC would
15:51
Speaker 1: not be happy with me.
15:53
Speaker 2: Well, because of the way that the city decided to
15:56
Speaker 2: categorize these these moneies what they spent it on. You
16:01
Speaker 2: have to keep digging down and down, and yeah, you
16:04
Speaker 2: would actually have to get and I will probably do that.
16:08
Speaker 2: You try to get the Ledger accounts to see exactly
16:13
Speaker 2: who got the checks. There's some high level groups that
16:16
Speaker 2: are announced that received like the Urban League got one
16:20
Speaker 2: hundred and got one point five million, hy WCA got money.
16:26
Speaker 2: I mean, the list goes on and on, but you
16:29
Speaker 2: don't really know what they used it for. And how
16:32
Speaker 2: did the city decide which group gets which money? That
16:35
Speaker 2: is all still behind the curtain.
16:37
Speaker 1: Oh my word, we have more a full hour of
16:40
Speaker 1: this with citizen watchdog Todds ins Or. I don't know
16:42
Speaker 1: if I can say it only gets worse, but will
16:44
Speaker 1: continue on the perilous path that we're on Station fifty
16:50
Speaker 1: Kcity Talk Station Brian Talmess, citizen with Citizen Watchdog, Former
16:54
Speaker 1: Inspector General for the United States Todds Ends are going
16:56
Speaker 1: through some of the issues in the city, Sin say
16:58
Speaker 1: that you figured out, and we were still talking about
17:02
Speaker 1: this three hundred roughly three hudred million dollars in COVID
17:04
Speaker 1: nineteen money, some of which or a large chunk of
17:07
Speaker 1: which allocated to sixty brand new non governmental organization programs
17:13
Speaker 1: which will will necessarily have to be funded on an
17:16
Speaker 1: ongoing basis going forward, not that we have any idea
17:20
Speaker 1: what the money is actually being used for it even if,
17:23
Speaker 1: as you pointed out as we were into the break,
17:26
Speaker 1: the YMCA is getting some on its face like, well,
17:28
Speaker 1: who can argue with govern some money to the YMCA
17:31
Speaker 1: that helps the community and provide place for activities and
17:33
Speaker 1: brel BA, But we don't know what the YMCA did
17:37
Speaker 1: with the money. And that's the problem that extends throughout
17:39
Speaker 1: all of these grants. And this is not just a
17:41
Speaker 1: Cincinnati problem, folks. And one of the beautiful things we
17:43
Speaker 1: can point to the City of Cincinnati because it's relative
17:46
Speaker 1: to my local listeners, even folks who don't live in it.
17:49
Speaker 1: But this is illustrative of the national plague we've got
17:53
Speaker 1: going on with non governmental organizations getting our taxpayer dollars.
17:56
Speaker 2: That's definitely correct, no question about it.
17:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to say, see what the Democrat Party
18:01
Speaker 1: would look like, or even the Republicans the extent they're
18:03
Speaker 1: involved in any of this, if you could just magically
18:06
Speaker 1: waive the wand and eliminate all fraud in any program.
18:13
Speaker 1: That's not to take all the money away from all
18:14
Speaker 1: the programs, because there may be some that are actually
18:17
Speaker 1: accomplishing what they promised to accomplish if we knew what
18:20
Speaker 1: they were doing with the money, but just the ones
18:23
Speaker 1: that are taking the money and sending it to political campaigns,
18:25
Speaker 1: lining their own pockets or paying themselves handsome salaries, you know,
18:28
Speaker 1: making six figure salaries that work because I work for
18:31
Speaker 1: a nonprofit, that would be an amazing thing to but
18:35
Speaker 1: hold it would also be interesting to see how the
18:36
Speaker 1: Democrat Party would do by way of funding if all
18:38
Speaker 1: that fraud money disappeared. Anyway, Todd, you had something more
18:41
Speaker 1: to say about this three hundred million dollars in COVID money.
18:45
Speaker 2: Well, the reason I went back and looked at the
18:47
Speaker 2: COVID money and was because of the noise coming out
18:51
Speaker 2: of City Hall that they want to raise the arniance tax. Yeah,
18:56
Speaker 2: and when I look at their books, they got a
18:59
Speaker 2: lot of money. And if they try to use the
19:04
Speaker 2: loss of COVID money as a reason to increase the
19:08
Speaker 2: earnings tax, that would not be honest.
19:11
Speaker 1: No, it would not be honest. Todd, you don't really
19:14
Speaker 1: truly expect honesty from this administration, do you.
19:16
Speaker 2: Well, Unfortunately, it's really hard to understand exactly what the
19:23
Speaker 2: city is doing all the time. Well, they're not transparent.
19:26
Speaker 2: I can tell you that they're not.
19:28
Speaker 1: They hide information that should be readily available, which leads you,
19:34
Speaker 1: notably and in expert capacity to speculate, and folks like
19:38
Speaker 1: me who don't have that level of knowledge to speculate
19:40
Speaker 1: and go down some tangent like, oh my god, this
19:43
Speaker 1: is truly nefarious. And we can come up with a
19:44
Speaker 1: million different ways about why this is just outright wrong,
19:48
Speaker 1: if not make a good argument that it could be
19:50
Speaker 1: even criminal.
19:51
Speaker 2: Well, the thing that really bothers me is that the
19:55
Speaker 2: city Council has no interest in oversight of the city administration.
20:00
Speaker 2: They just go right along and that's all.
20:03
Speaker 1: It's a part time job, Todd, you can't be expected
20:06
Speaker 1: to mind the store when it's a part time job.
20:09
Speaker 2: Well, they're not even curious. And that's what really bothers me.
20:13
Speaker 2: Like on the solar array or on some of this
20:16
Speaker 2: COVID money, they just go right along with whatever the
20:19
Speaker 2: mayor and the administration want to do.
20:21
Speaker 1: Yes, they do get on that solar array. We're going
20:24
Speaker 1: back to the whole just how epic stupid it is
20:27
Speaker 1: to think that carbon neutrality in the city of Cincinnati
20:29
Speaker 1: is somehow going to benefit the globe or even the
20:31
Speaker 1: city itself. I was joking with Todd over the break.
20:34
Speaker 1: I said, we should do just let's take all this
20:36
Speaker 1: money and buy a giant dome, big glass dome, and
20:39
Speaker 1: put it over the city of Cincinnati. All fifty neighborhoods,
20:42
Speaker 1: vacuum seal it, of course, provide them with fresh carbon dioxide,
20:46
Speaker 1: free oxygen, and see how long it takes for all
20:49
Speaker 1: the plants to die. Seven thirty five. We're not done.
20:56
Speaker 1: The list has not been exhausted. Like the budget money
21:00
Speaker 1: the city of Cincinnati. We'll talk about station seven thirty
21:05
Speaker 1: nine half if you bought KCD talk station. Congressman David
21:07
Speaker 1: Taylor after the top of the art. It is in
21:09
Speaker 1: the meantime, City of Cincinnati, they don't realize how blessed
21:13
Speaker 1: they are to have Todd zens or citizen watchdog, former
21:15
Speaker 1: Inspector General looking at these records and trying to find
21:18
Speaker 1: out answers to questions. It seemed very perplexing. A lot
21:21
Speaker 1: of that topic so far this morning, the solar panel,
21:24
Speaker 1: insulation batcraft, stupid and crazy. The three hundred million dollars
21:28
Speaker 1: in funding received from the pandemic relief that's now we
21:32
Speaker 1: find it's gone to fund sixty non governmental organizations, resulting
21:36
Speaker 1: in the city taxpayers maybe having to have their taxes increased. Crazy, inexplicable,
21:42
Speaker 1: probably corrupt. Now let's pivot over to the railroad money.
21:46
Speaker 1: Toddszenser sold the railroad for one point whatever billion dollars.
21:50
Speaker 1: Money put into trust fund interest generated is supposed to
21:52
Speaker 1: be handed over to the City of Cincinnati to help
21:55
Speaker 1: our work on existing infrastructure projects. I know there's some
22:01
Speaker 1: question marks swirling around what is actually started by way
22:05
Speaker 1: of projects, what have they done with the money, what's
22:07
Speaker 1: been allocated. There's these complicating layers on it. But we
22:12
Speaker 1: find out now after you investigate that level that there's
22:17
Speaker 1: another layl level of well, I don't know of his
22:21
Speaker 1: duplicity or but really swirling question marks. Let my listeners
22:26
Speaker 1: know what you discovered. Todd Zenzer, Well, do you remember
22:31
Speaker 1: before Christmas? Local twelve ran a report about how the
22:35
Speaker 1: city was unable to use their railway money on infrastructure
22:40
Speaker 1: projects that they had only spent like six percent of
22:44
Speaker 1: the tranch that the board had sent over. This was
22:47
Speaker 1: the interest generated, and how much money had they sent over?
22:50
Speaker 1: Roughly was tens of millions of dollars right.
22:52
Speaker 2: Well, the annual amount that they agreed to send to
22:55
Speaker 2: the city for this year was fifty six million. Okay,
23:00
Speaker 2: we're putting that or sending that to the city in
23:03
Speaker 2: four different tranches, so I'm not sure exactly how much
23:07
Speaker 2: they sent. But the Local twelve report generated a lot
23:12
Speaker 2: of controversy, and the city council asked.
23:16
Speaker 1: Because we don't see any projects starting, right, that's right,
23:19
Speaker 1: they got them. We know they got the money. The
23:21
Speaker 1: railroad board said, we gave them the money. We know
23:23
Speaker 1: it's in the fifty million dollar range. So that local
23:26
Speaker 1: news says, where did it go? We're not seeing it
23:29
Speaker 1: and getting done here, and this is then that results
23:31
Speaker 1: in right.
23:32
Speaker 2: So after that report, I sent a letter to the
23:35
Speaker 2: board to make sure they saw the Local twelve report.
23:38
Speaker 2: I put a hyperlink in it, and I reminded them
23:41
Speaker 2: that in February of last year, in twenty twenty five,
23:46
Speaker 2: I went to their board meeting and I alerted them
23:49
Speaker 2: that the city was does not have the capacity to
23:52
Speaker 2: spend that money, and they need to figure out what
23:55
Speaker 2: they're going to do if the city, you know, doesn't
23:58
Speaker 2: spend the money. And what's happened is we found that
24:02
Speaker 2: what the what.
24:03
Speaker 1: The board is going to do in the city doesn't
24:05
Speaker 1: spend the money, right because they gave it in good
24:08
Speaker 1: faith to the city based upon I guess a list
24:10
Speaker 1: of projects that the cell told them.
24:12
Speaker 2: They followed the law. The law tells them they have
24:14
Speaker 2: to give them so much, and then they decide how
24:17
Speaker 2: much more to give them.
24:18
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So.
24:21
Speaker 2: I lost my train of thought here when so.
24:24
Speaker 1: You alert the board that the money went over but
24:26
Speaker 1: there's no you can't account for what it was, right.
24:29
Speaker 2: So the board actually sent a letter to the city
24:32
Speaker 2: apparently I haven't seen it, but and the finance director
24:37
Speaker 2: wrote back to the board and told them that, well,
24:41
Speaker 2: if we can't use it we put it in our
24:42
Speaker 2: investment account.
24:45
Speaker 1: So they city has opened a separate investment account. Well,
24:48
Speaker 1: they have an investment account, oh oh, existing one, and
24:51
Speaker 1: the investment account has one point six billion dollars of
24:54
Speaker 1: its own in there. And so they're taking railway money
24:58
Speaker 1: that they can't spend and they're putting it in their
25:01
Speaker 1: own investment account on top of their existing investments, and
25:06
Speaker 1: they're you know, that's adding to their earnings from that
25:08
Speaker 1: investment account. And those earnings are not restricted to existing infrastructure,
25:14
Speaker 1: are they? Todd Zenzer, right, if you were. Let's say
25:16
Speaker 1: that money it's a way to get around the existing
25:18
Speaker 1: infrastructure limit to the to the railroad money. Todd, can
25:21
Speaker 1: I just state that out loud? I mean, am I right?
25:23
Speaker 2: Yeah? You have to, you have to. We don't know yet.
25:26
Speaker 2: Apparently the city is going to go to the meeting
25:28
Speaker 2: next week in front of the board and hopefully they're
25:30
Speaker 2: going to explain all this. But that's exactly what it
25:33
Speaker 2: looks like. And let's say that money, that that millions
25:36
Speaker 2: of dollars was stolen, Well, putting it into an account
25:39
Speaker 2: like that washes it so you can't really trace it.
25:42
Speaker 2: And that's really what's happening here is that they have
25:45
Speaker 2: washed the money of the railway color and now it's
25:50
Speaker 2: Cincinnati money. And that wasn't the intent of the law
25:54
Speaker 2: when they when they passed the law.
25:55
Speaker 1: And given that it was not the intent of the law,
25:57
Speaker 1: and it violates the clear intent of the law law,
26:00
Speaker 1: is there any way that an illegal action could be
26:02
Speaker 1: filed on the board could otherwise claw that money back
26:05
Speaker 1: and say, hey, we shouldn't have sent it to you
26:06
Speaker 1: in the first place. Look at what you're doing. You're
26:08
Speaker 1: investing in your own investment account and you're taking away
26:10
Speaker 1: the limitations on its use.
26:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they either need to try to do
26:14
Speaker 2: that or make clear that they're not going to be
26:16
Speaker 2: sending tranches of money like that to the city anymore.
26:19
Speaker 2: And then what I'm proposing is that the board use
26:22
Speaker 2: a drawdown system where when the city needs the money
26:25
Speaker 2: because they have a bill pending for some work, that
26:28
Speaker 2: they come to the board and they draw down the
26:29
Speaker 2: money that they need. That's how That's how most of
26:32
Speaker 2: these infrastructure accounts operate.
26:37
Speaker 1: Sounds to me like the only way they should operate.
26:39
Speaker 1: This is just I still can't get over that is
26:42
Speaker 1: going on.
26:43
Speaker 2: Time I sent a letter to them again last night,
26:45
Speaker 2: reminding them again and reasserting my recommendation.
26:51
Speaker 1: To the board or to council, to the board, to
26:54
Speaker 1: the board, yes, to the well, at least the board
26:57
Speaker 1: gets the attention to council, and council or the mayor
27:00
Speaker 1: or maybe the city manager at least has to respond
27:02
Speaker 1: to the board. They are responding to, have to respond
27:04
Speaker 1: to Todd Zinzer.
27:05
Speaker 2: That's right, they are responding to the board.
27:07
Speaker 1: See, that's why we have Todd the talk station five KRC,
27:18
Speaker 1: the talk station Happy Friday Eve right time is here
27:23
Speaker 1: with citizen Watchdog todds Zinser again. You know, he dives
27:26
Speaker 1: in even more in depth in his podcasts and some
27:28
Speaker 1: of the topics we're talking about this morning, all of
27:29
Speaker 1: which just spell I mean, grave concern from my perspective
27:33
Speaker 1: about the existence of well, lack of oversight, perhaps fraud
27:37
Speaker 1: and corruption. All I know is you can't follow the
27:40
Speaker 1: money anywhere in the city of Cincinnati. And that last
27:43
Speaker 1: little insight about the city getting the railroad money then
27:45
Speaker 1: parking in its own investment account. Man, somebody's got to
27:49
Speaker 1: do something about that. So Todd's on the job on that.
27:51
Speaker 1: We'll see what the railroad board does. But pivoting back,
27:53
Speaker 1: we started out this morning of the laughable concept of
27:56
Speaker 1: the city buying and paying for out of the general fund,
27:59
Speaker 1: since the federal dollars aren't there anymore. This new solar
28:02
Speaker 1: panel farm wherever they're planning on building it. It's a
28:04
Speaker 1: preposterous notion anyway, It's a pointless gesture in the name
28:07
Speaker 1: of virtue signaling. But you mentioned that it was pursuant
28:15
Speaker 1: to an emergency declaration. Right now, the power hasn't gone
28:21
Speaker 1: out in the city. The panels aren't gonna keep the
28:24
Speaker 1: lights on really under any given circumstance, demonstrably failures in
28:28
Speaker 1: terms of reliable energy supply. So how is this building
28:32
Speaker 1: of the panel farm in any way shape or form
28:35
Speaker 1: an emergency.
28:37
Speaker 2: God, Yeah, I'm not sure if I brought it with me,
28:39
Speaker 2: but the city does a lot of business by emergency.
28:45
Speaker 2: In fact, I was watching the city home a city
28:48
Speaker 2: council meeting one day online and some woman came up
28:52
Speaker 2: to claim her two minutes, and she didn't even talk
28:56
Speaker 2: about what she came to the council for because she
28:58
Speaker 2: had seen the agenda, And the agenda will list all
29:02
Speaker 2: these emergency ordinances that they intend to you know, deliberate
29:06
Speaker 2: or to vote on. And she was beside herself and
29:10
Speaker 2: she thought the city was beset by emergencies. She says,
29:13
Speaker 2: what are all these emergencies.
29:16
Speaker 1: Close to martial law declaration exactly?
29:20
Speaker 2: So she was she was alarmed, and it's it's unfortunate.
29:24
Speaker 2: But that's how the city does business in in in
29:27
Speaker 2: the state of Ohio U and I think this is
29:30
Speaker 2: pretty much universal across the country. But legislatures. Legislatures are
29:34
Speaker 2: supposed to pass ordinances based on three readings of the ordinance.
29:39
Speaker 2: They they're they're supposed to read the ordinance on three
29:42
Speaker 2: different days before they vote on it. Well, what the
29:46
Speaker 2: city does is when they want to get something passed
29:49
Speaker 2: without any you know, pushback or feedback from the from
29:53
Speaker 2: the people.
29:54
Speaker 1: Their constituents, you mean Todd, Yes they represent, Yes, we
29:59
Speaker 1: don't want to for them those people.
30:03
Speaker 2: So they actually have to take three votes on an
30:06
Speaker 2: emergency ordinance. They first have to vote to suspend the
30:09
Speaker 2: three readings.
30:11
Speaker 1: All right, I see this couple a mile away.
30:13
Speaker 2: So then they vote on the ordinance itself as an emergency,
30:18
Speaker 2: and then they have to vote to keep that emergency
30:21
Speaker 2: clause in the bill. So, for example, I decided to
30:26
Speaker 2: go back and look at how many emergency ordinances did
30:29
Speaker 2: the city council enact in twenty twenty five. So I
30:33
Speaker 2: went back counted them all up. They passed four hundred
30:37
Speaker 2: and four ordinances in twenty twenty five. Three hundred and
30:41
Speaker 2: three of them were emergency ordinances seventy five percent, and
30:46
Speaker 2: they're supposed to state the reason, and the reason is
30:50
Speaker 2: that the reason is some general statement about to further
30:54
Speaker 2: the health, safety and whatever of the community. That's all
30:57
Speaker 2: they have to do. And that's been tested in court,
31:00
Speaker 2: and the court says, okay, well, we're not going to
31:02
Speaker 2: get involved in what the legislature decides to do and
31:05
Speaker 2: that type of things exactly, So the city council has
31:10
Speaker 2: a clear runway to pass whatever they want to pass
31:14
Speaker 2: without any feedback in the And the critical piece about
31:18
Speaker 2: emergency ordinances is that in the Ohio law, it cuts
31:23
Speaker 2: off any ability of the citizens to appeal that through
31:26
Speaker 2: a referendum. So, for example, on this solar array, if
31:30
Speaker 2: that hadn't been an emergency ordinance, we could try to
31:33
Speaker 2: get that on the ballot for people to approve yes
31:36
Speaker 2: or no. So these emergency ordinances wipe that all out
31:40
Speaker 2: and that's what happened with connected community.
31:42
Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say. That's what Hyde
31:44
Speaker 1: Park did. Well, I mean, they're not a ballot. They
31:46
Speaker 1: got something that was going to go on the back exactly.
31:48
Speaker 1: For some reason, they forgot to call it an emergency.
31:51
Speaker 1: I don't know why they didn't call it an emergency.
31:53
Speaker 1: I think it I think they.
31:55
Speaker 2: Knew that if they had done that, it would have
31:56
Speaker 2: been an outrageous outcry from the from the people.
32:00
Speaker 1: Because the residents of Hyde Park were paying attention to
32:02
Speaker 1: what was going on in their neighborhood, that's right.
32:05
Speaker 2: And so there was a calculation that while it's better
32:09
Speaker 2: to risk them being able to get all the signatures
32:12
Speaker 2: on a petition in time versus all the outcry that
32:16
Speaker 2: would happen if they declared an emergency.
32:18
Speaker 1: Or and they ignored all the outcry that they received
32:20
Speaker 1: when they went forward a plan anyway. All the residents
32:22
Speaker 1: showed up and complained about it.
32:24
Speaker 2: Hours and hours, hours and hours of you know, protest
32:28
Speaker 2: by the people.
32:28
Speaker 1: So they said, well, we'll suffer through that, we'll ignore
32:31
Speaker 1: the will of our constituents. We'll move forward with it anyway,
32:34
Speaker 1: and we'll run the risk of a ballot initiative. But oh,
32:36
Speaker 1: come on, this is the City of Cincinnati. There's no
32:39
Speaker 1: way they're going to be able to collect enough signatures
32:41
Speaker 1: to override this. Whoops, I think they did.
32:44
Speaker 2: I think that's what happened, right.
32:45
Speaker 1: I guarantee you sure as I'm sitting here, Todd zenzer Man,
32:47
Speaker 1: I cannot thank you enough for doing this on behalf
32:50
Speaker 1: of the city of Cincinnati, and the residents take the
32:53
Speaker 1: laboring or all the time, all documented. If there are
32:56
Speaker 1: no documents, Todd at least goes through the process of
32:59
Speaker 1: asking for them or appealing to at least a body
33:02
Speaker 1: that will be in a position to get them the
33:04
Speaker 1: Railroad Board. Todd, you keep up the great work. You
33:07
Speaker 1: always have a welcome spot here in the fifty five
33:09
Speaker 1: Caro Scene Morning show. And thanks again for coming to
33:11
Speaker 1: lunch yesterday was fabulous, sing it.
33:12
Speaker 2: Thank you,