Latest / Brian Thomas / Citizen Watchdog - The Rising 15 - Motions, Reparations, and Their Implications

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Citizen Watchdog - The Rising 15 - Motions, Reparations, and Their Implications · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: Things that you have never seen. Hear it from the
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  Speaker 1: voices you've never seen before. You can always trust never
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  Speaker 1: On fifty five krs the talk station hit A six
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  Speaker 1: ififty five kerr ce DE talk Station. Brian Thomas pleased
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  Speaker 1: as I can be to look across the board here
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  Speaker 1: and see Citizen Watchdog Todd Zenzer in studio and while
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  Speaker 1: what an eye opening discussion we're gonna have Todd Zenzer's
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  Speaker 1: in studio. His new podcast, Citizen Watchdog is the name
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  Speaker 1: of it. Find it. You're gonna love hearing about it.
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  Speaker 1: Talks about the subject better we're gonna be talking about
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  Speaker 1: this morning. Uh So, thanks Joe Strekker for producing it,
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  Speaker 1: and thank you Todd Zenzer lending your experience as a
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  Speaker 1: former US Inspector General. As a I joked about it
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  Speaker 1: going into the break at the top of there is
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  Speaker 1: kind of like a hobby during retirement. Man, you are
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  Speaker 1: closely analyzing the expenditures of the City of Cincinnati, and
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  Speaker 1: the timing of you being here could not be better.
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  Speaker 1: Christopher Smithman was on this morning venting his spleen in
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  Speaker 1: a special Spleen Done edition for this because the city
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  Speaker 1: of Cincinnati is talking about a five percent across the
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  Speaker 1: board cut, including cuts to public safety after infusing five
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  Speaker 1: million plus dollars last year. Because we have a public
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  Speaker 1: safety problem, they want to cut police and fire, claiming
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  Speaker 1: we got a budget problem. They want to increase taxes
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  Speaker 1: as well. Todd Zinzer, they have a hole to fill.
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  Speaker 1: But whoa, whoa, whoa, Todd Zenzer. You told me before
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  Speaker 1: we started talking on air this morning that we don't
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  Speaker 1: have a budget problem in the city. Good to have
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  Speaker 1: you back in, my friend.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Brian.
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  Speaker 1: No, there isn't a budget problem.
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  Speaker 2: No, I don't think there's a budget problem. They they
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  Speaker 2: really have spent a lot of money just recently, for example,
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  Speaker 2: on things that are not really towards public safety for example,
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  Speaker 2: or any any of them must do type of things
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  Speaker 2: that the city.
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  Speaker 1: Has, road bridges, infrastructure, public safety, the core functions of government.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, they just spent three point eight million dollars last week, folks,
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  Speaker 2: on a dozen different purposes. Three of them, for example,
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  Speaker 2: almost six hundred thousand dollars I think, on efforts to
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  Speaker 2: help illegal immigrants who need representation against the government.
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  Speaker 1: Oh well, of course that's a core function of cities
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  Speaker 1: since a government.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So there are things like that just a corp
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  Speaker 2: of weeks ago they approved twelve million dollars for a
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  Speaker 2: new solar array.
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  Speaker 1: Oh you ah man, you you came in here to
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  Speaker 1: piss me off.
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  Speaker 2: And just I think part of this three point eight
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  Speaker 2: this past week or this week, I think it was
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  Speaker 2: this week actually four hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
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  Speaker 2: help green to promote the Green workforce, which I don't
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  Speaker 2: really know what that is, but those are the kind
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  Speaker 2: of things that they spend money on that they.
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  Speaker 1: Really don't need to the green workforce. Yeah, well, I
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  Speaker 1: suppose that's an opportunity for party loyalists to get a
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  Speaker 1: salary and probably do nothing but maybe wear t shirts
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  Speaker 1: promoting the environment or something.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so much. There's so much of that, Brian,
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  Speaker 2: And I think what they're trying to do with this
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  Speaker 2: reparations issue is in the Green New Deal or the
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  Speaker 2: Green New Green Cincinnati Plan, they put the plan in place,
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  Speaker 2: and then throughout the year they spend money, and the
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  Speaker 2: justification is it to implement the Green Cincinnati Plan. So
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  Speaker 2: the cost of that particular program doesn't need to need
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  Speaker 2: to be justified on its own, it's justified by the
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  Speaker 2: Green Cincinnati Plan. They're going to do the same thing
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  Speaker 2: with this reparations plan, is they're going to They're going
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  Speaker 2: to set it up and then as they spend money
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  Speaker 2: throughout the year on things that tangentially fit that, they'll
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  Speaker 2: call it reparations.
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  Speaker 1: So they will hire non government organizations out there and
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  Speaker 1: separately pay them to implement manager otherwise deal with the
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  Speaker 1: separate the overarching five million dollar reparations program.
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  Speaker 2: That's what I think is going to happen, and the
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  Speaker 2: reparations ish you. At least my involvement with it goes
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  Speaker 2: back to the railroad campaign. Two weeks before the election
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  Speaker 2: or the referendum, the city council, the vice mayor in particular,
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  Speaker 2: entered a motion for the Rising fifteen railway fund they
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  Speaker 2: wanted to take. They wanted to establish a Rising fifteen
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  Speaker 2: railway fund and take ten percent of whatever the city
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  Speaker 2: gets in a distribution and put it in that fund.
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  Speaker 2: And they did that two weeks before the election. And
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  Speaker 2: when I saw that it was well, they were just
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  Speaker 2: trying to get support from the black community which was
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  Speaker 2: wishy washy on the sale of the railroad. And then
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  Speaker 2: after the election where they actually won, the motions went away,
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  Speaker 2: oh really, and it came back in January of twenty five.
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  Speaker 2: That's when they introduced the reparations, the Rising fifteen Railway Fund,
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  Speaker 2: the Rising fifteen Economic Development Fund, and I went down
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  Speaker 2: and objected just based on the socioeconomic data that they
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  Speaker 2: said supported the motion. It consisted of three columns, the
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  Speaker 2: fifteen neighborhoods, the median income of those neighborhoods, and the
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  Speaker 2: racial makeup of those neighborhoods.
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  Speaker 1: That was it.
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  Speaker 2: That was it, And so I did. I went down
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  Speaker 2: to city council and I told them I didn't think
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  Speaker 2: was appropriate to make government funding decisions based on race,
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  Speaker 2: which this absolutely was. So I don't know if that
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  Speaker 2: had an impact, but they did not vote on that motion.
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  Speaker 2: And so the next thing you had, also in January
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  Speaker 2: of twenty five for the Rising fifteen is they wanted
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  Speaker 2: to take the railway money and apply it to sidewalk
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  Speaker 2: a sidewalk repair program where if you're delinquent in fixing
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  Speaker 2: your sidewalk and you've been penalized, they wanted to use
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  Speaker 2: railway money to fix those sidewalks and relieve the property
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  Speaker 2: owner of that penalty.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that's not property, that is the responsibility of this city.
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  Speaker 1: In the first place. I know, so this is another
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  Speaker 1: social welfare program in disguise.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, So, I think the thing about the reparations motion
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  Speaker 2: is that there's no question that Cincinnati has a segregation problem.
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  Speaker 2: There's no question about that.
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  Speaker 1: And the.
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  Speaker 2: Reparations is really just a label. It's a charged or
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  Speaker 2: a loaded word that people see it and they think
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  Speaker 2: that means that we're going to go and pay payments
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  Speaker 2: to people whose ancestors were enslaved. That's not what this
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  Speaker 2: reparations program is. This is really just a housing program
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  Speaker 2: that they've labeled reparations.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and the predicate is there used to be a
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  Speaker 1: discrimination in the real estate market. Agents were told do
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  Speaker 1: not show these particular properties to black people, those zoning issues.
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  Speaker 1: All of that was eradicated over the years and deemed unlawful,
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  Speaker 1: which exactly was. But you said, we do have a
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  Speaker 1: segregation problem in the city of Cincinnati.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. The poverty, for example, is totally concentrated in
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  Speaker 2: the West End and neighborhoods like Avondale. It's just concentrated
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  Speaker 2: there because of these zoning and property of policies that
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  Speaker 2: existed so many years ago.
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  Speaker 1: Which continued to this day.
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  Speaker 2: I get the impression to a certain extent. Yeah, the
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  Speaker 2: big issue was, the big boiling point was the Kenyan
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  Speaker 2: Bar neighborhood if you've never heard of that. That was
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  Speaker 2: like the Queensgate area and the west part of downtown.
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  Speaker 2: It was the largest neighborhood in the city back in
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  Speaker 2: the day. This was in the sixties, I guess. And
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  Speaker 2: that's when they took I seventy five and took it
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  Speaker 2: right through Kenyon Bar. They displaced all the residents there
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  Speaker 2: and those residents had to move and it concentrated in
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  Speaker 2: the West End and then into these other areas. And
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  Speaker 2: that's what that's what the city's dealing with in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the concentration of poverty.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so they feel they have a moral high ground
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  Speaker 1: to allocate this money, yes, all right. Now, let me
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  Speaker 1: just ask a very practical question. Even if it's the
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  Speaker 1: greatest idea since sliced bread, five million dollars, when you're
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  Speaker 1: dealing with a housing issue, I can't see that going
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  Speaker 1: a long way. Todd, That's right, that's exactly right. Symbolic.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it's very symbolic, and it's very consistent with what
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  Speaker 2: this city council does. You've got the financial freedom blueprint.
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  Speaker 2: You've got the Act for Sincy that spreads out all
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  Speaker 2: this money. It's called it's called spreading the peanut butter.
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  Speaker 2: And they keep spreading the peanut butter and it gets
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  Speaker 2: thinner and thinner and thinner. Yeah, because they're trying to
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  Speaker 2: accommodate all of these social services and social justice purposes.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I think I made a comment to you on
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  Speaker 1: the heels of a different way of putting it. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you can be a bleeding heart and think you need
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  Speaker 1: to help and fund and you know every worthy cause
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  Speaker 1: or maybe even not worthy cause that comes down the road,
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  Speaker 1: but you're eventually going to bleed to death. That's right,
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  Speaker 1: And that's where we find ourselves. So it's not that
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  Speaker 1: it's not that we we actually have a budget problem,
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  Speaker 1: but it's brought about by that reality. You don't need
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  Speaker 1: to spend all this money. It's ultimately a pointless gesture,
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  Speaker 1: virtue signaling. It allows you to hire all of these
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  Speaker 1: weal or these political loyalists who basically can go out
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  Speaker 1: in the world, use up those funds and accomplish nothing.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, that's it boiled down in a nutshell. We're gonna
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  Speaker 1: pause right now. We'll bring Todd zzerbeca waits you here
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  Speaker 1: where some of these this money goes? He say, A
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  Speaker 1: bar a nineteen. If you have Karos de talk station.
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  Speaker 1: Citizen Watchdog is the podcast. Citizen Watchdog is the man
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  Speaker 1: who is Todd Zinzer in studio and Tom, I'm to
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  Speaker 1: give you props because you're exposing the nefarious reality where
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  Speaker 1: our money, our City of Cincinnati taxpayer dollars being spent
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  Speaker 1: by this runaway council and mayor. You remind me of
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  Speaker 1: the citizen journalists who expose well, they think they knew
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  Speaker 1: about it, it had been reported on a lot, but actually
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: blew up the whole Minneapolis Leering Center thing. Yes, he
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: walked around, he saw what was going on, he reported it,
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  Speaker 1: and boom, that's you. With regard to the expenses, the
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  Speaker 1: City of Cincinnati is engaging out of the projects they're
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  Speaker 1: engaging in, so they claim they got a financial crisis.
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  Speaker 1: They want to raise the taxes. They're talking about a
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  Speaker 1: five percent across the board cut, including fire and safety,
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  Speaker 1: and you're pointing out that they spend gobs and gobs
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  Speaker 1: of money basically virtue signaling with no hope of actual
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  Speaker 1: real something realistic coming from these endeavors by spending it
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  Speaker 1: on some of the programs you mentioned before. Tell everybody
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  Speaker 1: about the bar, Well, this has.
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  Speaker 2: Been on the agenda for a long time. I think
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  Speaker 2: it's been in the works for a long time. But
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  Speaker 2: they've been appropriating money to something called the West End
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  Speaker 2: Sports Bar and Grill, and my sense is that it's
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  Speaker 2: a minority owned business that's been you know, they're trying
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  Speaker 2: to revitalize in the West End and so every once
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  Speaker 2: in a while they'll they'll put money into it. And
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  Speaker 2: that's not uncommon for this council to do that.
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  Speaker 1: But how is it, I mean, here again pointing out
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  Speaker 1: that you're the one that's exposing this, there is I
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  Speaker 1: don't know that there is any local media outlets five
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  Speaker 1: nine twelve, Fox nineteen. They have reporters since they acquire
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  Speaker 1: Scott Wartman should be on the job, don't we Is
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  Speaker 1: there no one who else in the world who's paying
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  Speaker 1: attention to this? I mean, these are really really it
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  Speaker 1: just sounds like you're revealing a level of corruption that
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  Speaker 1: my brain can't quite comprehend this morning, toodd.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think everybody's gotten used to the council spending
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  Speaker 2: money like this these for example, this three point eight
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  Speaker 2: million that they approved this week. Those motions are sprinkled
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  Speaker 2: throughout the agenda. So what I do and I get
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  Speaker 2: an agenda for the city Council, I put it through
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  Speaker 2: AI and say simplify this for me and outline it.
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  Speaker 2: And it takes all this legal mumbo jumbo and language
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  Speaker 2: in the agenda takes all that out and just lists
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  Speaker 2: what's happening. And so I take that and then I
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  Speaker 2: post it on my Facebook.
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  Speaker 1: And that's why you need to follow Todd Zenzer on
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  Speaker 1: Facebook and also listen to his citizen Watchdalk podcast. Well
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  Speaker 1: what else is revealing here? I know there's an opportunity
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  Speaker 1: for City of Cincinnati to chime in on this. And
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  Speaker 1: I want to remind listeners in the city March eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: North Avondale Rec Center at five point thirty you can
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  Speaker 1: talk to them about the budget and the potential cuts
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  Speaker 1: coming your way. Maybe bring Todd Zenzer's list of things
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  Speaker 1: they actually spent money on and say why the hell
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  Speaker 1: did you do this and didn't pave my street? How
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  Speaker 1: many road models we have outstands, Todd that have been
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  Speaker 1: building up over the years. I don't know, it's insane though,
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  Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot. Okay, that's that's infrastructure falling apart.
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  Speaker 1: That is a screaming, waving red flag. That's a broken
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  Speaker 1: window that needs to be fixed to bring in more
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  Speaker 1: business and industry. Right Todd, That's right, damn straight. March sixteenth,
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  Speaker 1: five point thirty pm, Sailor Park Rec Center to chime
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  Speaker 1: in on these budget suggestions in the across the board cuts,
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  Speaker 1: what else do you have on your list?
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  Speaker 2: Well, last last year, since since we just kicked off
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  Speaker 2: the budget process last year, I went to one of
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  Speaker 2: these public hearings and I suggested to them that they
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  Speaker 2: should have the solicitor's office tell them what does the
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  Speaker 2: city do that we must do by law, by contract,
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  Speaker 2: by grant assurances? What are we union agreements? What are
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  Speaker 2: we legally obligated to pay? And then anything left over
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  Speaker 2: is all discretionary and you should figure that out so
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  Speaker 2: that you know how much discretionary money you really have
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  Speaker 2: versus what mandatory requirements are. So I'm going to go
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  Speaker 2: back and make that suggestion again. And then the other
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  Speaker 2: thing we're going to suggest or request is that when
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  Speaker 2: at some point during the process, the members of council
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  Speaker 2: come in with a list of organizations that they want
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  Speaker 2: to give money to, and it can total over over
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  Speaker 2: a million dollars for any particular member of council. I've
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  Speaker 2: asked them to when they send these memos in to
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  Speaker 2: the city manager, they need to sign an attestation that
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  Speaker 2: they do not have any conflicts of interests to those organizations.
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  Speaker 2: So we're going to go back and make that recommendation
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  Speaker 2: as well, and if we need to, I think I
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  Speaker 2: said this online or my podcast, we're going to organize
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  Speaker 2: people to start sending in letters requesting that those city councils.
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  Speaker 1: I was just going to ask you, if there's a
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  Speaker 1: call to action, I would think calling up any of
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  Speaker 1: the men as a council or all of them and
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: basically say quit funding these non government organizations and these
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  Speaker 1: pet projects until you get your damn budget in line
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  Speaker 1: and pave my street. But I love that, you know why,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: because the minute someone tries to resist that, you got
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  Speaker 1: to look at them and say, what are you trying
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: to hide? You don't want to disclose a direct financial
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: connection to the money that you're spending the taxpayer dollars on.
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  Speaker 2: Now here's the thing.
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  Speaker 1: Demand accountability.
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  Speaker 2: If I think I said I think it must have
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  Speaker 2: been online. But if they were to do that, if
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  Speaker 2: they were to put that in, then Mayor would not
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: be able to sign that memo because two of the
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  Speaker 2: people on his list are going to be people or
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  Speaker 2: organizations where he sits on the board.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You see why we are lucky to have Todd Zenzer
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: citizen watchdog. I wish there were more reporters out there
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: looking into this like Todd Zenzer does in his spare
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  Speaker 1: time and at no cost. I think you should put
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: a request in to be a non government organization. You
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: get money from the City of Cincinnati since you're doing
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the laboring or the work that they should be doing
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: every day. Todd's Inzert. Let me thank you from the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: bottom of my heart for the work that you're doing
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and for coming to the studio and bringing this to
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  Speaker 1: everyone's attention. And let's keep pounding away. And yes there's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a call to action. Demand accountability, Demand them to disclose
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  Speaker 1: any financial interest they have in a single dollar that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: goes out. Todd, keep up the great work, my friend.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: All right, thank you very much. Folks, don't go away.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: It's time to have a little bit of fun with
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Jay Ratliff. We've got a lot of aviation topics to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: talk about with Jay