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Brian talks with Cory Bowman · Brian Thomas

0:14
Speaker 1: It's seven oh six on a Friday, and a very
0:17
Speaker 1: happy Friday to everyone.
0:19
Speaker 2: Appreciate tennant a fifty five Parasey Morning Show.
0:21
Speaker 1: My name is Brian Thomas' host, and I am happy
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Speaker 1: to welcome back to the fifty five Parasey Morning Show.
0:25
Speaker 1: We gave it a shot, and of course a election
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Speaker 1: didn't work out real well, at least from my perspective
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Speaker 1: and this man's perspective. Welcome back mayoral candidate. Former mayoral
0:33
Speaker 1: candidate Corey Bowman. Great to have you on the show.
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Speaker 2: Corey. Love hearing from you.
0:37
Speaker 3: Hey, Brian, thanks so much for having me.
0:39
Speaker 2: How's your morning going going okay so far.
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Speaker 1: I'm always happy it's Friday. Always feeling a better mood
0:44
Speaker 1: on Friday than any other day of the week. But
0:46
Speaker 1: that's good for me, and I hope you are in
0:48
Speaker 1: a happy mood this morning as well. And I don't know,
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Speaker 1: I don't want to put you on the spot, but
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Speaker 1: did you have an opportunity to listen to Todd Zenzer
0:53
Speaker 1: on the program yesterday here in the Morning Show The
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Speaker 1: Citizen Watchdog Todd Zenzer, Former Inspector General Todd Zenzer.
1:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going through his summary just a little
1:02
Speaker 3: bit too.
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Speaker 4: He posted something on Facebook about I always love hearing
1:05
Speaker 4: from Todd.
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Speaker 3: He's got such great.
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Speaker 4: Insight on keeping people accountable at city Hall.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well he's trying anyway, And I just thought, wow,
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Speaker 1: this is really problematic. They're getting draws from the railroad money.
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Speaker 1: The board is handing over money because the city apparently
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Speaker 1: has identified projects, infrastructure projects that the money's supposed to
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Speaker 1: go to, but those projects aren't in place, you know,
1:27
Speaker 1: they're not ready to start digging with the shovels, y'or
1:30
Speaker 1: not shovel ready. They haven't even issued RFPs or anything
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Speaker 1: for them. So they get the money promising to do
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Speaker 1: some project down the road at some point, and according
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Speaker 1: to Todd Zenzer, they've placed that in an interest bearing account,
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Speaker 1: which interest is now going basically to the general fund
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Speaker 1: as he understands it, So that would allow them to
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Speaker 1: circumvent the existing infrastructure requirement in the railroad money distributions.
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Speaker 4: Well, that was the issue from the very start, you know,
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Speaker 4: I mean, we can keep beating a dead horse, which
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Speaker 4: is a lot of times when it feels like when.
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Speaker 3: It comes to the railroad.
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Speaker 4: But it was not a good decision by the city
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Speaker 4: to sell it I even talk with people that actually
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Speaker 4: wrote the legislation for it and all the deal for it,
2:10
Speaker 4: and some of them are even you know, on the
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Speaker 4: conservative side, and they said their biggest fear was that
2:15
Speaker 4: there would be you know, misappropriation of funds or shell
2:18
Speaker 4: games that would take place in the city's general budget
2:21
Speaker 4: to be able to compensate for it, and they said
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Speaker 4: they tried to put as much stipulation as they could
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Speaker 4: in it, but little do we know where.
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Speaker 3: Actually, I think we knew from.
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Speaker 4: The very start that they would find some type of
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Speaker 4: loopholes or something to be able to divert those funds
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Speaker 4: to whatever they wanted. And that's exactly what's happening.
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Speaker 1: Well, I think the Railroad Board owes an obligation to
2:40
Speaker 1: the city taxpayers to file a lawsuit or otherwise try
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Speaker 1: to claw that money back. Listen, if the project's not ready,
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Speaker 1: you're not ready to start writing checks to contractors to
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Speaker 1: do something for the city evolving existing infrastructure, then you're
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Speaker 1: not going to get a distribution of money from the
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Speaker 1: railroad fund.
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Speaker 4: Well, you know, and that's another thing about it too,
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Speaker 4: is that there's a couple of different aspects of this sale.
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Speaker 4: Number one is you know how it's being held. You know,
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Speaker 4: you have a railroad trust that you know, they're not
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Speaker 4: in charge of spending the money, they're in charge of
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Speaker 4: holding the money. And the deal was that they're supposed
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Speaker 4: to be putting it into, you know, things that are
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Speaker 4: going to see a high return on investment.
3:18
Speaker 3: And then all these all.
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Speaker 4: These influx of cash to the city is supposed to
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Speaker 4: come from the increase from those investments. Well, I've spoken
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Speaker 4: personally with some of these you know, trust members, and
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Speaker 4: a lot of it's going toward the same type of
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Speaker 4: projects that you're seeing the general Fund go to. When
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Speaker 4: it comes to nonprofits or forgivable loans that on the
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Speaker 4: books are seen as assets, they're seen as something that
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Speaker 4: you could collect interest on, but really a lot of them.
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Speaker 3: End up becoming forgivable. So that's one thing.
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Speaker 4: And then number two, we don't really have the infrastructure
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Speaker 4: in place to spend the money properly. We're seeing money
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Speaker 4: that's sitting in accounts or sitting money that's being unspent
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Speaker 4: because we don't have this con facts in place, we
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Speaker 4: don't have the proper relationships to be able to do it.
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Speaker 4: And then number three, you know, this is the kicker
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Speaker 4: is that the stipulations aren't supposed to go towards existing infrastructure. Well,
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Speaker 4: that category can be placed on a lot of different things,
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Speaker 4: like maybe a railroad car, or not railroad car, but
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Speaker 4: a streetcar downtown that has been very controversial. You can
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Speaker 4: kind of justify anything as being in existing infrastructure if
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Speaker 4: it fits your basic interest.
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Speaker 3: And that's the problem that we're seeing.
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Speaker 2: Yes, we are one of the problems.
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Speaker 3: Yea the time on the railroad was sold.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, the railroad was sold to be able to fix
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Speaker 4: our roads.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 4: I have a meme that I created from the ad
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Speaker 4: that the mayor was on. It says, fix our roads.
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Speaker 4: You know, we have potholes, we have deteriorating infrastructure, and
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Speaker 4: that's what was being sold on it. But yet they're
4:54
Speaker 4: diverting into other things.
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Speaker 1: And they're also seem to have a keen interest in
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Speaker 1: national politics in spite of the fact that they have
5:01
Speaker 1: no control over national politics. I mean, this always bothers me.
5:05
Speaker 1: I know, it's one of the things that former Vice
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Speaker 1: Mayoral Canada, Christopher Smithman is always on a tear on.
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Speaker 1: I'm done with resolutions, do the work of the city
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Speaker 1: residents and quit focusing on national politics.
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Speaker 3: Corey, Yeah, that's exactly.
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Speaker 4: So. I mean a lot of people see Cincinnati politically
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Speaker 4: as a stepping stone, right, city Hall is just a
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Speaker 4: chance for you to kind of get in the spotlight
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Speaker 4: and then you're kind of going to run for a
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Speaker 4: higher office. A lot of people say, oh, that's not
5:33
Speaker 4: the case at all. We want to serve our city.
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Speaker 4: But then let's just look at this recent class of
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Speaker 4: city council members that just got sworn in. Within a
5:41
Speaker 4: couple months or within a month, two of them announced
5:44
Speaker 4: candidacy for higher offices. One is trying to run for
5:47
Speaker 4: a county commissioner seat while she's supposed to be on
5:51
Speaker 4: city Hall or city council. And then the other one
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Speaker 4: is running for I believe it's a state treasurer. And
5:56
Speaker 4: so you kind of see as a stepping stone. So
5:59
Speaker 4: that's why you see a lot of these national issues
6:03
Speaker 4: take place at city Hall in Cincinnati, because they're trying
6:06
Speaker 4: to practice for a bigger role. And I think that's
6:10
Speaker 4: what people are tired of. Fix our streets, keep them safe,
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Speaker 4: spend the money wisely. But you can't do that if
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Speaker 4: you have political aspirations that are constantly at the forefront.
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Speaker 1: Of your priorities well spending wisely? Boy, what is a
6:23
Speaker 1: real eye opening?
6:23
Speaker 2: Yesterday?
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Speaker 1: Barely the city is still pursuing these zero carbon emissions
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Speaker 1: agenda item and they're putting all kinds of money. The
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Speaker 1: federal government pulled the plug on the new solar array
6:32
Speaker 1: that they were supposed to pay for, so the city
6:35
Speaker 1: is now on the hook if they want to move
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Speaker 1: forward with it, to the tune of ten plus million dollars.
6:39
Speaker 1: They've already built one solar array. It's pretty distant from
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Speaker 1: the downtown Cincinnati area and I don't not even sure
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Speaker 1: how that works, but gee, they're going to build another one.
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Speaker 1: They don't have enough money to cover the cover their budget.
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Speaker 1: I think it's a thirty one million dollar budget shortfall,
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Speaker 1: and yet they're still going to go after carbon neutrality
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Speaker 1: with another solar farm. I just carey, I can't understand this.
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Speaker 1: Don't they appreciate the fact that no one around us
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Speaker 1: is pursuing zero carbon emissions and that we all breathe
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Speaker 1: the same air And they can fight this uphill battle
7:09
Speaker 1: all day long. But as long as China and Turkey
7:11
Speaker 1: and every other town city in this nation is not
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Speaker 1: pursuing zero carbon, that their efforts amount to literally nothing.
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Speaker 4: Corey, No, You're exactly right, because when it comes to
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Speaker 4: we think that we have this big impact on the
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Speaker 4: national stage.
7:27
Speaker 3: You know, I see that, we see it.
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Speaker 4: We have a resolution for a ceasefire in Israel, we
7:31
Speaker 4: have a resolution for all these national issues. But we're
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Speaker 4: forgetting about our current residents. You know, I have a
7:39
Speaker 4: novel idea. We're in the West End where there's thousands
7:42
Speaker 4: of people that need jobs, that we need industry, that
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Speaker 4: we need manufacturing, we need future careers for our young
7:50
Speaker 4: people that are in our city.
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Speaker 3: But yet we've neglected that, and.
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Speaker 4: All these major industries are moving outside of the city
7:57
Speaker 4: or they're just starting outside the city. You know, we
7:59
Speaker 4: see major announcements of people like Apple or Tesla or
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Speaker 4: other companies that are opening in outside areas like let's
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Speaker 4: say Sharonville or Mason or Northern Kentucky, and we don't
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Speaker 4: see it in the downtown area. We need these jobs
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Speaker 4: in this industry in the downtown area, but they're too
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Speaker 4: focused on solar farms. When it comes to that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a I just find it. I find it
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Speaker 1: impossible to explain or even understand. But you know, if
8:28
Speaker 1: we weren't in such a financial train wreck in the
8:30
Speaker 1: city Cincinna, and our roads were all paved and clear,
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Speaker 1: and they can make a good argument for prioritizing the
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Speaker 1: solar panels over literally everything else the residents of the
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Speaker 1: city want. Fine, but we're not even close to there,
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Speaker 1: which makes the decision making this regard batcrap insane my words,
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Speaker 1: not Corey Bowman's. We'll bring Corey back, we'll talk about Yes,
8:48
Speaker 1: he's running for another office. He's also got a podcast
8:51
Speaker 1: and some other issues to talk about. Sevent nineteen fifty
8:54
Speaker 1: five KRCD Talk Station Bryan Thomas, the former mayor old
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Speaker 1: candidate Corey Bowman. He is now un for yet another office.
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Speaker 1: Corey Bowman, you were running for another office? Which one
9:04
Speaker 1: is this?
9:04
Speaker 4: My friend, Well, yesterday I just got the word that
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Speaker 4: my petitions were sufficient to be a member of the
9:11
Speaker 4: Hamilton County Central Committee for Cincinnati, and so.
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Speaker 3: This is just this is just a step to get
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Speaker 3: involved locally.
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Speaker 4: You know, after last year's election, I think a lot
9:21
Speaker 4: of people were kind of asking, well, what's next, and
9:24
Speaker 4: there's a lot of things that were suggested to us.
9:26
Speaker 3: But you know, we were in Cincinnati.
9:29
Speaker 4: We have our coffee shop, our church, our family, and
9:32
Speaker 4: after last year, you know, we still felt like we
9:34
Speaker 4: need to be involved. And then after kind of looking
9:37
Speaker 4: at the process, I knew that there was a vacancy
9:39
Speaker 4: in our precinct. Executive is what it's called in our district,
9:43
Speaker 4: and so we're in our precinct. And so this, in
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Speaker 4: my mind is just a first step of still staying
9:48
Speaker 4: involved locally, putting our money where our mouth is and
9:51
Speaker 4: seeing impact and change.
9:53
Speaker 1: Well, that's wonderful. I'd like to think we'd hear more
9:56
Speaker 1: from the Hamilton Kinty Republican Party. Generally speaking, I think
10:00
Speaker 1: isles from it seems deafening of late. And do you
10:02
Speaker 1: hope to accomplish you know, like support for candidates out loud,
10:06
Speaker 1: and do will you have any control over anybody, some
10:08
Speaker 1: particular candidate getting money or anything like that.
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Speaker 2: Corey Bowen, Well, the.
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Speaker 3: Biggest thing with this, and I would encourage everybody.
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Speaker 4: I know that we're kind of past the deadline for
10:18
Speaker 4: you know, this year's running, but you know we can,
10:21
Speaker 4: you know, talk all we want about what we're unhappy
10:23
Speaker 4: with with the city. You know, that's why I ran
10:25
Speaker 4: for mayor last year, and a lot of people even
10:28
Speaker 4: you know, certain articles came out saying, well, this is
10:30
Speaker 4: a stepping stone for him, you're going to move on
10:32
Speaker 4: to this thing or that thing.
10:33
Speaker 3: But overall, we love the city. Whatever the future holds, we.
10:37
Speaker 4: Want Cincinnati to be impacted for the better of it.
10:40
Speaker 4: And this is a way that everybody can get involved.
10:42
Speaker 4: You know, we do have a local party. There's many
10:45
Speaker 4: candidates that end up running that not a lot of
10:47
Speaker 4: people know about. And so you can help in your
10:50
Speaker 4: own backyard. You can, you know, whether it be putting
10:53
Speaker 4: out signs, whether just motivating people.
10:55
Speaker 3: Or talking to people. You know.
10:57
Speaker 4: I and even in the West End community where we
11:00
Speaker 4: have our coffee shop, you know, just one conversation after
11:04
Speaker 4: another has shown people that hey.
11:06
Speaker 3: We're here for the city.
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Speaker 4: We're not here to coffee and paste anything nationally, and
11:10
Speaker 4: we're here to for the betterment of our community. And
11:13
Speaker 4: once people see that, you know, you'd be surprised how
11:15
Speaker 4: many people are willing to kind of change their perspective
11:17
Speaker 4: of how things are.
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Speaker 2: Fair Enough, Now, have you gotten.
11:23
Speaker 1: Any like progress toward getting the cameras that have been
11:26
Speaker 1: promised over in the West End for such a long time.
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Speaker 1: I know, the money was allocated and there was some
11:31
Speaker 1: recent rumblings that oh, yeah, yah, we're going to do it.
11:33
Speaker 2: We're going to do it.
11:34
Speaker 1: This of course, because we had some eleven year old
11:37
Speaker 1: or ten year old shot in that park that's right
11:38
Speaker 1: down the street from your church and your business. And
11:41
Speaker 1: the promise was made again a couple of years ago
11:43
Speaker 1: after the first child was murdered. But here we are
11:46
Speaker 1: fast forward to now it still hasn't been done. I
11:48
Speaker 1: guess they're too busy thinking about a solar panel farm,
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Speaker 1: but any progress in your neighborhood, Corey, Well.
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Speaker 4: First thing I would want to say is that we
11:57
Speaker 4: have to keep this case at the forefront of conversations.
12:01
Speaker 3: You know, Queen Irie was eleven year.
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Speaker 4: Old girl that got shot on New Year's Day in
12:05
Speaker 4: Laurel Park and there is still no progress when it
12:09
Speaker 4: comes to the investigation, you know, when it comes to
12:11
Speaker 4: the community, or when it comes to people in the city,
12:13
Speaker 4: when it comes to the homicide investigative units of CPD,
12:17
Speaker 4: we have to keep at the forefront of the priority.
12:19
Speaker 4: I know that there's kind of a mindset that takes
12:22
Speaker 4: place that a few days after or like a certain
12:25
Speaker 4: time frame after, it's kind of impossible, But we have over.
12:29
Speaker 4: I think it's over five hundred cold cases in this
12:32
Speaker 4: area that have yet that have yet to be solved.
12:37
Speaker 2: You know.
12:37
Speaker 4: I think of people like Hope Dudley, who her son
12:40
Speaker 4: was murdered. I think it was eighteen or nineteen years ago.
12:43
Speaker 4: She's still fighting not only to find her son's killer,
12:46
Speaker 4: but to find others through crime stoppers. See something, say something.
12:50
Speaker 4: These are valuable programs that we have to encourage. But
12:54
Speaker 4: on top of that, one of the biggest things that
12:56
Speaker 4: we're fighting for is cameras and proper surveillance in these areas.
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Speaker 4: A lot of people think that all it's an infringement
13:03
Speaker 4: on a certain person's privacy. These aren't necessarily private property areas.
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Speaker 4: These are CRC areas. And this is the problem off
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Speaker 4: finding is that the city is putting a lot of
13:14
Speaker 4: pressure on cameras right now. I don't know if I
13:17
Speaker 4: mentioned this last week, but I spoke with one of
13:19
Speaker 4: the contracts, one of the contractors that provides the cameras,
13:23
Speaker 4: and he said that he said, he's very frustrated right
13:26
Speaker 4: now because we're getting all this you know, pressure right now.
13:31
Speaker 4: But this could have been done over the last two
13:32
Speaker 4: years proactively to where we could have actually made difference,
13:36
Speaker 4: but now all we need one hundred cameras by this day.
13:38
Speaker 3: We need this.
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Speaker 4: That's not how you run government. You run government proactively.
13:43
Speaker 4: You find the problems ahead of time to prevent stuff
13:46
Speaker 4: like this from happening, and then you can say all
13:48
Speaker 4: you want, Oh well, the private property, you got to
13:51
Speaker 4: get permission.
13:52
Speaker 3: This is my suggestion.
13:54
Speaker 4: The hottest parts when it comes to these crime wars
13:57
Speaker 4: and gain related wards, which a lot of people don't
14:00
Speaker 4: that that's the problem, but it.
14:01
Speaker 3: Is in Cincinnati. When it comes to the youth violence, it's.
14:04
Speaker 5: These public parks, so Lower Park, Grant Park, Fairview Park,
14:09
Speaker 5: A lot of these parks that have playgrounds that kids
14:11
Speaker 5: are supposed to be playing on end up being hotspots
14:14
Speaker 5: for a gang related violence.
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Speaker 4: And this is something to where CRC has the land
14:19
Speaker 4: and they're directly involved with the city government, they don't
14:23
Speaker 4: need the permission like private property, they don't need to.
14:26
Speaker 3: Go through all the red tape.
14:27
Speaker 4: So this is something that needs to be done now,
14:29
Speaker 4: but also it needs to be done proactively for the
14:31
Speaker 4: future to recognize these spots, put surveillance and patrolling where
14:35
Speaker 4: it needs to go.
14:37
Speaker 1: Corey Bowman, former mayoral candidate, now he's going to be
14:39
Speaker 1: a precinct executive. That's great, core I'm glad to hear
14:41
Speaker 1: about that, and I'll courage my listeners to find the
14:43
Speaker 1: Corey Bowman podcast. How often are you producing a podcast
14:47
Speaker 1: or how long is Joe Strecker producing your podcast?
14:50
Speaker 2: How often?
14:51
Speaker 3: Yeah?
14:51
Speaker 4: Right now, we're doing it every week, and I'm gonna
14:54
Speaker 4: actually need to talk with Joe about getting it into
14:57
Speaker 4: our website and get into where it's easily findable for
15:00
Speaker 4: other people as well.
15:01
Speaker 3: I know he's got all the information all that.
15:03
Speaker 4: He's doing an amazing job at getting the voice out
15:07
Speaker 4: or so many of these issues you guys as well,
15:10
Speaker 4: and so we're excited for that. I hear you still
15:13
Speaker 4: have a Congressman Davidson up next right.
15:15
Speaker 1: He's waiting in the wings. Cory Bowman will be talking
15:17
Speaker 1: to him. You're about to shut down.
15:18
Speaker 3: Please tell him, I said, Hi.
15:20
Speaker 4: He's a great friend of mine and he's doing great
15:22
Speaker 4: work on the national stage.
15:23
Speaker 2: He sure is, Corey Bouman.
15:25
Speaker 1: Look forward to having you back on again next week
15:27
Speaker 1: and we'll be looking for the Corey Bowman Podcast. Keep
15:29
Speaker 1: up the great work, my friend.
15:31
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you so much.
15:32
Speaker 4: Brown.
15:32
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.
15:33
Speaker 1: Have a great weekend, So mach twenty five right now. Yes,
15:35
Speaker 1: Congressman Warren Davidson will be joining the pro