Latest / Brian Thomas / Steve Goodin - op/ed - City in Chaos

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Steve Goodin - op/ed - City in Chaos · Brian Thomas

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Speaker 1: Deep Talk Station. It's 829 on a Tuesday. Happy one
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Speaker 1: to you. Normally, the Daniel Davis Deep Dive. Daniel is
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Speaker 1: on vacation, so we'll get a war analysis next week
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Speaker 1: with the return of Daniel Davis. In the meantime, though,
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Speaker 1: I am so happy to welcome back to the 55KRC
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Speaker 1: Morning Show Op Ed Writer. Steve Gooden, our regular legal expert.
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Speaker 1: Somebody has some legal skills, and it's certainly Steve Gooden
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Speaker 1: by comparison to me because he's with Porter Wright. Outstanding
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Speaker 1: law firm filled with outstanding lawyers. And since he regularly
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Speaker 1: practices law, he hasn't gotten rusty like I have. Welcome back, Steve.
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Speaker 1: It's great to have you back on, man.
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Speaker 2: Oh, it's like riding a bike, Mike.
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Speaker 3: We'll just have you down to do some depositions this
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Speaker 3: week and you'll be just fine.
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Speaker 1: Well, you know what? I think I can manage depositions.
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Speaker 1: It's everything else. It's the rules of civil procedure. And
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Speaker 1: of course, the 20 years that I have not been
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Speaker 1: actively practicing law, although I still am licensed, that I
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Speaker 1: have lost track of the discovery obligations in this electronic
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Speaker 1: age we find ourselves in. And Onerous they are, and
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Speaker 1: lawyers are charged with really having to guarantee that their
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Speaker 1: clients have produced all the documents and information in any
1:05
Speaker 1: given litigation. That's a tough row to hoe there, Steve.
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Speaker 2: Oh, and it's a silly one.
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Speaker 3: We spend half our time going through other people's emails
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Speaker 3: and violating their privacy, you know, in the thought that
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Speaker 3: there's some smoking gun when, of course, anyone with any
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Speaker 3: sense wouldn't put anything negative in an email to begin with.
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Speaker 3: So it's all just a way that the Ohio State
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Speaker 3: Bar Association has devised all these discovery obligations so that
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Speaker 3: everyone can bill to read emails that are worthless and
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Speaker 3: drive up legal costs. That's my personal opinion.
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Speaker 1: You may have something there.
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Speaker 2: Huh.
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Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
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Speaker 2: It's ridiculous what happens.
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Speaker 1: It's protecting its own, jacking up billable rates. And God
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Speaker 1: knows its lawyers are really expensive, so. Anyway, moving away
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Speaker 1: from that, I wanted to get your reaction, if I may,
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Speaker 1: before we dive into your op-ed piece, your open letter
2:01
Speaker 1: to Mark Jeffries, which is obviously a commentary to all
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Speaker 1: members of council. But did you see, I've been making
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Speaker 1: fun of this all morning, the council proposal to deal
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Speaker 1: with the thefts of guns from cars by obligating parking
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Speaker 1: lot and garage owners to install cameras or hire a
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Speaker 1: 24-hour day, seven-day-a-week security guard because, well, people steal guns
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Speaker 1: from cars.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absurd.
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Speaker 3: And in fact, you know, I had some conversations last
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Speaker 3: week about actually representing some of these parking lot owners
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Speaker 3: and tried to sue the city to stop this. It's
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Speaker 3: going to be hard to do, I think, unfortunately, under
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Speaker 3: the state of the law in Ohio. But it's really
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Speaker 3: kind of silly, and it's more of what the city
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Speaker 3: has been doing, which is rather than invest in public
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Speaker 3: safety and law enforcement, which is unpopular with certain segments
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Speaker 3: of the electorate.
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Speaker 2: Here in the city.
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Speaker 3: They're just trying to offload public safety into these other departments.
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Speaker 3: So instead of traffic interdiction, you get speed bumps. And
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Speaker 3: now instead of an increased police presence downtown trying to
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Speaker 3: figure out what's going on with these guns, now they're
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Speaker 3: putting it onto the parking garage owners.
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Speaker 2: And you know what?
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Speaker 3: Here's what's crazy about it. If you don't comply with this,
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Speaker 3: the proposed fine is $ 10, 000.
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Speaker 2: Like you get hit with a $ 10, 000.
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Speaker 3: Fine Um, if you, if you don't put, do all
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Speaker 3: these things as a, as a parking garage owner.
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Speaker 2: So it's, it's kind of crazy.
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Speaker 3: Uh, and they're also saying that, you know, a lot
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Speaker 3: of the surface lots are going to have to be
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Speaker 3: fenced off, which is going to really change the way
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Speaker 3: downtown looks and feels and make it even harder to
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Speaker 3: walk around. Uh, and of course, you know, like a
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Speaker 3: fence is going to do anything. If someone's really intent
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Speaker 3: on trying to jump in and, you know, and break
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Speaker 3: into a car.
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Speaker 2: So the whole thing's just kind of silly.
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Speaker 3: It's just kind of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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Speaker 3: You know, there are 300 cops short on a given day.
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Speaker 3: They know that the police officers we have now are
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Speaker 3: stressed out, overworked, working too much overtime. We have too
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Speaker 3: many guns in the city. They're not really working with
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Speaker 3: ATI for the feds anymore the way they used to
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Speaker 3: to try to reduce the flow of guns into the
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Speaker 3: city because it's politically unpopular. They don't want to look
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Speaker 3: like they're working with anyone in the Trump administration. So
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Speaker 3: That what historically back when I was a prosecutor, we
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Speaker 3: had a very, very good relationship with the FBI and
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Speaker 3: ATF and local law enforcement to try to stem the guns.
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Speaker 3: That's dead right now. So instead, they're jacking around with
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Speaker 3: parking garages. And there's really no proof that it's going
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Speaker 3: to do anything at all other than hassle people.
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Speaker 1: Well, there's no question. Obviously, the price of parking will
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Speaker 1: go up if they have a 10. You know, first off,
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Speaker 1: if it's $ 10, 000 fine, obviously, compared to hiring a security agent,
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Speaker 1: I just write the $ 10, 000 check. Maybe it's every year.
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Speaker 1: So the $ 10, 000 additional cost of doing business will go
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Speaker 1: into the city council's coffers and fine. But I'm sure
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Speaker 1: as hell I'm not going to hire somebody to do that.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what the cost of cameras are, but
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Speaker 1: if it's a reoccurring $ 10, 000 fine, say, annually, then you
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Speaker 1: might have to go down that road. But really, will
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Speaker 1: cameras do anything? They're all over the place, generally speaking.
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Speaker 1: And this is on the heels. This obligation is being
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Speaker 1: placed on business owners on the heels of efforts to
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Speaker 1: get rid of flock cameras because of privacy.
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Speaker 2: So.
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Speaker 1: This is still maybe intrusive into people's privacy. What can
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Speaker 1: the property owners do with the video they've collected? Do
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Speaker 1: they have an obligation to keep it? And I asked
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Speaker 1: out loud to Joe Strecker and my listening audience this morning,
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Speaker 1: if you just put a mask on, they're not going
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Speaker 1: to have any evidence against you that you committed a
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Speaker 1: crime in a given parking lot. So it's kind of
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Speaker 1: a worthless gesture, although Joe suggested that nobody cares whether
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Speaker 1: or not they get caught because nothing ever happens to
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Speaker 1: them going back to the problem we have in the
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Speaker 1: judicial system here.
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Speaker 2: Well, precisely.
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Speaker 3: I mean, look, people steal guns all the time and
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Speaker 3: they get probation for it, number one. Number two, you're right.
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Speaker 3: I mean, it's just another step toward a complete surveillance state.
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Speaker 3: And number three, anybody, you know, the criminals are listening
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Speaker 3: to this conversation we're having right now. They'll just mask
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Speaker 3: up and do whatever it is that they need to
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Speaker 3: do to conceal their identity. So you're going to have
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Speaker 3: some footage of someone wearing a mask, stealing a gun
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Speaker 3: and leaving on foot.
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Speaker 2: And it's going to be... By the time.
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Speaker 3: Anyone reviews it, you know, days or even weeks later,
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Speaker 3: it's going to be absolutely and totally worthless.
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Speaker 2: So, no, all you're going.
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Speaker 3: To do is have, you know, endless hours of footage
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Speaker 3: of law-abiding citizens coming in and out of parking garages.
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Speaker 3: So what that's going to accomplish, I don't know, but
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Speaker 3: it will be a headline or two, and they can
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Speaker 3: run around at City Hall and.
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Speaker 2: Say, hey, look, we did something controversial.
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Speaker 3: It's more of this, what I always call the performative politics.
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Speaker 3: They're just performing to say, look, we did something.
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Speaker 2: Something.
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Speaker 1: We have a response. And, of course, the video evidence
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Speaker 1: would have to be turned over to law enforcement to
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Speaker 1: investigate the crime that's being done. An already overstressed, overworked
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Speaker 1: group of law enforcement officers who have little incentive to
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Speaker 1: pursue crime because, of course, nobody's ever prosecuted for it.
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Speaker 1: I also had a question, Steve Gooden, before we move
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Speaker 1: over to your op-ed piece.
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Speaker 2: Sort of.
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Speaker 1: Just kind of a joking suggestion. Maybe, uh, Charmaine McGuffey
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Speaker 1: will have to install a camera in her driveway because
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Speaker 1: of the number of firearms that were stolen from her vehicle.
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Speaker 2: Oh, poor. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Sheriff McGuffey does have a bad track record, but losing firearms. So, uh, uh, yeah,
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Speaker 3: maybe she ought to do that. Maybe they ought to,
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Speaker 3: maybe they ought to add that to, uh, uh, to, to, to, uh, any,
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Speaker 3: you know, any, uh, high ranking sheriff's department official also
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Speaker 3: has to have one of these cameras. So, uh, Yeah,
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Speaker 3: she's lost a lot of guns there for a while.
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Speaker 3: That's a huge morale issue over there, by the way.
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Speaker 3: It's just when you have the head law enforcement officer
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Speaker 3: who can't keep track of those things. If that happened
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Speaker 3: to a rank-and-file sheriff's deputy, they'd be losing their job.
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Speaker 2: Indeed.
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Speaker 1: All right, pivoting over to the op-ed piece, well done.
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Speaker 1: You wrote a letter to Cincinnati Councilmember Mark Jeffries, and
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Speaker 1: I thought you did a good summing up some of
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Speaker 1: the problems on council.
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Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
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Speaker 1: A to-do list, which you obviously know nothing on the
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Speaker 1: list is going to be done, but you mentioned certain
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Speaker 1: segments of the community that are against law enforcement. Iris
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Speaker 1: Rowley comes to mind immediately. And oh, lo and behold,
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Speaker 1: you mentioned her in your op-ed piece. Terminate Iris Rowley's contract.
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Speaker 1: I think it's this outstanding idea. If you're trying to
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Speaker 1: win over the hearts and minds of maybe lateral higher officers,
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Speaker 1: that'd be a good starting place.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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Speaker 3: I mean, look, I cannot overemphasize what a morale issue
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Speaker 3: she is, both for the uniformed police department and for
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Speaker 3: the non-uniformed civil servants who go to work in there
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Speaker 3: every day, because There's two parts of the Irish drama.
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Speaker 3: One is you have a police critic who basically has
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Speaker 3: free reign to walk around City Hall and to do
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Speaker 3: her contract explicitly, allows her to criticize people, allows her
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Speaker 3: to follow police officers around and videotape them, allows her
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Speaker 3: to go to city council meetings and basically stir up
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Speaker 3: this anti-police sentiment. And she's reporting directly to the city
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Speaker 3: manager and the mayor with no other responsibilities. It's a
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Speaker 3: terrible kind of thing. And she also has these other
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Speaker 3: initiatives she does, including passing out sandwiches and fruit at
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Speaker 3: bus stations under the theory that that will reduce gun
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Speaker 3: violence somehow, which is even more bizarre to me than
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Speaker 3: these cameras. But the second piece of it is she's
9:05
Speaker 3: not a regular city employee. She has something called the
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Speaker 3: Collaborative Foundation, or she funnels hundreds of thousands of dollars through.
9:12
Speaker 3: She's basically treated like a nonprofit employee. and an independent contractor,
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Speaker 3: she doesn't have the regular obligations of a city employee.
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Speaker 3: We do have a very good and strong civil service
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Speaker 3: set of rules in the city. You have a pay scale.
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Speaker 3: You are not allowed to engage in political activity, which
9:31
Speaker 3: she does all the time. She is being treated very,
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Speaker 3: very differently and paid a lot more than the average
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Speaker 3: city employee. So she's crushing the morale of the police,
9:41
Speaker 3: by being an in-house police critic and then crushing the
9:44
Speaker 3: morale of everyone else by getting paid more and being
9:47
Speaker 3: allowed to play by her own set of rules. It
9:50
Speaker 3: is to me a no-brainer that she has to go,
9:53
Speaker 3: but she has a political constituency. She is now involved
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Speaker 3: in every police shooting, just even over the weekend. I know.
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Speaker 3: She's standing there at the podium, even though she has
10:02
Speaker 3: no credentials in law enforcement whatsoever. Just this idea that
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Speaker 3: she's somehow providing political cover, and really that's what it is.
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Speaker 3: They're paying her to provide political cover to the mayor
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Speaker 3: and the city manager in the event that there's ever
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Speaker 3: any kind of criticism whatsoever. from certain segments of the
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Speaker 3: community about police shootings. I mean, that's why she's there.
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Speaker 3: They can't say that out loud. But it's absurd. It's
10:23
Speaker 3: bad business. It's bad politics. It's unethical. It just looks terrible.
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Speaker 3: And it's time.
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Speaker 2: For her to go.
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Speaker 3: Whatever good she did 27 years ago in sort of
10:36
Speaker 3: helping the city get past the Timothy Thomas situation and
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Speaker 3: the riots that followed and the collaborative agreement, there were
10:43
Speaker 3: things that came out of that and might be that
10:45
Speaker 3: were good. And that actually did improve police community relations.
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Speaker 3: But that was a long time ago. And the idea
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Speaker 3: that she sort of monetized that here in 2026 is
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Speaker 3: something that should really bother anybody who's looking at this objectively.
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Speaker 1: Well, of course, the source of that relationship with the
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Speaker 1: city of Cincinnati and Iris Rowley, I think, lands in
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Speaker 1: the lap of the city manager, who you also had
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Speaker 1: a go at in your op-ed piece. End the love
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Speaker 1: fest with our city manager, says Steve Gooden.
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, anyone else who was working in any
11:19
Speaker 3: kind of managing anything, if you had multiple employees suing
11:24
Speaker 3: you for wrongful termination, as she does, both the fire
11:27
Speaker 3: chief and the police chief are winning their cases. They're
11:30
Speaker 3: surviving summary judgment. They're moving forward. They're marching through the
11:33
Speaker 3: federal court system. If you had someone who's in charge
11:37
Speaker 3: of trash pickup and you have almost a dozen neighborhoods
11:40
Speaker 3: that didn't get their trash picked up for two weeks.
11:42
Speaker 3: If you have someone who's in charge of maintaining our
11:45
Speaker 3: roadways and you just drive down our city streets and
11:48
Speaker 3: they're filled with potholes that are either half past or
11:50
Speaker 3: not past at all, it's just an embarrassment when you
11:53
Speaker 3: have people come in from out of town trying to
11:54
Speaker 3: drive around our streets. If you had a police department
11:57
Speaker 3: that she's in charge of that is understaffed the way
12:00
Speaker 3: it's understaffed with no plan really to dig out. Even
12:04
Speaker 3: if you had snow removal, you're in charge of snow
12:06
Speaker 3: removal and you have like snow removal problems every year.
12:10
Speaker 3: in terms of just basic preparation and logistics. I think
12:13
Speaker 3: anyone else would be asking questions. Instead, she gets a
12:16
Speaker 3: raise every year and gets these glowing reviews because again,
12:19
Speaker 3: there's this perception that she has a political constituency in
12:23
Speaker 3: the city who would not, will not stand to have
12:25
Speaker 3: her criticized. And that's one of the reasons why the
12:29
Speaker 3: city feels dirtier and rougher and meaner is we have
12:32
Speaker 3: a city manager who's not doing a very good job
12:35
Speaker 3: and a city council is afraid to criticize her. And
12:37
Speaker 3: their job actually in the charter is, That's part of
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Speaker 3: what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to manage her.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's like a child with his hands over his ears,
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Speaker 1: his eyes closed, going la, la, la, la, la, la.
12:46
Speaker 1: We don't want to hear her. We don't want to
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Speaker 1: hear her. But there's criticism all over the place. I mean,
12:50
Speaker 1: the firing of the police chief and the fire chief
12:53
Speaker 1: alone aren't enough to get anybody else canned. I don't
12:56
Speaker 1: get it. And, you know, Steve, I don't know if
12:58
Speaker 1: you have any inside baseball on this. It's still interim
13:01
Speaker 1: police chief Hennie. They haven't even resolved that yet.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. That is another monstrous morale issue for the police department.
13:10
Speaker 3: We have not had a police chief now in a
13:13
Speaker 3: full scale police chief in almost a year. You know,
13:16
Speaker 3: so he's he's acting, you know, which puts him in
13:19
Speaker 3: a really, really bad position and frankly, undercuts his authority.
13:23
Speaker 3: And moreover, they're what they're doing to him and making
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Speaker 3: him do. I mean, they're basically making him work with
13:28
Speaker 3: Iris Rowley. Uh, and, uh, and he's going along with it.
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Speaker 3: So he's losing credibility every day that he's at one
13:34
Speaker 3: of these press conferences talking about the collaborative agreement or,
13:37
Speaker 3: or standing there at a podium with her, uh, almost
13:41
Speaker 3: like a co-chief. Um, you know, it's really hurting him
13:44
Speaker 3: with the rank and file. So I don't know if
13:46
Speaker 3: they're seeing this as some sort of extended, um, uh,
13:50
Speaker 3: tryout to be chief or, or what the idea that
13:53
Speaker 3: there isn't a plan, there isn't a timetable. You know,
13:56
Speaker 3: that's really disturbing. And of course, the other, the flip
13:58
Speaker 3: side is, is, you know, Chief Fiji is still demanding
14:04
Speaker 3: to be reinstated in her lawsuit.
14:06
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, maybe that's the reason.
14:09
Speaker 3: I think that's unlikely, but I think that the fact
14:11
Speaker 3: that that's still out there in those pleadings is probably,
14:14
Speaker 3: it continues to undercut him. So he's like, you know,
14:18
Speaker 3: he's like in this like bizarre situation where he's like
14:22
Speaker 3: kind of the chief, kind of not. Um, you know,
14:26
Speaker 3: he's bringing some new initiatives and fresh thinking in some
14:28
Speaker 3: of what he's doing is actually really, really good. And
14:30
Speaker 3: he does have a following within the department, but, um,
14:33
Speaker 3: he's really losing credibility every day. He has to stand
14:36
Speaker 3: there with Iris Rowley and then in the name acting, uh,
14:39
Speaker 3: beside his name.
14:40
Speaker 2: It's been almost a year.
14:42
Speaker 1: No question. And boy, Lord knows these Cincinnati police department
14:45
Speaker 1: officers do not need more, uh, morale busters. And I
14:48
Speaker 1: didn't realize that was such a profound morale buster, but
14:50
Speaker 1: I guess when you connect, uh, interim police chief with
14:53
Speaker 1: iris rolly i can see how that might have a
14:55
Speaker 1: profound impact real quickly you mentioned the roads that those
14:58
Speaker 1: are existing infrastructure and you did a question out loud
15:01
Speaker 1: in a very comical way in your op-ed piece where
15:03
Speaker 1: in the hell's the railroad money steve one more topic
15:06
Speaker 1: before we part company this morning well.
15:08
Speaker 3: I was i i actually suggested we use a word
15:11
Speaker 3: tougher than hell but it's i'll tell you it's you
15:14
Speaker 3: know look at you know this railroad thing is one
15:17
Speaker 3: of the great head scratchers right now. And I guess
15:19
Speaker 3: since I wrote the article, they actually are releasing some
15:22
Speaker 3: of the funds. But the idea was pretty simple behind it,
15:25
Speaker 3: which was we were going to have enhanced.
15:29
Speaker 2: Paving.
15:30
Speaker 3: The thing is going to throw off $ 50 to $ 60
15:33
Speaker 3: million a year, this railroad trust. And we usually spend
15:37
Speaker 3: about $ 50 to $ 60 million a year just keeping the
15:40
Speaker 3: roads at baseline.
15:43
Speaker 2: From the city budget. And the thought was this would
15:44
Speaker 2: double it.
15:45
Speaker 3: And in fact, it's pretty clear that the city intends
15:48
Speaker 3: to just offload that obligation onto the railroad trust, but
15:51
Speaker 3: the railroad trust is independent and only spends the money
15:54
Speaker 3: when it wants to spend the money. I mean, the
15:55
Speaker 3: city council has no control over it. So right now
15:57
Speaker 3: we've been in a standoff where the roads are getting
16:00
Speaker 3: worse and nothing's really happening. And I guess there is
16:02
Speaker 3: some paving coming It's good news, but it's too late
16:05
Speaker 3: in the year, and we always know, as someone when
16:07
Speaker 3: I was on city council, the real damage to the
16:09
Speaker 3: roads occur in the winter, because you have ice that
16:12
Speaker 3: gets in the cracks, and you have where the potholes
16:14
Speaker 3: really develop. So they're way behind, and we're going to have,
16:17
Speaker 3: it's going to be at least a year, year and
16:18
Speaker 3: a half to dig out of this, even if they
16:20
Speaker 3: start spending the money. So it's another thing that makes
16:23
Speaker 3: no sense to me at all. It's just, you know,
16:25
Speaker 3: government 101.
16:26
Speaker 1: No doubt, and you know, real quick here, Todd Zinser,
16:28
Speaker 1: our citizen watchdog, has pointed out they've been doing drawdowns
16:31
Speaker 1: of the railroad money, but They've parked it into an
16:34
Speaker 1: interest-bearing account, and there's apparently not really a clear idea
16:38
Speaker 1: of what that interest that's being generated, where that's going,
16:42
Speaker 1: which when you're talking millions and millions of dollars, it
16:44
Speaker 1: could be a sizable amount of interest. Are they obligated
16:46
Speaker 1: to spend that on existing infrastructure, or is that just
16:48
Speaker 1: another source of funding for some other bizarre project that
16:51
Speaker 1: hasn't been built yet?
16:53
Speaker 3: Well, that's our concern. Todd's doing a phenomenal job digging
16:57
Speaker 3: into this. I mean, that guy is enormously talented, and
17:01
Speaker 3: we're lucky to have him in the city because he's
17:03
Speaker 3: got the skill set to really dig into this. But
17:05
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, that's the issue is that there's a
17:08
Speaker 3: transparency problem here. It's very clear to me, and this
17:12
Speaker 3: is one of the reasons I was so concerned about
17:13
Speaker 3: the railroad sale, not that there wasn't a business case
17:16
Speaker 3: to sell it.
17:16
Speaker 2: There certainly was.
17:18
Speaker 3: My concern was just all of the lobbyists and other
17:21
Speaker 3: players and political people who would see that pot of
17:23
Speaker 3: money and think, how can we creatively lawyer our way
17:28
Speaker 3: and define our way into spending some of these proceeds
17:31
Speaker 3: on other things? And when you see a big pot
17:35
Speaker 3: of money like that, that really hasn't been publicly accounted for,
17:38
Speaker 3: that's generating interest at a pretty good clip, given where
17:42
Speaker 3: things are right now, Um, and the economy, I mean,
17:45
Speaker 3: it's a concern because we don't, because again, I think
17:47
Speaker 3: most people, when they voted for that, this was sold
17:49
Speaker 3: explicitly as, as a fund that will be used to
17:53
Speaker 3: fix our roads and the roads aren't being fixed.
17:56
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. Mark Jeffries wants to make the
17:58
Speaker 1: case for being Cincinnati's next mayor. Here's my to-do list
18:01
Speaker 1: from Steve Gooden, our guest this morning. Thank you for, uh,
18:03
Speaker 1: for joining the program this morning and talking about listeners
18:05
Speaker 1: to me and great job on the op-ed piece. And
18:07
Speaker 1: of course, outstanding explanation of your thoughts and comments this morning.
18:11
Speaker 1: Good having you on, Steve. I hope we get to
18:12
Speaker 1: do it again real soon.
18:14
Speaker 2: Anytime. You take care, Brian. You too.
18:16
Speaker 1: PorterWright.com is where you find Steve and the crew.