Latest / Brian Thomas / Special Smither-"Vent"-Theetge to fall on the sword for Aftab and City Hall

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Special Smither-"Vent"-Theetge to fall on the sword for Aftab and City Hall · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: Dear fifty above Karrose de talk station. Brian Thomas right
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  Speaker 1: now wishing every potty happy Thursday, slave Friday Eve, looking
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  Speaker 1: forward the bottom of the hour. Dan Hill's former FOP president,
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  Speaker 1: of the outstanding swirling controversy about police chief three so
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  Speaker 1: Thiji being hauled into the Principal's office yesterday. City Manager
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  Speaker 1: Cheryl Lung said that yes, the chief was asked to
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  Speaker 1: return to the city immediately to immediately address departmental matters,
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  Speaker 1: but they did not fire her, although it does appear
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  Speaker 1: as if they're heading in that direction blaming the chief
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  Speaker 1: of police for perhaps failures of the administration. Congressman Warren
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  Speaker 1: Davidson in one hour on the shutdown the Israeli Hamas
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  Speaker 1: peace deal, question mark piece deal. I know things that
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  Speaker 1: are not going real smoothly within Gaza. We'll get to
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  Speaker 1: Congressman Davidson in an hour, follow by Andre you and
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  Speaker 1: Andre Brother dre Hurst Breaker's three hundred an outspoken observer
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  Speaker 1: of the craziness going on in downtown Cincinnati. I strongly
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  Speaker 1: encourage you to follow brother Drag on Facebook. He's got
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  Speaker 1: to be back at seven point thirty. And if you're
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  Speaker 1: out there listening, man, sorry, I couldn't get back to
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  Speaker 1: your phone call last night, but I was really excited
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  Speaker 1: to learn you're going to be on the show today
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  Speaker 1: when I woke up this morning. Liz Keating running for
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  Speaker 1: sinc A City Council. How's a campaign going? Get her
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  Speaker 1: thoughts on the of course, local topics, including her position
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  Speaker 1: on the police chief. Jay Ratliffe, I heard me the
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  Speaker 1: aviation expert every Thursday day thirty today, not deviating from
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  Speaker 1: the norm. Looking forward to Jay as I always do,
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  Speaker 1: and I always love talking to former Vice mayor of
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  Speaker 1: the City of Cincinnati running for Cincinna City Council. You
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  Speaker 1: have a choice. Let's go a different direction. Let's vote
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  Speaker 1: Smithaman back into office. Welcome Christopher Smithman. It's a pleasure
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  Speaker 1: hearing from you this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, thank you, Brian. I just want to spend a
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  Speaker 2: few minutes kind of weighing in and I might have
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  Speaker 2: a different perspective than others about what I see happening.
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  Speaker 2: I see the police chief being used as a scapegoat
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  Speaker 2: right before an election, and it's really troublesome to me.
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  Speaker 2: And I've been talking about issue five and what I
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  Speaker 2: think the shortcomings are with Issue five.
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  Speaker 1: All Right, real quick Chris Christopher remind my listeners what
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  Speaker 1: issue five is. This came up in our conversation I
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  Speaker 1: had with Ken Kober earlier, and I had forgotten the
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  Speaker 1: way things used to be versus how they are now,
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  Speaker 1: which means the I guess the mayor and the city
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  Speaker 1: manager are solely responsible for determining who the police chief is,
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  Speaker 1: selecting that person and firing the chief.
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  Speaker 2: That's correct. And what used to happen is you know
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  Speaker 2: when Striker chief Striker was the last chief under the
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  Speaker 2: old system, which had its pluses and minuses, but the
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  Speaker 2: reality was you knew who the police chief was, and
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  Speaker 2: the police chief made the decisions, the best decisions for
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  Speaker 2: the department, and without fear of termination. And so what's
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  Speaker 2: happening now is this to me is like the the
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  Speaker 2: loophole here that is personality driven. The issue five is
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  Speaker 2: as good as the mayor is and as good as
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  Speaker 2: the city manager is. And so what I see here now,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm letting you know publicly that I don't think
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  Speaker 2: the police chief nor the fire chief should be terminated
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  Speaker 2: without the consent of city council. I think seven members
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  Speaker 2: of council should have to weigh in on the termination
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  Speaker 2: of what I would say the most important job, our
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  Speaker 2: fire chief and our police chief. And so what you
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  Speaker 2: see here is right before an election, a mayor in
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  Speaker 2: panic mode, a mayor trying to figure out what he
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  Speaker 2: needs to do politically and willing to destroy somebody else's career. Now,
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  Speaker 2: let's give a context here, right Well, first, Fiji Chief
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  Speaker 2: Fiji has given a life to the Cincinnati Police Department,
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  Speaker 2: and she is from the Neville fan She's a Neville
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  Speaker 2: and the Neville family has given so much as police
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  Speaker 2: officers to the city of Cincinnai. So let's make sure
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  Speaker 2: that we put her in the right context and that
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  Speaker 2: we at least what I want to do is if
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  Speaker 2: she decides to leave, resign, or she's fired, that is
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  Speaker 2: done with dignity. All of this is not on her,
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  Speaker 2: because what I've seen the mayor do is send all
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  Speaker 2: kinds of different messages. One of those that's the hiring
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  Speaker 2: of Irish Rolli in this consultant position, and nobody quite
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  Speaker 2: knows what she's doing and what kind of pressure she's
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  Speaker 2: putting on the chief. What we do know is that
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  Speaker 2: the city manager has really empowered her in a way
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  Speaker 2: that I've never seen before. We have a Chair of
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  Speaker 2: Law in Public Safety. That's Scottie Johnson. He's elected, he goes,
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  Speaker 2: his name is on the ballot. That's the person that
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  Speaker 2: is providing the civilian oversight, not Irish Rolly, a consultant.
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  Speaker 2: And it seems like the lines of being blurred here
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  Speaker 2: for me, and I think they were blurred for the
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  Speaker 2: chiefs on who is actually who should she be listening
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  Speaker 2: to and what is the direction now ultimately to the public.
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  Speaker 2: Our our police chief is ultimately responsible for those decisions.
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  Speaker 2: I just want everybody to know that this is part
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  Speaker 2: of the chaos that I think is a problem because
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  Speaker 2: if the police chief had to come before Council right now,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if they could get seven votes to
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  Speaker 2: fire her, and definitely fire her right before an election
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  Speaker 2: on November fourth. That's the rub for me. It's it's
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  Speaker 2: the timing of this public it's the timing of it,
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  Speaker 2: Brian Thomas, that we should all be concerned about.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and I'm glad you brought up that the full
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  Speaker 1: Council having a say in this point, because I was
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  Speaker 1: going to counter your suggestion. How can we expect things
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  Speaker 1: to be different if all the counselor the same party
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  Speaker 1: you've got a Democrat mayor and who I presume has
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  Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of sway over the individual Democrat council members.
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  Speaker 1: How much maybe that would come down to how they
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  Speaker 1: would ultimately vote on firing or not firing the police chief.
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  Speaker 1: But as it is right now, I think they probably
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  Speaker 1: would all vote if the mayor wanted to fire the
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  Speaker 1: chief and city manager wanted to fire the chief, they
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  Speaker 1: probably all follow lead and do so along the same lines.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think you are, you think you're right about that.
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  Speaker 2: But here's the difference. You've got the FLP President Kober
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  Speaker 2: who's coming on and he has people that they have supported,
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  Speaker 2: they've endorsed. So I would think that the FLP would
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  Speaker 2: be able to go to those members of council and say, listen,
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  Speaker 2: here's here are our thoughts on what you should do,
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  Speaker 2: and those things would be taken under consideration. They wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: be done outside of the electeds, who the people have
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  Speaker 2: put there to provide oversight for police and fire. I
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  Speaker 2: just think there should be an extra step here, and
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  Speaker 2: particularly Brian, the timing of this, we had a shooting
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  Speaker 2: off Fountain Square, we had a shooting on Fountain Square,
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  Speaker 2: We've had shooting in Westwood, all over the city, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and the mayor is under tremendous pressure here because he
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  Speaker 2: didn't have a plan at the beginning of the summer.
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  Speaker 2: I've had many opportunities to talk to the Governor's office
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  Speaker 2: about when they came and made the first offer, which
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  Speaker 2: was somewhere in May of this year, and the mayor
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  Speaker 2: continue to turn down those offers from the governor. Right,
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  Speaker 2: so he has played a role. He has made the decision.
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  Speaker 2: Why is the Governor's office only doing two times a
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  Speaker 2: month now?
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  Speaker 1: It's four now? Apparently the single ninety nine and again
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  Speaker 1: recommend people follow single ninety nine on Facebook. She does
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  Speaker 1: a great job. Pointed out, well, I guess the mayor
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  Speaker 1: has just recently decided we're going to take four days
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  Speaker 1: to deal with a twenty four hour days, seven day
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  Speaker 1: week problem.
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  Speaker 2: I'm trying, I'm trying not to laugh at such a
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  Speaker 2: serious matter. But it's crazy that you would think that
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  Speaker 2: the governor is saying, listen, we'll do whatever we can
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  Speaker 2: to help you, and the mayor saying I'll only accept
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  Speaker 2: four times, but prior to that it was only two
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  Speaker 2: times a month. The point that I'm trying to make
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  Speaker 2: here is that members of council who are up for reelection,
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  Speaker 2: this mayor who is up for reelection, right, they are
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  Speaker 2: as responsible for where we are with crime in our
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  Speaker 2: fifty two neighborhoods. We just heard one of the biggest
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  Speaker 2: restaurants right signal I think he's signal and Jeff Ruby
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  Speaker 2: saying listen, I'm moving my catering part on Seventh Street
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  Speaker 2: somewhere else. Now. They made a nice flowery statement, but
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  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, everybody unders that they're
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  Speaker 2: concerned about their employees, their cars coming in and out
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  Speaker 2: of that location we had with the taste of Belgium
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  Speaker 2: in OTR. They said they were moving, but they gave
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  Speaker 2: some flowery you know, pressure relief and excuses why they
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  Speaker 2: were leaving. At the end of the day, it's coming
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  Speaker 2: down to crime. People are concerned about their cars, their
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  Speaker 2: well being, their quality of life as they are interacting
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  Speaker 2: in the downtown area. And you and I and so
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  Speaker 2: many people have been raising concerns about the escalation of this.
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  Speaker 2: This mayor has said it's his perception, it's our perception
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  Speaker 2: that crime is down. Nobody believes that, Brian Thomas and
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  Speaker 2: so if it's our perception. Meaning if he's saying crime
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  Speaker 2: is down, think about what I'm about to say here.
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  Speaker 2: You're saying the chief is doing a good job. That's
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  Speaker 2: been your message through the entire campaign. So why are
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  Speaker 2: you pushing to fire the police chief. Listen, I can
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  Speaker 2: end on that note. You can if that's his narrative
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  Speaker 2: that hey man, this police chief has been doing a
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  Speaker 2: great job, that crime is down. It is all of
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  Speaker 2: our perception, right, not our reality. And please explain to
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  Speaker 2: me why in the world would there be a need
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  Speaker 2: to fire the police chief.
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  Speaker 1: Drop the mic right there. This is a profound.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a scapegoat from this mayor to try
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  Speaker 2: to change the narrative that he's doing something or that
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  Speaker 2: this counsel is doing something. And all I will tell
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  Speaker 2: all of our fifty two neighborhoods we have an opportunity
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  Speaker 2: to do something different. You're the jury out there. You
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  Speaker 2: have to make the decision, and I would say, elects
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  Speaker 2: four or five new members of council that can bring
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  Speaker 2: balance to this city and can move the needle in
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  Speaker 2: the area of safety and making sure that we are
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  Speaker 2: able to bring crime down with a plan, and it
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  Speaker 2: includes accepting help from our partners, like the governor or
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  Speaker 2: the sheriff, or whom ever would like to weigh in
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  Speaker 2: out in there. Brian, thank you so much. I don't
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  Speaker 2: put this all at the head of this chief. I
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  Speaker 2: think it's easy to do that. If she does leave
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  Speaker 2: the position, and she's hearing my voice right now, I
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  Speaker 2: want her to know that she's done a great service
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  Speaker 2: to the city of Cincinnati, just like Chief Washington did.
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  Speaker 2: They fired Chief Washington. Most people don't know the fire
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  Speaker 2: chief was fired and that he has won his lawsuit.
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  Speaker 2: He's won the appeal, and.
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  Speaker 1: Then he may be back Christmas, God bless you, my friend.
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  Speaker 1: Six seventeen vote Smithman Galaxy Concrete Codings