Don't want to be an American.
It's a Scott's Loan show on seven hundred WIW and free everwhere you go with the iHeartRadio app take Us with You podcast after the show streaming. We got You Covered. We got you Covered on all those platforms. A mind up boggling example of ready fire aim Chief Teresa Thiji placed on administrative leave, paid administrator to leave at that and an interim chief. And Adam Henny named this before the investigation into the effectiveness of our leadership as a
city calls it that any of this happens. It's the city is looking for a reason to fire the chief. After they fire the chief, it just goes from bad to worse. Too ridiculous at this point with the City of Cincinnati, and it's a leader app to ad Pierre Valscher along the city manager in just more confusion and chaos when we don't need it. Steve Goodness here is a council candidate from a council member, attorney and charter right and with his analysis here this morning, Steve, how.
Are you Steve there?
Steve Gooden, Well wait, wait, hold on, hold on, standby, let's go there we go. We got you awsked you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, first day on the new job, first day on the new job. For me, there's an irony here because it's the executive branch's law enforcement. The irony is, of course, there's no due process for the chief of police. This is conviction before being charged, and on that they haven't even hired a law firm yet.
How does this make any sense legally?
Well it doesn't. I mean, look, you know, I've had employees, you know, for most of my career, and look, I rule number one is, if you've got the goods on somebody, you just go ahead and fire them, you know. And so the idea that's here, they said, hey, well we want you to resign. The charter clearly says that once the chief has served more than six months, she can
only be fired for cause. So presumably, if they had any kind of cause or bad behavior on her part that had been documented, they would just gone ahead and fired her and we wouldn't have this farce. So now they're trying to create a ground, obviously, create grounds to fire her after the fact, after they've already sort of gone to her and asked her to resign. It is a morale killer it's more politics that the rank and file see this. I talked to some officers yesterday who
are just disgusted by how this is playing out. I mean, they're already short staff, morale was already bad. And I got to hand it to mayor and the council. They have done the impossible. They have taken a horrible situation and made it yet worse. I was thinking, like, there's really no way it gets any worse. We have rampant gun violence, business is downtown, are scared in town. We literally have slats standing on Fountain Square. My offices right
there was there yesterday. We don't really have a police chef. How could we make it worse? And also, yeah, I've never seen a situation we're bringing a bunch of lawyers in billing by the hour makes anything. Say that as a lawyer who builds by the hour, it never makes things better.
Here's a great example.
See here's a great example NBA scandal, the betting of the gambling scandal.
Chauncey Billups.
Okay, how it works all always is always is All of a sudden, there's a bombshell, Hey we're having a press count.
Here's what's gonna happen.
It's like we caught all these players in the gambling scheme and at the mobs involved, and you have a press conference, you lay the charges out. On the other side says, oh, we deny, we deny, we deny.
Uh. That's how you don't go, hey, by the way.
Uh, ch we're going to we're gonna we're gonna do this, uh and then go and find that we're not sure we believe they did this, and now we're gonna go and investigate it.
It's it's completely backwards. You don't do that.
You have the charges that they make the presentation. You don't present and say we're gonna let we're Chauncey billups, We're we're gonna suspend you, We're gonna come after, we're gonna charge you, but we're not going to tell you what it is. We've got to hire a team to do that. But we know you're guilty of something. It just it doesn't even pass the stiff test for most people.
It's insane, right, all right, Well, it's a fundamental violation of it, just even the most basic due process on her part. She can't answer the charges because she doesn't know what they are. Now we know from the mayor's comments that they're hanging all this on her quote and effectiveness. But what she's already telegraph very strongly is I think she acknowledges she was uneffective, okay, because of the policy
she was given an instructed to do. I mean, we know that city Hall and the mayor helped elect a set of judges over in the courthouse that really didn't believe in cash bail, so they were putting gun offenders back on the streets rapidly, and that that contributed to the frustration in the police department, And that she has clearly said that she went to the mayor to try
to correct the situation and he refused. We also know that this whole bizarre compliance versus enforcement thing on lower level offenses came right from the city manager and the mayor. Now I fault the chief candidly for not pushing back
more on that. So they stopped writing, uh you know, wead tickets, stopped pursuing graffiti issues, stopped dealing with the homeless situation downtown, and over time, the failure to prosecute or deal with these low level offenses created a sense of lawlessness that brought the real bad actors with guns downtown. So we've seen that. But calling her ineffective because your policies were ineffective, I mean, that's ridiculous. And this just
isn't the way you do things. OK. I used to run a big law firm and there were a couple of different instances where we had young lawyers who had who had done bad things, and we did an investigation and then we went to them then laid it out and so either resign or get fired, and here are your options. And here's what we found. Unless you have some answer, that's how it works. This is they're trying to make up a reason to fire after.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And now we have a pattern of behavior, Steve Gooden. And when it's abuse of due process, let's go back to the July street brawl where you had a white guy right who has started this whole thing allegedly, and then the city come out and says, well, then, well you know what, actually a minute forty six prior, they were the victim of some very extreme racial attacks
and physical attacks. And this was him bass So and you know he had the ministers crying for Whitey to be charged all this stuff and they do that, and it's actually Adam Henny now the interim chief oddly enough, so you see there's some quid pro quote at least,
and I'm not demeaning Chief Henny here. I understand it's a great cops cops cop, but again, playing the game is that now you cast dispersions on the integrity of the office, because like, if you're willing to write a ticket for something you didn't witness yourself, and the officers didn't want to get jammed up, and he said, I'll take the bullet from my officer, so to speak, and write the citation that led to the charges.
It's cut from the same.
Cloth, like, Okay, we're going to wait a month to charge someone, and pretty clearly it's someone who shouldn't be charged, but we're doing it because of political correctness and political expediency, just like we're doing now we have a trend now.
All right, well yeah, I mean it's just what we've done here is just it just undermines the sense of fairness and of law and order in the town. It really does look like the mayor and the city manager can say, I want this guy charged, so they go back and charge him. Whether there's evidence or not, I don't know, but certainly you had a guy who an officer who signed the charge, who was not involved in the investigation, wasn't there, and it hadn't interviewed the guy
even apparently. Now you also have the scenario where they're saying, on these low level offenses, we don't want people charge And how do you have a city that way? We have a charter that says our police chief and city manager is supposed to be independent above politics. They're supposed to be out there policing and do it, you know, working going where the crime is, looking at real metrics
and trying to figure out what to do. And that's what the neighborhoods are, you know, crying about, because I mean, I mean, we don't even trust I don't trust the data coming out of the police department in city Hall anymore. I think it's clearly been manipulated to make the gun violence look less. I mean, you know, from shots about and we're on track for twenty three thousand shots fire, but that isn't reflected in the other data.
It's clear from the top right, I mean, the two examples I gain what you saided here too. It's like the mayor is deciding what justice looks like. And I'm sorry, but I wonder about those people who would support AFTAB puricle and a heartbeat, who are down marching at the No King's rally. Isn't this what you're allegedly fighting against?
Well, I mean, I mean, it could not be more perfect of an analogy between Donald Trump and AFTAB. I mean, it's exactly the same thing. It's just, you know, they're on different sides of the aisle politically, you know, but there is this sense on both sides that they are like busting through some of the norms, you know, that we have out there. Said, the critique people make of Donald Trump is exactly the same critique that could be made of AFTAB, which is somebody who really just doesn't
plan with the rules. And I would go a step further. I mean, the thing that makes me the sickest is we've had mayors in the past who have kind of lost their way, but we've always had some diversity of thought on city Council and some people with backbone that we're willing to push back. These guys have been with maybe one exception in the last twenty four hours, no
one's done anything. I mean in the old days, you know a Chris Smitherman or a Steve Guodden or even maybe Alsie someone you know or can you call someone like that would have called for a hearing right a public here and to say like what happened here? They bring the chief, and they bring the city manager in and say like, hey, look, you know, with the cameras on, tell us what the hell is going on here where? You know? And they wouldn't have just accepted this nonsense
day in and day out. So there's a lack of oversight from council that really really makes this even worse because I mean, they have a role in this process. They can you know, they have the ability to shine a flashlight here and they are hiding under their desk.
But I would point out that we're being told to add at nauseam from a to add peer of all in others, this is not political. She's not a political scapegoat. The election has nothing to do with the decision. The decisions we take public safeties are number one priorities, Like we're taking it seriously. This is not political all. As a matter of fact, she's not not even fired, she's on paid administrative leave.
And there's another part.
Of the of the s absurdity Steve Gooden, is that all right, Fiji's on paid administrative not fired. She's not administrative leader. She's stick in a paycheck while we investigate her over the next one. It's going to take months, apparently to solve this. Then why name a interim chief instead of an acting chief? If you're suspended, it's an acting chief, like if someone's hurt. You know, Joe Flacco is the acting starting quarterback. He is not the interim
starting There's a difference in a nuance. There is interim chief not acting. They essentially have given it like, well we're done with the old chief, this is the innermundle we find a new one.
They've already stated that, and then they go back and go, well, no, she just doesn't leave.
Well, you know what's so funny is he actually slipped up at one of his you know, he was sort of ambushed coming out of council chambers yesterday and I think it was Channel twelve or one of the other reporters asked him, you know some pretty tough questions, said, well, whenever we move on and change leadership. It's a tough time. And I said, okay, so you're firing her? Oh no,
I'm not saying that. And you just said we're changing leadership, you know, And it was like, you know, you're like you can't even keep.
Your your Live Street interim in acting, so you don't even know what the adjective you need at this point. It's so comically bad in the and the sad part about this is all right, it's going to go on in for a months, okay, so put your political hat on here. A second, good and from the legal one, Okay, after the election, what happens, well.
You know after the election, I mean, lou Well, first, unfortunately, I see this dragging into the next year. Uh. And I mean I think number one, what the first one we got to watch for is what law firm they choose. So if they choose one of the go to law firms that have represented AFTAB and Council in the past and they've gotten in trouble, we're going to know the fixes in you know, I we're hoping to go with someone outside the area, if you have some integrity here,
who might actually push back. But I wouldn't hold my bread for that. So number one is we got to watch which law firm. If it's one of these like hyper connected democratic law firms, you know, then you know, all bets are off as to what happens there. But I would expect us to drag on at least through the end of the year with us having you know, a suspended chief and an interim chief and then some
sort of a search. If there was any integrity here, they'd wait and see what the new council is going to look like so that they could have some input. But my guess is that there's going to be like a hurry up to try to resolve all this in December before anybody can come in and shine a light on it.
How much longer is she under contract? How much as you do? How long does that last?
My understanding is, and I haven't read it, but my recollection is that they renew it every two years. And that is where this gets funny from a legal standpoint, is that if you recall, we have this thing called Issue five that was passed back from two thousand and five, which is deeply unpopular with the FOP and probably is ripe to be revisited. That kind of takes the chief out of some of or most of the civil service protections.
So the idea is that the Sydney Manager, with input from the mayor, actually could just fire the chief for cause. And that's in the charter, and it spells it out pretty clearly that once you're in the job six months, it's kind of a probationary period. Could be fired for any reason. After six months, they have to actually prove
that you've screwed something up for cause. But they are, on top of that, have apparently been issuing these two year contracts that somehow, you know, deal with compensation and so forth, and apparently there's language in there that contradicts the charter. So that's why she's lawyered up and there's going to be some sort of a court battle about what her rights really are. And even this is a mess.
I don't know how the Law Department allowed this to happen, where you have something in the contract that I guess the contract doesn't mention her being fired for cause, but yet the charter says she is. They're in conflict, and it's the classic sort of thing that you end up, I hate to say it, having lawyers fight out in court in the fact that we're here and that we've been kind of doing business this way for years, you know,
is to terrible. And again the taxpayers lose. I mean, this is going to cost every bit of a million dollars or about the salary and benefits of five to six police officers the time this is all said and.
Doc, Yeah, he is a Steve Gooden counsel condidate, former councilman and a Charter rights Steve Gooden on the ready Fire aim approach with Fiji. She is on paid administrative leave. They name an interim chief, not acting interim, so there's confusion there. And now they're going to hire a law firm that could take months of them to investigate why they fired her in the first place.
Yeah, that's that's real life.
That's really happening in the city right now, with an election happening, by the way, in just a couple of weeks. And of course everyone is saying, I have to have on down. This is not political. Is it time for us to blow everything up? The way it works? Because we have a very inefficient If you live in Cincinnati, been here long til you kind of pay attention to but our government is so inefficient and it starts the fact there's so much overlap between Hamlin County and the
City of Cincinnati in fighting for their turf. Of course you see stadium issues and such, but even within the design itself. You know, you mentioned the contentious issue five, but also how council works, how the city manager integrates and all this stuff. Because there's cover for everyone involved. Her council can go, well, we have a strong mayor in the mayor goes, well, we've got a city manager. And the city manager says, well, we've got a mayor
and a council. It's like no one, there's no one the way we've got it wired right now, it strikes the average person like myself, Steve Gooden, that it's wired so there's no one accountable.
Well, it's wired so that you end up with an absurd result, and you know, and it would work. The current system would work. It's not perfect, but would work better if council would just step up. If we didn't have like a you know, an all a nine member politically ambitious democratic city council who would actually step up and provide some of the oversight that they are allowed
to do. But I mean to your larger point, I have always been somebody who has been pushing for at least some form of metro government so that we might actually find some of these efficiencies. I mean, even Tyahoga County, even Cleveland has gone to a limited form of metro government, Indianapolis has, Louisville has. I mean, it's it's ridiculous that we have all these turf battles. It's ridiculous that our
departments don't work well together. And I mean back when I was in the prosecutors obviously as a young assistant prosecutor, back in two thousand and one, post the Timothy Thomas shooting and the riots that happened, we absolutely had a level of cooperation between the city and the county then that will be unheard of now. You know, we had
Operation Vortex. Now they were doing gun and drug sweeps with CPD and Sheriff's patrols, I mean, and Ohio State Patrol and it was wonderful and it really made a difference. But now everyone is just in their silos and they don't cooperate at all, and it's really silly. And that's something that just desperately needs some fresh thought. And I can tell you this current crew or that's not where
their head is. They're just all about protecting what they have rather than trying to look at what would actually serve the public better.
This is the maybe this is a catalyst for Steve. I don't know, I'm trying to be optimistic here.
Well, well, I'm trying to be optimistic too. And I think another part of it is that I'm hoping this is the year and the timeframe where some folks in the business community who I know have been talking for some time about metro government and substantive reforms. I know there's a working group down at the Chamber. It's very quiet that they've been looking at and studying and pushing
these issues. And there's just got to come a time where we're not not just you know, the citizens, but the business community and all these other groups that kind of feed in. They have to speak up on this stuff too, I mean, because they have a right or wrong, a louder voice, and it's been very easy for them to kind of go along cynically and say, well, look, you know, I have to have very you know, he's going to win. It's a blue city, et cetera, et cetera.
And just to go along to get along, and some people are going to have to stand up. I mean, you know, we've been our little group has been pretty fearless about speaking out on these issues this year. We've paid a price for it in terms of some lost friendships and broken business relationships. But that's fine. I mean, that's what it takes. We need more people to speak up and say this isn't working, we're not happy, We're
not going to go along to get along. We need real substance of change, just at every step of the way. And it's just going to take some political courage and some personal courage, frankly, because you know, in this world of lobbyists and nonprofits and the people that really have a lot of voices at city Hall, there's a lot of personal relationships and you have to be willing to just step on those at times if you're going to do the right thing.
Gotch all right, he's a consul, kendedy, Steve Gooden.
We'll see if this enacts any change, Probably not with the mayor, but I you know, ask others about the trickle down here, and I think it's I would think it's going to be substantial that somebody's going to pay for all this ineptitude that's happening at the hand of Aftab and cheer along and forts. It's probably gonna be some decent people on console for that matter. We'll see how it shakes out. Steve, all the best and maybe you're part of that change, hopefully and can bring some
of these ideas to fruition. All the best men, have a great weekend. Thanks you too, Take take care. We got to get to news and.
We're in return.
We have fun because it's Friday, a little heavy for a Friday, I apologize. But the insanity what's happening in the city is it's unprecedented.
It really really is.
Austin Ellmore from ESPN fifteen thirty jumps in next we'll talk football, football, and more football, plus the NBA scandal, the latest on that next seven hundred WW Scott Fund Show