Do you want to be in a Manican scout's long back at It's seven hundred WW on the coldest winter morning. We had a long time six inches of snow over the weekend Saturday. It was beautiful if you watch it yes day, a little chili, especially ahead of the Bengals game. We had warnings danger with the cold tempts which means hypothermi and frostbite.
Let me lay it out for you. The coldest day ever at pay.
Course Stadium yesterday, and you ask fans to get up early to clear the ice and snow from your driveways, clear the ice and snow off your cars, buy extra clothes, probably drive on icy roads, pay to park, pay for seats, and the county taxi as well. They just shelled out
over two hundred million dollars to upgrade. You get to the stadium for the Bengals Ravens tilt and then you have to clean your seats off yourself and sit with your feet and butts on more snow and ice to watch them lay a twenty four to nothing lopsided egg against Baltimore to be officially eliminated from playoff contention. Now for the third year in a row, what am I
missing here? I don't think I'm missing anything. It is seatgate on this Monday morning on seven hundred WLW, we have Alisha Reese here and clean your own seat day at pay Corpse Stadium.
Yesterday Alicia, welcome.
We just paid two hundred and twelve million dollars, gave the Bengals counting money, taxpayer money to redo pay Corps and here we go again.
You got to clean your own seats off. Now what are we doing here?
Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, Sloan, I would hope that the media this is what frustrates me when they report this. In terms of the Bengals Least deal, it was not unanimous. I've voted against it. I did not support the two hundred and eleven million dollars last Tuesday, which has seemed really rushed. I said, now, what are we rushing to pay this two hundred and eleven million plus dollars to the Bengals when the least is eleven years and we passed that. I did not support it.
I didn't vote yes as that was passed before. We have passed the balanced budget that we have to do. We have the budget, the People's budget, which is due this week. We have to pass that by by Thursday. But it seemed to be a rush before this game to hurry up. We had to sell notes, check out more debt which comes with interest, and it was a rush. And we normally vote on Thursdays, but they were rushing. We got a payer, we got to upgrade the stadium for the future, and I kept saying, well would we
do this before? Right now we got a budget where Prosecutor office may be laying off people. We haven't balanced it yet. We have a budget right now because of this lease that I voted against. The property text for homeowners is going to go up next year in a month, a couple of weeks, they're going to get their bills, and you didn't want to give the homeowners a break. But there seems to have been this rush or to vote on a Tuesday, I believe, or Thursday. They were saying,
talk about it on Tuesday. But the rush a week before the budget is due to be passed to give the Bengals over two hundred million dollars. And then we we have Sunday with this situation where the seats aren't you know, the seats aren't aren't cleaned. Everyone else was making sure the city and everyone else was trying to make sure that the streets and all those things were clean. Because this wasn't like a surprise snow right.
We saw this, We saw this coming, We saw this coming. He was coming.
We had to clean our driveways, our cars. But the good news here is that according to the team in the NFL rule book, by the way, says that you're required to remove snow from the entire seating bowl before games. The NFL said, well, the Bengals did the bare minimum to meet that requirement. But it's not the first time this has happened. Happened a year I think two years ago where the seats weren't cleaned off. That is a fan safety issue during severe weather. And so what what
enforcement mechanisms does a county have. Do you have any any saying their their ability to keep fans safe.
Well, keywords you said was bare minimum, and that's what we've seen. There's been a bare minimum, and then it's on the backs of the taxpayers. One of the things I want to make sure because you always got to read the fine print when I get down to back down to the office, I wanted to ask the administrator.
I want to make sure there's no small print or any written clause that turns it back on the taxpayers of Hamilton County, because a lot of things that in the in these leases, they've been very uh you know, being an ownership has been very good at flipping things back. Uh you know that has any cost association, it gets
slipped back to the county. So you one of the reasons I've been one of waits to hear from our administrator because I don't want to have something that he said, oh, well, you know in this over here it was a little line and we agreed to pay for it, because there's a lot of things in that lease that in other other owners other markets, they you know, the team pays forwards the ownership, and in our market there seems to be a lot of things that fall on the tax payers.
And so I want to make sure before speaking definitively that that hadn't slipped in somewhere and all of a sudden it becomes you know, miss counties.
Well, the good news is that I have a copy of the master agreement here and it is on page nine thirty seven, Paragraph twenty eight, sub Section eleven double E. It says that any finds levied by the National Football League relative to snow removal shall be under the sole province and paid exclusively. Commissioner Alsia reesea Hamlin County.
What do you make it?
I know they love to hear that. That's why I said no.
To this, least, no to the least at.
Least put it on. It's always and also don't want as they say, well, now you know, because we got these new changes and we'll slip it in and and that's what I hear. A lot of it always flips back to the to the taxpayers, and so that's where I have some concern and making sure, yes we do have facilities people, Yes we do have those things, but we should not be paying for all of the extras.
And that's what usually happens to to uh, to us, what I've seen in my years of you know, my few years of being down there, it has been shocking to me. But but no, it was a flap of the face to to the to the fans, and we knew. Everyone knew that this weather was coming. They knew when the snow was falling. They even reported when it was going to stop falling. They knew that the the that it was going to get colder and all those kind of things. And at this at the end of the day,
you have the word bear minimum. And that's what's been going.
That's the subject on my show today. We'll get after you go.
I'm going to talk more about the bare minimums because that really is what what the driver here is.
UH.
With with the legendary cost cutting measures of teams have during the negotiations during contracts, have you ever raised concerns with team ownership about a pattern of prioritizing profit and expenses over fan experience.
Well, we started with that. I said, well, wait a minute, because remember I was on your show and there were some concerns about the seats that are not in the club level where they can make more money. Remember I said, what about the seats up at the top when they were redoing seats brought broken the broken escalator. We were talking about that. So I have constantly been on fan experience when they come down there, whether they're coming down
for a game or another event, but fan experience. And then remember they we got these reports about we we you know, the stadium didn't get good. Uh, didn't get good grades nationally. As the talk, they even went into the food. Remember they talked about the food for the for the team players families and uh, they also talked about help we got food. Remember for disability, a gentleman couldn't get to the restroom because it's not just it's
not accessible throughout the whole stadium. I even talked about going into the stadium. They would have people. Uh they would say, well, no, you got to go all the way to the other side of a person walking with a walker trying to get to the sensibilities area. And I said, listen to all areas this twenty twenty, you know five all areas should be accessible in this day and climate. And so those were some of the things that we keep hearing that we are always doing the
bare minimum with the top dollar on the taxpayers. Even in this deal, they come in and say, well, we're gonna do the bare minimum for the homeowners, even though the homeowners were promised thirty percent were gonna do the bare minimum, and they went to four percent. So it seems to be a pattern of the bare minimum. I said, hey, we want to have more events there. Remember we wanted to have the WWE. I believe it was the smack Down Summer Summer swam right, they went to Cleveland. We
at that time we hadn't even applied. So I came on your show you mentioned it. I said we should apply once again. We do the bare minim. Well, we have one event a year, and you know that's good enough. So it has been the bare minimum, bare minimum on their end, but the top dollar on the tax pair end.
No Commissioner Lisha resh on this year, we're talking about shovelgate at pay Corpse Stadium and acting like this is hey, this is a rare weather circumstance. I mean, we've known about this for days in advance, and then we're gonna get bitterly cold temperatures on Sunday.
That forecast was accurate.
You plan for that kind of stuff, and we act as if or the response has been, well, it's like a while, it's a big deal. You got to stay in ice and snow. It's not like we don't get ice and snow in Cincinnati. And there are the cold weather stadiums, and I consider it's a cold weather stadium this time of year that they you don't see that happening. You know now, if you get an event where it's snowing an inch an hour, it's gonna be awfully tough
to clear. We understand that we've seen that before. But the storm it ended, plenty of places were cleared off. It wouldn't be that much to ask if they were clearing it as the snow fell before it turned to ice. How do you make sure that doesn't happen again? And I say that because I think it was the last time the Bengals were in the playoffs three years ago. I recall or maybe the year before, where the same
thing happened. The snow fell and there was no adequate planning place to remove the snow, and they said, I we'll do better next time. Your contemporary there on the commission, Stephanie Summer Dumas, said that we need to do a better job for next time. Well, this is the next time after three years ago. It doesn't seem like they care or the messages have been received. Do you have any influence in your position to make that happen?
Well, I believe that the influence that the county commissioners had is when we went into the negotiation, and that's why everything in negotiation needed to really be on the table with you know, some type of penalty, because you know, if someone goes in there and say they fail, you know, then there's a liability that could you know, fall on the county as well, the county taxpayers. When they filed that lawsuit about the restroom, they didn't just put the Bengals,
they put they put Hamilton County. And then the Bengals ownership wanted to remove themselves from the lawsuit and leave it to the taxpayers. And so really these type of things, that's why I went to know on the on the deal, you've got to really and then be enforceable. It can't be well, they made a call to the administrator and now he comes and we don't get to talk to each other. Three of us are on the county commission
of to talk. That would be a majority, so there's only one person who can talk to all three of us, and so we end up saying one thing, and then he has a meeting and then they come out and then the next thing, I know, well we're okay with it. We should have you know, we've got it again. If we hadn't rushed last week to do the two one hundred and eleven million dollars. We'd had some leverage, but it's hard to have leverage if you've given them the checkbook and you've written a blank check.
That's over.
I tried to have some Yeah, you talked about seat gate has been homeowner gate. I mean there's been a lot of gates down there. I mean, it's a lot of things going on. But you got to take care of it. My god, you're negotiating the check book. That's where you have the power.
I don't know how you hold it.
Most I would say almost every other NFL team save maybe one except I don't know if there's an exception or not to that would look at in the public outcry going. Man, you know what, it's the fan experience.
It's a bad look for the team. It's a bad look for the city and the franchise because things like this happen, not not frequently, but enough to establish a pattern if you go back in time, that they simply will do the bare minimum and don't care what the fans, or the media or anyone else thinks for that matter. They only care about what their opinions are inside pay corps, in the front office, and typically other teams would look at this and go, yeah, this this gives our franchise
a bad look. We better clean this up and fix it for next time. I think almost every other NFL team thinks that way, except the Bengals.
Yeah. I can't tell you how they think. I just know that when I look at the actual deal. And when you have a chance, remember had to have a free watch party, Sloan, you and I. They said let's do what. It came from a It came from a fan that said let's do it. They were once said we can't do it, and then the next thing I know, they came back with it. We found a way to do it. Now we want to do it for ninety nine dollars. We wanted to have some free to get
back to the fans. Every time we want to do we want to have something to get back to the homeowners. And they said, now we want all the money, and now we only can do you know what I'm saying. So anything that doesn't make money, from what I've seen, it's always we'll put it on the If it costs money, the tax players, we want you to pay. If it makes money, then again then it's okay for them. And again, there was so much pressure to pass this two hundred
eleven million dollars right before. I don't know if they knew that the season was going to end or something, but it was, you know, the administray said, we got it, we gotta got this is an eleven year deal. Why we gotta do it so quick? We gotta do it, even before we balance the budget. We gotta do it. And now they've done it, and uh, it's two hundred eleven million dollars out a three hundred and fifty million
we don't put. That's a pretty big front load. And now here we are, not even a week later, and now we're talking about well, wait a minute, the seats wasn't well was it removed from seat?
You feed enough pigeons, you get fat, happy pigeons.
That's what you get.
Commissioner Lisha Reese on seatgate this morning on seven hundred W and there's nothing you can do.
It's over.
But uh, it helps I think collectively to complain.
No, I think it's you know, we got to bring these things up and and I'm gonna ask the administrator to see what really can be done, and it should be done. But I want to make sure Swan thank you for having me on. But I hope these media when they write, they keep saying commissioners passed two hundred and eleven million dollars. I didn't vote yes, Please Pa it was two to one.
We know, we know you made your case.
We got it.
I told you so, the I told you so, the I told you so. Alisha, I always appreciate you coming out.
I have a great day. I don't know if you know this, but Alisha Reese did not vote for She always brings the heat, and God knows we need some heat this morning, especially if you suffered through yesterday's If you suffered through yesterday's game uh and happened to go there, I'll bump you the top of the call list here because we're going to examine, from top to bottom, the central idea of the segment of the show this morning, from Alicia to your calls coming up next AFTERNOWS, and
that is the bare minimum, Bengals, the bare minimum. And if you just do the bare minimum, do you ever expect to win a championship in your lifetime. We'll get to that next on the show right after this, on seven hundred W