News Radio seven hundred WLW Mike Allen and Saturday midday, how about cold Saturday morning. Well, I'll tell you what election time is here. Of course, Tuesday is the election date. People have been voting by mail gosh, I guess in some cases for about thirty days. But the big races here in the City of Cincinnati, of course, is the Mayor's race and the council races. So today I'm going
to do things a little bit differently. Today we are going to speak with some of the candidates that are running for City of Cincinnati Council, the ones that I think have the best shot at punching through perhaps. And at ten thirty we're going to talk to Corey Bowman, who is a candidate for mayor, and Billy. I'll tell you what, if ever there was one you would love to see an upset in that race. Of course, Corey running against the incumbent in that matter, in that whole thing, and.
Mister Pureval, we'll see what happens.
I mean, when you got a city that's votes three to one Democrat, it's an uphill battle.
But you know, this year's different. I mean, it just is.
With the downtown beat down, in the situation with the Chief of Police driving it, so we shall see. But at any rate, Liz Keating will lead it off at nine point thirty. At ten o'clock we're going to talk to Steve Gooden, a ten thirty Corey Bowman candidate for mayor, as I said, And at eleven o'clock we're going to talk to Judge Josh Berkowitz, and he is running to keep his seat on the Hamilton County Municipal Court. And we're going to conclude at eleven thirty with Christopher Smitheman.
The only problem with all this is I'm probably not going to have time to take calls. I mean, if you feel compelled and something that you really want to get off your chest, you know, go ahead and call seven point nine seven thousand, one eight hundred the big one and I'll try to work you in.
But no guarantees.
Again, I just think it's important that we hear from these candidates on three days out from the election. But at any rate, I wanted to talk to you about something in the rant here, about something I saw this week which just really kind of knocked me on my butt in a good way. Let me explain it.
To you.
It was about an article in this relatively new I think publication named Semaphore. I've got it open here on my computer, and you know, I looked at it this week and it looks like it's pretty fair right straight down the line as far as reporting. Looks like it's all political stuff. But that's where this article was. That's where I found that. It's a new for profit global news network. They have a really interesting website. As I said, if you want to check it out. This story in
Semaphore is getting a lot of play. Okay, here we go. They reported this week that a group called Welcome, which is being labeled as a centrist Democrat group, which I didn't know there are any more of them left, they consulted. This isn't a poll. This is a study. They consulted with hundreds of thousands of voters in the past six months, and they also spoke with a lot of Democratic legislators. And again, it's more than a poll. It's a comprehensive study.
And I'll tell you what. The results are shocking, but really shouldn't be, not really that surprising, but man, it just shows you where the Democrat Party is at this point in time. Here's the introduction to the report from this group called Welcome that you can see in Semaphore. Just a couple of paragraphs here. Then we're going to
get down to the gritty. Democrats have badly weakened their party with left leaning ideas and rhetoric growing only the party growing only with self described white liberals, while losing ground with other voters. Yeah, you know, normal people. According to a new center left group's report that was shared with Semaphore, the group called Welcome consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including
listen to this one. If there's any bombshell in this or although it really shouldn't be, it's this, seventy percent of voters think the Democratic Party is out of touch. Seventy percent. That's not seventy percent of Republicans. That's not seventy percent of conservatives. That's seventy percent of voters who think that the Democratic Party.
Is out of touch.
Now we all know that it is, but to get that big of a number, I think is a is something that's important and noteworthy.
Goes on.
Most voters, the group found believe the party the Democrat party over prioritizes issues like are you ready protecting the rights of LGBTQ plus you got to put that plus in there, plus Americans and fighting climate change while not caring about securing the border or lowering the rate of crime. Okay, they looked at the rise in Democrat lawmakers. Now keep in mind this is Democrat lawmakers. They looked at their
support for radical legislation. Here's just some examples. In twenty thirteen, only one percent of Democrat lawmakers supported a study to determine if reparations there it is reparations should be awarded to African Americans. Only one percent in twenty thirteen. Check this out in twenty twenty four, eleven years later, that
new number is fifty seven percent. So they go from one percent of Democrat leaders lawmakers that think that we should look at reparations all the way to fifty seven percent. Okay and twenty thirteen. Also twenty thirteen, only four percent of Democrat lawmakers supported inmate voting rights, which is a burning issue for most of the Democrat party. Four percent in twenty thirteen supported of Democrat lawmakers supported inmate voting rights.
In twenty twenty four, that number is now forty one percent. So you can see the way that the Democrat Party is going. And support among Democratic lawmakers for an assault weapons.
Ban grew from in twenty thirteen.
To now actually twenty twenty four, eighty eight percent of Democrat lawmakers favor that. Again, you can see the drift. You can see the drift leftward, drifting so much that they just go over the edge on this thing. In talking about the shift, this report went on to say that the defeat or retirement of some conservative Democrats.
I'm just going to stop here.
I have not seen a conservative Democrat on the national level for god knows how many years. The last one I remember is Scoop Jackson, who was a Democrat senator. I forget what state. He was very conservative on defense matters and other matters as well. I defy anyone to give me the name of a Democrat nationally who could be considered a conservative and on the local level, last time you saw a conservative Democrat. The last one that comes to my mind is somebody who I think is
a great man, Dusty Rhodes. You know, since Dusty, they're just non existent. But at any rate, to get back to the report, the defeat or retirement of some conservative Democrats explained some of the shift, but not all of it. The Report Study of National Democratic Party Platforms from the convention. You always have a party platform at the convention. They
used to be really important. Not so much anymore. But the report Study of National Democratic Party Platforms from twenty twelve to twenty twenty four found a surge in language about specific racial groups. That's up eight hundred and twenty eight percent. About environmental justice, whatever the hell that is it is up three hundred and thirty three percent. And about LGBTQ you know what, they didn't put the plus here, And about LGBTQ plus rights up one thousand and forty
four percent. Mentions of men fell by sixty three percent, and mentions of fathers by one hundred percent, and mentions of the concept of responsibility.
Eighty three percent.
So in twenty twenty and twenty twenty four party platform began with listen to this. This just gives you a perfect example where the Democrat Party is. In twenty twenty twenty twenty four, the party platform Democrat Platform began with land acknowledgments for the Native American tribes that have previously inhabited their convention sites. Who the hell cares Native Americans? From everything that I've read, they couldn't care less about this stuff. Only the in the Democrat Party do well.
The report kind of winds up by saying those shifts that I just read up there don't win votes. The reports analysis of voter data from a thing called Catalyst, which is a Democrat data firm, showed Democrats losing some ground with non college educated white voters. You think since twenty twelve, but this is even better for us far more with non white voters, meaning African American voters meeting Hispanic voters.
They're losing.
The Democrats are losing voters in those two groups and we're gaining. And the closes just to say that those voters, no matter what their education level is, and it ends by saying progressive language and politics meant to win those non white voters simply didn't work.
So there you go, kind of in a nutshell.
Democrat Party is in the year twenty twenty five.
But here's the thing.
This is getting down to the nitty gritty, and it's just my opinion. This report is it appears to me to be very well researched and very well reported. I mean, I'm not just saying that. I did a pretty deep dive this week into it. But it's all going to go over like the proverbial lead balloon among the so called leaders of the Democratic Party, the Chucky Schumers, the Aocs,
the Jasmine Crocketts, YadA, YadA, YadA. You think those people are going to embrace this study, There's no way, even if they wanted to, they can't because they are held captive by the radical leftist wing of the Democrat Party. It is as simple as that. And again, I mean, why is it going to go over like a lead balloon? As we all know, and I think I mentioned this on the first show about twenty six, twenty seven.
Years ago, just kidding about eight years ago.
What is the main trait of a liberal or liberalism? What is the main trait? If you don't know it by now, I'll tell you again. It's arrogance, absolute unabashed arrogance. They're right, no matter what, will never ever consider another point of view. They're right, and if you don't agree with them, you're canceled, you're out of here. You know, they could never be wrong in their mind and any dissent from this radical narrative will be stomped down. And
guess what that only helps us. So wanted to let you know about that study again. It's in the online publication Calledaphore. You can get it pretty easily now. The one thing is I'm playing around with it.
This always happens.
After a while, something pops up and says, hey, you got one more visit left, and then we're gonna charge you. I don't know how much it is, but I didn't have to do that, but you know what I might, if it's reasonable, just plunk down a little bit of money because I think it's very good. But it gives you an idea where they're going. They can have all these studies. Carville was a part of this study. They
can have all these studies. But if they're not, if the downcats, I'm going to pay attention to it, more power to them. Man, they're running themselves into the ground real quickly.
Here.
I wanted to let you know this is no surprise here, or shouldn't be. We also learned this week that the Department of Justice is finally investigating the sanctified Black Lives Matter organization. They're investigating the outright theft of millions and millions of dollars that Corporate America threw at them Black Lives Matter in the wake of the George Floyd killing, and we talked about that at the time, and Corporate
America threw money at them like you wouldn't believe. While they're throwing money at BLM, they're throwing the cops under the bus.
It's one of the things.
That urinated me off the most since I've been on this show. Story in Fox News just a little bit of it, because we're running out of time here. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether senior leaders of the BLM organization defrauded donors who contributed tens of millions of dollars during the twenty twenty protest mostly peaceful protests. Remember while the reporter said it was mostly peaceful, while something's burning, a
car's burning behind him. Will always remember that. The AP reported that the Justice Department's ongoing in query is based on the foundation's handling of donations collected in the wake, As I said, of the George Floyd killing, when the groups saw a surge of more than ninety million dollars in contributions. I think it's much more than that, and the probe is being led by the US Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. According to the apd
investigation began during the Biden administration. Now that surprised me, but has received renewed attention, you think under the new Trump administration. The ap also reported that the inquiry extends to other black led advocacy groups that gained prominence during the nationwide demonstrations. Okay, so they go to BLM to get a comment. They told Fox News, quote, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is not a target of any federal criminal investigation.
Blatant, flat out.
They know that, and it goes on their statement BLM, we remain committed to full transparency, accountability, and the responsible stewardship of resources dedicated to building a better future for black communities. That, my friends, is a bald face, out
and out lie. They've known about this all along. You may recall a couple of years ago we talked about on this show, Patrice Colors cullrs her she spent millions of dollars buying high end homes and condominiums for We never did find out who it was for I saw one of them. They said, Wow, we're using that as our headquarters. Just outright theft. Well, they go on in the statement we are surprised at some of the incredulity and our calculations. I'm sorry, that's not a statement from
this is so too. After that, so too is BLM, which suggests that if objections to wealth transfers of the scale are rooted in are you ready white supremacy and a pathology that black organizations didn't don't deserve to be funded? Close quote, you can boil it all down and they're blaming it on are you ready racism? What else could it be other than racism? Trot that thing out when you don't have anything else. But at any rate, I really do hope that DOJ puts the pedal to the metal on this thing.
Hey, we got to take a break from the news.
Butt.
When we get back, we're going to talk to I believe the last Republican elected the city council, and that's Liz Keating. We'll do that when we get back. Mike Allen Saturday midday. Hey, we're back, Mike Allen, Saturday mid day. Tell you what that kind of Rocks.
Who is that?
Liam blink two blink one eight two blink one eighty two.
I knew that. No, I didn't at any rate. As I said all morning.
This morning, we are going to be talking about the city election coming up, council members and the mayor and leading it off is the last Republican. She was the last Republican on Cincinnati City Council. Talking of course about Liz Keating. She served on Cincinnati City Council from twenty
twenty twenty twenty four. Political philosophy, she will listen to all sides, ask many questions, drive productive debate, and then work to find the best possible solution, which sounds to me like it was how she did it in her last council term because she was the only Republican. Kating, Welcome back to Saturday mid Day. It's great to have you.
Thanks for having me.
Let me ask you something, Liz, and you got into it a little bit later than some of the others.
Why did you decide to run again this year?
Honestly because I'm just fed up with everything that's going on. I mean, it's almost been two years since I have been off council. I finished in January twenty twenty four, and during that entire time, I still fielded calls from dozens of residents because they weren't getting their trash picked up, They litter, what everywhere wasn't getting cleaned up. They weren't hearing from the city. When we had that snowstorm, you know, the street sparn't.
Cloud, schools couldn't open.
When they reached out about concerns about crime, they weren't getting any response from city council.
And so they're calling me for help.
And you shouldn't have to know somebody who knows somebody to get help at city Hall. This is the job that city council was elected to do, and they are failing.
They are failing.
They are not responding to the resident and I am just tired of it, and it's hurting the reputation of the city. And so I decided to jump in because something needs, something needs to change, It needs to be fixed, and I want Cincinnati back on track.
You know, I take it from what you're saying that you're not in favor of city council getting involved in issues like immigration and other things that have absolutely nothing to do with the daily operations of the City of Cincinnati.
Is that a fair and accurate statement.
Well, there's a lot of things that councils should be doing. You know, there are issues that do impact Cincinnati immigration.
In some ways. But if you're just debating.
The national level politics of it and policies, that's not responding to the residents. Well, you know what you can do. You can work on workforce development because we actually have more jobs in Cincinnati than we have people to fill them. We have money coming in from the Railroad Trust for infrastructure projects, and guess what, the city's not spending it to pay your roads because they haven't figured out how
to deploy it. We could use a lot more people getting trained to be able to fill those jobs and actually pave the roads. But if you're not focused on actual productive debate and getting things done in Cince, nowive that actually helped the residents. And all you're doing is complaining about people at the federal level who you disagree with. No one benefits, no one benefits. You have to focus on actual solutions here.
Absolutely, And based on what you said, I didn't realize this. Are you saying that from that railroad money none of it has been spent spent yet on infrastructure, because I mean that's one of the ways they sold this thing.
Not none of it. Very little has been spent.
They appropriated so much money through paving roads and there was a report last month that said only four percent of it had actually been deployed on actual projects. If you can't get the money out the door, there is a problem. And guess what, no the one on council has been figuring out what that problem is to actually deploy the money. That's a huge, huge problem. I mean, our roads and Cincinematic are an absolute mess. This should be something that you're focused on because this is something
that impacts our residents. And right now we are not getting any productive debate from our council members. They're all over the place on things. They're saying everything is being run smoothly, and it's not. Residents know that residents are feeling the pain. And as we've been out on the campaign trail the last nine weeks, that's all we hear from people is they are frustrated and they're set up and they're not hearing from their council members. And that
is what council members are supposed to do. They're supposed to be responsive to the constituents that they represent.
Absolutely, and you mentioned road paving. I'll tell you what.
Well, with respect to snow removal, you can always tell Liz, I live just outside the city now, but you know, the townships, the county, others, they do a pretty good job of it.
But when you enter the city.
Of Cincinnati, you can tell you don't need a sign that says corporation line. And one thing this is, I guess kind of personal paving road. Will you, because I know you'll get a handle on it, will you please have them look in to paving Sunset Avenue as you turn left off a Queen City.
It's unbelievable. It's like a battlefield there.
And I guess that's just an example of what you're seeing throughout the city.
Absolutely, I mean, in sometime is one that has come up time and time again as we're out talking to voters, and I mean something like that that shouldn't be that hard to get done. There is so much money now
coming in. There's money coming in from the federal government to other infrastructure projects, things like the Western Hills viaducts and in the new Brunt Spence Bridge, Like there are so many jobs and so much money, tens of millions of dollars actually one hundreds of millions of dollars coming in to do these projects. There is no reason that we should not be prepared to fill those jobs in to start paving roads, especially in this kind of economy
where people are hurting. We should get people in those shops, get those paychecks going home, support families, and take care of the roads. We can do it if we have a council that is paying attention and actually figuring out how to implement and implementary quickly so that you can take care of the residents' needs.
Absolutely, there something I got to ask you this question.
I think I know the answer, but I'm going to ask.
You what do you feel is keating is the most important issue facing Cincinnati City Council, and if elected, what will you do to help alleviate that problem?
Right now? It's crime.
Crime is what we are hearing the top issue, top concern from everyone. And it's not just crime, but it's also the perception of safety too. And right now we're consistently hearing from council members that, oh, crime's going down, crimes going down. Everything is fine, Everything is working.
But if you're hearing.
From voters everywhere in the city that they are concerned about crime, they're concerned about public safety, they don't want to go places because they don't feel safe, you should be paying attention to that. We need elected officials who are responding to constituent concerns and are working relentlessly to get that crime number to zero. You should not be
satisfied until that number is zero. And it's not just being tough on crime where you're you're getting you know, you're filling the recruit classes, helping with retention to get more officers walking the beats and making the neighborhood safe, but you also need to be tough on the causes of crime because if you can help prevent it, then you don't need to worry about things and you're not going to run into a problem when you are short
with officers. And there's so many programs that we can do that I did before on counsel and we'll do again, and that things like youth jobs that's expending expanding rec center hours, and programs for kids that's you know, making sure that we are implementing childcare programs so we have safe places for kids. That's making sure that you know, we're looking at housing and housing affordability to create more
stabilization for families. That's working with CPS to be able to make sure our kids and most at risk youth are taken care of. There's so many things to do, fighting the crime and fighting the causes of crime, but we need council members who actually care about that and don't just point to data that looks good for them to say we're doing.
A good job.
Let me ask you this, and I'm going to ask everyone this. Do you feel that ch Fiji was treated fairly in this latest thing, the.
What I call the downtown beat down? And I guess just overall, do you think she's been treated fairly? Lis Keating?
No, this is absolutely terrible.
You know what's happening. Your tax dollers are being wasted on this because they asked her to resign. If she didn't resign, and then all of a sudden, you have to bring in a law firm spend fifty thousand dollars to investigate to be able to figure something out. That is a waste of taxpayer money. There are so many things in the city that we need to spend money on, and we are short on money when it comes to the operation side, and you're going to spend the money
on trying to find a reason to fire her. Do you get into this mess? And yes, this is a city manager's decision, but you know what, Council plays a role because council appropriates the dollars. It takes two members of council to call a special meeting, and not one of them has teamed up with someone to call a special meeting.
They can call a special.
Meeting and put the administration on the hot seat and ask questions so that the public can better understand what they're doing and why. And you know what, if counsel disagrees with them at that point, when they actually ask questions and better understand what's going on, they can say, you know what, we don't agree with the fifty thousand dollars. We're not going to spend it. We're not going to
allow you to spend it. Council can step in and stop this witch hunt right now, and they haven't done it. They're hiding from this, they're not responding to anything, and this is the job of counsel and they're failing right now.
It's embarrassing. Let me ask you this. It is a little bit off the cuff, but not really. In the year two thousand and I know you weren't on city council then Issue five that was on the ballot. It was an issue to remove the Chief of Police, the fire chief, and I think several other positions within high positions within city government, to remove civil service protection for those people.
And it passed.
It was a fifty two to forty eight vote. I was one of the ones working hard to make sure it didn't pass. Well, it did. You're familiar with the issue, I would suppose, Liz, aren't you?
Yes, huh, yep?
Would you?
I think it's a great debate to come back. Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead.
I'm just going to say, would you do what you could do? I guess it's got to be a vote to change the charter back, but would you do whatever you could do to see that that thing gets on the ballot and then work to pass it because if we had that, it's my humble opinion, none of as garbage would have happened with the chief.
Yeah, I think it's a there's a really strong argument to bring that back and to require and look at it different way, not just the protections that were there before, but the possibility of requiring vote of council and maybe a super majority vote of council to approve the firing, because then you have those protections in place, a little bit more balance of power.
But what it does is that would give.
Our leaders, like the police chief, like the fire chief, maybe even potentially a city manager and others a little bit more room to not get caught up in the politics and.
Actually do their jobs.
These professionals, they are experts in their field. Politicians are not, and that gives them so much space to be able to maneuver and make the right decisions, particularly in times of crises, and not worry about the politics a bet
are at play and potentially losing their jobs. It gives a lot more room, and I think there's a really strong argument for it, and I think it is absolutely worth bringing that debate back and understanding which scenario and if you're going to revisit that, and what's the greatest outcome to bring it back, and council members can do that.
Council members can put.
Something like that on the ballot with a major or super majority vote, right and it doesn't take a whole bunch of signatures to put it on the ballot. So I think that should be one of the top things that Council does when in the new term.
Absolutely, because you know, obviously I'm old as Mathuselah, but I remember a time when Issue five was not in effect, the so called protections of Issue five were not in effect. And you go back in history the chiefs of police here, Larry Whale and Tom Striker. There is no way on God's green earth that they would have tolerated the abuse that Chief Fiji has had to tolerate because they had that civil service protection and they had to be fired
for a reasonable cause. Again, that's just my that's just my.
Opinion, it's true.
And you know what this is going to end up being. With all these lawsuits with the fire chief, potentially with the police chief, payers are going to have to put the bill. It is going to be a very very hapty bill and we are going to be spending a lot of money that again should be going to actual things that impact residents, and it's going to be settlements because of poor, poor leadership, particularly on the elected official side down the City Hall.
You know, and doing my research for this keating, I found out that you are the last Republican not just in Cincinnati City Council, but the last Republican council member of any of Ohio's six largest cities. And I remember back to your term that you've just finished off, and I always thought, how is she going to do this?
And what from what I could see you did?
Then? What you say if you're elected, you're going to do now, work with these people so you're not on an island deserted out there if you get back on council.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely?
And it's so important to have a voice and actually drive out the debate. I mean, there was many pieces of legislation that I disagreed with, but I still worked hard. I still went in research day, better understood all sides, and then made amendments to it so I could make
it a little bit better. Even though at the end of the day and the final piece I voted no. I voted it down, but I made a lot of amendments along the way just to make it better, maybe less damaging to the city because I strongly disagreed with something.
Things like that are so.
Critical right now we only we have one party rule. There's not much debate. You hear a lot of speeches that are you know, this is why I'm voting yes, or this is why I'm voting no. But there's no there's no debate into why are we even doing this? What problem are we trying to solve? You know, do we have weak points in this legislation, Maybe we should
be fixing it. And the other great thing is if you have somebody that is on the other side, that is the Republican Party, is the super majority veto proof legislators in the state House, and you have no relationationship down at city Hall with the majority party in the state House.
And that was another role that.
I played to be able to continue to have strong and productive conversations with what's happening in Columbus so they can better understand the issues happening in urban areas. Because if there's no representation in these major cities, these economic epicenters,
it's a problem. Then some of the legislation might not be may not be the best thing for these areas, these big cities, and we need that, we need to have good conversations, strong relationships that trust there and also be able to drive productive debate locally where you know you are in a super minority.
Yep, lizy got a minute. We got a minute left. Anything that you want to say.
In that minute, Lizinati, it is time for change. We have to have people get out to vote. You can vote today, you can vote tomorrow and early vote, or go vote on election day. We deatherately need people to show up to vote if you want to see something different, have a different direction for a city of Cincinnati. I love the city way too much to let it continue the way it is, and I know the rest of you do too. So please please please.
Get out to vote.
Do not vote all nine and make sure your voice is heard. We've got to have change on city council.
Very well, put Liz Keating.
I'm glad I got a chance to talk to you this morning, and best of luck on Tuesday.
Thank you so much.
You have a wonderful day you too, Thank you well.
I tell you what, I obviously i'd love to see her back on council. I really would. And you know what, she's got a chance of breaking through, I think, as does the next person we're going to be talking to after the break that's Steve Gooden, also former Cincinnati City Council member. It took an interesting kind of route in doing what he needed to do to revive the Charter Party, which I think is good for this city.
Charters running a slate of candidates.
And anyway, when we get back, we're going to talk to Steve about what he would do if he returns to count Radio News Radio seven hundred WLW Mike Allen an hour two of Saturday Midday talking to the candidates for Cincinnati City Council and Cincinnati Mayor. I'll tell you what the next guy. I know you're going to recognize him. I'm talking, of course, about our political analyst, Steve good
excuse me, legal analysts also politics as well. Steve served on Cincinnati City Council, was appointed twenty twenty to twenty twenty one. Unfortunately that time he was not elected. He has the endorsement, in my humble opinion, but the only one that matters these days, of FOP Lodge sixty nine, as does Liz Keating. I should have mentioned that, but I didn't.
Steve.
Welcome back to Saturday Midday in kind of a new role here.
Yay, Good morning, Mike, takes it's my pleasure. Hey, let me ask you this, Steve, what.
Made you decide to run again for Cincinnati City Council knowing that the city is about three one democrat now these days.
Well, I got to a point, Mike, where I just couldn't take it anymore. You know, I live over in the Clinton Neighborhood, have been involved in the community council for a number of years. There is no more left wing progressive neighborhood in the city than the Clifton Gaslight District. I am a lone conservative over the year, but get along with my neighbors. And this neighborhood was fed up
with city council. This neighborhood was fed up with AFTAB because of the uptick in violence and property crimes that we saw, because of the homelessness situation that has developed, particularly.
In our park.
They couldn't take it anymore, and I couldn't take it anymore. And it occurred to me that if this neighborhood was to stand up and break with this council and break with this mayor, both of whom got, like you know, almost eighty percent of the vote in this neighborhood, then my God, the rest of the city was sped up as well. So I mean, this is this isn't some overnight thing for either for me or for the city.
This has been building over the last four years. The city is more violent, it is more divided, it is dirtier. It is just a harder place to live in than it was four years ago. And I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican or communist or whatever you are. Like, it's unavoidable and I think everyone's ready for some fresh voices. And that's why I really have been pushed to do this by people across the political spectrum, and it just
felt like it was time to step up. I mean, I'm also in a position of my life where I'm not trying to start some big, grand political career. I just want to go down there, as I say, I want to bring some grumpy old man energy because I really don't care. I'm not really politically correct about it. I don't really care what people think. We're not poll testing anything that we say or do. We're just saying this is what the city needs from a common sense standpoint.
If you'll love it, vote us in. If you don't, that's fine. We'll go back to work on Wednesday morning with a smile on our face, knowing that we tried to raise these issues, but we have gotten a tremendous, tremendous response and we feel very good about it.
Well, let me kind of dovetail that with something of you and I have talked a little bit about what went into and why did you decide? And I know it's just not you, but you're the guy that did it. Why did you decide to kind of re energize the Charter Party, which again I think is a fantastic idea given the history of Charter in this city and the good things they've done through the years. What made you decide to do that?
Well, a couple of things.
Look, I've always been Look I'm a registered Republican, but I've always been involved in the Charter Party for many, many, many years, and it was my turn to be chairman a couple years ago, and it just seemed to me the best vehicle to reach the most people. I mean, the Charter Party has always been the good Government party.
It's been around since nineteen twenty four. You know, we're the ones that basically the Charter Party created with Murray season Good that the actual current form of government that we have that I guess still does need to be continually tweaked, because you have every season. Good would tell you it always has to evolve to deal with the times.
But they were the anti corruption party. They ended Bosses and they took on Boss Cox, they took on what was at the time very corrupt single party rule back in the twenties, which ironically were Republicans. And as we looked at city Hall, you've got just you know, we've had three corruption based the rest in the last five years. You have an all democratic council and a democratic mayor, a city manager who is clearly not acting independently as is required under the charter. And it felt like that
is the heart of the problem. But we also, as the charter ticket does not take positions on national issues. So and I think that's one of the things that's always killed common sense candidates for city counts on the last couple of cycles, is where they nationalize the issues and trying to make it all about Donald Trump or the last time it was all about abortion and all these things, and we just don't get involved work here that the old charter, you know, joke is that there's
no Republican or Democratic way to fix a pothole. At the end of the day, somebody just wants a pothole fixed. And we also realize too that the Charter Party has a really good history of working with people in the black community, whether it be you know, back in the day Ted Berry who was the first black mayor, Marriott Spencer, all the way up through ty Yates and kind of
bridging gaps between Republicans and Democrats. Because we have a mix, you know, in our committee and a lot of folks in those neighborhoods, we're hearing from a lot of whom the black neighborhoods have the same concerns that they haven't Clifton, that they have in High Park, that they have in the west Wood and Price Hill. And the joke that we've been saying is we're giving the same speech whether we're in Bond Hill or Price Hill, or we're getting
the same reaction. People just know what it's like not to be listened to. So we felt the Charter Party was absolutely the right way to go with it, and we have all these candidates that are on that ticket are all aligned on getting more cops on the street and there was a public safety that's too nice. We need more police on the street, probably up to three hundred and fifty more if we're really going to seriously
police this city the way it needs to be. And also we want to get rid of all this kind of crazy zoning stuff, including this connected community thing that they've done, which will just absolutely got our neighborhoods with a bunch of in garbage housing that nobody wants. Yeah, so you know, we're aligned on those issues, and it
just felt like the right way. There's a lot of people, you know, who are going to vote for Charter people and Democrats and Republicans, and we think that's the way this government works best when you got everybody represented, Steve.
I got to ask you this question. I'm asking it at every one. I'm pretty sure I know the answer. What do you think is the most important issue faeeing the city? And if elected, what would you do to make that problem go away or make it go away as best you can?
Look, we have a police staffing crisis, like period, full stop. It's been building for years. Back when when Smitherwin and I were on council, we tried to address it by taking some of the COVID federal money and putting it aside so we could do three D recruit classes that didn't hold. A council has a spending problem. They spend money on stupid pet projects. Millions per year on things like urban gardening and dance lessons and all these things
that that are almost too ridiculous. When I talk about it, people think you must be kidding. I'm not. I mean, really, is a council member who thinks that we can stop gun violence by handing out fruit and vegetables to young men who might be I'm not kidding, like like he's a really ripe tomato, don't shoot the guy. It's absurd.
And they've spent millions on this stuff rather than than putting, you know, putting that money into into police recruit classes and recruiting laterals and getting our staffing levels where they need to be. I mean, it's an absolute disgrace. You know,
what's occurred here and what they've allowed to occur. We need at least three hundred, maybe four hundred new police officers over the next two years if we're even going to be keep up with the retirements that are going on and actually do they kind of beat policing that we know works. So that is the number one priority. You cannot have a city, you cannot have a civil society, you know, if you don't have an adequate police force. And that is our situation here. Our police officers there,
morales and a toilet. We don't even really have a chief right now. Politics is everywhere in the department, the rank and file officers, despite their contract, and see how the chief is being treated and how everyone and the other command staff being treated. It is just a terrible, terrible, terrible way to run a city and it needs to be fixed top to bottom or we're not going to have a city to talk about.
I think you just addressed the next question I was going to ask if you thought that Chief Fiji had been treated fairly. I think clearly i'm hearing your answer that would be.
No, absolutely, yes, absolutely. Look, I mean I had big issues with Chief Fiji's performance down the stretch. I mean I have big issues. I do believe that over time should become kind of part of the problem. And my view, particularly on this issue about police statistics. I mean, I mean, the mayor and council have a gigantic. The biggest problem is a credibility problem, because they spent all summer telling us we didn't have a real uptick in shootings, we
weren't really seeing more gun violence. It's all the statistics will bear this out. It's really not what it seems. And then all of a sudden they got to a point where they couldn't deny it anymore. So they basically spent the summer line and the chief was kind of part of that. I have to say it, and I mean I was very critical of her at times, but I'm just saying this. And you were in the army too, You know how it is to be an officer. This isn't how you remove someone. This isn't how you deal
with the change of command. Even if they have a case against her, which I mean that convinced they really do. I mean, I think really what she did was implement these policies they told her to implement them. When they didn't work, they cut her loose. And that's I think that's really what happened here. But even if they even if she had done something actually wrong, this isn't the
way you do it. You don't play this out in public you have to be mindful of the impact as will have on the morale of the rank and file. It just shows that these folks have no real experience in the real world, either in law enforcement, military, or even just basic business experience. This isn't how you manage a large urban police department. So I do feel for her. There was no need to humiliate her a treat her
the way they have, and I'm sorry. As a lawyer, I can tell you they're going to end up paying it at the end of the day, with taxpayer dollars. She's going to get paid. That's the only way this happens, otherwise if they don't pay her. I'd love to see the trial where she lays out all these private conversations she had with our mayor and the chief and the council where they talk about these goopy progressive policies that just you have almost ruined the city.
You're right, and I'll tell you what.
They're going to have to back up the Brins truck to city Hall for that settlement, as well as the fire chief.
I got to ask you this.
It's very important to me and I think others and I should mention that you did receive the FOP endorsement Issue five back in two thousand. You're familiar with it, Hunt, you steve what it was.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Okay, here's my question, if elected, re elected or technically I guess not re elected, if you go back to council, will you do what you can do to see that that either gets back on the ballot or at least it is clipped somewhat. Because I'm telling you right now, I'm old enough to know this. If Issue five did not succeed in the year two thousand, we wouldn't be going through all this nonsense with the police chief. Will you do whatever is in your power to see that that is put back on the ballot.
Yeah, Mike, absolutely. It either needs to be straight out repealed or see significantly reworked. And I mean, just to remind your audience, really, what it did was Issue five gave the mayor really and the city manager the ability to remove, basically remove the police chief from civil service protection. You know, the rank and file police officers have a contract, they have a process. You can't just fire them. And that's because police officers face false charges all the time.
I mean, people claim that they were injured and arrests, and they were not. It's just it comes with the job, so they have to have some protection against false claims. But really, what Issue five did is put the police chief at the borgency of the political leadership. At the time, that was hailed as this big reform that would make the police department more responsive to the civilians and to voters,
et cetera. But we also see now it has led to a scenario where where you know where political pressure can be brought to bear and just to absolutely demoralize the police department. So it absolutely needs to be revisited. I also believe that at the end of the day, though, we cannot talk about this without also talking about the city manager. For years, the Charter Party has been saying that you ought to be able to remove that that the city manager should also be able to be right
now can be removed. The mayor should be able to be removed by a majority of council as well. That's the only way to make the city manager more responsible and in the chain of command, really, the city manager is the one who is directly over the police chief.
So I think if we're really going to bring accountability here, rather than having the police chiefs more at the mercy of the politicians is to actually be the city manager who should have to answer more directly to council and to have some checks and balances and to keep this
sort of nonsensical situation going on. Right now, you can tell from the public record that there are backdoor conversations going on about personnel matters there in particularly regards to the police chief that are just inappropriate, bad business, and we need to make that more transparent and open. So an Issue five is a big part of that. And whether or not the city manager can be fired by council is another big part of that piece. They're a puzzle.
You're absolutely right, Steve, And the city of Cincinnati was at least until Issue five, unique in that the chief of police, fire chief, and I think some other officials had that civil service protection. And I can guarantee you, I mean, I've been around long enough to know to make this statement definitively, had you had a chief striker, chief Whalen, that those chiefs did not have to deal with the issue of Issue five, you wouldn't have this crap that's going on in the city now.
I mean, I feel very confident saying that.
Oh absolutely.
And I think one of the things that we've lost here is that the police chief under that system had the independence to push back against the election officials, you know, and say, hey, look good it, we're not staff properly. Your kind of your lack of enforcement of low level
crimes isn't working. Your friends, mister mayor and council members over at the courthouse are letting people out that archives arrest within twenty four hours with guns, and they She would have an independent chief as the ability to push
back and raise those issues. I mean, right now, politics has crept into every last part of the upper achelon of that department over there, and I mean, look, there were times when Chief Deji was forced into a position or she had to provide political cover for the city manager infin the mayor. And it's an absolute corruption of our system. It's not the way it's supposed to work.
She's supposed to be out there for the rank and file officers and to protect the public and to really talk bluntly about what we need and don't need in terms of staffing and resources. And she was not. She was part I have to have used to introduce her as quote part of their team, and that's not the way it's supposed to be. The police chief is supposed to be with the police in the public.
Yep, Hey, Steve, Unfortunately we're out of time, but best of luck on Tuesday. I think you've put yourself in a position to get back on there and we wish all the luck in the world.
You know, it feels really good.
We're going over to the Board of Elections to remind everyone you can still vote early through tomorrow afternoon at four pm to come down, and it is kind of cold, crappy out, but come on down.
We'll be there all weekend.
All right, Thanks Steve, take care, thank you?
Okay, all right, that was Steve Gooden, a charter candidate for city council.
I think he's got a shot at breaking through.
Even as we've been saying, in a three to one Democrat city, I think Steve's got a chance of cracking that nine.
We shall see. Hey, we got to take a break.
Button we get back, we're going to be talking to Corey Bowman, who I'm sure y'all know is a candidate for mayor. I think he's done an incredible job. I think he's done an amazing job. We're going to talk to him about what he would do if he is elected mayor of the City of Cincinnati. We'll do that
when we get back Mike Allen. Back Mike Allen, Saturday midday, moving on with our discussion with candidates for city council, our next best candidate for mayor, and we're going to talk to Josh Berkewitz next Judge joshsh Berkowitz about his real election efforts. But with that, I want to talk to Corey Bowman. He is the founding pastor of The River Church in Cincinnati, co owner of King's Arms Coffeehouse.
He's an Ohio native, graduate of the former School of Business at Miami, and I should mention before I forget he is also FOP endorsed.
Corey. Thanks so much for checking in with us this morning.
Mike.
Thank you so much to you and your listeners for having me. I'm sorry for any noise in the background. Work in the West End today volunteering at Saint Vincent DePaul for their food panter.
There you go. The weekend before election is one that candidates who are serious are out there working it. And I think Corey, you have run an incredible campaign. I think when it was first announced, a lot of people thought, Hey, you know, here's the cannon fodder for our mayor candidate.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
You're working it hard on a lot of people's opinion, You're talking about the right issues.
So with that, I wanted to ask you. I know I know the.
Answer to this question, but I'm going to ask you anyway, what do you feel is the major issue facing Cincinnati City Council and the mayor at this point in time.
Well, I think we've got to eliminate the opinion that Skyline's better than gold Star, because gold Star is a clear winner on this thing, and that's what people really care about.
My gallum.
You know what, thank you for correcting me.
What would you say that is the second most important issue.
By the way, I love gold I love the Skyline as well. I love them both, But I definitely think that people it's obvious that the issue at hand is public safety. Public safety, public safety, that is what people care about. That's why our FOP endorsement so vital in this because we've had the conversations with cops, We've had the conversations with the people that know how to get the job done. We know what's happening that is preventing
that from taking place in our city. And that's what we're going to be focusing on as mayor of Cincinnati.
If elected, Mayor Corey, what will be the first thing you do? I mean, the mayor's got some power, more than ordinary council members, which was the history for a while, but the mayor's got some clout and got some jews.
What will be the first thing that you do on the crime issue?
Well, the first thing is obviously we have to be able to work with everybody at City Hall. And so going into January, we're going to have a new council or whatever the elected council is. That's what we're going to be going into to work with. We have to be able to assess the city manager's office properly.
We have to be able to.
Assess all of the boards and committees to make sure that the right people are in and from my perspective, this isn't about Republican or Democrats. This is about making sure that people are in these positions to have a heart for our city and that don't have a heart for their own personal agendas. Or their own political careers. Now, once we get past that, we've got to do three things. We've got to allow the officers to do their job.
I know that that sounds very simple and overly simplified, but the reality of it is that when we see the litigation that's coming forth from Chief CG and the details of that, that is confirmed that from the top down, these officers and even the chief have been not able to do their jobs properly as far as enforcing the low level crime, the exhalation tactics, and making sure that they do things properly. Number Two, we've got to bring
the complement levels up. We are twenty percent understaff right now. That has to be a priority, not in an election year, not during the summer. That has to be a priority from day one. We have to implement lateral hiring. And once the lateral hiring class realizes that we have strong leadership in place, we're going to make sure that we
have the proper staffing in our police department. And then finally, we have to put pressure on the judges privately at first, and if they do not comply, we have to do it publicly and make sure they know we have the whole criminals accountable. We have to make sure our streets are safe.
You know, just as in aside.
I'm about ninety percent retired, but I do have a couple of cases left. I was there in the courthouse this week and I couldn't believe it. I mean the lack of cases that not only in the municipal Court but in Common Police Court as well. Cops just aren't being proactive and aggressive like they used to be. When I say that, I mean appropriately proactive and aggressive.
What can you do.
Corey Bowman as mayor to address that issue? So the cops are out there again like they used to be, being aggressive and being proactive, what do you think you could do as mayor to get that back to where it was.
I know you weren't around then, but I was.
And it's just amazing the drop in the number of cases in both Common Police and Municipal Court.
Well.
Also, let's we have to mention too that the jails are empty. We have two hundred beds and empty, and then that's not including the two floors that are locked down that haven't been used. So a lot of people say, oh, the jails are overrun, No they're not.
But what we have to do.
It might seem simplified, but when the cops, the officers, the police chiefs and everybody knows that they are strong leadership in place that will back them up, they will enforce the law. Now, this isn't trying to go against the collaborative agreement, This isn't trying to go against the common sense of accountability and transparency that has to be on our officers. But whenever they feel like they're on pins and needles with every situation, they can't approach, they
can't just ask simple questions. They don't feel like the city has their back, they don't feel like City Hall has their backs. That's going to change from day one of our administration, whether it be with public press comptons, whether it be with meetings with the entirety of all the officers, letting them know that we've got their back, and our policies are actually going to back that up
as well. Our hiring is going to back that up, our funding is going to back that up, and our pressure on the courts is going to back that up.
Absolutely.
Let me ask you this, I'm asking all the council and mayor canidates this, do you think Chief Fiji was given a fair shake by the city administration in all the hubbub of the last I don't know, six weeks or a month or so.
Yeah, and I think that you know what we saw over the summer months. There was a lot of people in my comments sections that were telling me to call for the resignation of the firing of Police Chief Fiji. But I told people that the only person I'm calling to be fired is that to have Purvoll on November fourth, and once we get in place there we can actually
see what's going on. Our suspicions, which have been confirmed by this litigation from Chief Fiji, is that the chief was actively trying to fight crime in practical ways with pressure on the courts, with the things when it came to enforcing low level crimes, and she got a flat out no from City Hall, from the City manager's office. And when you look at the letters and the messages that have come from the City Manager's office to the police chief, that is not allowing a police chief to
do their job. That is a gag order, that is non disclosure agreement, that is fear tactics, and that cannot happen. We need a chief to be able to know that, no matter what, they are going to do their job properly and they're going to have the backing of City Hall.
That is so important I think, and I know a lot of other people think that as well. We're also discussing with all the candidates the matter of Issue five back in two thousand. I know you weren't here then, Corey, but I'm sure you do know about it. If elected as mayor, would you do everything within the mayor's power to see that that is put back in front of the voters of the City of Cincinnati to reconsider it.
Because I've been around long enough Corey Bowman to know that if Issue five had not passed and the Chief of police, and let me mention too, I was reminded by a former chief of police just she texted me not only the chief, the assistant chiefs lost civil service protection when Issue five passed in the year two thousand. I guess it's all a long way of saying, will you do what you can to get that back before the voters.
Yeah, well, so, I think that we have to hear from the voices of the cops. We have to hear from the voices of those that actually have stake in the matter, and when you hear them, that's what I'm hearing right now. I would continue to have more conversations to make sure that we're hearing from every group and
every perspective. But what we're hearing right now, based on conversations I'm having right now, the issue five was a major issue that has caused problems for the leadership in CINCINNATIPD and we got to be able to look at that. And if they're a ballot initiative needs to be put out to be able to give people the choice, then we would do everything we can to give people that choice.
That's what needs to happen. I'll tell you what I mean.
I don't know a lot about a lot, but I think I know a lot about a little. And when that thing passed, and I think it was fifty two forty eight, I mean it was really close. I said to myself, this is going to be an absolute disaster. It took a while for the disaster to set in, but it certainly has. And I know from talking to Ken Kobert that the FOP is jassed up to get it back on the ballot if that's possible. So I
appreciate your comments on that. I wanted to ask you too, did you see I guess it came out yesterday, reported yesterday some new videos of what I call the downtown beatdown the way The Inquirer had their headline how new videos of downtown brawl shake up Cincinnati's mayoral election.
First of all, did you see it? If you did, what do you think?
Yeah?
Sorry for the noise in the background here, but I saw it, and I actually called a press conference on forth and Album last night to discuss it. I wanted to make it very clear that, you know, whenever we get to be mayor of Cincinnati next year, one of the biggest things we have to run on is transparency.
There's a very big.
Difference between telling the public that the details will come out and that the investigation is ongoing, versus purposely with holding information that could diffuse a situation in our city. In the summer months when this fight happened, there was so much division and unrest between groups of people, between people living downtown, even from a racial aspect, and a lot of this stuff could have been diffused if all
the information could have been brought forth. Now we're hearing that the mayor didn't even want to see the full footage, and then when the city was asked to present these videos to the media, they were rejected. Now, I sins two weeks, three weeks after the and I understand let the investigators do their job well when it's months afterwards, and this is critical information that could help ease the division and the unrest in our downtown area. But you're
allowing that to just be hindered. Then that shows me that in an election year, you're just trying to divide people and you're just trying to get people to be stacked up against each other. As a mayor, I know that everybody sees as a Republican or Democrat. You're not voting for Republican or Democrats with Corey Bowman, You're voting for a Cincinnati And I'm going to.
Fight for people that hate me.
I'm going to fight for people that live in our city. And that's what we need from city hall. We don't need this partisan battle that copy and paste from national politics. We need people that can have safe streets, clean streets, and prosperous streets. And that's what we're going to focus on.
Gotcha, Hey, we got about two minutes left. Corey Bowman, what would you like to say in those two minutes, as we are three days out from the election.
I would say that if if you were a person that has not gotten involved in these elections in the past, because you haven't seen anybody that represents you on the ballot. This year, we have twenty seven strong candidates for council and we have an option for mayor of Cincinnati, and I would encourage people, if you haven't gotten out to vote and these off your elections, get out to vote.
And then for those that might be iffy about who to vote for, I would encourage you vote outside your comfort zone and consider that new leadership in place that has a heart for this city and that knows how to surround themselves with the people that have a heart for the city and practically can implement policies that can protect our people. Then vote for Corey Bowman for Mayor of Cincinnati.
We're in the.
Final days right now. We've got early voting that's happening today and tomorrow. There's no early voting on Monday, and then Tuesday the polls are open. This is one of the most critical elections in the history of our city and everybody's got to participate.
Absolutely, Corey.
One really appreciates you taking time out from your very busy day to talk to us about all this and good luck on Tuesday.
Hey, we're meeting at Pryce Hill Chili at one pm today to go drop literature. If anybody wants to meet us there.
There you go, Thanks Coreyell, Okay, all right, that was Corey Bowman, candidate for mayor. You know I should have told him to price shll chili. I put them in the top three of chile in the City of Cincinnati.
But hey, that's just me. Seriously, though, I'll tell you what.
When he was announced as a candidate, all that well, you know what, he'll make a name for himself and maybe run for counsel at some point.
I completely turn that around. He has done an amazing job of articulating the issues that I think people in the City of Cincinnati are talking about. Again, you got a three to one voting advantage for Democrats in the City of Cincinnati. But this is a.
Different kind of election, this is a different kind of year. I think Corey's got a shot at breaking through, and man, how that would improve this city. Hey, we got to take a break, but when we get back, we're going to switch gears a little bit and talk judicial with Judge Josh Berkowitz. He's of the Hamilton County Municipal Court. He's up for election on Tuesday as well. We'll do that when we get back. Mike Allen, Saturday Midday.
News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Mike Allen with hour three, which is the third and final hour of Saturday Midday, going to do a little
segue here. Been talking about mayor and council all morning, but we're want to talk about Municipal Court District four and Judge Josh Berkowitz is the judge in that position, and he has been since two thousand and fifteen, ten years experience as a municipal court judge, and I can tell you over that ten years, I've appeared before him any number of times representing clients and he is incredibly fair and that's all you can ask for out of
a judge. He was the former law director of the City in Norwood, an assistant Hamilton County and Franklin County prosecutor.
Judge. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
Thanks Mike, Thanks for having me on, Hey.
Can you briefly explain your judicial district and how the districts work. I don't want to take a lot of your time, but I don't think a lot of people understand that it's not, and it hasn't been for a long time, a county wide.
Election, right, So, municipal cory in Hamilton County are we.
Have fourteen judges.
We take cases from all over Hamilton County, but we run in districts, seven geographical districts. There's two judges elected from each district. My district is kind of the southeast
of the county. So if you imagine a map, Norwoods right in the middle, and you move east from there through kind of the east side of Cincinnati, Oakley, Hyde Park, Mount Lookout, Mount Washington, and then all of Anderson Township, Marymont, Newtown, kind of the east end along Kellogg and the Ohio River there, kind of bending into downtown.
Gotcha.
I appreciate you doing that, and in your opinion the importance of municipal court. I've heard it referred to as the McDonald's of the justice system, not in a negative right, in a positive way, because you all got to deal with everything and it's the court that most citizens I think get their impressions of the judicial system.
Would you have anything to add with that or do you agree with it?
Oh?
Absolutely, I mean we are the people's court. This is a really and this is a really exciting moment. You know, here we are days before the election and this year, I mean municipal court. You can't overstate the importance to public safety.
It is.
Public safety is absolutely on the ballot right next to me on Tuesday, and that's why this race is really critical, critically important. The contrast could not be more stark between myself and my record over ten years as a judge and as you mentioned, eight years as an assistant prosecutor in two different counties, and my opponent, who is absolutely part of the progressive political left. And that's what they want to bring to the court or more of it, and no doubt, no surprise, they don't want.
To talk about public safety.
I mean, that's that's just not a priority. That's not what you're seeing them talk about. Her supporters, the people who put who put this candidate up against me. They want to hear and talk about anything but public safety, and that that shouldn't surprise anybody, because the reality is, uh, that progressive kind of political and judicial philosophy, you know, it now dominates the courthouse and the criminal justice.
System, as you know, Mike.
Uh, They've got the prosecutor, They've got the sheriff, they've got a majority of the Common Pleas Court, the entire Court of Appeals, they've got you know, Cincinnati police leadership and.
Meaning city Hall.
Uh, they've got the Public Defender's office, and the appeals court. The municipal court has really been kind of the last hold out there where we have judges uh, such as myself. You know, my record has been consistent.
It's equal justice for all.
I don't buy into uh these these term the terminology that you hear that sounds packaged up real real nights like uh, smart justice. I mean, who would be opposed
to smart justice or you know, restorative justice. But uh, you know when you when you kind of break it down just a little bit and scratch just below the surface, you figure out real quick that that kind of terminology is just the same old kind of social justice replay that we've seen in this community and around the country kind of percolate up through colleges and law schools, and now it's in the court system and it's been a disaster everywhere.
So specifically, what I'm.
Talking about are things like no cash bail, which has created the revolving door.
At the jail that you're familiar with.
We're talking about defunding the police, and people say, well, defund the police. That never came to Cincinnati or you know as well as I do, and Ken Kober will tell you Cincinnati Police is one hundred and forty officers below where their contract says that they're supposed to be. When you're one hundred and forty officers, and that's an improvement, by the way, there was two hundred officers.
Earlier in the year.
One hundred and forty officers below where the contract says they should be. That's defund the police. That means you're not devoting the resources necessary to fully staff your law enforcement. You know, the when you talk about smart justice or restorative justice, Well that's the two or three hundred empty beds at the Hamilt's County Justice Center and it's been.
That way for five years. Judgment policies are year years in the making.
I'll tell you what I mentioned this before. I'm about ninety percent retired. I've got two cases left. I was there at the courthouse this week. I couldn't believe it. It was like a damn ghost town. Not just unicourt courtrooms because I got into a couple of them, but common pleas as well. It's stunning how the cases have dropped. And as you just pointed out and others have said, there's plenty of room at the end so to speak
at the Justice center. How do you explain that? And I know you got to be careful what you say as a judge, but is there anything you would have to offer on that point?
Yeah, I mean, look, there's no question there's been these changes in philosophy from the bench in terms of bond setting and in terms of sentencing, both in our court and the Common Police Court.
And there's been.
Major changes in enforcement, particularly at City Hall. I mean there's no question that they have, and they've essentially acknowledged as much recently that they were telling officers to reduce the number of arrests for what they call minor offenses. They changed the way that they wanted officers to enforce the law to be less proactive, to be less and
to be more reactive. More responding to calls for assistance and less proactively enforced the law, whether you're talking about traffic law, whether you're talking about you know, going after illegal drugs or illegal guns, or trying to get at the people who are actually responsible for the lion's share of the violence in our community. And and and in replacement of all that, you know, you hear this again.
You hear this flowery language like root causes, and I hear that from my opponent and her supporters, uh that, well, we need to address the root.
Causes all this.
When you hear somebody talk to you about root causes, you better hold on to your wallet, Mike, because the reality is that what that translates to is absolutely no one will be held accountable for criminal conduct, and you're gonna pay for it in the form of taxes going to all these uh, all these treatment providers, all these service providers. You know, they're gonna they're gonna make money off of the situation, and no one's gonna be held accountable.
And who gets entirely forgotten in that situation the victims of crime, yep, absolutely ignore. You're not going to hear anything about the victims of crime from the people who promote this progressive agenda.
Let me ask you this, judge, We've got about four minutes left.
We got the election in just a couple of days.
Would you like to make a closing argument, so to speak, in those about four minutes about what you want to do if and when you're reelected, which I hope and pray that you are.
Yeah.
I mean, Mike, I've been consistent as a judge and before that as a prosecutor.
Public safety has always.
Been a priority of my career.
And it should be.
I mean it should be when you take the bench. We have a direct impact through things like bond setting. You know, the opposition would have you believe that municipal court does nothing, but you know, jaywalking and littering tickets.
I mean, it's really ridiculous.
We set bonds on more than a thousand cases every week.
And when you have judges.
Who bring a political agenda to that process and they're not just applying the law as it's written, and they're not treating victims with the seriousness that these cases demand, then you get absurd results.
And that's what we're seeing.
When I do my job correctly, and I'm proud of my record over the last ten years. When we do our job correctly as judges, we have the opportunity to deter criminal behavior. I mean, you don't hear about that, but jail deters criminal behavior. There are people who have come back to see me, who have thanked me, who have said that they didn't want to go back to jail, and so they got sober, so they got a job, so they turn their lives around.
That happens.
It happens more than anybody in the media or in politics would want to believe or want you to believe. Jail's incentive advised people to get help, to get to get treatment. We have an opportunity to intervene directly to disrupt cycles of violence and cycles of abuse and trauma.
I mean, these are important opportunities.
And we also show victims and witnesses that our system works, that it's functional, that it's fair, that they have a real opportunity to get justice. And you know, the flip side of that is when people see the revolving door and they see no cash bail, and they see that there's not police in their neighborhoods and that people aren't being held accountable. You know, the message gets sent real quickly that there's no consequences for criminal misbehavior, for criminal
conduct and just anti social behavior in general. So we have a strong we have an opportunity to send a really strong message not just to all the judges, to all those offices that I mentioned, that this community expects and demands that public safety be treated as the priority that it is to everyone.
This is not a you know, it's.
Not one neighborhood out of another, or you know, a wealthy neighborhood thing uh uh Indian Hill or Hyde Park. I mean, this is across the county. I really believe that people are fed up with this. People who live, especially in high crime neighborhoods, they want to see some accountability. They want they want to they know who the dangerous people are and they want them held accountable and taking off the streets.
Uh.
People who want to get involved.
I mean, this is a tremendous opportunity the last three days, uh to get involved. And you can do that right now. You can go to keep Judge Berkowitz dot com. You can sign up to help on election day, you can donate, you can share with your friends. Don't ever assume that people know this stuff or people have an opinion. A lot of people are going to show up on election day and they have and they really don't know where I stand or where my opponent stands. The ballot doesn't
tell them anything about party affiliation. It doesn't tell them anything that I'm the judge or the incumbent, and that my opponent has never held elective office before. It doesn't tell them anything about you know, who's endorsed me or who's endorsed my opponent. So we've got to reach those folks ahead of time. And when you send a text message or an email and you link my website or my YouTube video, that goes a tremendously long way towards
getting that message across. This will be a low turnout election. We know that, and so every single vote takes takes a tremendous amount of significance.
All right, Judge, I really appreciate you coming on. I know how busy you are this weekend, and best of luck on Tuesday.
Thanks Mike. I really appreciate your time. This is this is exciting.
We're going to get it done, and I really appreciate your time, my pleasure.
Thank you, your honor. All right, that was Judge Josh Berkowitz.
And again I can only say what my experience has been, and he's been an incredibly fair judge, and I don't.
Know that you can say anything more.
Hey, we got to take a short break, but we will be back. Mike Allen Saturday Video seven hundred WLW. Mike Allen in the closing a half hour of Saturday Midday and batting cleanup today, which I think is appropriate, is Christopher Smitheman. Christopher served on council. He also served when he was on Council on the Law and Public Safety Committee. I think that's going to serve him well
as he goes back to Cincinnati City Council. Has a Master's in Counseling from Bowling Green, Bachelor's and Criminal Justice in the Ohio State University. And he's very well versed on crime and the crime issues. And he's one heck of a financial advisor. I will add last thing I want to say before I turn it over to Christopher. He is enthusiastically endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police. Christophers, thanks for taking time out of what I know is a busy day for you today.
Mike Allen, Thank you so much for allowing me to be on These are what we would call in your space as a lawyer clothing argument.
Yes, and the jury is in the box, and we hope that they've been listening to all of the evidence that we've been putting in front of them, that we can make a change in the city and that things are not on the right track.
And so I think we've presented a pretty good case for citizens and it's now time for them to show up and vote. You know, my concern is that voter turnout is low. There's apathy out there. You know, I'm dropping in Camp Washington today as an example, and we're just trying to encourage people to participate in the political process. Because all fifty two neighborhoods, we're all one year. This is one Cincinnati to our regional partners, you know, the
core is everything. So we want people to come to the air and off and we want them to come down to Jeff Rubi's. We want them to come to the banks and enjoy the the you know, the Bengals and Reds games and FC. There's so much going on in our city. But if crime continues to hit in the direction it is heading in. Our partners will not feel safe. Capital we're talking investment dollars will be deployed other places because there are other options. They can go
right over across the bridge. They can go to Indiana as an example, they can go to Chicago, they can go to Florida if they want to. So if we don't turn things around to our city residents, money will not come here, development will not happen, and we will hit in that track and start looking like Shiticgo, which I have no desire to look like Chicago. But how do you think Chicago got the way it was? It
was incremental. It wasn't just overnight, so it was an incremental process over time where crime got out of control, the criminals started running things, and people began the flight, move out of the city, move out into the suburbs. We don't want to have that happen. We've done a great job turning things around places like OTR in the Mohawk. We want to make sure we continue to have that
kind of investment in our core. Now that's not saying that our other fifty one neighborhood's like a bond Hill who was very concerned about low income housing. That has been placed there that's impacting their equity and their homes where they've been investing lots of money, and they're very concerned about what's happening there, or what's happening in Evingston, or what happened in Hyde Park and Mount Lookout, or
what's happening in Camp where North Side. You know, the housing has gotten so expensive that people are now moving into the Camp and that neighborhood is having a transformative time right now. My point is that Cincinnati, whether it's Mount Washington, whether it's California, whether it's Columbia Tusculum, we could turn things around, but we cannot allow our core to fall. We can't have people shooting our Fountain Square, shooting off of Fountain Square. We can't have youth that
are thirteen and fourteen carrying guns on the banks. We put our lot. I put a lot of time and energy in the creation of the door. I don't want this to implode because parents can't keep control of their kids. We need our cops. I've been listening to your show, Mike Allen. Look, we clearly have attrition. We've got two hundred cops in Drops. We know that that's going to
continue to accelerate. One of the things you'll see me do is go in and reassure those cops that are thinking about retiring that I have their back and that we need them, and that we need them to train the new cops that we are hiring, because that institutional memory is so important when those young cops come out of training and they're in that six month probation, we don't want to lose all that institutional memory. So you'll see me going to roll calls. You'll see me doing
our ride along. You'll see me talking to the FOP and the police chief, trying to write the ship and send the message to our officers and our firefighters that when things are bad, I have their back. When things are good, they're back, and that we need them. If we don't get a hold of crime, none of these things that we're talking about matter.
Mike Allas, you're so right, and you're also so right, Christopher in saying that we've got to protect the core. I live downtown for about twelve years, and it's been a while. It's even better now. What we have down there and on the riverfront is it's amazing. It's like no other city in this country and we're in danger of losing it if we still have the issue of crime that's persistent. And I think if you are elected to council, you can be the point person on that.
I mean, hopefully you get some more down there that will be with you and other like minded people. But I guess we'll have to see on that. I think Christopher, being honest, of all the non incumbents running, based on your background and based on your grasp of the crime issue, you have the best shot of getting back on counsel. That's just my opinion, it's also the opinion of many others.
Well. I appreciate that, Mike Allen, and I'll tell everybody listening. Look, we have a great opportunity here and I do politics and the love for our city. When I say our city, I'm talking Mike Allen, all your listening audience, and anybody that lives in our core, in our region. And the reason I say, look, politics can be selfish, but I'm just not a selfish politician. That's why I talk about a Liz Keating who's running for city council. Hey, I don't want to just get elected. I want I want
a group of people to get elected. So somebody like Liz Keating, great choice. I think a good is a great choice. Great lawyer, great depth, smart, cares about the city, lives in Clifton. Another great person. I really like a Linda Matthews. Nice person, you know, solid, understands not just
politics but the running of the city. What about a Dondrey House, blue dog Democrat from the west side of town, you know, very interested in housing and what's happening in our in our housing stock, across our fifty two neighborhoods. Great person to have on council, and the blue dog Democrats are dying in the party. And that's why he's a good candidate to get elected, because he's that He's Tom Lucan, that Charlie Lucan, that John Cranley out there
that's so important to the political process. So I talk about a Dondriouse. What about a Lakita Cole. You know, she's a Democrat there, she's usually endorsed by the Democratic Party, but they've abandoned her. I would say that a Latria Cole could say the Democratic Party left her. She didn't leave the Democratic Party, but she's out there working incredibly hard.
Somebody to really look at who could easily take one of these seats, because you got four or five members of council that people don't even know who they are. They're not out here communicating, they're not out here knocking on doors. And even right now is his video showing the corruption at the highest levels. Please listen to what I'm saying. I served on council. There is no way that a video like that exists, and I don't know
about it. I'm gonna say that again. There is no way a video exists that three c DC has that was just released and I don't know about it. And so there was a motivation here, I think, to divide the electric racially different hard for people to hear. They wanted African Americans to go in and be emotionally charged and believe in some way they have been slighted. And so the way Democrats tend to do that is they divide us by race. And we've got to stop this madness.
You know.
That's why I run as an independent because so often the answers for most people are in the middle. They're not on either side. And this is that sick part where we have nine members of council who are democrats, a democratic mayor, a democratic administration, and all of them were hiding the football like Charlie Brown. I'll say this to you so clearly. I went to the School for
Creative and Performing Arts. This mayor and this council collectively, not individually, but collectively collectively, remind me of the Scarecrow, no Brain. They remind me of the ten Man, no Heart, They remind me of the of the Lion, no courage. They're the greatest trilogy of all. How do you have somebody like Sarah Hearinger and her husband Patrick murdered in
OTR and this mayor doesn't reach out. How do you have a Ronda Win where you have Cassandra Winn shot in the back walking down the street in downtown Cincinnati at nine or so in the evening. Not only has the mayor not reached out, but we haven't even found out who murdered her five children. Roder Winn is suffering out here like crazy. My point to you is, we have these high profile murders around us, and we have a mayor that acts as if he doesn't have a heart.
We have a council collectively that doesn't have the courage to stand up to that bully and tell him, listen, you're not going to push us around. We're not going to engage in corruption. And we have the right to have independent opinions away from what the mayor has both for Corey Bowman, absolutely, people have asked me, why are you supporting Corey Bowman. We've got to hit a different direction, you know, as an independent, I believe that we I don't look at party Mike Allen, I don't look at
any of this stuff. I'm into what is the best for the city of Cincinnati.
That's it.
I don't care about anything else. One day I might run for mayor. Maybe I don't ever run for mayor, right, But the point is I only care about what is right for the fifty two neighborhoods in Cincinnati, in our core because indian yill places like Mason Right, places where we would think about Anderson, those is naming some of our surrounding areas. Their community will not drive into our core if they don't feel safe and they don't think the leadership has it on the ball. That's why I'm
asking you to vote for Smitherman for City Council. And those are my closing arguments to the jury.
All right, Christopher, we've got about three and a half minutes here. I wanted you to talk a minute. I have heard that the number that they're the turnout is like ten to fifteen percent, which is incredible, incredibly bad. If you could address that, and if you have any thoughts on how people should vote and what they can do to help you in the closing days of the campaign.
And you got four weeks.
We still need yard sign locations, We still need contributions to our campaign Smitherman for Cincinnati. They can drop them off at seventeen oh three Deal Road in bond Hill, which is where my financial planning practice is located. There's a twenty four hour box there that they can put a check in there. Our number there at seventy five one, three, eight eight eight. The apathy that is happening in our city, meaning people feel like they are defeated, and we've got
to turn that around. And so every vote counts. Because the voter turnout is so low fifteen to twenty percent, that means we knock on ten doors today of registered voters, and only two of those houses are coming out. The other eight are staying home, and so We're trying to turn that around because there are a lot of traditional voters, Mike Allen, and they don't vote during the thirty days.
They've flagged outside their houses, their families have served in the military or in the police department or some way, and they feel like, I'm only gonna vote on election day. Well, if that's where you're gonna vote, we need you to show up in heavy numbers on Tuesday between six thirty and seven point thirty at your local polling location, and let's see how this thing turns out. Never vote for nine people for city council. It's up to nine. I've given you a lot of examples today of good people
that are running with good art. I think four or five of those. Let me also say Gary Favors is out there running, good guy. But there are a lot of good people out there running. Pick four or five of them and stop there. You're looking just for a majority. Never vote for nine people for city council. And I promise you, if people listen to that one tool, we will absolutely flip city council and and we will absolutely impact what's happening in the Mayor's office.
There you go, I'll tell you what wise advice. Christopher. We're out of time here, but thank you for being so available to us, and good luck on Tuesday. I think you've put yourself in a position to get back on that thing.
Mike. Here's my last promise. When I'm elected on Tuesday night, you will have the exact same access to me that you have now in good times and in battle right, and so I'll make myself available for you to question me, question my votes, question my decisions, and question what's happening. Too many of these elected officials are hiding. And I also bought those commercials during your show to extending you the respect that I know that you deserve. And I'm so thankful the access you've given me.
Thank you, Christopher, really appeace you might Okay, I'll talk to you probably before Tuesday.
But if I own good luck, Thank you, Rob.
All right, all right, Christopher Smithman, I'll tell you what man, that young man gets back on council, whether he's got Republicans to work with, Charter rights, he's going to make an impact in everything, but especially especially in the crime issue, which is obviously the biggest issue facing us. And you know, fifty percent of the vote I've never understood that. And as Christopher said, you don't have to vote for nine. We shall see what happens. Hey, listen, I'm out of time.
I want to thank my great producer, Lian Liam Tomlinson, who keeps me out of trouble,