My Bill Cunningham, the great American to course our governor, as Governor Mike Dwine finds myself somewhere in Cleveland this afternoon trying to get out. I'm sure, and nonetheless, Governor Mike Dwine, welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show. And first of all, Governor, the last couple of days, I've watched the criminal activities of seemingly a deranged, homicidal fool who tried to kill your fellow Governor Josh Shapiro by
fire bombing his home. I'm amazed, first of all, that this person can get over a fence, have a Molotov cocktails home brew, throw it through a window, walk in, and he said he had a mallet with him, that he was he was gonna kill Josh Shapiro. If the Governor had come down the steps saying what's going on, we could have had a real tragedy. Part of the risk of being in public life that you've been there for I guess half century or more, is is there's some nut jobs that may want to come after you.
You've I've been kind enough being invited to your home and I noticed there was one or two highway patrolman standing around, but not I don't know about two o'clock in the morning, did what happen to Governor Josh Shapiro calls you any alarm or concern about your own physical safety.
Well, first of all, you know, our heart goes out to the Shapiro's. Uh, you know, I texted him as soon as I've found out. We had worked together on different things having to do with the border when we had these Palestine train derailment. You know, that was almost right on the border, and so we we we got to know each other through that. So, uh, you know, a shocking thing, a very very you know, very very
sad situation. I think, you know, every governor around the country and every governor's security uh you know, probably was going to at least in theirs, some assessment of you know, how well are we doing? Uh, you know that's what that's what you always do. And you know, we certainly have have security. You know, there are people who write letters. We get letters that you know are threatening most of
the time when they check them out. These are people who uh you know, aren't aren't really serious, but there are people out there. They're bad people out there, and so it certainly is concerned. I mean, when you think about it, Bill, you know just a few years ago that uh, you know, there was going to be an attempt on the governor Governor Whimmer of Michigan to kidnap her, if you remember that, and they you know, they stopped that before it actually took place. Uh, So you know,
here you've got Michigan, here you've got Pennsylvania. So it's uh, it's very concerning.
All right, let's talk about the Bengal deal. Of course, Uh you live in Green County and uh, pretty close to Cincinnati, far away from Cleveland we are this afternoon. But the deal is, it was positioned by the media was that the Cleveland Browns were getting six hundred and sixty million to Jimmy Haslam to move the Brownies from on the Lake to southern Cauyhoga County as part of like a two and a half to three billion dollar development, and that the Bengals and the Brown family came hat
in hands. What about us? So I head on Representative Adam Bird of New Richmond, who laid out the plans as to why the Bengals aren't going to get the money. Senator Blessing of Coleraine Township said, the Bengals aren't going to get the money. It's a different deal. And you're the governor, I would ask you, are the Bengals going to get three hundred million dollars or so out of either either the general revenue fund or through bonding? And
so the Bengals can do their one third part. According to Denise Treehouse, she said, one third from the state, one third from the Bengals slash NFL, one third from the county. Where do you stand on this shoe of anywhere?
Governor Mike DeWine, Well, Bill, thanks for asking. First of all, I am a Bengals fan, uh and season ticket holder for a long time, you know, enjoy watching them a great deal, and so would be my first confession, I guess so. But look here, here's how I look at it. Let me just kind of walk people through this because I think it's a it's a good question, and there's been a lot written and I want to maybe try to clarify some things. You know, First of all, the
state has put money. Taxpayers of the state have put money into stadiums going back, uh, you know, sixty years ago, fifty years ago, and it's been you know, off and on. Every few years there's been you know, an expansion of a ballpark or reconfiguration or building a new one, and the state has put some money into it. It's never been a huge amount or not a huge percentage. I don't think it has ever been over fifteen percent of the total total cost. But we do that and people say,
why do you do that. Look, we do that because part of the quality of life in Ohio, and I think we have a great quality of life is we have great professional sports that are close to virtually everybody in the state. We also have theater, we also have the arts. We have you know, all kinds of different things that make our lives better and sports is one of them. And we want to be able to compete and keep these teams here in Ohio. So that's probably
going to continue. But we have now more sports teams. We have two new soccer teams, not you know, not real new, but relatively new, and you know, we like them. That's that's great. It looks like it's going to be a women's soccer team that's going to come to Cleveland.
So that's going to be another team. And we could go on and on, and the truth has been that we no longer can afford to take money from the general fund, from directly from the tax payers, because when we do it, we're taking that directly away from education, We're taking away from mental health, We're taking that away from you know, helping people who have addictions. But there is there is a pathway, uh, and I think it's
a it's a good pathway. And this is what I have suggested to the legislature, and it's what is in the what was in the bill that I sent to the legislature, and that is that we increase the fee or tax, whatever you want to call it on these sports gaming companies that are making you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars they're taking out out of the state every year. Uh, they don't they don't work in the state, they don't have employees in the state.
It all goes outside. And so getting the fee that we charge them higher to help us with these stadiums in the future makes sense. Frankly, I have to look at this from the Bengals point of view, of the Browns point of view, or the Reds. I have to look at it from you know, the whole state. So here's what our proposal would do. Would we would raise this sea that we charge these gaming companies. We would
raise it, take it from twenty to forty. We would still not be the highest in the country New York State for examples of fifty. This would not come from the gamblers, It would not come from the citizens who place a bet. It would come directly from these companies. We looked the other day bill, for example, at some of the states that have low, low tax versus they say New York. The odds that these companies were quoting
was identical in these states. So by putting his tax on, they're not going to hurt or change the odds for our gamers. That this would generate somewhere between one hundred, one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty to one hundred and ninety million dollars a year. My plan would be to put that into a fund, and that would be the fund that would grow every year and it could be used for all the things you know,
to put the state share in. It certainly wouldn't pay for the renovation of these ballparks the stadiums completely, but it would it would do the state share, which we should be doing. And it's I think it's a good proposal, and that's proposal that I've asked the General Assembly to pass.
All right now. On that issue, I asked your friend Adam Byrd who's in the leadership of the House, about that. And I also ask him about increasing marijuana, that's a different issue, and he said he said he's not going to vote for that because that's a tax increase. It may be a fee increase, but all these conservative Republicans have just said we're not doing that. And so because we're increasing taxes, how would you respond to the Senator Blessing and others who said we're not doing that.
Well, it's it certainly is better than taking it from taxpayers in Ohio. Uh. This is not taking taxpayers Ohio money. UH. It's taking it from these gaming companies. They're out of state.
UH.
And and they're they're taking hundreds literally hundreds of millions of dollars in profit every single year. They can they can spend a little that money and it would be a tax. And again, they're not going to leave Ohio or the sixth largest state as far as gaming. Uh,
They're going to continue to be here. And just as in New York and New Hampshire and some other states that have higher fees than we would have or higher taxes than we would have, you know, they're not they're not going to leave uh And so this money, there's some justice that seems to me that these gaming companies that really don't have any investment, investment in stadiums or anything else, would have to pay you know, some of this,
some of their profit would go towards maintaining the ballparks and the stadiums that we have in this in the state of Ohio.
Say, if you're one third of the deal, you're the governor, you got the lawmakers or are saying the ones I've spoken to are saying no. Also, the Bengals went the money up front governor. In other words, according to Denise Streetthouse, it's about nine hundred million. They don't want this over the next five to ten or twenty years. They need it like immediately, like three hundred million dollars from the state as the state's part of the puzzle. Are you saying that's a non starter.
No, I wouldn't say it's a non starter. What I'm saying is we can't pay for it out general funds.
We can't.
We can't rob education, we can't rob mental health. We just can't do that. Bill. Listen to all the people who are lining up for money. So the only way we can we can effectively do it, is it again, of the fee or tax or whatever you want to call it, of these gaming companies that are making such a huge amount of money. We can do that. We can levy that tax or leave that fee and create the money. Frankly, that is necessary to meet some of these needs. There are all of these needs as you
see around the state. Now, what percentage the state ends up putting in it, I don't know. That would have to be determined in the future. The state has put in to my recollection bill, and most of the state has ever put in I think was fifty million dollars. Now I may be wrong. I have to check, but it's it's so when we're talking about, you know, six hundred million from the from for the Browns and trend fifty uh you know for the Bengals, I'm not saying
that's impossible. If possible, you can monetize this money. Know, you're having a flow of that money coming out. But this money would also be available frankly from the minor league baseball teams Dayton Dragons for example. You know this, this would be available for soccer, you know what, every other major league sport that we have in the state of Ohio. So you know, why can't guarante see what
would be available. But again, at one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty a million a year, that's going to flow out month after month after month. People are not going to stop gaming as much as you know we might want them to, but they're not going to do that, and so the money is going to be their bill to I think, you know, make a major contribution, uh to to all of these stadiums when it comes time, you know, for them to be rehabbed or if there's a building of a new one.
I got to talked about the coroner's office being eliminated, but we'll get to that in a moment. So, uh, if you get in an additional one hundred and fifty to say two hundred million a year and chop it up among seven or eight sports teams, that doesn't leave a large piece and the bengalsals eight three hundred million dollars like now.
Well, Billy, you know every everything you know and by the way, you know when you talk about Bengals, I mean that request is coming from the county. Uh. You know, the county has been the ones who have made that request, us request to us. But you know it is something that you know, Look, the Bengals stadium, uh has has to be brought up to speed. We understand that, you know, the other stadiums do as well. But you talked about
cutting it up amongst seven ways. Uh. The truth of is bill that that these stadiums, you know, sort of come to over different periods of time. You could probably sit down uh and with a chart, uh and figure out how much money would be needed you know every single year. Uh. You know you've got some of the new ones won't be needed, that money will not be needed for a while. Uh and again and again. Look,
let me just kind of summarize. I don't think we should be taking taxpayers dollars in the state of Ohio uh that are paid for buy our taxpayers that would normally go to education, that would normally go to other other things, and take that away and put it in the stadiums. When we have a great opportunity and a great alternative, and that alternative is to take it from the people who are making the money, and that is the sports gaming companies.
Well, I had one pun. It say that the taxpayer who can't afford to go to the Bengal football games are going to ATPs to continue to pay a sales tax to a billionaires. Does the fact that Jimmy Haslam and the Brown family are worth multi billions of dollars, There's a sense by some like Adam Bird, that maybe
they should contribute a lot more money. It looks like Jimmy Haslam he's contributing about sixteen percent of the deal, which is close to your fifteen percent, but looks like the Bengals would be contributing or the state would be contributing more like thirty three percent, which might be a non starter. But nonetheless, the governor is saying, let's go down this route to see what we can do. You're kind of saying, let's see what happens.
To next bill. Bill, I just have to correct you that those are numbers are not right. As far as the Browns, I mean their proposal, their proposal. You know they're asking for six hundred million, a lot of money. But their proposal I think is for them to put in one point three something like that, So you know, that's still a lot of money. I'm on both fronts.
And now, lastly, there's a provision in the legislature to eliminate all the county corners offices. My friend doctor last me some Marco and Hamiley county corner elected is not happy about that. I would think the other corners are not happy. Of course they think it's coming that the county auditor, treasure or clerk. Of course, maybe the sheriff. That'll drive Richard Richard K. Jones bananas. Uh do you support the idea of eliminating the right of the people to vote for corners?
And the No, I don't. I mean, look, this kiss came out nowhere. I'm not sure why where it really came from. Uh, but look, we elect corners. Now if you look at small counties. I don't want to get too far off the point. I'll stay with corners. Uh. You know, probably what needs to be done in this state, UH is we need to help particularly the small counties. Uh,
you know, pay for the autopsies. You know, these autopsies as you know, if it's in Brown County or Adams County, you know, Claremont County, none of these are being done. I don't think in these local counties they have to go to. There's about five or six places in the state where these autopsies take place, and they have to charge the of course charge these counties. So it is a real burden, particularly on the on the smaller on the smaller counties. You know our our our, our friend
the doctor of the corner of of your friend of mine. Uh, you know, she does a very very good job. I think in regard to Hamilton County. Uh, it's a big operation. Uh. It's look, it's important that these autopsies be done timely. Uh, and they be done done well. So corners probably another discussion another day. But the idea that we take this away from the people's right to vote, I'm not in favor of.
It's the beginning of getting rid of a share of vote, getting rid of the auditor treasure's clerk at courts, streamlining government, reforming government, all that's good. But when you tell to a Republican we're going to take away your right to vote, that's kind of a serious problem. You're against that. Well, we'll see what happens. But we got about ten weeks to go until June thirtieth. That's the deadline for the Bengals and a deadline for your capital budget. This will
be your last one. By the time this thing is over with in the summer of twenty twenty seven, you'll be shall we say, it'll be history, you'll be done. Well.
We get we have this regular budget, as you say, but we also next year will have a capital budget. So really in the process of finishing the major budget, but we have a ways to go. The Centate, of course, Bill is not really taking this up yet. They will do that when they come back in two weeks. Ocassee where we go.
Ah, Hi, Governor, thank you very much. But we'll see what happens with the Bengals. This is coming to a head soon, and stay safe. And Governor Mike DeWine, thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. And the next time I have dinner with you in your home, I'm going to be looking over my shoulder.
H Thank you Bill for talking with you.
Thank you, Governor.
I think I think you should probably always look over your shoulder. Bill, But we'll see maybe.
You're right all right, Governor, thank you very much, Thank you, Bud, thank you ye bye bye. Let's continue with more and if the line becomes available five one, three, seven, four, nine, seven thousand. The Governor has tepid support for the deal, but it must be structuring away. The money comes from the gaming tax and not from the general fund. Bill Cunningham News Radio, seven hundred wu ow