By Billy Cunningham, the great American. Of course, a few weeks ago this thing came out of shall I say nowhere, and the history of it is apparent to politics, not apparent to coroners like doctor Somarco or doctor Russell Updegrove, who is the elected corner of Warren County. But somebody without any fingerprints on it put a couple of sentences in a bill which is like five thousand pages long, to make sure that county recorders are not elected by
the people but rather appointed by county commissioners. And so when doctor Samarco, the elected Hamley County corner, told me about this, I said, I can't believe that Republicans would take away the people's right to vote. So what I did then was I had to contact to Governor Mike DeWine put him on. Then I contacted the most powerful man in Columbus, allegedly his Speaker of the House, Mount Huffman, put him on about this issue, and they both said
they don't think that's going to fly. However, Matt Huffman, the Speaker of the House, who last year was the President of the Senate, a guy who knows where the bodies are buried. Said, you know, it may make some sense and some counties to not elect corners. And I said, what are you talking about? And Huffman said, well, there are some small counties in which you might elect an optometrist or a might elect a veterinarian to be the county corner. And so I want to put the questions
of these two elected corners. And first of all, doctor Somarco and doctor Uppegrove, both of you welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show. And beginning with doctor Somarco, when this tell the American people, Doc, how this came out of the blue and why county corners like you and doctor Updegrove should be elected.
Thanks for having us on, Willie. As usual, you get right to the point. So we found out about it about five hours before the House voted on it. And when I reached out to several of our state reps for our area, they had no idea it was even in there. So you know, I'm not sure how that gets. Well, I guess I do know how that gets. I'm told this is pretty common practice that when you want something passed, and you know, you added to some big bill and it just sort of slips through. I'm not sure what
the purpose was. I don't even know if there were any perceived problems because nobody, not one person reached out to any of us to say, hey, we think this might be a good idea, can we talk about it?
Not one.
And you know what, as a voter, as an American citizen, I resent anybody taking the power away from me to elect my officials. And I mean across the board.
So you know, yeah, it's doctor Russell ufter Grovel Warren County. You're the elected corner there. Why are elected county corners better than being appointed by the county commissioner in Warren County?
Why is it better?
Well, I think part of the problem is some of the misinformation in what you just mentioned previously about worried about the optometrists or dentist or things being appointed as corner. One of the additional heaviats in the law that was put in in the o RC as far as in the Corner's Law in December, is that it is a requirement to a corner be MD or a DO in order to be able to elect a corner. So we're not going to be electing non qualified people the situation.
As far as why with corners being elected, I think number one, as you mentioned, I think the people have the ability in their county to elect somebody based on their track record, their performance, and their qualifications. If you just remove the corners of elected officials, and then it's left in the hands of these county commissioners to appoint somebody who could be significantly less experienced or less qualified than the status quo that is president in that county at that particular time.
And doctor Samarco I was told that there's a movement of foot over the next five to ten years to take away the right of people to vote for like sheriff, auditor, recorder, clerk of courts.
Who do administrative functions.
How do you respond to the argument that this is saving money, it's a better approach to have a qualified person selected by politicians instead of selected by the people. Do you see this as the first of many fights in the years ahead.
Well, I would hope that the voters will defend democracy and the right that they have to elect the officials they have now. I mean, we have been doing this in Ohio for two hundred years, and you know nobody has yet to show me how it's broken. So, like I said the other day at the press conference, this is a solution looking for our problems. And you know, there are smaller counties where they had nobody that stood
for election as corner. But already in the Ohio Revised Code is a provision that allows county leaders to appoint somebody to that position, and they have. And in the ten counties where they didn't have anybody standing for corner, there were five that were appointed, and then five counties where they contracted with adjacent county corners to take over the responsibilities. So if you're talking about expense, you know, it always boils down to money, doesn't it, Willie.
It's about it's always.
Money, right, if you're talking about expense. Our salaries are legislated, Okay, they are determined by a high legislation and they're put into place if you're going to appoint somebody. And there
are two counties in Ohio that actually do appoint. It's a slightly different government system, right, and they have a charter government and they appoint their county corner and the county sheriff, by the way, but both of those counties pay their corners significantly more than we get paid because they appoint somebody and they basically have to pay the going rate, right for a physician who's going to take over as a full time position for those for those counties.
And you know the appointed sheriff in Cayhoe County, well, gosh, they've had a hard time keeping the sheriff. They've had nine sheriffs in like the last twelve years. Because now they're considering going back to an elected juriff position because they're having a thirty hard time keeping sheriffs. But it's important for county corners to be elected because we are
answerable to the people of the county. I basically have nine hundred thousand bosses, right, I mean the nine hundred thousand voters in the county, not three people, not a board, not a group of or a small group of people that appoint me. And so I have the independence. I
have the ability to be objective. I have the ability to look at the evidence, to look at the scene, to look at the medical records, to look at what is being presented to me and make an objective independent you know, medical decision, investigative decision based on the evidence at hand and not be influenced by a certain group of people or you know, their friends or their colleagues or fellow politicians. And we have the ability to do that because we are independently elected and we want.
To keep it that one.
So on that point, doctor Samarco, if you're appointed by county commissioners in this it might be two out of the three, or would appoint someone they could put the scale. I'm not saying it's happened, but they could put their thumb on the scales and say, we appoint you. You kind of work for us. We don't think this is a suicide. This might be a homicide. What do you think, doc? Are you worried about political wins blowing into the corner's office in Amlin the county that's not there.
Now, we're all human, and you know there are going to be county corners that are going to feel that pressure to and you know sort of the influence and the pressure to rule a certain way when you're being asked by your bosses, and I think you know, to stay in a position or to stay in that job. I think that keeping it objective and keeping it independent will result in justice for the victim and the families and you know, as well as the suspect. And I think it's important for us to maintain.
That right, Doctor Russell upter Grove. Warren County is a great county. It's a smaller county compared to Hamilton County. However, there's counties in Ohio that has ten to twelve thousand total residents in a completely different situation. So when Matt Huffman talked about maybe a veterinarian or an optometrist becoming county corner, who would want to do that for the
amount of money paid in a small county? But do you living in Warren County, if you have a situation where you would like to, as an elected corner bring in another corner from another county, from Hamilton County or Montgomery County, you currently have the ability to do that without the law telling you you have to do it. You have the option to do what they want to do anyway.
Well, I mean in Warren County, we don't perform autopsies there, so the bodies that will require an autopsy are sent to either Montgomery County or Hamilton County based upon on the geography of the circumstances. What I think a lot of people don't understand is there's a lot more to the corner job than just looking at people who are
being autopsied. We're responsible for dealing with death certificates on individuals who die of oftentimes natural causes, who either have not seen a doctor in a long time, where their doctor refuses to sign the death certificate for various reasons, and all of those deaths fall in the lap of the corner to deal with. So there's a lot more to the job than just sending a body off to some other place for an autopsy. And that's the end of it.
And so when this came out about a week or two ago, that your job's probably important to you, but more importantly, the issue is more important. I'm sure both of you could go into the private sector and make a lot more money than you make as a corner Well, when this thing eroved, doctor Upgrove, when this came out two weeks ago, politically, what do you do of anything to try to stop it? Because you have some powerful
people in Warren County. Is this a political matter? Do you think that needs to be addressed or is it a medical matter? Which one is it?
Well, it came out of the blue, really and without really having much warning that this was going on. So the original question is you know, well, who's behind this and what is the reason that this driving this? And I think it's personally. I think it has something to do more with just making a corner an appointed position
and removing it as an elected official. I think that would open the door to the possibility down the road for this using the term regionalization, where it would make it easier for some of these counties that were maybe smaller counties to do away with having a single corner for a single county and try to lump two three counties together and under one corner. Now, the problem would be who would want to take on all that extra work and responsibility. If this is supposedly about a cost
saving measure. If it's hard enough to get people to run for foreigner, now, what would be the motivation to do it? To do more work for the same amount of.
Money, And doctor Somarco, you could make two, three, four times what you're making. If money is the motivation, you're kind of sacrificing to be the corner. And what they want to do now is after your term is up. I guess in January of twenty nine is to have you go away, which might, in a sense financially benefit you because you'll make more money. However, you're not motivated by money and doing this in the first place, correct, Willie?
What I get paid right now? I made more my first year in practice, my first year out of training nineteen ninety five, I made more that's three years ago in my first year in practice that I make now as a corner. So it's not about the money, that's for sure. But you know, it is about public service.
It is about trying to do something in my neighborhood, in my neck of the woods, in serving the public and assuring justice and giving some answers to the families and giving them some peace of mind, and answering some really important questions like, hey, we had a sudden death of an athlete. Could this be genetic? Is there anybody else in the family that's at risk? You know, let's do this investigation and see if we can get some answers for the family. There are so many public health
implications here. You know, when COVID hit, everybody wanted to know, Oh my gosh, you know how many people are dying? Of COVID and is this something we need to worry about, and how contagious is it? And what do you do with the bodies that come in and what kind of precautions do you take. I think the corner in most counties in Ohio pay a pivotal play, a pivotal role in working with public health as well as law enforcement.
So it's both. It's both medicals and is both law enforcement and about justice.
I tell you both you, I tell you what's going to happen now in the next few weeks. It has to be done by June thirtieth. Likely it's going to be done around Memorial Day. There's going to be the House passed the bill which includes getting rid of corners. The Senate says they're not going to put that in there. So if they don't put it in there, that means there will be a reconciliation process in which the governor gets involved, and then they go to the Governor's office
and the two of the bills are worked together. What's in, what's out? What do we give the Browns, what do we give the Bengals? Do they get nothing? To get everything? And likely the corner issue is so small and so down the list of worries of the state that I have a concern that it's going to stay in there without any of the parties really discussing it or knowing about it, because they care about the big issues, and
to me, this is a big issue. And so what I'm going to do is just one person is every couple of weeks, I'll talk to the Wine and I'll talk to Matt Huffman, and I'll talk to Bill Blessing and keep telling them that when the powwow takes place around Memorial Day and here's the House bill, and here's the Senate bill, which is different, and the governor's recommendation are different, that when everyone's sitting around everyone agrees to
take out the provision about county commissioners appointing corners and make sure that's not in there. I have a concern it's going to slip through under the door and at the end of the day, and so I'll do my part, and I know you too will do your part. You're a Republican and doctor Somarco is a Democrat. This is not political and it's not not r D. It's about competency and about the power of voters to select those
who govern aspect of their lives. I want to keep the ballot box open so if corner gets out of hand, we can get them out of office because they are answerable to me as a voter and not the county commissioners.
Well, both of you, I got to go. I'll be in touch off the air.
But doctor Somarco and doctor Uptegrove, once again, thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show, and both of you. The fight continues past this afternoon, but both of you, thank you very much.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
God bless you. Let's continue with more. Their fight today will be you'll fight tomorrow. And I think the ballot box out of remain open in case we have a bad corner, we can get rid of that person instead of having county commissioners of appointing.
I want to be.
I want to I want to elect those who govern my affairs. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WLDW