Your Channel nine first Warning weather forecast. Get it out. Brian got an air quality alert active for the entire Tri state area today. Heat advisory also kicks in at eleven going through eight GM Tomorrow evening. Today, it'll be a sunny day, it'll be humid. They're going up to ninety degrees seventy one over night clear skies. Sunny again Tomorrow, more humidity ninety two for the high seventy two over night clear skies. Another humid day on Friday, also sunny,
although there is a chance of storms. They say spotty ninety three to the high Friday heat index a lot higher than that. It's seventy degrees right now. It's type for traffic.
From the u SEE Health Traffic Center. You see Health, you'll find comprehensive care that some personal make sure best tomorrow possible. That's boundless care for better outcomes. Expect more at you sehealth dot com. Northbound four seventy one right lane's block with an accident shortly after you come off of the bridge, Traffic slows after Grand northbound seventy one is shut down due to one accident before you get
to two seventy five. That traffic backing up through Kenwood Chuck Ingram on fifty five KRC The Talk Station.
Hey, thirty one fifty five KRC the Talk Station, Happy Wednesday, and welcome back to the fifty five Carse Morning Show. Editor in chief of the hamp Press Network, Jack Windsor also apparently friend of my last guest, Marcel Sturbage. Jack, good to have you back on the morning show.
Hey, it's great to be here, Brian, Thanks for choosing me today.
I understand you have endorsed Marcel Sturbridge for Secretary of State.
I have.
Marcel has been a great source for many of the stories we've written on Ohio election reform, and a guest on my radio show multiple times and just quick and dirty. The reason I've done it is that I think he is the guy who actually understands what the gaps are in Ohio's election integrity and has a plan to get it done. And he's not running around Ohio going, hey, we've got the gold standard in election election law, no election outcomes.
He is definitely not singing that, but he is. He's very coherent and very clear on what he wants to do to ensure the integrity of the election. He just went through it, and he was able to rattle off quite a few things, some of which you just kind of scratch your head, Jack and wonder, well, why the hell isn't that in place already? How difficult can it be to ensure that someone is actually a citizen of the United States of America before they cast a vote.
Yeah, it's wild, isn't it. And what he's talking about right now, he's been talking about for a while. And when President Trump obviously was inaugurated, one of the first things he talked about was making sure that we reform election laws and increase election integrity and spoke to the very thing that Marcell's talking about. We should not be putting people who are not citizens on the voting roles
because it's an exacerbated risk. And of course it takes time and money to take him off the voter roles, and it seems like a no brainer.
It really is. And again, I just it's one of the frustrating things that I'm sure it's equally frustrating for you, Jack, knowing how you are about politics. Why is why are politics? And how it's so frustrating Republicans run the show. They've got both houses they got the governor's office, they have Secretary of State's office, they have the auditor's office, they
have everything. You think it will be this well oiled, efficient, you know, fiscal responsibility, limited government, free market kind of state. And yet it's like hurting cats up there.
It really is, isn't it. I Mean, first of all, you have the I call it the rhino problem. There are Republicans in name only, and then you know the
other issue. There are people who are Republicans and they're in these districts that are purple where sometimes it's hard for a Republican to pull out a victory, and so that shows up and sometimes how they vote or don't vote, or what they do while they're at the state House because they recognize that there are people who are on the left side of the aisle who might not be so happy if they go, you know, too far right.
And it is it's maddening.
You would think with the trifecta is what Republicans have here, that we get a heck of a lot more done.
You would absolutely anyway, well, a change of governor would would be very helpful. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed for VV Ramaswami because he's got great ideas and he is as an enthused guy as you can ever find.
Jack, he is super fantastic. And mid terms are always tough for the party in charge, and so in Ohio, Donald Trump is won here multiple times, obviously by wider margins each time, and without him being at the top of the ticket.
You go, Okay, do you have somebody to.
Put at the top of the ticket that can help Republicans down ballot? And Vik brings an energy and attention that I think is good for Republicans here in the Buck.
I stay.
Jack Wins are editor in chief of High Press Network. When we come back, we'll get on Focus here and we'll talk about the efforts to override Dwine's vetos, one of which was successful, but one of the other two more with Jack Wins are on those after these brief words, don't go away.
Fifty five KRC. You're listening to Lee Filter.
Hey quick Channel nine forecast got an air quality learn effect all day for the entire Tristy heat advisory starts at eleven today and lasts until eight pm tomorrow. Today's high ninety with sunny sky, a lot of humidity as well overnight seventy one clear, Tomorrow humid ninety two for the high under sunny sky seventy two overnight clear, another sunny dawn Friday, another very humid day and a high of ninety three. It's seventy right now. Time for traffic.
From the UCL Traffic Center, and you see health. You'll find comprehensive care that's so personal and make sure best tomorrow possible. That's found most care for better outcomes. Expect more at UCA health dot com. There's an accident at northbound fourth seventy one coming off of the bridge. Right wanes block traffic backs to Grand. Northbound seventy one is
shut down due to an accident. Before you get the two seventy five traffic being diverted off of the highway and Fifer Chuck Ingram on fifty five krc DE talk station.
AY thirty seven and fifty five KRCD talk station Happy Wednesday. Brian Thomas Swift, Jack Winsor, editor in chief of the how Press Network, pivoting over to the budget. The budget can in Ohio here contain three I call them babystep, but some efforts to help us deal with the outrageous property tax bills. We're facing three separate provisions the line I and vetoed all three for reasons that still escaped me and Jack, maybe you can explain that if you
figured it out. But he said, we need to study them more. We need a working group to look into this. Well, by all accounts, they've been studying and looking at this with a different working group leading up to the budget, which incorporated three ideas from the prior working group who came up with like twenty three different suggestions on how we can deal with property tax. So there, the work has been done. There, it is in the bill, and yet Dwine chooses to veto those but not veto the
six hundred million dollars going to the Cleveland Browns. So you may or may not want to address that one, Jack, But that just really frankly pisses me off. But they did successfully override one of the three vetos. So where are we on this, Jack?
Yeah, So there were three or actually there were four going.
Back that he that he vetoed.
It was a school cash balance carryover forty percent. There was a recalculating the twenty mil floor, which gets you know, so far in the weeds my mind starts to hurt yep. And then there was empowering the county Budget commission authority, allowing them essentially, this group of commissioners to say no, now that's excessive, we can't do that, so more local control. And then the one that actually was overridden on Monday.
It takes away I call them tools for schools and other taxing authorities in the form of the types of levees that they use, and one of the examples that I give is what they would call emergency levees or restricted emergency levees. Those those tools are taken away, and frankly, part of it is that those words can be misleading, They can be missnober yes and misnomers when these things
are being cussed and discussed during the budget process. One school district we found was in an emergency levy situation for twenty years, and one lawmaker said, okay, now, explain to me an emergency that last twenty years. And so these are those structural changes that really give their design to give voters more transparency when they go to the ballot box.
All right, but they didn't vote on a couple of the overrides. I learned this morning from Donovan and Neil from Americans for Prosperity. They were concerned about voting on those because they didn't know if they had enough votes to override. And they only get one bite at the apple in terms of voting to override the vetos, so they put it on hold. So maybe in September or whenever when they come back, they're going to vote on those.
But I guess if they weren't sure they had enough votes to override the veto, there's no certainty that those are going to be overrid when the next vote.
That's a great observation, and I'm with you on that. I talked to state Representative Beth Lear and I said, do you think you can take another crack at these sometime later in the fall when everyone officially returns from summer recess. And the answer was yes. But I want to go back to what you said earlier, Brian. Some of the things that have caused outrage here. Number one, it appears that the can has been kicked down the road so far that there's not going to be any immediate property relief.
Now, there are some.
People who would say these reforms were not going to provide immediate property relief anyway. But you said DeWine wanted to take a better look at this. Well, you also said there was a commission, bipartisan commission that created over twenty property tax reform ideas that were baked into this budget, and Diwine of course took his veto pen and cut those out. But the thing with DeWine's working group is, now we found out yesterday there's there's more reason for
people to be upset. When he originally put that together. The two people he put in charge are lobbyists. One is from the Cincinnati area Bill Sites, he's a former state representative, and the other is former Congressman Pat T Berry, who's now CEO of the Ohio Business Roundtable. But Sites, for those who don't know, after leaving the state House, he's now a lobbyist. And get this, Brian, this is
the part that has people really peeved. He represents clients like Cincinnati Public Schools, Sycamore Township, Cincinnati, Hamilton County Public Library. And you go, okay, well, what does that matter because those are entities that are reliant on tax Yeah.
So you go, okay.
The guys that he put in charge of this commission are our lobbyists that are probably going to be there pushing for the reforms that most Ohioans don't want. Right, and then we found out yesterday he released a list of nine other folks to be on that commission, And as I look at them, there's like a treasurer, auditor, auditor, superintendent of of one public school system, another superintendent, Hamilton County commissioner, Pickaway County commissioner, and then a Pike County commissioner,
And you go, Okay, that's good. These local taxing authorities are represented. But I don't see any state reps. I don't see any policy experts. I don't see any property tax experts. I don't see any small business representation. I don't And so it's it's so focused on this one sector. I think a lot of people are now going, all right,
what's what's thewine going to try to bake up? And does you have enough control over some Republicans in the General Assembly that we're going to get more watered down property tax reforms.
I think anybody's reading tea leaves will probably go in that direction. Like me, Jack, I think that's exactly what we're going to get. Knowing Dwine's record, most notably and considering who's on the hand Select committee there. But this raises sort of an interesting specter. It will kick the
can down the road. Whatever the committee comes up with is going to have to be turned into some form of legislation that's going to have to go after go through the legislative process, since we're done with the budget,
and if they don't override the vetos. That is to say, doesn't this make more likely or create the potential of the constitutional amendment petition that's circulating more likely to pass because they are kicking the can down the road and we are not going to be getting any immediate property tax relief that we can see. I mean even baby steps might go along the way, and you could advocate no, no, give it time to work, give it time to work.
We'll get the relief. It just is going to be instantaneous, that, my friend, will be instantaneous.
Yes, it will be instantaneous.
And as I look at this, my visceral response, my hot take on Monday, when the General Assembly just got one of those things overridden, I said, this is actually going to be positive for the people who want to abolish property tax because people are already peeped, and I got emails yesterday from folks who said, well, isn't it interesting that the General Assembly did or the House did
what they did on Monday? I no joke, got a tax bill or a notice on Tuesday this that you know, my taxes are going up X amount, which is you know, astronomical. And so you're you're going to have this really interesting situation, Brian, where people are going to be even more pissed off than they are now.
Yeah.
But but the lobbying, uh, I don't know power influence resources of the people opposed to massive tax reform here.
I think you're seeing it, and I think the wine leads them.
So it's going to be this clash of old way of doing it in politics, and probably a bunch of money behind a campaign to make sure that that thing doesn't pass, and then a bunch of grassroots people in Ohio who go, no, come hell or high water, we're putting this on the ballot and I don't want to pay property taxes.
Any Yeah, and that is definitely going to be the challenge because as you poured out I think statement the obvious that is going to be a well financed opposition to that ballot initiative. And you know, just random folks like me saying it might be a good idea are not going to be backed by the money. There's just not There's not a lobbying group or some organization that's going to hurt all the individual people into one sound, solid voice.
That's exactly right. And so right now they're in that signature gathering phase. In fact, I think the idea was to have those signatures gathered for later this year, and it looks like earliest would be May of twenty twenty six. If they can't get them, it's then November twenty sixth, and then you're looking all the way into twenty seven, right, And so people want property tax relief.
Now we'll find out.
Dewayne's commission is set to meet on Thursday, so we'll see what they come up with after that first meeting.
Well, I observed earlier than I had before, Jack, I just the thing that really irks me the most about property taxes. It's all predicated on some randomly chosen figure your house's worth. It's unrealized gain. I've been in my house for almost thirty years. I know what I paid when I built it. And I know what they tell me it's worth now, and it's gone up a lot in value. It's only worth whatever somebody's willing to buy it, does sell it, or to pay for it at the
time of sale. That's the only time you ever know the value of your home. And yet here we are saddle with this insane recalculation because well, COVID change the landscape of real estate market in this country overnight.
Yes it did.
And you know, I feel for everybody who has that unrealized game, because just because your home value goes up forty thousand or fifty thousand dollars, it doesn't mean that you have some you know, corresponding I know, likewise, cash stash that you can pay your taxes with.
I also feel for the older folks on fixed incomes.
My dad, you know, and some of the listeners probably have dads and grandparents who are struggling. And it comes down to the age old question if I've paid my home off and now I'm on a fixed income or don't make as much as I used to and I can't afford my property bill and you can take my home, that I ever really owned my home or did the government always own my home, and I think that's what
has people so peeved. That why there's so much momentum around abolishing property tax now as the GA and the governor continue to kick the can down the road.
Well, and that's a course I hear from my listening audience, Jack, is that you never own your own home home as long as they can make demands and take your home from you because you can't pay property taxes, you are not a real property owner. Jack wins Our, editor in chief of the Ohio Press Network. Check out his podcast what he has to say throughout the week. I always enjoy talking with you, Jack. It's a real pleasure to have you on my program and I'll look forward to doing it again real soon.
Hey, thank you to Joe. Thank you to you as well. Brian. Have a great day. You do the same.
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