It is your Channel nine's first warning weather forecast. It's gonna beautiful day to day. I'd like low sixties temperatures. That's we're gonna get sunny skies in sixty one for the high thirty five over ninety clear skies, sunny and sixty five tomorrow even better then over nine down to forty four with partly thirty skies any partly sunny Game Day Sunday with the highest seventy two forty four. Right now, let's hear about Travis editions Chuck.
From the UCL Tramphings Center.
Count on the expert team at you See Health Orthopedic Sands Sports Medicine. No matter the injury, same day appointments are available schedule online at you see health dot com. Bothbound four to seventy one is blocked off in two seventy five, all due to the problems on the bridge. All the entrance rams from Southgate from Grand, from Memorial and Bellevue all blocked off because of the closure. Southbound
four seventy one is blocked coming out of downtown. Chuck Abram on fifty five krc the talk station.
A twenty nine fifty five KRCD talk station and a very happy Friday too.
You.
I hope you have some good plans for the weekend. I'm excited about that Vets and Bruce Bus next Saturday. I sure hope I can make it to one of the bars anyhow. In studio, we only had a whole hour with Adam Kahler at seven oh five. He's running for county commissioner, and so is my next guest in studio, Jonathan Pearson. Great to have you back. It's always good to see you. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate time. I
appreciate you making the effort to come in. It's much easier to have a conversation with someone when you're staring a man in the face. Of course, you have motivations for running for county commissioner, and Adam express quite a few different ones, most notably just the whole concept of having an alternative political voice, because if you get a
different point of view. Obviously it's run by Democrats now, but we tend to have different political philosophis Republicans and Democrats, and it seems to me that they're getting further and further apart. But if I had to really peg generally speaking, you know, this is not a free pass for all people who label themselves Republicans. But I think Republicans tend to look at politics and budgets from a fiscal responsibility an efficiency standpoint. We want smaller government, and the government
that we have we want to be very efficient. That doesn't seem to be the mindset of Democrats across the board, and Adam was pointing that out. Listen, if I just got or a Republican on commission, they at least have a dissenting voice, which would raise the level of the public's awareness that an issue is even being discussed, because right now we got nothing.
No, there's no transparency that I've told every news outlet I've talked to. I said, I'll come to you every Friday and we'll talk about what went on. I love that because it's, first of all, we don't have any nuclear secrets in this county, so there's nothing secret. That's what I've never understood. There's nothing secret. You want to know what the sheriff makes here it is. You want to know what the deputies make here it is. You want to know what the commissioners and their workers make
here it is. And I think that's been the challenge. It was nice to see in the paper the other day that there was a number that finally freaked out the commissioners to say no, a billion dollars from So we do know that there is a number out there. It's only a billion, but it's a starting point only you know, a billion here, a billion there. Eventually we'll talk about real money.
Yeah, exactly, like a thirty five trillion dollars budget or debt with a trillion dollar annual debt service.
You know that.
And I think that's the challenges from the Democrats standpoint. They don't see tax dollars as the people's money. They see the tax dollars as their money. So if you actually say we're not going to raise the budget this year, they call it the budget cut. And that's the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. We don't see it as a budget cut. What we see it is returning money to the people, just as the tax dollars the rollback.
Why isn't that permanent? And first of all, why do we have to put it in there to bribe you to get some more money to build a stadium. That always bugged me, that was a bribe, flat out bribe. It was, and unfortunately people fell for it. And typical of oys once once a tax is made, never comes back. Well, we've got to stop this mentality. We're not bribing the people to make them give us money. That seems ludicrous in the first place, plus insulting. Let's do a right
budget that people go. I can agree with that.
Yeah, and similar and I keep bringing up Adam Kaylor, but comparable positions. You know, let's go line by line. Let's get the taxpayer and explanation, like if they're paying ten thousand dollars a year and taxes, let's show me exactly what percentage is going where. And then let's look at each individual office government of course or under the commissioner's you know control or within their reach, and look at each one and see, you know, the world's a
different place. And he mentioned artificial intelligence can be used as streamline processes, you know, maybe pair back some of the employees in the county or otherwise give them something more fit, more, something better to do that would cheer them up. But I know there's waste. Oh, you know there's waste. Well, here's what I always say.
If there's a lack of transparency, you have to question why I don't care who we're talking about. You know, if there's a lack of transparency and the communications of a parent to a child, let's even go that mundane. But especially when you're talking to government to the people, you have to be a little concerned when there's a lack of transparency. You just have to be because why, it's it's not their money, it's it's our money. It's the people's money that people have a right to know.
And so Adam and I are in the same page. We're on the exact same page and looking at that budget, we're on the exact same page about letting people know where that money's going so that there's not a question. And our goal is to set up in such a way that it's going to be really hard to do something stupid with the money.
I love that. I love it.
And of course, with your open door policy and your promise to the press that you'll show up every week explaining what has gone on the preceding week, that that is a unique idea that has not been embraced by someone in politics before. It just seems that no one is ever willing to do that or all Alternatively, if it is happening, there's no local reporter there to even hear what you're saying, and I think that may be more of a problem.
It's a position that's paid well at the very least, if you're being paid by the people, you should probably talk to the people.
What's a complicated prosle concept, Jonathan Pearson. If you want information about Jonathan where he stands on issues, go to Hamilton County Republican Party dot org and he's got his own page right there Jonathan Pearson twenty twenty four. Should be really easy to find it, or alternatively, do what I did. Jonathan Pearson, j jo n A Thha and Pearson's typing that a county commissioner. It'll pop right up
on your search engine. We'll continue with Jonathan. It's Ay thirty five here, stay right around at fifty five KCD talk station fifty.
Five car the talk station. Have you heard about this guy, Donald Rainwater.
Here's your Channel nine first morning weather forecast. Pretty nice day to day, plenty of sun, high sixty one, clear of a night down to thirty five each tomorrow with the highest sixty five. Get us some clouds over Saturday night and drop to forty four partly sunny day on Sunday, maybe a shower chance anyhow, and I have seventy two forty four degrees right now.
Let's get an update from Chuck. What's going on brother from.
The UCLP Traffics Center down on the expert team at you See Health Orthopedix sand Sports Medicine. No matter the injury, same day appointments are available schedule online at you see health dot com. Northbound fourth seventy one and southbound fourth seventy one are both blocked off at the bridge thanks to an overnight fire underneath the bridge. They've blocked off the traffic on northbound four seventy one at two seventy five. That's making for a slow go over to the Double
A Highway inbound seventy four. They just cleared their reck at seventy five. Chuck Ingramom fifty five KRC the talk station.
Hey, thirty eight fifty five kr CD Talk station, A very happy Friday to you. Don't forget fifty five kr SEA dot com. Get your uh iHeart Media f so you can stream the audio and check out the podcast anytime you want. Really valuable information from Dave Hatter This Morning Tech Friday, as is always the case, full hour with Adam Kahler running for Commissioner. We had Matt Damaris on the Vets and Bruce Love that Organization, and Jonathan
Pearson in studio. He's also running for Commissioner on a solid, open door, open book platform because he wants to know the information and as a taxpayer, you should too, or at least if you want it, you should be able to get it. You know, you were talking about that they refuse to provide information. They're not open with the books. Where do the money go? Specifically? They talk in platitudes and generalities about where the money is being spent, but
not you know, specifically. You don't reminded me of all these House committees looking for information, and they preside over and are responsible to the American voter for what Department of Justice, the FBI, any of the lettered agencies does, and those agencies basically raise a metaphorical, if not real, middle finger to the request for information from the people who were in charge and responsible for looking out for us. It's kind of a it's a uniquely bizarre, yet it widely embraced concept.
That well, I think part of The problem is that we see on the left that they're driven by emotion, and so you speak from emotion first, and you don't always write that stuff down, at least not accurately.
Let's say it that way. You vote money the same way.
You just go, oh, let's take care of this problem, without considering how much that problem costs. And so you just say yes to these things, and then when somebody ask you, why did you do this?
How much did you spend?
Honestly, I do believe there are many people on the left who honestly can't answer that question truthfully because they don't know.
Well, you could probably say the same thing on the right, because if we ask for it, and it's a commission governed by all Democrats, then the right's not going to get the information.
You know. Yeah, that's a great challenge, and that's why we're sitting here in this kind of staring at the wall moment, and everybody's going and then when something stupid does happen, which we've seen of late, there's just a rewrite of what actually happened.
That and of course a lost opportunity to get ahead of the problem. Right, having an open conversation about the best practice for solving the problem or even identifying if whatever it is that's brought up is a problem in the first place. Yeah, I mean, we all love our parks, but if they ask for a levee, is it just simply you know, we're gonna, oh my god, if we don't pass the levee, the parks are going to close down at.
This way double the library levee. And they didn't even need it.
Yeah, I know, but you can get.
Your if you work there, you can get a sex change and for free.
Now apparently so sex change simps.
There's a library where at Sims Township on Enyard. It's in Hamilton County, and it's perfectly fine. The building is beautiful. They're going to knock it down and build a new one and move it back. And you know why they're knocking down a perfectly good, beautiful building. They say there's not enough parking right there. And I thought to myself, there is a huge front yard. It's just like, you know,
a third acre of grass pave it. What is that going to run the esthetics of the library Because you have parking all around the library as opposed to just on the left hand side. I just heard that yesterday. I couldn't believe it, but that's going to be millions of dollars.
But when tax dollars are involved, unfortunately, people don't see the number. They just see the idea and say, let's do it.
All right, let's pivot over to something that is very controversial, considering we got that shaft the first time around, the pay Course stadium lease and the obligations under the lease, which is going to expire unless the Bengals exercise their right to extend it, which they can do multiple times.
So we're either going to get a brand new lease deal or that one's going to be extended and will still be subject to the original terms of conditions which obligate the taxpayers of Hamilton County to make some improvements. Last bill I heard was one point three or two billion dollars.
Billion was just for the upgrades around it. That didn't include the roof that you know.
Oh, that the dome is is, that's that's gone.
Yeah, that was going to be a total and two point three billion if you put the dome over it. So we're not getting it done.
But the challenge that we face in all of this is one of those things is having some luxury apartment or offices so the Bengals can have their own separate office building outside of that building.
That's see, and I would argue that's not part of the stadium upgrades.
That's well, you can see. There's a lot of things I look at and go, wait a minute. Because the Bengals play ten games a year, great for them, it's great for the community when they play the games here and they come in great. But that's ten out of three hundred and sixty five days. What's going on with the stadium the other three hundred and fifty five days? Why does the county not control it the other three
hundred and fifty five days. We gave away the farm on that first lease, right, and so mine is simple. Let's go back and remember and remind everybody that the county owns the stadium. We call it pay Corps Bengal Stadium, but it's the county. It's Hampling Counties Stadium. We build it, we own it.
And so I think we had to share the royalties with the Brown family with the.
Paid Corps naming.
We need to remember, you know whose it is, and you know there's nothing wrong with leasing something to a private entity.
We do that.
In many cases, government and private unities do work together. But the fact that we act as if we have no control. We can't say anything because they get to pick when the dates are that something comes in and uses it. And so we miss all these opportunities because we can't use a stadium because we effectively we gave control away to the family. And I don't understand that.
I have to admit I'm I'm a little jaded by that because I've said before without sounding wrong to a lot of people, but not one brick at the PNG Towers downtown was bought by the county. So I think that we need to start to reconsider what is it we're actually doing here. And I think that this gets into back if sports is always emotional, it is to fans.
I mean, let's be honest.
As a fan, there isn't a logic while we're a fan this this year, the Bengals are not giving us a reason to be a fan. Yet, why are people fans?
It's emotional, nothing wrong with that, but we have to stop for a moment in that emotion and set aside, lodge, you know, step into logic and go Okay, let's look at this, Let's look at this reasonable, Let's look at this honestly and say, Okay, we're leasing this to an NFL team which is worth billions, and we get very little in return percentage wise, What exactly is wrong with this?
Yeah, and moving away from the emotional angle of sports, take emotion out of it, and consider any project where you're asking the taxpayers to front the bill the money and played back then it was what twenty five years ago was four hundred and fifty million dollars, and that obviously today would be more like two billion or three
billion the way they're building these stadiums these days. But if you took it outside of the realm of sports and just say, well, we're going to spend three billion dollars in taxpayer money on any one facility that will only be used ten times a year, and you would be Everybody would look at you. You would act like you were just backcrap insane. We'll pause. Would be one more back with Jonathan Pearson for kent Ellen County Commissioner.
It's a forty six right now, stay right here at fifty five KRC DE talk Station, fifty five KRC dot Com eight at fifty five kr C the talk station Happy.
Friday, Geezes, say.
It out loud, Joey.
In spite of the chaos, political division, insanity, s it can be a wonderful world, just depends on where you're looking. And that's an Bruice proved that with Matt Damaris earlier on. We were going to have a wonderful time next Saturday. Everybody's invited to join any of the one of the breweries we're going to be stopping off at, so make sure you check it all out aty five care Sea dot com. And in the meantime, we've got Jonathan Pearson in house talking Hamilton kind of issues. So we dealt
sort of kind of with the pay Course stadium. The lease, which is I think right now being discussed and negotiated with the current commissioner made up.
Yeah it is.
I mean, at least there is a level of understanding even in the current mix of like maybe we shouldn't be given the farm away.
Yeah, And I guess the least though that limits the use and availability of the stadium to whatever conditions in terms of Brown Family decides. Back to your point on that giant facility only be used about ten times a year. It's the idea that it also requires these upgrades. It's like, keep it up with the Joneses. I mean, honestly, I know, Riverfront Stadium wasn't the greatest place to sit. It was cold. I was there for the Freezer Bowl. I left it
halftime like a sane person should have. But you know it worked. There was a football field, there were bathrooms, not the nicest ones in the world, but you know what it functioned. This is a currently functioning stadium. I mean, I'd seen the grand scheme of things. Twenty five years old. Isn't that long. Can you imagine if we upgraded every building after twenty five years and added all new amenities,
literally every building, what the overall costs would be? And then you have to step back, as commissioner, is it even really necessary? So I know the contract says it is, and the contract already says we as taxpayers have to pay for it at least a certain percentage, but there's no is it necessary component going on in there?
Well, I think a level of Again, this gets us back to the emotion. In sports, we get more caught up in the emotion than we do logic and so we look at things saying it has to be pretty, has to be this, it has to be that, And.
Does the average fan give a rip about how the locker room looks?
Well, how many of us remember going to a football game a deal at Old Knippart when you know, if you tripped, you were four hundred steps down on the field, if you were up at the top.
Especially if you were slinging that Schnopps bag.
You know, well, you know when they charge you a buck to get in the game and the quarter for beer. Yeah, a lot of people had a hard time navigating steps.
I went there in the eighties.
So yes, I did too. That's right.
I'm laughing about it because how many of us sat there and go, gosh, this game would be so much nicer if the stadium was nicer.
Well, none of us thought that.
Thought it was fun.
It was. It was fun, And I think that's it's the infamous.
You know, football is made to be played in mud football, you know, that type of mentality and and a.
Sort of rug it outdoors. The attitude like if you you if you go to the freezer ball you stick it out, you're a real man, or you sucked it up. In the name of the fans, and I was there for the whole thing. So but I think that's the problem. We went past that nostalgic This is fun, you know. I feel the bite the weather, I feel the mud in my face type of thing too.
Oh, this is a sanitized game. It's clean. We've got to have everything prim and proper.
The seats need to be solved, all the walkways need to be perfectly this and that.
The beers need to be twelve thirty dollars a pop.
I think we forgot to look at it from a logic standpoint again, you know, I know, because see I always remind people that the Commissioner's office is the most boring important job in the county, and the boring part is the logic side. We have to stick to logic. There is not a motion in money, and that's the problem. We put a motion of money and then we start doing stupid things with it.
And let's finally depart and talk a little before we depart, rather talk about I have no idea. I haven't heard anything written about it for a while. The whole situation between the county and the city in terms of the sewer systems and the uh, well, thatsent degree.
And all that.
You know, we didn't have a choice, we had those systems have to be split. So Northern Kentucky's going through the same pain that we're going through, just a little less dollars, but same exact problem.
And I will not argue that people basements are being flooded with sewage.
Obviously it needs to be fixed.
Yeah, Well, when you have metro sewer says you know, here's a thousand bucks fix your basement, but they do it to the same family ten twenty times. At a certain point you have to say, maybe there's a problem in the sewer system. So there was a problem in the sewer system. The challenge is how do you put in a storm drain next to a sanitary's sewer system without completely disrupting every single neighborhood involved. And so from
a practical standpoint, that's almost impossible. Yeah, from a money standpoint, it costs a fortune. And the problem is in that fortune, how much of that is being well managed? And I honestly don't know those numbers to tell you how well they are being managed. And that's one of the things I've said, and my thing I would I would sit down with those in the charge of this every single week. I would talk to the subcontractors at least every week, if not every other week. And people say that's a
lot of work. Again, the commissioners are paid, I help.
Well.
I wish we'd remind pe people they're paid showing up at a ribbon cutting and showing up an other things. I don't care, you know, as I told tell people, I said, I got married when I was handsome enough to attract my wife. It doesn't matter anymore. She thinks I'm still handsome. My kids think I am too. I don't need to impress anybody with my good looks because I don't have them anymore. So I can get away with not going to ribbon cutting, but I can still
show up to talk to the contractors. And that is what we're paid for as commissioners, is to do the job.
Imagine that logic and reason and a man worth voting for Jonathan Pearson.
You got Tuesday.
Up until Tuesday, you can early vote, cash your vote for Jonathan and.
Let's have a better path. Andy.
Obviously, if you and Adam Kaylor both got elected into hammil Can commissioners, the level of transparency I see. I think is guaranteed you're both on the same page. You're both fiscally responsible, and you both know there's money that can be found and saved through a thoughtful, thorough analysis.
Jonathan, I wish you the best of luck.
I can't thank you enough for showing up today and talking to my listenership about these important matters.
Folks.
If you didn't get a chance to listen tech Friday with Dave Hatter, I mentioned Adam Keayler who's institute for an hour seven oh five with that podcast fifty five krs dot com. That's in Bruce. You got the the bus cruising around next Saturday. The bus is full, but you can join the festivities at one of the three breweries that they'll be stopping Tough in special effort to
get Vietnam veterans there. So please if you can participate and have a fun time doing it, smile on your face and a beer hoisted in the name of veterans, and of course my conversation here with Jonathan Pearson Monday with the Smither event and of course money Monday.
Folks.
I hope you have an absolutely wonderful weekend and don't go away because lend Beck will be right.
Up your twenty twenty four election headquarters.
Every voter should be asking whether America can survive four more years.
Of fifty five KRC, the talk station.
This report is sponsored by