I'm in the high OVERNIGHTLA sixty four with clear skies eighty eight with sunny skies tomorrow, down to sixty four every night along with the chance of showers and storms partly sunny Friday, chances of showers and storms at high eighty nine Right now sixty six. Time for Chuck Ingram of the traffic updations.
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and again mostel at of forty two. Chuck Ingram on fifty five KRC the talk station.
It's seven forty here fifty five KRC DE Talk station. Brian Town is always happy to welcome to the FTY five CARC Morning Show. You find her writing and reporting in The Cincinni Inquiry, which you can find at Cincinnati dot com. I got my online subscription there and I check it out every single day. Welcome back, Sharon Coolidge. It's all. It is a pleasure to have you on the program.
Good morning.
I'm actually looking more forward to topic too, because I just find it so comical about the six hundred million dollars fund to help residents of the city with their property taxes. We'll get to that, but let's start with what happened with Mercy Health and this this Bond Hill facility. They got a tax incentive package back in twenty fourteen the Bonds Accors Mercy Health System did to go into this Bond Hill building. Was supposed to boost the neighborhood
high paying jobs. Of course, earnings taxes is where sixty four percent of the city's budget comes from. So all that sounds great, but then they didn't end up using it. So the city is now saying, hey, we gave you this incentive package, you owe us seven million dollars because you didn't make good on your obligations. My first question was what happened to the site and why didn't it work out?
We know, not go into it building. It wasn't some building that was sitting there. It was taking the old like movie theater site blighted. You know what are we going to do with this and building this beautiful news structure and then filling it with jobs. Right, It sounded like a dream absolutely, And you know what, honestly, I have to say it was working all the way up until COVID. It was growing that it was a bustling place.
But once COVID hit, the world changed. And they're saying it, and they set it in twenty twenty one in a letter to former Mayor John Cranley, We're going to stay remote. It's best for our company. That's what we're doing. The city didn't really, I don't know, pay that much attention back in twenty twenty one, but they said it definitively in a letter, We're going to work remote now and that's what they did. Well, they're remote.
Well that was I mean, Sharon, back then, that was in everybody's best interest because if you're working from home, you're not spreading the evil COVID around, So there's no way you could push back on something like that when really that was kind of what was being asked of the public generally speaking, across the board in any given industry, no, one hundred percent.
I mean the world has changed, and I think the city's really trying to grapple with that.
Now.
I think we're seeing this in more and more places. I mean, the Ge building is not living up to its promise, and then we see in bond Hill the same thing, these two big new buildings, and then you're going to redo the SAX building and that sounds great. Pay Courts is going to be a main tenant there.
They're remote.
Nobody's even pretending the pay courts filled with the bunch of jobs that are paying earning taxes. They're I mean, they're like, this is a meeting space and it is. They're being upfront with what this plan looks like. But it's not some company coming in with all these shops that pay earning tax.
Well, I know what you do to recover they in order to recover that ready, the earnings taxes that you're not getting from the likes of pay Corps and Mercy Health, just raise the earnings tax on everybody else to make up for the loss. Have to have.
Products, not your idea. That's the futures commissioned idea. That's they're not trying to take credit for that well, so you know, we're not happy that this year. This was a very big conversation behind the scenes, and I was prepped and ready as if, really, what is this going to look like? What is this vote going to look like? And in the end they felt like they didn't have enough time to get it done. I mean, I'm just going to say it. They would have really looked like hypocrites.
They were like the budget process was too fast, but then they were like, oh, well, maybe we'll do an earnings tax. You're like, you're seconds from having to vote on this, Like, why an't you going to talk about it and tell the public about it? There just was not enough time This year. They're owning it though, and I don't know if it has enough support from COW So I think there's like a picture like a sigh
of relief. We don't have to say how we feel about this right now, but this is definitely going to be a conversation. I think next year.
I would say, do you see this evolving into litigation? Because I'm guessing Mercy Health has said no, I mean, this was out of our hands, and person.
Health actually said yes once we really started writing about it. Mercy Health came out and said definitively that they were going to pay it. Oh, which is really saying something because ge has like this huge settlement package that was kind of cut behind the scenes and I think was a forty three million, but it was like a lot of things that had value attached to it. Nobody wrote that kind of check to the city. It was like, Oh, we're donating an old engine to Cincinnati State so they
can study and everything. I don't hate that, okay, but it's a value to ten million dollars. We're going to do these volunteer hours, and it's you know, value, it's such and such. Like. The only real hard cash seemed to come out of that was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the port to do a study about what should happen next with like the big parcel of land next to pay Horse Stadium. So that really wasn't a cash, but it does seem like and we're going
to find out on Thursday. There's a big meeting between Mercy and you know, the Development Department and the city manager and what's going to come out of that. Now Mercy said they're going to pay it, but I don't say anything's a don unentail till it's actually.
A done yell well, and in the final analysis pay it or not, maybe they see that they're obligated to do it. That's fine, settle it like ge did. Whatever that happens. Those jobs are not going to be in the city of Cincinnati, basically, that's they're not going to be there.
No, they're not. And that is like, is it really the changing? That's how much it's changing that we can't I mean, Emver was like, oh, Cincinnati is an amazing like we're on the upswing and everything's great, and I do believe that. But then where there's jobs don't want to come here. Some people will still work in person, and it's like, really, what does that look like? And the people you're electing next year is a big electioneer,
the mayor and city council. And I don't know what those races look like because I don't have like a tenth person who said they're running or someone who's running against the mayor. But people really do need to learn they're looking at who they're voting for. Think this is a pivot point, and the Futures Commission did not sugarcoat that these business leaders are like, some changes have got to be made here, and are these the people who
can make the changes? People have to kind of decide this is the path forwards everything we're hearing about.
And we will count on the likes of Sharon Coolidge others at the enquire and local reporting to give us as much information on those candidates as possible. So maybe we can write the ship would consider me, would make appropriate decisions when we're voting. Sharon, let's pause. I want to bring you back talk about the other issue, which
I think is I just keep laughing about it. Six hundred million dollars taken from the railroad pot of money to provide property tax relief for Cincinnatians, and Cincinnati residents may get a chance to vote on just that. Lean Arrow business consultant ging to get in touch with if you're a business and you're responsible for the business every business, large and small. Lean Arrow knows this because they spend decades working at Fortune five hundred companies. Note that it's
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llc dot com. Fifty five KRC quick Weether sunny in eighty seven today, over night, clear in sixty four, sonny in eighty eight Tomorrow, overnight partly cloudy, chance of showers of storm sixty four. Partly sunny on Friday with chances of showers of storms eighty nine. Right now sixty six traffic time from.
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The talk station.
If Kercytalxation. Brian Thomas with the Cincinnion inquires Sharon Coolidge, pivoting over to the railroad money being used for property tax relief. Of course, everybody is reeling from the massive increase in property tax is brought about by Yes, a corollary of COVID and the property values increasing. Many people can't handle it. Many seniors are on fixed incomes and the property tax bill goes up three by thirty percent, and they are where am I going to get this money?
Entered Tom Brinkman, former Republican state representative who has proposed a ballot initiative. Signatures being circulated as we speak. To take six hundred dollars out of the one point six billion dollar railroad fund from the stupid sale of the railroad and put that into a separate fund to generate revenue to help Cincinnati property owners of all sizes, shaped stripes, and income values to get some property tax relief. Sharon, can you imagine being able to vote to have money
to get money to lower your taxes? This sounds like it probably would pass if they get enough signatures. What's your take on this one.
I definitely think there's some concern behind the scenes. No one's really saying anything. Everyone's waiting. I mean, this is a very tight timeline to get the petitions, the valid signatures. I think people are kind of waiting.
Uh.
You know. Some of the public talking points are like, of course people want to pay, they would want to pay for all these services. I'm like, what does that ballot language look like? I was like that, do you want someone in the city to pay your property taxes? That does seem like a yes to me? Not yeah, I agree with you there.
And not because I you know, from a matter of you know, policy standpoint or my political leanings, think it's you know, it's like, well, people can put their hand in a cookie jar. They're got to put their hand
in a cookie jar. And I don't know that necessarily that's the right thing to do, but this is I mean, Tom Brigman was not in favor of the sale, and he knows that people are suffering and struggling, and this is a mechanism for people to take money away from the seemingly limitless number of things that they could use the money from that fund to go to, and force them to give relief to the actual residents of the city. I just I think it's a wonderful, you know, a
work of I don't know, brinksmanship. If I can may make so loose with this with the phrase, you know, I think.
There's probably there's a lot of pieces to this one, but he certainly has hit a nerve with what people are thinking and feeling in the city. And I think that's super important that like, this is the conversation that people are feeling pinched. They can't afford to buy a house, the real estate market is kind of stagnant, Like what
what does middle class look like in Cincinnati? And he's really hit upon something where people are like, this is what people are talking about in their real lives and worried about and so it is an interesting conversation. Can they do it? It's hard to tell because it has like that state component, and everything is going to take a lot more vetting, but it certainly seems like a conversation that the actual citizens want to have.
Themselves well and without Norfolk Southern's money involved in something like this. Do you think there's going to be any sort of funded opposition campaign? I mean, I think the issue or the idea itself is about an issative sort of sells itself under the circumstances. So will there be a well funded or well organized opposition to doing this? I guess?
Well, here's the thing, so I'm not nothing is a six million dollar campaign. Nothing. That is how much money Norfolks un are and put into the campaign to pass that railroad sale. Yeah, six million dollars of their own money. And you know they didn't make any bones about it, like the most I can't nothing ever comes close to that, So it certainly not that. No, it's a tight timeline. It's going to be hard to cut through. I don't know if you've noticed there seems to be a presidential
election going on. And that is the news cycle that this high. It's not like a city level news cycle, right. It is people paying attention to the presidential race. It's going to be very hard to cut through and make the case either way. It's going to be really left. I think the citizens they're going to look at the bat language on the ballot and be like, what is this? Okay? And it wouldn't be on the sample now that we can't discount the sample ballot. Of course there will be
a sample ballot. I can't if this is on the ballot, I would count on, you know, the sample ballot saying no vote no. Uh. And I think the sample ballot really is going to carry the day in so many cases. Yeah, But do people look at this and like, hold, hold up, do I want someone else to pay my property taxes?
Well, and you know property taxes and whether you can afford them or not. I'm sorry. That does not fall into a political category that hits people equally regardless of whether they belonged to the Republican or Democrat party, So that maybe the Democrats would put vote no on the blue none the blues slip maybe does not necessarily represent the interest or the beliefs of the Democrats in the city of Cincinnati since they got to pay the.
Bill, which is a real thing.
Yeah, it's really a real thing.
Say, oh, the Democrat a Republican prosecutor share for all these races, and like you maybe like somebody who don't like somebody, but you have to get out your checkbook and write a text to your property taxes. You don't have a choice. People, I there's a real fear, Like I have seen people cry about this. Yes, there's a real fear. It's you know, it's it's kind of scary to be honest.
Well, keep writing about it and I'll keep my popcorn out because this one I can't vote on it. It doesn't impact me. I don't live in the city, but I certainly have a profound interest in this and how it unfolds. So Sharon Coolidge will be looking for the reporting onto the enquire Cincinnati dot coms where you find sharing and the crew, and I appreciate you coming on the program and enlightening us as well as keeping up on the reporting. Sharon, I look forward to talking to you again real soon.
Thanks for having anytime. Seven fifty seven stick around. Mike we're gonna have some fun. Off top of the our news the German are those German guys with an event called Canteen Beer Garden monthly keg tapping that plus Judge entited of Paul Tano at eight thirty to be right back your campaign bitstop on the road to November.
There's so much going on, I gotta check in a few times a day.
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