Seven oh five here at fifty five care CD talk station. Happy Friday, Eve to you. Pardon me that came out of nowhere. I have a cough button, couldn't get to it in time. But I am looking across the table at a man that I truly appreciate it, man that thankfully has too much time in his retirement because he's got nothing better to do than be the Inspector General for the Generals Greater of the Cincinnati Residence, City of
Sincinnia Residence. Welcome back to the fifty five care Morning Carose Morning Show, host of the Citizen Watchdog podcast Get in Touch with It. Todd Zen's are good to have you in.
Man, Thanks Brian, good to be here.
I'm glad it took the time to come in this studio. It's great having you in and talking with you about all these things that you follow. So let us start. We were touch talking about this. Let's stick with the topic of i'm gun violence. Generally speaking, they had a ryl Long city manager. She Chief Fiji was there yesterday.
The mayor was there. He didn't have a whole lot to say, though from what I gathered from the reporting, you can fill in the details on that, but apparently red bikes, So we're going to take the red bikes away from folks tomorrow and Saturday overnight. They did that over the fourth of July or Independence Day weekend. Apparently it had some positive impact, or at least it suggested
or they suggested it did. So. I didn't realize bikes and e scooters were really at the core of the crime wave going on in the city Cincinnati, But I suppose when you're trying to come up with solutions, every little bit counts.
That's right, every little bit counts. But they've got they've got big, big problems.
Well, they argued that violent crime and murders or gun crime specifically were down, at least that's what was reported.
Well, it was what I took away from the news conference was that, yeah, things are getting better, but they have a perception problem that the public doesn't perceive that things are getting better. So they're really battling a bad perception rather than the bad data.
Well, you believe if you live in any of the given neighborhoods in the city and you see it with your own eyes, and it is widely reported that one of the bigger problems we've got downtown? Are these roving gangs of teenagers? I mean it's like cockroaches in the middle of the night. They all gather. As soon as you turn the light on, these scurry and multiple different directions. You can't get them.
Yeah. Well, your friend Jim Kiefer raised a good point yesterday when I was speaking with them about this Blue Ash issue where you had these hundreds of kids up there. How do they get there? And what's the signal? How do they communicate with each other? To do everybody know to go to this one?
Look, now, the easy answer to that one is we live in an internet society. Now. You know, the old days, if you wanted to get a whole bunch of people together, what did you print flyers up? You mailed things to people. I mean there was no one stop shop for your causes website like we've got. Now, Hey, we're all going to eat in Blue Ash and you know, shoot fireworks for people just to be a nuisance. You know, you
can have a house party in like five seconds. Now you put it online, house party, It filling the black address. The next thing, you knowl four hundred people showed up.
Well, the other thing that I noted in the press conference was Cheryl Long finally did start talking about this program that they started back in January called AC for Sincy. And the mayor was on Cincinnati edition last week and never said a word about Act for Sincy. And it was launched in January as a holistic approach to reducing gun violence, and they never said anything about it.
Well, that doesn't make any sense, is that because of marketing, we need to have this new program because we have a problem with gun violence, which of course confirms what everybody out there in the real world suspects. Anyway, Well, the marketing thing here, you know, the terrible murder of mister Herringer. Oh yeah, and the response from his widow she summed it up in three words. It's optics over outcomes, right, And a lot of the things that this city council
and this mayor are doing are really for optics. And you can go through program after program, and they put a little bit of money in all of these programs, and then when somebody says, what are you doing about this, they say, we have a program for that. And even if they funded at like ten thousand or twenty five thousand. You know, I was at a meeting in bond Hill about connected communities with the Vice Mayor and Scottie Johnson, and it was about how we can improve connected communities
if that's even possible. And somebody got up and said, well, what about property taxes? Our property taxes are too high, and the Vice mayor said, well, we have a program for that. They have a Well, no, they don't.
Have a program. Their program is to help people pay the Property Act property taxes that they owe in back taxes their debt. That's what the city has a program for.
But not to address the broader problem of the property taxes going through the root exactly, and people who have to pay them or otherwise end up perhaps losing their property. They're on the hook for the money they paid it. So there's no relief for the folks with higher property tax bills. There's only relief for folks who didn't pay the property tax bills because they were too high.
That's right.
Wow, Okay, so that's problem solved.
But optics over outcomes is it really sums up this mayor in this city council.
But you can't cover up the fact that week after week after week we have all this hoorific criminal activity that's going on. I mean, even as little as local reporting we have, we do hear about it, we do see it. So you can't hide behind you can't hide the news from people. And then there's the other component. You talked to Ken favor of us and say FOP president, and Ken will tell you that they know, like for example,
enforcing curfew. There is a curfew, Yes, but they don't bother even dealing with it because they catch the teenager who's violating curfew, they're not going to be dealt with by the judicial component of the criminal justice system. The judges will let them out. Happens all the time, so much show that it's not even worth issuing a citation.
Well, there was a question. I couldn't hear it very well. But I think one of the reporters yesterday at the news conference was asking about twenty twenty Auburn, the juvenile center or detention center whatever they call it, and that the police were being turned away when they tried to bring people up to twenty twenty.
Yes, so you know they have a capacity ken. Ken said that specifically, Yeah.
They have a capacity issue there, So what do they do about it?
That's a good question. Maybe there isn't a program for that. They need a program for that, another building, another place to take I tell.
You this, five million dollars they want to spend on a day center for the homeless. That's controversial because there are existing programs that think they could handle you know, the requirement or the need. But the city, for some other reason wants to spend five million on this building. Maybe they ought to turn the building into a detention center.
Well I like that idea. I mean, if there's not room enough to deal with the folks that are violating the law, then you need a place to put them. I mean I don't well, I question a prioritization.
Right exactly, That's exactly right, Brian.
And without enforcement, without the penalty component. I say this all the time. The criminal justice system, the deterrence element is one of the key principles on it. If you do something in violation of the law, there will be
con sequences. That's a message. It's not only to punish the person who was dominough to violate the law, but it's a message to every kid out there or everybody else out there, this is what's going to happen to you, and get rid of that, and it's like, well, wait a second, h nothing's going to happen to me, so why bother obeying the law?
That's right, this whole act for sincey, this holistic approach to reducing gun violence. They had a three million dollar budget and it went to all of these nonprofits. And that's what this is all about, external organizations. And there's no way to measure whether anything they're doing has any impact on reducing gun violence. But it's they give away all this money.
Well and they can say something like we have a program for that and we have already addressed that and you know, but yeah, again, this is kind of like USAID. It's a local versus USA. The money goes out into the world, and you know, at least on a federal level, tens of millions of dollars to on various programs around the globe. We don't know if that work was even done. No one's following the money, No one knows where it goes.
What the salaries are being paid within these nonprofit organizational structures, and they all get pretty handsome salaries. Just because you're nonprofit doesn't mean your CEO isn't making three hundred four hundred thousand dollars.
Yet that's exactly right.
So that's what's happening locally. Then, Oh, we're a non violence we have a holistic approach to getting kids off the streets and getting them to play hockey at night or whatever.
But when the mayor showed up on the radio program and started talking about all the things they're doing to reduce gun violence, he never said a single word about this act. For Cincy, they have a program where they're basically paying people not to commit crimes.
Yeah, maybe we can dive into a few more of the details for that. And again, why didn't he announce it out loud early on? If it's such a great thing for the city of Cincinnati, we'll bring Todd Zinzer back. We have him for the full hour here in the
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Here's your channel nine, first one and one forecast sunny day to day. I do have a possible shower of thunderstorm showing up later this afternoon at some point, maybe though eighty six of the high clear of a night time to seventy it's going to be sunny hot NEMA tomorrow, Isolated rain in the afternoons, a possibility ninety for the high muggy and seventy one overnight with clear skies, and a high end ninety one on Saturday with a decent
chance for rain. They say seventy one right now. Let's get an update on traffic.
From the u See Health Traffic Center. You See Health has expert traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting long term recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you see health dot com. Traffic is slow this morning, and I seventy five southbound between Ronald Reagan Highway and Paddock Road. You're slow seventy five northbound between Buttermilk Pike and Twelfth Street, and there's a stall seventy five northbound at two seventy
five on the left shoulder. I'm Heather Pasco on fifty five krc the talk.
Station seven nineteen to fifty five KRCD Talk Station. Brian Tommouth with Citizen Watchdog Todd Zenzer get his podcasts and Watchdog and maybe you become friends of them on Facebook. He's always pointing posting things related to maybe corruption, fraud, ways to abuse, inaction, outright stupidity with regard to what the city of Cincinnati's doing dealing with its relative or
various rather challenges. We were talking about this Act for Sincy program to or a blueprint for violence production that says on the cover of the materials achieving change together. This came out in January. You mentioned, without any fanfare, without any formal notice, that here were implementing this program.
But as you just got done explaining, it funds a bunch of non governmental organization outside groups who claim to have the solution on various levels for the problem with violence and the system or in err in the system. What type of if you know, if any, what type of vetting goes on before any given NGO accepts money from the city to achieve their purported goal. There's got to be some presentation to someone, Someone has to add them to the limitless list of NGOs out there with
their hand hopefully in the cookie jar. So what process do they go through to find out whether these proposals are going to have any impact or effect and then get the award to the exclusion of other NGOs we already know. There's no follow up on whether the programs work after the money's awarded, but the lead up, how do you get on the list of people with their hand in the cookie jar.
Well, there's so many of these programs. I've counted so far, over two hundred NGOs getting money or nonprofits or NGOs getting money from the city, ranging from you know, fifteen hundred dollars to a quarter of a million dollars or actually I think the highest I know of is like
three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. And there's there is a program or a process for what they call leverage support, which is what many of these organizations they make application for those moneies, and that's that's become an annual thing and during budget season they all go down in a congo line and request money from the city council.
And not all of them get it.
No, That's what's surprising is how many organizations apply for this money they don't get it.
So see, that's always wanted to emphasize that because again there's always a limitless number of people that want some money from government. Now the question is how do you how do you weed through Let's say a thousand groups show up and there's only you know, one hundred different one hundred allocations that they have money for. High Who wins.
That's a good question. The city council. They pick winners and losers when it comes to that. And the city manager has an application process for at least leverage support and probably for all these others. And they tell they tell the organization what they're looking for, for example, reducing gun violence, and all of a sudden, all these NGOs that before now we're worried about climate change or whatever,
are now worried about gun violence. And their proposals they just switched some keywords in there about how their work is going to reduce gun violence. Even the Art Academy, for example, they showed up many at many meetings requesting money and they've been getting funding for years and years, but the city council is going to cut them back.
And they made the case that their work at the Art Academy contributes to a reduction of violence and they believe that, and all these groups that are working in this area think that if they do a good job that violence will be reduced.
Well, I suppose one could lean on the argument that, well, if the kids here in an art class for two hours, then he can't be out committing crime. Air go it reduces crime.
Yes, some kind of logic chain like that.
I'm sorry to laugh. This is so sad and pathetic. This really doesn't call for laughter.
Yeah, the normal person or the regular Cincinnatian will have trouble connecting dance lessons to reducing violence. That's just not Most people can't connect that in their own minds.
No, but I think that's a logical and reasonable inability. Yes, the connection isn't there. So how could people possibly connect it unless they fall back on the argument that they just made well the kids in a dace lesson for a couple hours.
Yeah. So, the way I looked at it, a lot of these programs that they're funding, it seems more like we're trying to help the community kind of thrive or to live despite all the violence. These types of programs help them, you know, survive.
They fuel the economic engine of the city by putting dollars out there. Two organizations that maybe don't accomplish anything. At least the money's out there, and presumably those organizations will spend it on something, even if it's just going out to dinner at a restaurant.
That's right, that's that's the government, that's the city government we have.
I think we've put hit the nail on the head, which is exactly what Todd ends Aer done. It does all the time. I understand we also have a pension problem. Not as bad as Chicago and Illinois, but we got a pension problem. We're gonna talk about that with Todd. Zenzer. Will take a break right now seven twenty five and let me mention and strongly encourage you to get in touch with my friends at Plumb tight Plumbing, plumb type plumbing. They know you deserve better. They deliver on better, better
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for the most part, q Isolated showers. Storms are a possibility later today eighty six for the high it's gonna be clear and mild over night seventy to low ninety hour high Tomorrow. It will be also be humid and a possible isolated shower in the afternoon, clear over. Friday night muddy as well, with a low seventy one and decent chance of rain on Saturday. They're saying, and it's going to go all the way up to ninety one seventy one degrees. Right now, it is time for traffic from the.
U SEE Health Traffic Center. You see Health has expert traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting long term recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you see health dot com. You're heavy in slow in pockets seventy five southbound between the Ronald Reagan Highway and Paddock Road. Also with the stall seventy five northbound at two seventy five on the left shoulder, that will have you a little slow as well. I'm Heather Pasco on fifty five KRC is the talk station.
It's seven twenty nine. Bright time was here with Todd Sinzer and studio going over City of Cincinnati issues. So we whatever the gun violence and the violence and the problem generally speaking in the proposal from the city which basically are funding a bunch of outside non governmental organizations with zero to very little accountability. Let us move on over to another area that's been a real problem for
a very long time since they's pension problems underfunded. Is that a reasonable word to slap on the situation?
Yes, very much so.
And for how long has this been festering?
Well, the pension liability was the subject of a civil complaint, federal complaint back in twenty fifteen, and there was a settlement that is now governing the pension liability and they are required by twenty forty five, so that the settlement gives them thirty years to get the thing up to one hundred percent. But the thing is it was settled in twenty fifteen, so ten years ago, and they look at the funding ratio, which is how much of the liability do they need do they need to fix by
a certain date. So they're supposed to be one hundred percent funded by twenty forty five, right, And when this when the agreement was finalized, they were at seventy seven percent that ten years ago.
There. Ten years ago, seventy seven percent funded.
This year sixty eight percent.
Oh, hey, going to the right direction.
It's gone down every every year.
And well we'll fix it later. Is that the attitude. Yeah, this seems like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the social welfare safety net programs that are all scheduled to be belly up by a certain date. Well, in Congress never does anything.
It is exactly the same. So with respect to with respect to Congress, when it gets when when it gets to the point where they can't kick the can down the road anymore, they just they just print the money.
Print the money, or tell you're not going to get as much as we promise.
That's right. Cincinnati can't do that exactly. So the Futures Commission said the pension liability was the number one concern in the city and this council, and that was two years ago. Now that they the or was it two years or one year the Futures Commission issued its report. They're not. They have done very little different and it's
not that difficult. So the reason that I talked about it recently on my podcast is because at the end of the the last meeting before the summer break, that the the city manager slipped in the annual report from the pension from the pension uh outfit and It has five recommendations in it. Four of them are totally unacceptable,
you know, reduce, reduce benefits. One of them is the The thing that the Future Commission wants to do is they want to regionalize the waterworks and monetize that, take that money, put it into the pension and make the pension attractive for the state pension system to take it over. Well, that that's going to do that, No, that's not going to happen. It's a long shot at best. It requires
a referendum to get rid of the water works. So the only thing they're left with is to put more money into the pension fund.
That's the solution to the problem.
And if you look at their recommendation, it would require an extra I mean they're making a contribution now, it's about I think it's up into sixty million or sixty four million dollars a year they put into the pension liability or the pension fund. The pension fund. They have
more people taking out than they have putting in. And according to this recommendation from the trustees, it would take whatever the city's putting in now put in an extra two million dollars every year, year after year, on top of that, and they are projecting that if the city does that, it will be one hundred percent by twenty forty five, like those settlement requires. And why we're looking at all these other options and all this other stuff,
I don't get that. Just put the money in. It stays spoll.
If you take it and put it into the pension system. That means there's fewer non government organizations out there in the world that are going to get funded because they don't have enough money to go around.
That is my exact concern. We're going to keep spending money trying to save people and they may not save the city.
Well, and the practical and correct me if I'm wrong on this, The practical effect of that is the worst. The pension problem is the worst. Are bond rating.
Well, yes, it has definitely have implications like that, which.
Means if they ever want to borrow money for a big project, they're going to pay alf a lot more money and interest on it.
Yeah. Well, they have no problem borrowing money, that's for sure.
Lord Almighty. That's an easy fix, too, Todd, Well, it really is. It's just like, okay, we must allocate primary first and foremost. Here's the money we need to put in the pension system to keep it alive and to comply with the settlement agreement. We only have a window of opportunity here and it's quickly running out, and it, lily is getting worse. So here's the money done, what's
left over right right? Absolutely, and then we'll divide that up among maybe infrastructure, repairing roads and keeping bridges together, and the fleet which is falling apart apparently got to have more money allocated to that and some other issues we'll talk about with Todd. Censor, Well, do you have any good news to talk about with what's going on the city today? Todd pause, seven thirty five. Right now, if you have KC detox station, get rid of your pain,
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Nine fifty five KRC.
SHODNA nine says the following about the weather. Sunny sky is today, maybe a few isolated showers are stormed, possible later this afternoon eighty six for the high clear of night seventy tomorrow, high in ninety with humidity and another chance of isolated rain in the afternoon. Clear skies every night, muggy in seventy one, and a decent chance of rain on Saturday. They're saying it's also going to be hot,
going up to ninety one degrees. Seventy one degrees right now, let's get a traffic updates from.
The u SEE Health Traffic Center. You See Health has expert traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting long term recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you see health dot com. I'm seeing the fog clearing outs in a little bit of sunshine this morning. An earlier Stall seventy five northbounded I two seventy one I is just cleared
from the left shoulders. You moving a bit better here, but do you have some pockets of heavy traffic like an I seventy five south one Gaalworth Road to Paddock Road. I'm Heather Pasco in fifty five krcing the talk.
Station seven on a Thursday. Brian Thomas here with Citizen Watchdog todds In's or check out his podcast. Citizen Watchdog deals with a lot of the issues that we're going through this morning. City Cincinnati focused issues. We talked earlier about violence, We talked about the pension problem. We've got a simple problem to solve. You just need to allocate the money up front and sufficient quantities that you'll be able to replenish the pension pursuing to the settlement agreement
from twenty fifteen by calendar year twenty forty five. I mean, it sounds like you have forever to do this, but it only gets worse. Still blows my mind now, which leads me to the question before we get to mismanagement and lack of accounty, lack of accountability from city leaders on a variety of other areas, including like the fleet fifty percent of which I guess is out of service, maintenance up key prepares. Some of it needs to be replaced.
It's one of the reasons we had problem with snow removal, fire trucks, all that kind of stuff. That's right so another simple you know, yeah, gotta take care of it. Maintenance, upkeep, and replacement is a simple function of government. It's a known entity. Do you get the impression. And I asked you this specifically, are they just asleep at the wheel or are they dealing with something else that's a higher priority for I mean from from their perspective for the use of the city taxpayer dollars.
Yeah. Well, the the agenda that that they carry out is very progressive, all of these programs for you know, the social programs, et cetera. They have a financial freedom blueprint that I'm looking into that is just a variety of things that they're funding. I think I think I counted like eleven million dollars going into their financial freedom program.
What the hell is financial freedom program?
You It's it's hard to it's hard hard to believe. But they have, like I don't know, twenty different things they're working on to promote financial freedom of you know, various segments of the population. What does that even mean? Financial freedom? For example, they have appropriated money to give to kids for savings accounts, right, they do things like that, and I don't have the list with me, but it's well wait a minute, I do have the list with me.
I'll give you an example, okay, all right, it's launch a program to prevent eviction by supporting tenants with legal services and emergency assistants. They're going to fund that at a million dollars. That was a couple of years ago. Okay, So those are those are the kind of things that they do. They give. It's it. It follows a very detailed analysis of you know, how the underserved populations be came underserved, and how they're going to work out of that.
All right, let me just walk through this logically if I can. So you're out there in the world, you're having a problem paying the rent. City of Cincinnati will give you money to cover the hole you're in, So you get your rent paid? Yes, then what about next month? Unless you change that person's circumstance to where they have a job and can afford to make enough money to cover rent, then the problem is never going to go away.
You're just constantly providing handouts to folks who are dealing with that circumstance.
Right, And I don't really know exactly how they administer the program, but.
Oh like going back to the other programs, you don't know how they administer.
But they have a lot going on in that regard. They have a lot going on with the financial freedom, they have a lot going on with the Green Cincinnati Plan, they have a lot going on with this alternative to respond to a response.
Crisis, rethink the police component.
And that's all related to this Act for since And they have all of these things going on, and you really have to wonder whether any of them are working. And they don't have the thing that bothers me the most that there's no oversight in the city whatsoever.
Right, there's no inspector general.
Right, they have an internal audit manager, and I think she's issued some a few good reports, but I also don't think that the city council reads the reports and the fleet the fleet audit, the audit of the city's fleet is a prime example. She issued her audit on the problems with the fleet in January of twenty four, a year before this winter storm Blair, and had the city council read the report or even this, I don't
even know if the city manager reads the report. Maybe they could have taken care of some of this stuff.
Well, I'm a little suspect on your conclusion, it is maybe they could have taken care of this, and any responsible elected official would have. But going back to their you know, the settlement of the pension program, I mean that is a settlement. There is an obligation, legal obligation to fund it. They didn't do that, and I'm sure they're all aware of that. So priorities. I think there's
a failure of priorities here on the Council. Seven forty five one more with Todd Zenzer, with Ivan a few more of these related issues after I mentioned Affordable imaging services. Affordable men Imaging dot com is where you find them online.
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Fifty five KRC.
Chane nine first on one. Forecast sunny skyes today if you isolated showers and storms may pop up later today. Eighty six will be our highest mandy overnight with clear skies ninety to height. Tomorrow it'll also be very humid and a chance of isolated rain in the afternoon. Clear overnight, muggy and seventy one and a good chance of rain. They say for Saturday, it's going all the way up to ninety one on Saturday. Right now, it's seventy one in ty for traffic from the.
U See Health Traffic Center. You See Health has expert traumacare focusing on prevention, treating injuries, and supporting long term recovery and rehabilitation. Learn more at you seehealth dot com. Traffic is heavy and slow. We've got some backups on I seventy five northbound between Buttermill Pike and Twelfth Street. It's also slow on I four seventy one northbound between Bellevue and I seventy one. I'm Heather Pasco on fifty five krc.
The talk station.
Seven fifty fifty five KRCB talk station speaking of crime in the Greaterston Saidy area. Aaron Winer is going to He's the Clifton Community Council, also running for council as a charter Right about the street takeover incident that's going to take place. After the top of the R News, then we'll hear from Jay Ratliff, closed out in a real positive note with our iHeartMedia aviation expert. Nothing positive on our discussion and all the discussion has been a
wonderfully enlightening one Todd Zenzer in studio. He's our citizen watchdog going through what I would argue failure of priorities by the decision making on council and the mayor went through quite a few of these. You mentioned the sidewalk repair. Yes, obviously we have a huge infrastructure problem in the city. I had the railway wave. Money was supposed to generate sufficient revenue to handle the roads and existing infrastructure. We still have a pothole problem. I don't know they've ever
repaved Sunset had to get that in there. But sidewalk repair now is sidewalk repair. This is something that they allocated money for.
Yes, they've started a pilot program on sidewalk repair, funded at one hundred thousand dollars, which and again the way that the way it works is people calling to complain about their neighbor's sidewalks, right, and the city goes out and evaluates and they give it a grade of good, fair, and condemned. Right, So if you're fair, you need to fix it, but we're not going to order you to fix it. But if it's condemned, you're ordered by the city to fix it.
The sidewalk is the property owner's responsibility.
That's that's the way the municipal code reads right now.
Yes, interesting, even though the property owner didn't build the sidewalk in the first place, the city built it.
That's that's right.
Okay, but you got to pay for it yourself.
That's right. And so I guess one of the members of council got complaints or somebody gave her a good idea to use railway money to fix the sidewalks. So that's what she wants to do. And then the Vice mayor jumps in and she joins the UH. She joins the effort, but for only for the rising fifteen neighborhoods, So this is going to be limited to the to seven neighborhoods identified by the UH. The DOTE the Department
of Transportation. And the thing is that that the department already has a sidewalk repair program and it's they they you know, they do take care of like the gutters and the and the curves and things like that, and the property owner takes care of the sidewalks themselves. So it's a kind of a joint effort. And if you go back and look at the list of the four hundred million dollars in deferred maintenance that the city generated during the campaign. Although I've never seen four hundred million.
I've seen two hundred and fifty. Residential sidewalks are not on that list. So we have another four hundred million dollars worth of infrastructure to take care of. Why would we add to that by taking on the responsibilities that's right?
Now, Well, it's the same thing as paying rent for people who can't pay the rent. Right, Yes, if I can't pay the rent, I'm sure as hell can't afford to pay, they have my sidewalk replaced.
That's right. So it, as you mentioned, it's a matter of priorities. But it seems to me that we should be tackling that four hundred million dollars before we take on additional and it would it would be about two million dollars if we were to fix If the city were to fix every condemned sidewalk in the city, which they say is about seven hundred and fifty a year, it'd be about two million dollars a year. The average cost they say for repairing sidewalks is twenty five hundred bucks.
All right, Let I mean, I guess a couple of questions on that. They also have hundreds and hundreds of road miles that they're supposed to be repairing each and every year. They have the money that's supposed to be allocated for that, but they don't stay on top of it.
They keep getting further and further behind. So even if they said, all right, here's two million dollars we're going to allocate toward repairing the sidewalks, that doesn't mean that they are actually going to get repaired in any given calendar year.
That's right, Just like the extra money that we're going to get for the rail sale, there's no guarantee that they're going to have the capacity to spend it. I mean, the city staff is only so big. They're contracting capabilities or only so much. They can only do so much in a period of time, and so the city council member she wants to come in and add to their workload.
Even the city manager, she wrote a memo about all this, even she pointed out that, well, you know, if we do this sidewalk repair program that these council members are talking about, we're not going to be able to do the other part of our program or it's going to impact our ability to do that, but the council members don't care. They think that we have limited staff resources, and they just pile it on.
Todd Zenzer shining a bright light on the I would argue dysfunction since a city council and the mayor. Well, I'm not going to solve all these problems today, but thankfully Todd has been identifying them. It seems to be that some of them are rather easy to ident or to fix if they prioritize properly and put aside their pet projects behind the scenes that they seem to be more broadly focused on. Todd, You're a blessing to our community.
I can't thank you enough for the work that you do watching out for these things and reporting regularly on your Facebook page and your Citizen Watchdog podcast. Folks, bookmark that one and make sure you check out what Todd has to say. Todd, I'll look forward to having you back in studio soon.
I'd love to be here. Thank you.
I know you're going to have another unlimited list of things to talk about. Seven fifty five fifty five kr S the talk station we're in here from Aaron Winer from the Clifton Community Council on the street takeover incident. He'll join the program after the news, follow by Jay Ratliffe. I sure hope he can stick around. Still be called the twelve Day War. I suppose that's what we were
nicknaming it already. Another update at the top of the hour, the use of military force fifty five Karez the talk station.
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