You're twenty twenty four election headquarters.
Our country's just falling apart and we need a major change. Fifty five krs the talk station eight oh five.
If you're a fifty five PRCD talk station, Bryan Thomas here, wishing you a very, very happy Friday.
I hope you have some great plans for the weekend.
I was really looking forward to this all morning, ever since I saw it. A proposal by a former House remember Tom Brinkman. He's currently running for Hamlin County Auditor. Everybody knows who owns property here in Hamilton County and basically outside as well. Property taxes went through the roof. Some people got lucky and there's only one up maybe nine percent. Others are facing a sixteen percent and even higher property tax rate, and many people can't afford it.
You got a senior in the House on a fixed income.
They cannot manage a property tax bill that goes up that much. Maybe a solution is in Columbus. But Tom Brikman has a solution. He's just turned in a proposed charter amendment and it's made the obviously made the news rounds, supported by, among others, Adam Kaylor, who's running for Hamilton
County Commissioner to take some of the railroad money. The one point six billion dollars is CINCINNTI put in trust when they sold the Cincinni Southern Railway and take six hundred million of that to put it in a separate fund to help people with their property taxes. Tom Brakman, Welcome to the fifty five Cassey Morning Show. It's great to have you on to talk about this today.
Well, thank you very much for having me.
Now, I guess the first question across is my mind. We were told over and over again, and I was not in favor of the sale. I had Adam on a bunch of times. I had other experts on the subject talking about how stupid it was to sell it.
But here we are. They sold it.
They put the money in trust, but they promised us until they were blue in the face that this money could only be used for existing infrastructure they're going to generate. They claim eighty eight million dollars a year on this investment. I don't know what the market dropping the other day, whether that's even possible story to be told later on it.
But the point is they take the money from the revenue that's generated, and they must work on the hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure needs we had because well, for the last four decades, I guess they've ignored roads and bridges and core infrastructure and they got themselves into a real pickle. And now you want to take six hundred million to that to tell people with property taxes, how is this going to work in practice? And is
it even legal given the background behind the sale. I know it's a long winded way of opening this up, Tom, but that's all I got, man, Okay, okay.
Well, first of all, we received approval of our petition yesterday from the city slicter. That means is a workable document, it would work. We can take six hundred million, put it in a fund and get it to give taxpayers relief immediately, meaning in January. In January, the citizens living the property owners in the City of Cincinnati would see an eighteen point seven reduction of their property tax bill
because the fund would make that payment for him. That fund should last about ten to twenty years, depending like you said, on investments.
Now, so real quick though, with the fund being established, assuming it gets approved on the ballot, it goes into a fund to generate income much in the say, the same way the one point six billion is generating. It's actively managed by investments. But you would have to dip into principle immediately on the six hundred million because it wouldn't have time to generate the kind of revenue you need to relieve taxes.
Correct, right, right, Well, we would we would use about it's about fifteen million dollars, okay, would be taken out of the six hundred million dollar fund. Now, I've seen projections where it could go on in perform, you know, forever. You know, the markets come and go. I don't want to say that to folks. I'm saying it would last between fifteen and twenty years. But the way it's structured
is the fund would be started in fifteen days. The city would contact the county auditor in fifteen days find out what their tax bill would be, and then fifteen days after that they write a check to the county treasurer, so that when we would see our bills, we would see that we owe one thousand dollars, let's say, but we would also see on the bill that one thousand dollars has been covered by this city fund and we
see that type of reduction and into substantial reduction. It's about eighteen point seven percent depending on what type area you live in. And you know, if you're paying for your trees or you know, your sidewalk repair, you know that type of thing. Now, you know, we have home rule in the City of Cincinnati, in the state of Ohio. It's in our constitution, so at charter city can take care of what they want to do within their boundaries. Now, I've been in the legislature and i know they're always
trying to cut back on that. But we meaning like when the city wants to ban guns, or the city wants to ban plastic bag, right, there's always attempts to cut back on that. But generally, if the city wants to take their money and waste it on a street car, no state legislation is going to stop that. If they want to spend it on a spray park or something like that. So our ability to been just on the taxpayers to take care of the old time people. I'm an old time person. I'm sixty six, I've been in
the city my whole life. Nobody's given me tax abatement, nobody's setting up a fund for me. So my ancestors who were here in eighteen forty, so they were around when they built that railroad. They were assessed property tax to pay for that railroad. It's fitting that the people who own property in the city now get relief from that fund. And I think it's only the right thing to do.
Now.
Is this going to be index based on income or ability to pay a tax? Is it going to be a uniform across the board? How's the amount calculated generally speaking? And are there you know, proposals along those lines built into the process.
No, it's very simple. The city right now brings in about twenty nine million from this tax, and that is what we will cover, regardless whether you're a small business, regardless if you're just a senior who's struggling to make your payments. And yeah, you know, some lord's going to get a cut, and I'm sorry that's the way it goes. But the bottom line is we're going to cut it for all property tax the payers in the City of Cincinnati, and just it makes it, you know, keep a simple,
stupid system, And that's that's how we plan to do it. Now. It's interesting we used to index our increase in our property tax in the City of Cincinnati. Beginning this year, city council took that index off, so it was going to go up from twenty nine million to thirty two million that they were going to bring in. And also this is a city council who is proposing an increase in the earnings tax. So here they get this big railroad money. They they're they're letting the property tax go up.
I get rid of that, holding it the same with twenty nine million, and then they want earned more earnings tax. And I you know, I drive on Columbia Parkway for it worsen away. It's a mess. Yeah, but garbage isn't picked up. It's a mess the street. They say, oh, we're going to do these little bumps to stop people from rolling through the stoplight. You drive across seventh Drive
across seventh Street. When I dropped off my petition yesterday at City Hall to get the seventy one oh you got his bom bom bom bom bom bom boom boom boom, the air false terrible. Yeah, and they're and they're yeah.
Yeah, well I've been I've been using a default phrase of late Fred One of my listeners called in self identified black man living in the city of Cincinnati. I worried about national scope politics, but he wants his road fixed. All Fred wants is somebody to come out and patch his damn street.
You know, that's a simple ask.
And this is what this is what leads us to this position, Tom, is the city under Democrat rule for how long? How far back do you have to go to find a Republican that ran the city of Cincinnati. Was it Gene Ruleman or something or Ken Blackwell? But don't even They have neglected Fred and everybody else's road in chasing stuff and things and bright shiny new objects like streetcars. Point valid. And you mentioned raising the earnings
tax rate, and I think this is the reason. Maybe they know, based upon the promises and whatever restrictions are placed on the one point six billion dollars, that they have to put that toward existing infrastructure and therefore can't build the second leg of the street car. Maybe they want all this extra revenue because money's fungible. If it doesn't come from the earnings on the one point six billion investment, then they can use it to go for
new shiny objects and things. That they want exactly exactly, So we think that we need to take care of the current property tax payers. The people have been here for a long time. The people are the heart and soul of the city. Although they've forgotten about that. Our leaders say have.
And this would take care of them for you know, fifteen twenty years, and then they can figure it out. I'll be moved off the stage. The next group can come along, but at least help the people who you know. You mentioned the people getting increases. There are three hundred and fifty thousand properties in Hamlin County, sixty thousand properties a twenty five percent increase or more, and a lot of those were in Avondale and Price Hill and Westwood.
Yeah, more side.
I mean, some of them were outrageous. And these people are struggling. And I know the number of people who failed to pay their property tax in June. I don't want to say it's the highest, but it definitely went up over the previous year because people just couldn't forward to pay it.
I certainly understand that I've talked to some of them.
You mentioned slumlords earlier, you had to, you know, so yeah, well, some slumlords are going to get the benefit of this. But the positive potential impact of that is because slumlords also are facing increases in property tax, sometimes substantial. That's a pass through that goes along to the renter, so the rents will increase. So by taking away the sting of this tax increase, maybe the rents won't be increased.
Well, that's right, and you know, you hope people do the right thing. That's the invisible hand of the free market system. You know, if all of them get some decrease there, then maybe they decrease the rents or they take the money and improve the property. You know. And because people can get up and move too, so it's not like they're locked into that place. But it's one one landlord said, hey, I'm going to lower my rates.
Maybe people go that way. So and but you know, again there's a lot of small businesses, the local hardware store, the local shoeshine guy. You know those places need help too, because they have to push those prices onto us.
Yes, that's certainly true.
Well, this screams for a legislative solution from Columbus. This property tax increased the way they calculated. I thought that they were working on a fix on that in Columbus. So what happened to that? And did you reach out to our elected officials and Columbus to inquire about this?
Well, after sixteen years in Columbus, I know how slow they move up there. And I'm not saying that they won't do anything. But we wanted to jump on this right away. And you know, again we were black, not that we wanted it, but we're blessed with having this big fund after the sell of the railroad because the one thing I want to make clear, this will not cut services. This is a fund that will make the
same payment. The city budget will get the same amount of money because it'll come from this budget, from this this fund we set up, so city will get their twenty nine million or thirty two million this year and there will be no cuts to police or fire or social programs or all the stuff they do. And you know, because that's what they generally do when you want to cut taxes, they go, oh, we're going to have to
cut services. Nope, there'll be no cut unless they cause a cut, but they'll get the same amount of money. But yeah, waiting for Columbus, it just it just takes a long time to get stuff there because we're a very diverse state. And you know what, the people on Mason,
they don't care, and their rest doesn't care. And now now they care when they got to keep a tennis center and they want to the city is in the state to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to keep that, and we kind of come along because you know, that's that's politics. We make the sausage. But you know, so they may get around to doing something, but it just takes time.
Now, what of the argument before we part company? Tom, and I've been enjoying this conversation. It's enlightening. What are the argument that, well, if you take six hundred million from the one point six billion, that's going to be less money generated because there's less principle in there, and therefore we'll have less money to fix the projects that we've neglected now for the past three decades.
Well, my understanding is the appetite or the ability of the city to actually do projects is you know, fifteen to twenty million a year. So it's a long way to get rid of that one point six billion or whatever it is. But I will say one thing might contradict you a little or not contradict what they're saying. I think they have designs on that money that they're not telling us. I'm pretty sure they want to build a big with that money. I'm pretty sure they want
to do streetcar expansion with that money. It's the how do they market that and call, well, this is infrastructure. We already have a streetcar, so we're just improving existing streetcar. Oh, we need an arena. It's a Remember they expanded the convention Center twenty years ago, declaring it was an act of war. We were and we were in a state of war with other cities who had convention centers, and they they that's the excuse they use to raise our
earnings tax to pay for the convention center expansion. So they'll use any argument or anything they have to to do things like those big shiny objects like you talked about. So I'm not so sure that they planned on doing fixing that guy street who wants to pottobles fix with that money. I think they have their designs on something big, so I have teb can ride off into another office or in the DC or something like that. So I'm not I questioned their motives.
I do tootos we're not gonna get an argument from you on that one. That's sort of a I got my popcorn out waiting to see for I'm waiting for the Shenanigans declaration along the lines of what you're talking about. But at least in the meantime, we have what they promised, and we can all make an argument that whatever they're trying to do that's new is not existing infrastructure. And those arguments will be made whether or not your proposal
goes through. So, since you got the language approve, you need how many signatures and in what time in order to secure it being on the ballot.
We need about I think eighty seven hundred signatures, so we're going for about nine thousand. We need to get them within the next few weeks. You know, the dates kind of flexible. You know, there's a hard date, but there's some others saying I've seen it go later earlier, depending on reasons. But yeah, I'd like to get them this month. And we do have a way where people can get.
To the.
In touch with us. We have a Facebook page which is Hamilton County Ohio Homeowners Hamilton County Ohio Homeowners. That's our Facebook page and We also have an email EHCH which stands for Hamilton County Homeowners eighth Unite at gmail dot com. If you go to that either send us an email, we can get your petition to circulate, we
can get your signature. We're going to have gatherings like at Sinley Margaret or you know, restaurants or breweries where people can come and sign and also get petitions to get their folks out there. We've been using this time to organize people. So when we get those petitions, which is going to be early next week, we're going to hit the ground running, yeah, and get your signatures.
Well, one thing it certainly does, it takes politics out of it. Every single property owner in the entire city gets a benefit from this without any you know, picking and choosing the winners and losers, which typically comes from politics. So I understand that. Tom Brickman, thanks thanks for explaining this to my listeners and me. I truly appreciate it. And I'll have my popcorn out on this. What is well? Tom?
All right, well you have a great weekend.
Thank you, Thanks brother, you too, say twenty one fifty five KRC detalk station. Colin Electric will take great care of you for all your residential electric needs. They pride themselves on the honesty and their reputation, and they deserve the reputation they have, which is an honest one. Been family owned operated since nineteen ninety nine. Andrew Collen is outstanding team of certified licensed electricians taking care of your
big projects, small projects, and everything in between. A plus with a Better Business Bureau ten year wiring warranty on everything from the smallest project like an outlet installation to rewiring your whole home. They'll do it right and you will get that wiring warranty and it will be done at the right price.
So call them with confidence.
I always mentioned that Colin Electriccincinnati dot com see u l E and Colin Electriccincinnati dot com.
Here's the number.
It's five one three two two seven four one one two two two seven for one one two fifty five KRC and iHeartRadio Station, the exclusive audio home on the NBC's coverage of the twenty twenty four pair Solympics