You don't want to be an American.
Scott flown back on seven hundred ww first snowfall yesterday. But if you're in the city of Cincinnati and you went to the new and highly publicized snowplow tracker website, it was not working, it wasn't up. Why well, he's I would call him mister Plow. He just ran a very successful re election campaign and he wanted to be council member. Seth Walsh. Congratulations. By the way, I'm glad you got your seat back or retained your seat.
I guess I should say thanks, Scott, I appreciate it.
This morning, Yeah, you too. We talked a lot about transportation. I saw your you know, your campaign ads featured snow removal issues. It's one of the big big things for people. Obviously they felt made that connection, being November and all that.
Uh So, let's go back to this now. We know the headaches and heartbreak we had this time last year, or maybe a little bit later earlier than last year, but two weeks ago the city I think it was two weeks ago, we had this, you know, this whole crowdsourcing thing, and we're having a contest to come up with a better way to get the information about plows working.
And we've got these investments and we've instructed all the plow drivers and workers how to use these tablets and we put them in the plows and you can see if it's coming down your road or where they are, and if you uh, if they're missing you, you can somehow send a message back to Central Command, the High Command.
We'll get a plow to you. We'll get your plowed out. We did all this. It snowed yesterday and it wasn't on Why.
Well, I think some bl answer Scott is there weren't snow clouds out there yesterday. The ground was pretty warm, so snow wasn't sticking. They did a lot of pre treatment for the streets and you know it resulted in you know, pretty safe clean streets very quickly yesterday. But I think there's a fair there's a fair question ye there. You know, why why are we not including when we're pre treating the streets so you know your streets getting precreated.
There's a lot of information. I think people love to know that we're not quite there yet. But yesterday some blasters just there weren't clouds out there because the weather was taking care of it for us.
Yeah, I think typically, and it's I think it's an important point is that we were plowing. But certainly you know where I lived and coming from Warren County to Hamblin County, the roads were well, they were in need of some some treatment for sure. You know, maybe not plowing technically, but I think when you're a constituent, when you're a voter, when you're a taxpayer homeowner, you look at it going I don't care plowing or just treating. I just want to know you guys are doing your job.
I just want to know you're out there tackling the problem. And I log on the site that you guys pouted the hell out of and it's saying, wow, there's nothing to see here.
Forget it. I go here we go again with the communication.
I think that's I don't think that's an unfair analysis of this.
No, No, it's not unfair at all. And I talk about city communication all the time. I think it's the only thing we know about each other at this stage. But yesterday was the first day that really builded two debut things. I think we needed to let me back it up. We actually got a briefing yesterday that was coincidentally prepared for the snow as planned, and one of the things they talked about was there are forty four major areas of failures that we had in this last
snow emergency back in January. I think a lot of people like to try to downplay and say, well, was penaches of snow. What did you expect us to do? And the answer is pow it. And the reality is like, there was a lot of reasons why we couldn't get it resolved, and there are forty four major areas to
resolve it. They have been working incredibly diligently, and you know that I'm not wont to hould back on criticism, so I hope this comes across genuinely here because they have worked very diligently to get the entire operation scrapped and rebuilt since January, including bringing a new director of
Public Services who has just impressed me. A snow end. Yesterday, they they debuted it and I think, like many things of the city, we just missed the market on how we can do the pr I think we forget that people want to play with the new shiny things just
as much as we want to debut them. And so yesterday, you know, it snows, and you're like, where's the snowpod tracker, the ones that's designed for this, And so there's a lot of disappointment, including myself initilin and I asked that the briefing, like why aren't we showing off the snowpops, like because there's not snowflops And they're like, oh, that makes sense. But I do think that there was a
lot more we could do in the communications. I think there's more we could do to showcase what we're doing to get people out there, and had you ride along in the snow polically like here's how it's dramatically different, because it is, and there's still a lot more work we have to do, right, let's not sugarcoat it. There's a lot of work that had to go to rebuildings entire operation.
Yeah.
I so were you treating streets at all yesterday during the event or was it just a pre treat and hey, it's going to melt.
Anyway, to my understanding was we did a lot of pre treatment. There were some areas that we were getting reports on that we were getting out there and doing treatment on. But within the city limits. It sounded like they had it pretty well under control, and that the pretreatment did this job. One of the things that I don't think they've talked about that and it sounds insane, but these guys actually went out to cities that experienced massive snowfall, Denver being the most recent one. Same how
do you get handled this? And they took those lessons, they came back and to used it to get ready yesterday. And you have short of a few car accidents that I've heard about, which you know, I think is on all of us to make sure we're driving safe and snow weather. I'm from Michigan, you're from Buffalo. We know what this is like. Yep. It sounds like things actually worked pretty smoothly yesterday in terms of the actual road condition.
And that's the hardest part. Ste I guess that's my point. It's the lack of communication. It's getting the ball to the goal line and fumbling. And I look at this way, for example, our peers around this Louisville, Kentucky Transportation candidate Cabinet O dot Warren County, Butler County. They're active on social media saying hey, we're treating the road street. I was looking through this morning school and so the only
thing on there was come and meet. I think a police dog was the only text or the only social message from a post from the city. At the very least, you know, communicate that on social and say, hey, listen, we only turned the app on when we are plowing streets, not pre treating streets. And then people go, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. But to leave people hanging like that is I'm that's just incompetent, isn't it.
You know, it's frustrating. I think it's it's frustrating, and I think it's part of a culture mindset that I'm personally trying to get shifted the city Hall, which is they try to solve the problems, they don't necessarily communicate how they solved the problem. And that's what we saw yesterday. Hey the problem is solved. The nobody knows the problem solved. I worried about why the snap protract and you did.
All this hype about the app, and so people are naturally going to go, oh, we'll see why you know what's going on with and it's like, wait, it's down, and it feels like you failed when actually everything worked.
Right. You know, there's nothing worse than turning in your paper, but the professor loses it. So you're like, well you did you didn't do the work in the first place, right. Ultimately, we have to get better if you are as a city. I keep saying this over and over again to you. I've said it to them personally. I had one of their offices yesterday as the snow's coming down, and I was like, why are we not showing everybody what we're doing?
Because we've put in a lot of work. You were ready for this, We've knocked it out of the ballpark. I think you'd be blown away if you meet Mark, you know, when you get a chance to get him anio to talk about the work he does for public services, to make sure that we are ready. But then when you're right, when we missed the low, the lay ups to say, hey, it's the first snowfall of the years. Let's see where the free treatments are. How do you know what are we doing. Let's show you what our
snow piles look like. Let's show you what the tractor looks like. We did hype it up a lot. We weren't ready to show off our shiny new toys. U let people play with them, and I think we can do better at that. But I also think that that's a pr issue and the real problem of making sure
people get safely to it from work. We actually did great on it, and the only complaint you've had so far was him take County Warren County, which you know, I'm gonna take the rare moment to be able to say it wasn't the City of Cincinnati that failed on that part.
Yeah, it was.
I mean, it was a horrific event by any means. It was a little bit of snow yesterday, but a good test I think for the system. And it seems like you know, and I think it's also unfair all the people you mentioned, Seth is like everyone will blame them and go, well, you I screwed this up. No, we did our jobs. It was just a lack of communication. And it hasn't been easier. It's never been easier in
our lifetime. Is only going to get easier to get this information through social even a social media or hell, even on the web page itself. But say, hey, listen, we pre treated the roads. Here's if you're looking for plows, here's why at least explain it to me.
We're going to that website.
And I think that is also, quite honestly a systemic problem for the city, because it's not just this which is relatively minor. Let's face it, I'm trying to make a big deal out of something minor. But I think it's also emblematic the whole problem is. I mean, look at the police department, lack of communication from the Mayor's office when it came to Chief Thiji and the crime and only recognizing the good things, and the appearance that aftabs only there for ribbon cuttings and the like. Nw
He won re election handily, there's no debating that. But the problem has always been communication with the City of Cincinnati, and I just don't know why we're so bad at it.
I wish i'd answer on that. And again, I think it's a cultural issue. I think it's part of the form of government that we have. There's an expectation, I think from the citizenry that the answers come from the politicians, and so the administrative side has taken the philosophy of like, we're going to get the problems solved, we'll lot the politicians to be the politicians and go do the marketing a PR well, with all due respect, I'm an economic
development guy. I'm not a PR guy. I'm not a guy who knows how to put you know, I can find really hilarious means on Instagram them and so I think that's where the disconnect is. And I think part of the job of the politicians and conversations that you and I are having here and that I had yesterday, is to say to the administration, like, the job's not done.
If you're not communicating it to the public, you have an equal responsibility to the public to tell them what you've done, to showcase it and frankly be proud of the work you did, because in this case, you know this is literally and you have a listener that has sent me a letter almost every time I have to come on here about the snow plows the situation saying Juius will never solve this problem because for fifty plus
years we haven't solved the problem. Scott, I can keep prett like we solved it, but we haven't solved it. And this time they've put in a lot of time and effort, and I'm I've seen the work that they put into it. Let's go, let's go showcase it. Let's go show it off and brag about it. Let's let's let you see how much we've fre treated the streets.
Let's just let you see how we change the beat juice that we're using to be able to make sure they're actually aggresed up on it so that yesterday it doesn't go across by And all we're complaining about is the snow cloud tractor wasn't on and working. And we may communicate about that, right that's actually a win, but it's not framed as a win because we're not doing a good job of talking about it. And we have
to continue to push the administration. We have to continue to push the city and have that expectation that there are a lot of cities that are doing a really great job on how they communicate their work and their success, which makes people feel more confident city, because right now we have to recognize that for decades we have failed in some of these areas, and now we have to
earn your trust back. It's not just about saying like trust me, I'm stuff wallsh right, It's about saying trust me and by the way, go look at yourself.
And the thing is too you know, it's a young, vibrant, democratic led city and so you've got a lot of young people in this administration, and that seems like an easy thing to fix relative to you know, get a and maybe not an influencer per se, but someone who is knowledgeable in social media and have them putting videos together, put it out on social You know, how we're changing the beat juice recipe and all that.
That seems relativelyazy, and I know other cities do it.
Yeah, I mean I would think so too. Again, I'm not a pr expert, so I don't want to be over here saying exactly how it is. But I agree, and I'm just as frustrated that we don't do a better job at our victory left. And I hope the message that they hear here is we want to celebrate you.
People want to talk about it. If people want to feel to talk about what's actually positively happened in the city, you get the absence of talking about the positive things that we do because we just expect you're going to pick it up. You're only going to talk about the negative things. And when the negative things happen, it feels like that's all that's happening in the City of Cincinnati. That's not the case. We have a lot of things that we should be very proud of, but we should
talk about them outside of the month. Leave us to an election, because we do some really great work at the City of Cincinnat. They are great people that are dedicating their lives to it. Let's talk about it, let's celebrate it, and we don't do a good job on that.
You need to be more like You need to be more like Trump, for God's sakes, and break your arm, pat yourself on your back.
That's that's one way to do it. I mean, again, I don't even run my social media, so I'm really not want to criticize it too hard on this too much, you know, but there is a point to say. And you know again, we literally had the snowfall yesterday. This is this is an easy layoup to celebrate it earlier.
It is.
I'm glad to get the chance to talk about it, but I wish that we did more to celebrate it.
Wait, we had some calls in our newsroom about it and it wasn't about the the streets. Mean, it's like, why isn't the snowplot tracker working? And people were more mad about the lack of communication. It was because the streets were relatively okay. They weren't like, you know, people couldn't get up the cut in the hill, you know, the typical things we've seen when we get a lot
of snow. It was more like you guys, you touted this thing, you spent the money, you did the whole contest for it, and then it's a nothing burger When we actually had a little snow, I think people just wanted to see it. To your point, And the communication thing, I'll point this out too, is and this is just another example of Okay, so interim chief.
Henny is the interim chief.
We're going to get a new public information officer for CPD, which I think is needed. They're at full time squat officers, all watches, the crime center hours have been extended, and all these other things that Henny's doing. But back to the central thing. He's the interim chief or is he
the actual chief at this point? I mean interims generally hold on and not don't do anything until someone else comes in and officially becomes chief and they put their stamp on it if Terry Thiji is still the chief, technically, why is he making all these changes?
Again communication, Yes.
I mean very much so. I think that's a unique situation. I forget he pop on my office yesterday as talking about this one of your colleagues, Scott. But I do think that's the unique situation sense that interim Chief Henny has inherited a situation where we have a public safety crisis that we've been trying to get our hands wrapped thrown. I think the worst thing we could do is just put it in them in there and not try what
their ideas are. And he has great support from the police department, so I have great confidence ideas he's putting forward or their suggestions for how they can solve this. But to your point, we do need to communicate that way.
We need to have the press for a while, we need to have the introduction to the community because as a minimum for the contract, the investigation is going to go to the end of this year, so he's going to be the inner in police chief for at least two months and that is not an intant insignificant amount
of time. They're very busy period in Cincinnati, Like, yeah, how do we do better at communicating and making sure people feel comfortable with him, whether that's just the short term or long term, and make sure they're comfortable with the decisions he's making. I do think you're spot on. A lot of the problems that we experienced this summer could have maybe been a little bit more mitigated if we communicated better. And I've said that that's why one
of the reasons I come on here. We just have to keep challenging it to say, hey, we can do better on that. Because we challenge the snow situations, do better on that. And look, they did better on that. And as I said to you last week, my job is that you guys never even know my name because things are going so smoothly, and so yesterday I think things went smoothly enough that we're complaining about communication. That's a great problem to have.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess I get what you're saying is, hey, the plows aren't running and so, but if you're treating streets, you put a you know, the the plows that had the assault on them, because actually, for a minute it was they were on and we were watching it early on in the morning and said, okay, there's only two streets that I don't know. It was like seven o'clock that been done and then you switched it off, and I went, wow, wonder for that having
problems with the system or I couldn't put it together. Now, what you're saying makes sense, because if you had two trucks out there that were just salting the trouble spots, that now makes sense in retrospect. But if I'm a taxpayer, if I'm a property or you know, citizen of Cincinnati, I look at it and go, what the hell are
they doing here? Just like the breakdown and communication, we just need to I know we've been talking about doing better, but it seems like with the police department getting a new public information officer, it seems like the city needs a little bit more that someone to handle the communications. And maybe it's a departmental thing. Maybe streets and bridges and the street department needs someone to handle all that
up on social media. Not that we want to spend more money, but communication is key and it really undermines all the hard work that behind the scenes that the city's been doing stuff well.
Well, I mean, we have a small but mighty team handling communications at the city of Cincinnaty, and I don't think it s fielverlooked is that they are putting entriagy in a lot of situations constantly, and so I think again communications, you know, there's a strategy to it some of it. You know, you can choose one way and then you're always wrong and should go the other way. I think what we're talking about here is, you know, how do we get strategic about some of these victories
and talk and talk that way? And part of that is, let's just you know, we just have to encourage them like that the area that I think would be very helpful to be engaged in. That doesn't mean that they're not doing a good job, but they are a small but mighty team here. To your point, we're not spending a lot of money on commun cations of the city. Maybe when you beat that up, maybe that is a conversation we need to have. But those who are working on it deserved the kudos for putting on a lot
of fires constantly throughout the day. There's a lot of Scott cloves in the city trying to get information from the city.
Yeah, yeah, I'll leave it at that.
He is a council member of REELECXS Seth Walsh on the Scott Slane Show on seven hundred WW AKA mister plow and mister development. I was good to have you back, but I'm glad you I'm glad you won your seat.
Well, I appreciate it, Scott, thank you too, Lated all.
Right, appreciate it, thanks so much.
Hopefully got some answers there, and uh, you know, I didn't drive in the city yesterday, but maybe you did.
And how did they do?
By the way, if you're a you're driving in the city yesterday compared to maybe years past, granted to say, very small sample size and a little bit of snow, but how did it all work? Outside of the snowplow Tracker app five one, three, seven, four, nine, seven thousand eight of the Big One talk back on the iHeart Radio app. We'll do that next right after news on seven hundred WW.