You know who you are. What you've cut your grass already, You know who you are on your block. Anybody have on their street the guy that already cut their grass, Jerry, I've got mine across the street and it looks good. It looks good. I'm holding out. But only that's what I'm saying. I'm holding that time. It's time to hold out in Boycott for a little bit here, of course, right, Well, have the front yard. It looks fine at the wooden house. Backyard is really really
fuzzy. I mean it's since you've got the privacy fence with the electronic exactly, it's electrode like if you touch your fence you get electrocuted. Absolutely, So I think you're okay, it doesn't matter, you know that person. I'm sorry, you're right. You don't even have a sign that says electric fence because it's my fence. I don't have to advertise it. It's electric. Uh, but you can't help yourself if you cut the grass. First guy, Well, the guy, Okay. There's two types of people in
my neighborhood. Well after I moved out to Dixie from Dixie Highway into Plane View, there's two types of people and I'm the only person out there who's the second type. There's the type of the person that has a lawn. This is my lawn. Run your toes through my lawn. And there's guys that have a yard. I got a yard. You also have people that
live for yardwork. They literally do it when it's not even necessary. Then we have another guy down the street, a young family who hates cutting his grass, doesn't pay anybody, but eventually does, gets hut his electric mower and cuts it like a green and a golf What about the guy that cuts
his grass like a baseball diamond. He's got the lines, you know, or some of the lines are only three or four feet long, and then he gets a wider as it goes along our fright yard kind of looks like the monsters because you know, there's tall grass there, but it's brown a couple of times. Okay, So we have at least three yard in our neighborhood that have gone in the direction of and there's a sign in each one of the yards. I gotta do this. It's called it's like all natural.
So they planted wildflowers and weeds and everything. So their front lawn are they a pollinator zone is a natural habitat. I gotta do that. So it looks like I'm sorry, it looks like a house in front of you know, the yard in front of a compton in you know, boys and hood, But it is. It looks I think it looks, but it is. It's a I said, that's the smartest guy on the block, right. He never has to do it. So that's the point. He never waters, it, never fertilizes, it doesn't cut it, he doesn't
do anything. You see snakes and rats in the middle of the day in the middle of the day. But he has the sign this is a natural habitat. Can I bring up an argument for that? Yes, okay, let's say a house does do that in a a nice neighborhood. Would that or would that not bring property values down? No? Not in our neighborhood. Because he was like, oh, it's so awesome that he's going natural fertilizers hurt the earth and probably no in e town in my neighborhood, Yeah
it would. If it brings property values down, then your PVA assessment. A lot of hoas would not allow this problem. So you're welcome. You're welcome. I guess we don't have an h O or I don't have an h I specifically made sure I didn't have any. Oh, my gosh, was we did. I've never heard of such a thing. And then I married Susan, moved into her house, and that's the first thing I said is we gotta get a privacy fence. We gotta make it twenty feet tall.
And we started doing this business. And then here comes the hoa, what are you doing to your yard? Whoa? Whoa? Hey, what do you do doing to your yard? I went, what the hell do you care what I'm doing in my yard? My wife? Several years ago, a guy killed two of his neighbors because of the property fence. They were trying to get it down. It was too big, and he eventually shot them home on church. Oh that's right, I remember that. And
then he killed himself. No, I remember that. That's right. It's a tragic story because all the people's that families that are involved in this are like, how did this happen? It's a fence, it's a fence man. That's offensive. All right, question what am I gonna do it? With my eyes closed? Quick question? This is from business first. Okay, let's start with you. Johnny all right, Phil Sheer, Do you know him? Do not know him? Chairman of the Cushman and Wakefield Commercial
Company and Kentucky Incorporated. He says, quote, every citizen has an obligation to support our downtown and to restore the energy and vitality we once enjoyed. We hang on. Is your name, Johnny a responsive in sub circles? It is in the porn industry, Oh yeah, and on the street corner.
I disagree, Yeah, I don't think it's I don't think anybody should be told it's their responsibility to come down here and spend money if they don't want to spend money down here, or if they don't feel safe enough to come down here and spend money. I was just talking about this last night with some friends of ours, talking about you know how you guys were talking about how it used to be when it was safe down here and the police
were out in force and it was a vibrant area. Now everything's moving to Nulu the Highlands. As we talked about yesterday, nobody should be told they have an obligation, not in a free society, to do anything. Dave Jenny's let's say my wife and I felt obligated the other day to go have a drink at the Omni. We'll pay double what it costs out in the county and maybe get shot. I don't have an obligation to do squat. The shooting happened at seven o'clock on a Sunday, which is pretty relatively early.
Let's go get some dinner. Let's go ahead and spend money downtown at the Omni, which is one of the nicest facilities downtown, a great restaurant. Who forget what the name of the restaurant and is in there. But it's like a five star show me that you are rounding up gang bangers and getting them locked up, I'll start to think about it. I'm not I'm hearing rec centers and interrupters and stuff, and I like Mayor Greenberg, but I'm not seeing a ton. That's what I wanted to say is No,
I'm not obligated, nor are you obligated to come downtown. However, are pathetic, lousy Louisville judges. You are obligated to uphold the law, yet you don't. Oh, I feel better, Let's go to my wife. My wife and I. My wife and I get in an argument. I want to play this, so we both go. I feel better. I feel this argument is over over. I feel safe again. Okay, here's the deal. I hate when if you want to ask for my help, don't tell me hey, hey, hey, this is your obligation to help
me. No, no, it's not. Bro. If you want hey, look bro jack b r a h bra jack buster. Oh wow it back. Next thing, you know, you're gonna be saying g or JT yes. And there was a one of the Metro Council members two years ago that screamed at everybody and said what are you doing? And it was all about the crime. And I was like, what am I? What am I doing? Oh? I'm sorry? What am I doing? Oh?
Okay, yes, this is my fault. So again, there are a lot of challenges for every urban area in America, but there is a game. There was a game plan to get here. There's a game plan to get out of it. Right, So people say, why are you all so heart sent on getting the homeless and drug addicts out of the business dittric
downtown. And I will say, if you're trying to sell Louisville, right, if you were selling your house would you would you like a homeless person or a drug addict shooting up on your front porch while you're showing it to perspective buyers. Oh no, no, no, no, no. That's your downtown area, which is so small. Council says you should rent that house to them. I know is a small footprint. It's tiny compared to other cities. This is a difficult stuff. When I come out of the
garage, take it right, then a left on fourth. Oftentimes, even though there's lots of businesses there, there's more homeless people than tourists. Oh, no question, no question. And I was hopeful. With Mary Greenberg, I'm I'm getting less optimistic, and I got admit I was let down when he was on the show and I brought up the Safer Kentucky Acting's Oh wow, I'm not sure I agree with that. Well, listen, the Safer Kentucky Act is a fantastic bill unless you're a criminal. If you're a
criminal, you're probably not gonna like it. But if you're a law abiding, tax paying citizen, that's in your favor. Yeah, we are not horrible people because we want you to enforce the law and just kind of if you want the business district to revitalize and have people hustling and bustle and having a company that comes in here, or how do you meet conventions come through? And how many companies go? You know what? This Downtown Louis was
a nice little town. It is. Maybe we should think about opening an office here. Okay, how do you do that? Well, you don't do it by having all that environment around the convention center. And let me tell you if I'm I don't know how the mayor sit. The seal box is a gem it is. How do you have any drug addicts sitting out front of the sealbag? They are? They are. I'll see him every
morning every morning. Now, when I visited San Francisco, I was in the area where all those nice hotels, five star hotels, and it's downtown, so I was prepared, right. There wasn't any homeless around us now six blocks that way. But the second homeless person would show up, either the security of the hotel or they had these groups of people at San Francisco. They worked cops, but they were whatever would swoop in, You're gone, van gone out. They didn't want the money district to be bothered with
all that and I'm sorry, it doesn't make them horrible people. Well what okay, So let's let's face it. City hall does not want the bums out of the business district. They want them here. So why can't we just set up a booth, get your picture made with the guy making a duty on the sidewalk. You know you make Now it's a tourist attraction. Could we bring back bump fights? Too far? Busted far Jack bra Two things happen, Okay, you take it back, take it back, take
it back, save it from the big game against State this weekend. Two things happened. Mayor Fisher let the town get destroyed during the Breonna Taylor protests and then COVID came along and emptied out the office buildings. So there are a couple of challenges. We were on the cusp of Whiskey Row opening all kinds of things happening downtown, and he let it go in about six months.
It's all it takes. And it happened before because there were riots in the late sixties, yep, and when the Louisville was still vital downtown and a lot of people and that's what in the late sixties early seventies. That's what a lot of folks that lived downtown moved to Saint Matthew's Linden and farther out and out and out. So what happened thirty years later, whatever,
No, fifty years later, you've done You're doing it again. It caught me by surprise when my wife and I stayed at the Seal Box for our anniversary back during the summer and he's like ten o'clock at night, ten thirty at night on a Friday're like, okay, well, let's let's depart the bar a little briefly and go down to Fourth Street live and see what's going on and figured to be the active night life out here, and get some
guy fer is And it was almost a ghost town. There was a handful of people walking through and at the time of night on a Friday night in the summer, should be standing room only out there, with people in and out of the taverns sitting outside. Let's face it, Greg Fisher has done more damage to this city than the nineteen seventy four tornado. One of the biggest, one of the biggest uh groups of people we come into the city every year is the National Street Rode associating. Yeah, and it's a great
bunch of guys and gals. Well they all now street racing. They always have it. They always have a thing, right, are used to everything down here at four Street Live having dinner stuff. They were doing that well. Fisher allowed people just come in and start flipping tables over. These poor guys and gals are from out of town. They don't know what people are screaming in their face. I thought, hey, we're gonna lose this convention. So far we have it. David Beck does a great job of bringing
money in. Thank you. No David Beck, not David Back. Why does he hang around? He has nipples too, Okay, man, stop talking about David Beck's nipples. He's a dignitary, is is? Yeah? Okay? Uh so. And you know there's other things that come in here too that inove that have kids. You know, there's national conventions with high school folks, and I think there were some some math nerds here next last year for something. I don't think that's what the parents don't be after the
eclipse. The parents don't want their kids exposed to some of what's going on downtown now because there's no police enforcement either that drives a factor for what comes to town spring break, I mean spring break's kicking off right now. People. Look, there's so many issues in the world today where you say I have no answers for that. You're like, I just don't have any answers, right. This one has a game plan out. This isn't easy. This has a game plan out. You have a game plan out. If
you want to revitalize downtown, it's a small footprint. Get over yourself, it's a small footprint. Do what's right. And if you know, if you don't want to revitalize downtown, then don't do that. But there's a game plan to do it. I don't know what's preventing you. Now. I will give Greenberg some credit because he has doubled the amount of camps he has cleaned out from the from the previous year. From year one to year two, he doubled that over a hundred times they have moved camps out.
So at least he's moving in that direction. But I think he needs to pick up the pace. Well, let's call it like it is. Let's call balls and strikes. It's not just violence downtown thanks to fish Or It's spread everywhere across. I sent you guys a video last night Saint Matthews. People you know, kicking each other in the streets. Buddy, mine got robbed at gunpoint on a Sunday afternoon on Westport Road. Wow. Uh,
you know it's everywhere now. But that's what happens when you when you have crooked judges that don't want to enforce the law, and you got a bum County attorney. You're gonna get this word is out, words out that criminals. This is a good place to do business. Do what you want. You're not going to spend any time in jail. If you're homeless, come to Louisville. We'll give you everything you need. We can change that narrative
and it will take care of itself. Human nature will tell you that whether you're a crooked CEO on Wall Street or you're a lowly criminal drug dealer on the corner, doesn't matter, and everyone in between you. You will do what you This is human nature. You will do what you're allowed to do, what you can get away with. So I when you were in the army, if you were allowed to if you're allowed to get away with an extra day of leave, you're gonna take it. Yeah, you're not doing
so. It's it's just so if if you enforce the law, if you start to grind, then people go, well, I'm not I don't want to do that because it's not worth it. But people will do what they can get away with. So if they know they can carjack a car and there's no repercussions from it, have had it. Yeah, all right, So it is time for joke of the day. And I'm just glad you called You didn't call me a job turkey. I was the reason. I Yeah, if you had, if you had connected with that punch you with,
I would have a right cutter down. All right? Hey sportsball weeks let's do another basketball all right? Right, and it starts tipping off tomorrow writers tonight? Hey girl, stop, what's buddy that walks by the window here downtown? Not just anybody I know? Go can you? Yeah? Okay, let's do this. That is tomor night. I was right ahead tipping off all right? Uh hey felmas, Hey right, Why did the chicken cross the basketball court? I don't know. Why did the chicken across
the bathroom? He heard the ref was blowing. Must have been the end of the game. Okay, Seeman, Johnny, he mentioned spring break. We have the path of totality. Yeah, so you could be sitting in traffic for hours. Why not sit in traffic in a Cook and Reeves luxury van our Captains chairs. You can watch movies H seven nine fourteen fifteen passenger vans. Take one of those to Destin. Forget about airfare, forget about renting cars. You have it all right there. Cookandreevesvans dot Com four four
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com. Stick around, we're gonna find out where money's doing this seeming Johnny on the news. Then Anthony Pgentini joins the show. It's all on the Way News Radio eight forty w h A s Hey didnty b g Hey, welcome back News Radio eight forty w h S. Dwhite, witting Tony see mean Johnny, of course, Dave. Jenny's rolling off through this hunt day with our guests counsel. When Anthony be out Pgentini, first of all, good morning, countsman, how are you? Good morning? Great to see
you guys in the studio. It's good to see you too. But listen, let's get straight to it. Man. An uneventful year for you, and I mean really big day forty A. Yesterday you were vindicated by a jury of your peers. And I got to ask you, first and foremost, was this whole thing just persecution for political differences? Because outside looking in, I said from day one it was a witch hunt. Was this just persecution for political differences? Do you think? Yeah? So what I said
was on Monday that we need to stop criminalizing political disagreement. Now, to compliment my colleagues, I think at the end they stopped that, right. I mean, they made a widely bipartisan decision to say, no, the facts aren't there, We're not going to continue letting this go on. This
is over, I do believe, and the evidence is there. I mean it's in the Ethics Commission record, it's on the It was in the council court that I mean, counselan Winkler himself admitted he had significant political pressure brought to bear. He was told, quote, you are not a real Democrat unless you bring a complaint against him. So it wasn't a hey, I've got this evidence or whatever. It was political pressure being brought to bear initiative.
So he didn't contact FBI, didn't contact any kind of outside organization. When he finds out what he thinks, he finds out right, who does he contact? Well, so two different things. So counsel Winkler did when when he was first brought he he did come to the County Attorney's office. Okay, But what was weird was, for example, Counselman Hollander. You know, we were real close political buddies when we were on council together,
always voted alike. Right, but he received my Christmas card. I mean, one of the absurdities about this is they said that I was hiding this. Right. I put my Christmas card in every council person's mailbox every December within two weeks of the extension that I had when they voted, I didn't vote on it. They voted on it. I put my Christmas card in their mailbox, saying I was now working for the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council a
contract with them. The Hollander got this Christmas card, he didn't read it until early January. And now, this is like a thirty or forty year career attorney, right, he knows the law inside and out. He doesn't call the County Attorney's office, he doesn't call the Public Integrity Unit, he doesn't call any of these legal entities. He calls the political director of the Majority Caucus. So yeah, I mean, again, this is all on the record. I'm not making that up. This is all public record under
oath testimony that the political pressure was brought to bear initially. So I think initially, yes, there was a lot of political pressure brought to bear. They shopped around for somebody to file this, and they got somebody to file it. But again, I want to say to my colleagues and the Majority Caucus, I was impressed, blown away, humbled by the final decision they
made when the evidence was in front of them. I would say that this council did make the right decision and said, you know what, this should not be a political thing. This should be based on facts and evidence, and I would argue they did absolutely that. But the way it was presented was Anthony p Argentini secured money for Outfit A. Now he's working for Outfit A. That's the way it was presented. And that sounds fishy, How is it not? Yeah, So what I've said, good question. So
what I've said at my press conference, I apologize. As a matter of fact, during the ethics hearing, I said this, I apologized for the optics of it. And look, the truth of the matter is, as I mentioned on Monday, I haven't got or Tuesday morning, I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in twenty years. The idea that I would graduate from that sort of an integrity record too, what they accused me of is really truly absurd. What I think is fair criticism is when I received the non disclosure
agreement, when I signed it, when we started negotiating. Now, at that point I was abstaining. I wasn't talking to anybody about I was doing by the law, what I was supposed to do, what I should have done, and what I've apologized to counsel A Winkler for what I've apologized to the council for I should have called Winkler and said, hey, look buddy, this is what's going on. You should be aware, right just optically, we should, you know, make sure there's no confusion about what's going
on. And I said in the ethics hearing months ago, I said if I could go back in a time machine and redo that, I would redo that in a second. So I had no complaint after the news came out to say, let's put all the evidence out there, right, let's get it all. Let's get all the facts out there, because I think what's the facts are out there? People understand this was a misunderstanding. And stylistically, should I do something? Should I have done something different? Absolutely,
But that is not breaking the law. The law does not require a stylistic way to do this or some magical words. It requires me to abstain. And that's precisely what I did. And the ap odds and TEENI is with us now, mat your counsel and been busy this year with this entire situation. Now the deal is done. So the forty forty million dollars roughly, yeah, federal dollars, Yeah, that canceled. That's canceled, right, source group sort of. So to be clear, the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council
was not getting forty million dollars. They were just one of like five or six entities. Okay, So the Louisville Healthcare CEO Counsel is out of it, but the other entities are still getting their money and still working on what were they going to do with that money? What were the programs? Real quick, it was all around hiring healthcare workers, particularly targeting minority and disadvantaged, low income populations, getting them into healthcare careers okay, paying careers.
Okay. Where the money was pulled and where did it go? So most of it is still doing that, okay, it's just going to the other organizations that were part of that coalition. And then some of it that was going to go to the seat to the Healthcare CEO Council that they repurposed it to parks to all that fixed the pool yeah right right, some infrastructure work right yeah. So so and look that again, because it was related to this, I didn't get involved in that. I abstained from those decisions and
you get the job. Oh no, I worked for them for over a year. Okay, yeah, Now, now at the end of it, once the Ethics Commission made their decision, I I voluntarily went to the board and said, look, this was unfair to this group. To be very clear with you, the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council is a wonderful group of people, some of the most ethical, honorable people I've ever worked with, brilliant people doing brilliant work in this city, and they have been completely unfairly maligned.
I did not want to continue to drag them down. So I went to the board and said, let my contract expire. Let's just let's just get this go away. Let's let's walk away from this. We're all friends, right. I didn't want to drag you down and I'll go off and figure something else out. So I voluntarily said, look, let's just let this go away. So what a year? So how has this impacted your family? I look, you know, we all go through situations and it's
uncertainty is the worst. And that's really what you were on no solid ground for the last year. Had to be a lot mentally for you and your wife and your family. Yeah, one of the most aggravating parts is I never delayed this. I wanted to get this done and get everything it was.
The Ethics Commission extended it to the longest possible time frame they could, and then even the Council, the Council, the Charging Committee said they were ready to go late December, and now we're in mid March till they finally finished this. Right, so it sort of dragged out. But the family, it's been tough on them. You know. I talked about this. I got very emotional yesterday morning talking about the impact of my family. But
what I also said was my family is wonderful. I got a wonderful wife, twin daughters fourteen years old, and I said, I'm I'm blessed with this family. I pray that everybody is blessed with a family like that, because if you are, you can weather any storm. Forgive me for that if you already brought this up. But help me understand if when it comes to a vote of you abstained, how is this even a question? Yeah, so I just don't understand. Well, uh yeah, I mean that's
been our argument, right that I abstained. I did legally what I was required to do. Right at the end of the day, I think their point, the opposition's point was it was a stylistic concern, and then because of the stylistic question, they thought there there must be something else that's wrong. As a matter of fact, my closing statement highlighted this that people thought there were something wrong, and then they tried to back into the answer.
Yeah, instead just called a federal investigation. Any federal they do, they want to fish deeper, so if we open it up, we're gonna find it. And they didn't find it, and they didn't find it, and so yeah, once so they kept backing up, and that was the flaw in their whole logic. They basically said, well, you had a phone call this time, you must have been talking about, you know, screwing
over the federal government whatever. Of course they had no proof of that, right, So and again, once the council saw that the proof wasn't there, they made it. Well, you've been you've been vindicated on this. But at the same time, we see how this happens with the public. Do you think this has damaged your reputation in your district or do you think
maybe it makes you stronger? I don't know. Yes, I would argue Option B. You got Okay, yeah, yeah, because first of all I said, and I'll maintain to say, I have been incredibly humbled by the outpouring of support. All the emails I have are just incredibly supportive during the process, after the process. It's been incredible and I can't thank my
constituents enough. But no, I think it vindicates me completely right I have said from the beginning, the facts and the evidence will prove that this was at best a misunderstanding. Nothing legally wrong went on here. Nothing was wrong as far as the Ethics Code or anything elital that bore out Everything I've said from the beginning bore out in the end. I think if anything, uh, those that made the allegations questions there what you know, what their thought
process was. But no, I think in my case, I think it strengthens me, and I do think unlike what you know. One opinion reporter says, it strengthens the Council's integrity because they did not let this fall. I would agree with what they instead made decisions based on facts and truth. I agree with. Does this feel more personal and political or a little bit
of both. Was there a couple of people on the board that you thought, man, this is a little personal against me because we're always going at it or or are you just are you all in the Metro Council, Like there's a lot of groups of people that go at it, but their buddies after it happens, Right, But how much of this is personal and political?
You know, probably a little more more political and or Look, I will defer to the best nature of humans, right, I will assume that those that voted against me, and this is all part of moving on, Like this is over right, I'm moving on. I have to we have a budget coming up. I have to work with these folks. We all have to agree and negotiate in good faith to get a good budget for the city. That's what we're gonna do, with very very very tiny exception,
because I can't say one hundred percent. The most people there we have political disagreements. At the end of the day, personally we're pretty good, right, Like we'll go up for drinks after meetings. Right, some of the people I have them the deepest political disagreements with, we have a ton of respect and personal relationships. That isn't one hundred percent, But that's the vast majority of you. Yeah, I gotta think it's gonna be a little awkward
if you go to the Metro Council break. Really he's getting a kick kat out of the vending machine and up walks one of these guys or girls right next to it. I think your move for me quickly. I think I couldn't do it. Well, of course you couldn't do it, but the saying God forgives wit AND's don't that's that's for sure. Okay, so we'll really give you in twenty seconds. What's the biggest lesson you've come away from this? Uh? You know, the biggest lesson is more transparency. I
think if anything again, I had a blind spot on. I know, I'm honest. I need to be more proactive and making sure everybody knows that moving forward. ANTHONYP. Aargentini, thank you, Good to see you, my friend. Right who we have dad shitty raise, shady raise Baby. I'm gonna put them on right now. Check these out, the brand new look, good lens esus the coolest lids. Steal You're not gonna steal these either, man, Okay, go ahead and steal them. You know why?
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