Cincinnati on ICE, AI, Public Safety, Housing & Federal Pressure | Councilmember Mark Jeffreys

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Episode Summary

Cincinnati City Councilmember Mark Jeffreys discusses how cities actually govern during moments of national tension. Drawing on his background as a Procter & Gamble executive, Mark explores ICE enforcement, AI regulation, public safety, affordable housing, and how local governments navigate federal pressure.

Key Topics: Cincinnati, Mark Jeffreys, ICE enforcement, AI regulation, public safety, affordable housing, local government, federal pressure, city council, urban policy

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Conversation

Evan Meyer: 00:02.082 Good morning, everybody or afternoon. Today I'm joined by Mark Jeffries, Cincinnati City Council member, former Procter & Gamble executive and entrepreneur bringing a private sector lens to public service. He's been deeply involved in housing policy, equitable growth and neighborhood level quality of life issues across the city. In this conversation, we'll explore how those local priorities intersect with larger federal dynamics and how the city

thinks about accountability, funding, and community trust. Councilmember, how are you?

Mark Jeffreys: 00:37.912 doing well. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate this opportunity.

Evan Meyer: 00:42.094 I must just start by saying I think you have wonderful hair and as a bald man, I always think it's important to acknowledge that. I acknowledge a good head of hair when I see one.

Mark Jeffreys: 00:55.894 Somebody was giving me grief in my recent campaign on the hair and I didn't get it, but that's okay. I'll take it.

Evan Meyer: 01:04.878 Well, no one should be giving you grief. Especially on something like that. There's some. Yeah, right, right. There's so much going on in the world. But why don't tell me a little bit about what's going on top of mind right now. Cincinnati City Council and for the residents across the city.

Mark Jeffreys: 01:12.448 nature of politics.

Mark Jeffreys: 01:28.024 Yeah, look, I mean, we're sitting here the end of January. I think the biggest top-of-mind issue obviously is what's happening in Minneapolis. And when is that activity going to come here to Cincinnati? So a lot of anxiety around that issue. What is that going to mean? Here in Ohio, and if you remember the presidential campaign, the whole issue that came up of Haitians in Springfield, which is just north of us, quote-unquote, eating their dogs, that whole thing.

The Haitians come off their temporary status on February 3rd. So there's a lot of speculation. ISIS had some activity here in Cincinnati on the West Side. They grabbed a guy who was just going out to get a birthday candles for his kid. No criminal record or anything. So there's a lot of anxiety around that, you know, and just trying to understand how do we scope what we do, right? You know, because clearly the scope of the local government

versus the state government, and obviously federal is very different. And so we're shaping that, and there are a couple things coming forward on it.

Evan Meyer: 02:37.685 So it's obviously a very polarized issue, what's happening there. And I'm sure Cincinnati, with its own crime related activity, but also execution of attention, of trying to stop what's going on in the crime universe, like every major city, Public safety should be top of mind. But because it's so polarized, how do you separate

the facts from fiction, the wheat from the chaff, right? Like how do you determine, you know, for example, you said someone was, someone innocent got picked up, right? Or who didn't deserve to be whatever the rationale there, but how do you know, what data are you using to make these kinds of assessments to say, hey, there's some real legitimate people that are being picked up. And also there's some stuff that's not so good. How do you assess all this?

Mark Jeffreys (03:36.42) Yeah, I think it begins with engaging all different kinds of stakeholders. I'll give you an example. This weekend, I reached out to the head of our fraternal order of police.

I was endorsed by the FOP and I said, hey, here's what we're thinking about, wanted to get your perspective. And look, I mean, we have great relationships with the FBI and DEA, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, all those organizations in the federal government, as most local jurisdictions do. And we rely on them to go after the bad guys and find folks who may have illegal guns or...

drugs or whatever have you. And so we don't want to do anything to disrupt those relationships. a lot of it is, mean, objective data that we have on violent activities. And I always say, I don't care if a person's here legally or without documentation, if they're a violent criminal, then yes, I think we should go after them because I don't care what your legal status is if you've been convicted or...

half a violent offense, then I don't want that type of individual here in the community. So a lot of it begins with that kind of engagement. I'm out in the community a lot. I'm undergoing an initiative called Walking All the 52 Neighborhoods. So I'm about 290 miles into contiguously walking our city. And I think it's just a great way to organically be in touch with people. I just walk into businesses. I walked into a Guatemalan.

story the other day and just understanding some of the issues. There's obviously in that case a lot of trepidation of talking to people in government, know, at whatever level, you know, and then walking into different housing projects and meeting people on the street. you know, I think that is that kind of

Mark Jeffreys: 05:27.514 presence, think, is really important, just simply showing up, understanding how people are feeling, and making an educated guess. Look, I mean, my background, as you know, is with Procter & Gamble, so I approach things very much from a let me share the data methodical. One of the frameworks I always leverage at P &G, sphere of control, influence, and concern. There are a lot of things to be concerned about. There are not as many things that we can influence, but let's try.

I'm focused on what I can control and that's the most important part.

Evan Meyer: 06:04.043 Yeah. Do you think should should Cincinnati be on the list where this becomes a you know a more enforced activity from ICE? Do you feel there things you would have done differently than how Minneapolis is handling it? How would you be supportive with the administration or not supportive? But how do you think you would handle it or you think the city council would handle it even at a greater?

breath there.

Mark Jeffreys (06:35.31) Yeah, so I mean we are doing kind of a deep dive in what Minneapolis has done, LA, Chicago, where there's been more activity. Like what have we learned from there?

What I'm doing in fact a week from today, I have a meeting with faith leaders here in the city with our police legal team just to have them ask Q &A. For example, the Jewish community and the Muslim community to often have a detail officer for general safety. What do they do if ICE comes into the House of Worship? What are the rules and regulations? So I think a lot of it is like, let's educate ourselves. We're also going to deploy in the next week a portal where folks can

update information on any civil rights violation, but then those can be subsequently prosecuted if need be. And the reality is that federal government obviously preempts so much of this, right? There's only so much as a local community other than kind of moral authority and that we can do and speak up. But those are important, and I think our citizens, just like any citizens in any city,

want that from their elected officials.

Evan Meyer: 07:48.277 Yeah. So it sounds like a balanced approach is probably the right answer.

Mark Jeffreys (07:54.39) It is. mean, you know, the other piece of it, Evan, is, know, I mean, we're also in, you know, we're a very blue city and county, but we're in a red state, you know, so we need to work with our governor, Governor DeWine, who's very sensible, you know, work with him and other stakeholders. And, you know, just stay focused on what's important, which is keeping people safe. I want to keep people safe. is the most important thing in general in life.

You might have great parks, great universities, great schools, everything, but if you don't have safety, then it doesn't matter. we do need to stay focused on that, which we are, especially with our local police and law enforcement.

Evan Meyer: 08:34.241 Yeah, do you think what's happening right now from the Trump administration, do you think there is a general focus on public safety, or do you think that it's mired in other stuff? But with all the, know, between the Maduro capture and ICE.

Do you feel like these are things are helping with public safety in the long run? I know there are instances, of course, but you know, from the war on drugs to gangs and getting the violent people out overall, helping or hurting.

Mark Jeffreys: 09:15.642 We're all hurting. mean, look, you look at, was a study published in the Wall Street Journal last week, last week, not, or it might have been even this week, not exactly a liberal rag from the Cato Institute, which is again, not necessarily liberal. 5 % of all the apprehensions of folks had a criminal, a criminal prosecution or some kind of criminal offense. So in other words, 95 % of people that ISIS is capturing are not.

criminals. And I think most people in this country were sold rightfully. Hey, let's go after the bad guys. Let's get the bad guys out. Great. They're not sold on going after Americans, going after people who, you know, are here and with their families. And there has to be a different way and a more humane way. you know, so I don't think on balance, I don't think it's necessarily leading us to a safer place.

Evan Meyer: 10:09.761 Hmm, interesting. Yeah, the problem that I've had with all this is that I just like numbers like I've heard that number at 5%. I've also heard it at 70 % or 50%. It depends on who and it is interesting. Wall Street Journal is is not known to be particularly left. But sometimes I struggle in when I'm assessing this. Where are all these data points coming from and what am I relying on my own judgment?

to be a critical thinker here. And it's a real challenge sometimes because these stories unfold over time, right? It does, you find out new things, new videos come out, new information, and you start to see how narratives are either, there's an escalated commitment towards an existing narrative. There are a few that will change their,

Feelings based or thoughts and reporting based on new information, which I find to be relatively rare, but very good practice But how has your experience? 17 years as an executive at Procter and Gamble I Think you worked on Gillette, right?

What was the other one that you ran that was big?

Mark Jeffreys: 11:30.348 I ran July and I was brand manager on Pampers.

Evan Meyer (11:34.05) Pampers. I know about Pampers. I'm familiar with both brands very well. I have such an intimate experience with both of those brands. I mean these are brands that have been stories told of the brands for many years of why people have built such trust in these brands. Also the quality of the product of course. But how is your understanding

and watch this segue, it's a good one, based on what I've just said about narrative and the products that you've ran, how does that shape your understanding of political narratives and political marketing, campaign marketing, and the stories that were told and how that shapes people's reaction of the news and their understanding of reality?

Mark Jeffreys (12:28.73) Yeah, I what I'd say is like look a brand is very similar to a person in a sense. I mean you either trust it or you don't. Similar to a human relationship, you can lose trust very quickly. I mean think about Tylenol way back when when there was contamination in Tylenol and people lost trust. There are a lot of brands where there's been lost trust.

And so you have to, as a brand manager or somebody who runs those businesses, you have to take that very seriously. You're a steward of this brand. And also, how can you evolve the story of what it's about? Because brands don't reinvent themselves overnight. mean, as an example, Old Spice, which is a P &G brand, that did do a pretty major reinvention. I mean, way back when it used to be your grandfather's splash on aftershave thing.

and then they undertook a major reinvention to go after a younger man and make it a little more, you know, edgy. And so, you know, look, I mean, I've always thought you you apply the same, a lot of the same methodical thinking to and that's how I've approached it, you know, into problem solving problem. Well defined is a problem have solved, we say PNG. So the more you can define what exactly is the problem, peel the onion, peel the onion, peel the onion. And by the time you've done that, you've solved.

or at least framed it pretty well. The other PNG expression I always use, my staff jokes, is what has to be true. So when you have a problem, it's like very easily any bureaucracy – and PNG is a very big bureaucracy, and then even government is obviously bureaucracy – and instead of, well, you can't do this, can't do that, well, what needs to be true? Well, we would need to add X number of people.

We would need to get regulatory approval. Okay, well, how do we do that? How many people? How much money is that? And often when you're dissecting an issue that way, and I've done that methodically on council on various issues, you start really narrowing it down and rather than, we can't just do that. Any bureaucracy is going to do that. And so I think a lot of that

Mark Jeffreys (14:40.41) thought process and frameworks, among many others, I think is super helpful in any entity, whether it be private sector or government.

Evan Meyer: 14:51.053 Do you feel that that exists right now in the city's council and in the government operations?

Mark Jeffreys: 14:59.518 No, mean, you know, look, I mean, it's it's to some extent, I think we're getting there. I mean, when I came on council four years ago, we did not have key performance indicators across different departments. And it just blew my mind. Like, what is success? Tell me what.

Evan Meyer: 15:16.269 What are you working for? What are you working toward,

Mark Jeffreys (15:20.25) And then three years ago, I'll give you a funny example, you'll laugh, our department of public works, it picks up the trash and does the snow and all that kind of stuff. They came back and said, okay, our first KPI, key performance indicator, is how quickly we pick up roadkill.

I'm like, okay, like it's not a major problem. You know, and so it's been an evolution, but the one that last year, mean, they, each of the departments had kind of green, yellow, red. Here's, here's what our goals are. Here's where we doing well. Here's where we're, need improvement. And I would say the, the strength of a culture of any organization is when people feel comfortable saying that they're maybe not doing as well, which I think is great because great. Tell me how we can make you successful. What other resources.

Evan Meyer: 15:40.813 room kill.

Mark Jeffreys: 16:08.892 do you need, what else do you need, and that's the strength of a healthy organization that you have the ability, you're not living in fear that you're going to be fired. And so we've made progress there and continue to push.

Evan Meyer: 16:22.869 Yeah, mean, government has that particular fear very often because people rely on their pensions, something that entrepreneurs work for their whole life so they can get a big return. very often is that form in government is work a long time and you'll get your free money after. But very often that creates a risk aversion.

Mark Jeffreys: 16:43.288 Mm-hmm. Sure.

Evan Meyer: 16:49.325 that I've seen and it's a challenge to motivate people to do anything interesting without having the whole city approve of it so they're not going to get in trouble kind of thing, right? Like, so how do you manage risk, the ability to take these risks in something that you know is so important in business, right? You have to find where all these little access points and opportunities are. How do you manage that?

Mark Jeffreys: 17:18.116 Yeah, so two things on that. One, I come back to one of my bosses who ended up being President Duracell outside of P &G. He used to have this formula which dissected risk, which is risk equals probability times consequence. know, because often people are like, it's too risky. can't do that. OK, well, what's the consequence if we do that?

If it comes to human health or something like that, okay, it's pretty high. You don't want people to die or get sick. And then what's the probability? If the consequence is high, then maybe it is very risky. But if the consequence is not very high,

you then okay, you lean in and you take it. So I've often leveraged that to push people like, okay, really, really, what's the probability something's gonna happen bad in this decision? And then what's the consequence? The other is just leveraging data and I'll give you an example. So on housing, I pushed for a benchmark versus all other cities on all of the development.

key performance indicators. Because developers are saying, we're too slow, we can't do anything. And I go to the Builders and Inspection and they'll say no, no, no, to your point, because nobody gets fired for saying no. You'll get fired for saying yes and then oops.

Evan Meyer: 18:31.239 Hahaha!

Mark Jeffreys: 18:32.686 building collapse or something like that. So there's a hesitation. But I have in my office you walk into my office and we've set a big audacious housing goal. We're building about 1,500 units now. We want to build 4,000 a year. And so every month we update that and say, where are we? And committee, we say, where are we? And then all the key performance indicators – we're benchmarking versus other cities. So we say, okay, here's the reality. It does take twice as long to get an inspection or to get

a permit or whatever have you. And so it's hard to ignore once you have that objective data. Somebody who's approving an inspection or something, it's like, no, we need to hit X number of days because that's all of our peer cities. And our city is no different than any of those. And then you're able to push them a little bit more. And you need approval from above, approval from council, but then also from the administration, whoever the director is, that

If something happens bad, then you got their back.

Evan Meyer: 19:38.017 Why do you think housing became so polarized right now?

Mark Jeffreys: 19:43.674 It's man we could probably do a whole podcast on that because I lead our Housing and Growth Committee We did a major zoning just like a lot of cities major zoning overhaul Eliminate a lot of minute minimum in single-family units allowing

Evan Meyer: 19:53.217 Yeah.

Mark Jeffreys: 20:03.662 multifamily, we had a development in a more well off neighborhood called Hyde Park here in Cincinnati, where somebody wanted a variance a little higher. People in the neighborhood, somebody called it, this is gonna be Manhattan. mean, literally seven stories. And so there's a lot of, I think, anxiety of people of, there's a conservatism, I I would say especially in Cincinnati, but elsewhere, of folks that they don't like change.

Want to change and so if you change zoning in particular then that leads to You know a different character of the neighborhood And I would say the biggest thing Evan is like if you think about it What are the two biggest investments of Americans in their future their retirement 401ks and their house? And so anything that impacts the perceived value of their house? this is gonna change the value of my house because I'm gonna have this crappy unit down

street and therefore my comps going to be worse. think people understandably are concerned because their future investment is in that house. So I get that, but you know, we're continuing to push. I've got an initiative now actually that I just introduced last week to push for what I'm calling a housing where we serve. Where we anytime we're adding a rec center, even a firehouse or police station, we're building housing on

top of there. It's a brilliant model because the city is already putting in the fixed cost of building the structure in the first floor and then we're going to have a partnership with another developer to build housing on top. you know look we've got to go after these kind of creative solutions in order to really tackle this housing crisis because it's you know it is across the country it is not just here in our locality.

Evan Meyer: 21:59.405 Yeah. And I hear the same, actually, the three things you mentioned resistance to change financial implications for those who own property. Right. And that goes beyond housing, but anything that can influence that, like, you know.

And that can get into why are there needles in the park across from the school in my neighborhood. Right. That goes it can go deep on how far you look at the financial implications of someone's property and the character of the city. So I mean, do you think and I guess to a degree, in my opinion, all of those are legitimate.

Concerns even resistance to change I suppose has some legitimacy It shouldn't be too resistant to change but people get older and they do it, I don't know if there's a way around of someone being comfortable and 70 years old and being like you're doing what? Right, like that's sort of just the nature of getting older like people get more conservative beliefs Maybe not in political beliefs, but people get stuck in their ways like that's just

Like, I don't know, I haven't seen someone age and not get stuck in their ways, have you?

Mark Jeffreys: 23:08.984 No, no, I completely agree. I mean, that is a large part of it that folks just like the way it is. I think they need to understand the implication of not building housing. And that's really the challenge because our overall costs of housing and rents are skyrocketing because I'll give you an example here in Cincinnati for decades from the 1960s into the early 2000s, we were losing population.

Evan Meyer: 23:10.325 Hahaha

Mark Jeffreys: 23:35.066 Early 2000s we started, the last couple of years we added 5,000, or two years ago, 5,000, the last two years, 5,000 people, which, all right, we're growing. 5,000 people to the earlier point I made, we've only added per year about 1,500. Gross. Net of teardowns, a little less than 1,000 units. 1,000 new units of housing, 5,000 new people.

It's supply and demand. You're going to have rising costs because you have more people going after a limited product. for people who are older, like you said, they have kids or grandkids and they want them to live near them. And so how do you enable that? I legalize accessory dwelling units. That's another great solution. So build out a garage or...

Evan Meyer: 24:03.725 Yeah.

Evan Meyer: 24:12.397 Yeah.

Mark Jeffreys: 24:21.626 separate house like a tiny house or you know a basement unit or something that adds incremental units but I think we have to convince people or share why growing housing is so important and what the benefit is for them.

Evan Meyer: 24:37.058 Yeah. And from my understanding, it's another one of those things that most people agree that housing is a major component to the problem. I haven't heard of anyone say, I don't think housing is very important. I think that it becomes a problem when it's the only solution for a very diverse problem. Right. And I think that's where the arguments I've heard. You've made three examples. think, you know, some of the other around housing is like,

it does this fix the problem? Does it fix the population problem? What if you get another 5,000 next year? Can you build twice as many houses that you even planned? How do you manage that? It's similar to like the free build another lane on the freeway arguments. Sometimes I hear just the arguments I've heard, right? Like I have this, I don't even take positions on things so often if I don't have to, but I try to like hear all the sides of of it because I think it helps.

Very often, if I was trying to build housing, I would want to go first to the three people who disagree, the three types or four types of people who disagree with it and be like, all right, how do we get you over this hump? Because the loudest voices, the angriest voices are the loudest if they have enough time in politics, right?

Mark Jeffreys (25:54.71) I mean, the other thing I would say is like you look at back to the data, the average age, average of a new first time home buyer now is 40 versus 10, 20 years ago was in their 30s and then back in the 60s, it was 20 something. So 40 years old is the average age of first time home buyer. So if you take out a 30 year mortgage, you're basically paid off when you're 70. And, you know, I mean, that is a real

Evan Meyer: 26:12.323 Mm-hmm.

Evan Meyer: 26:20.749 Yeah.

Mark Jeffreys: 26:23.748 problem, know, that younger people just do not have, because prices have gone up so much, they do not have as much of an opportunity to buy a home and then get the equity in most of their working life.

Evan Meyer: 26:39.724 Yeah. Yeah, it's a big challenge. I know in California, they've mandated a certain minimum amount of units that every city has to essentially say yes to. And if they don't submit a plan to do it, then people can just build. Right? And without having to go through the city, for example. It happened in Santa Monica, something like that, where they did not submit.

the forms required to manage this process with the state. And now people just started building stuff and talk about character change. you know, there was a lot of some people were thrilled about that, of course. They're like, yes, anything for more housing. And some people were obviously very upset about it. But, you know, we that was a big thing here in California, of course, as well. And now with like the Palisade fires, of course, as you know, this

Mark Jeffreys: 27:35.674 Yeah.

Evan Meyer: 27:37.346 you know, becomes an even deeper conversation of, boy, how fast can we do things? So what's getting in the way for you in terms of speed of moving the housing along?

Mark Jeffreys: 27:42.948 Mm-hmm.

Mark Jeffreys: 27:49.114 I think, you know, I would say a couple things. There's three. You know, one is what I alluded to in terms of approval time. So we need to be best in class and how we approve. So that's very measurable. How were we against every other city? The second is how we engage residents to your point. So we are a city of 52 neighborhoods. Most of those have a community council and

The developer will go to the community council and say, hey, here's the development. And often that takes a year to plus. I this is, know this has happened in California and people like, well, I don't like that. I don't like this. Well, time is money. and you know, and, and, and that just adds time. I was talking to one developer who, the somebody was the building's inspector was Adam maternally for like four months. So the project took four months longer, which is ridiculous.

And they had to add $30,000 onto the price of the house as a result because costs went up. So the second is making sure we have a very predictable for everyone way that we engage with local community. So it should be boilerplate. Hey, you come to the city, you're going to have this type. If it's over X dollars, here's the kind of engagement that you would expect.

the developer comes and you provide input and then maybe it's another time or a third time, but very predictable. And that I think is currently a barrier that I think a lot of, I think most entities have. And the third is purely financial. Look, mean, costs have gone up 45 % in construction in the last few years or even more recently with some of the tariffs have added costs onto the inputs into housing.

And that's been a barrier. So we're looking at creative solutions like how do we leverage our tax incremental financing tools, bonding capability to close gaps. We have an affordable housing trust fund as well that we contribute to. So we try to weave together federal funds, state funds, other funds to provide gap financing for projects and other tools like tax evasions. Look.

Mark Jeffreys: 30:00.954 The other thing I'd say, came to this project, there's an iconic building here in Cincinnati called Karoo Tower. been, if you look at the skyline, it's there. It's been empty for years. We had a developer come in and he happens to be from New York. And he, without any abatement or anything, the return was 3%. And I made this point on the dais because I looked up my American Express high yield, which is the lowest risk possible. And it was like 4.5%.

I'm like, why in the world would a developer invest in a project where he makes 3 %? Where he can take that money and put it in the lowest risk possible. Forget about S &P or something else. And so we have to realize that, look, mean, yes, often developers have kind of this bad, oh, they're just greedy. But I think we do this what's called but for analysis. And but for any kind of support, what is their return?

If the return is 3 % or 4%, most of the projects we approve are about 6%, which still is less than what the S &P delivers on average. But you're living in La La Land if you think that somebody's going to come and do a project for 3 % because it's just not going to happen.

Evan Meyer: 31:04.365 Yeah.

Evan Meyer: 31:18.444 Yeah, and the S &P is a great benchmark. I I've used that as a benchmark for all sorts of things, even buying a home, right? And like the work and time that goes into buying a home. And it's like, all right, well, after all repairs and taxes and insurance now, is it even worth the hassle? Unless I'm going to really love that process of like fixing a roof or whatever, you know, like, like is it, does it annualized after all things considered?

Mark Jeffreys: 31:41.402 Hopefully.

Mark Jeffreys (31:46.34) Yep.

Evan Meyer: 31:46.937 tax abate, you know, mitigation strategies through real estate. You can write off things. Does it cover my rent? You know, like you can, am I renting it out? All these things at the end of the line, is this annualized better than 10, 12, 14 %? And I don't know the answer to that sometimes, especially in California. Like that's that's a lot trickier, I think. But.

Mark Jeffreys: 32:01.732 Yeah, exactly.

Mark Jeffreys: 32:09.976 Yeah, no, you could do probably a net present value. And these days you can go on. I was in a council meeting the other day and somebody was criticizing an investment we made on a, we have a dump site that was a garbage dump, 62 acres that's been vacant for years. And we're to put a solar farm on top. So somebody said, well, this is a bad NPV, net present value, like financial return. I literally went on, have to say in the meeting, I'm like.

I went on chat GPT, I'm like, okay, do an NPV, you this discount rate, this blah, blah, and put it in. And it's like, you know, it's like a couple million dollars. I'm like, okay, that simply is just not, not true. Um, you know, but, so this day and age, can, you know, leverage tools like that for even better, faster decision-making, which is pretty amazing.

Evan Meyer: 32:59.598 Yeah, well soon you'll all be having sunglasses or even just eyeglasses that will listen and give you the information you need in real time. That's coming. You won't even have to look down. And then you'll get the brain implant eventually. Everyone will have one of those and you won't even have to wear anything at all. You'll just be a robot.

Mark Jeffreys: 33:08.026 Mm-hmm.

Mark Jeffreys: 33:13.263 Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.

Mark Jeffreys (33:24.73) People always call people at P &G proctoids and so I always joke I'm like I have my chips in my house.

Evan Meyer: 33:33.187 That's That's really funny. Is the city bracing or managing anything as it relates to AI policy or this is something that's moving so fast. My prediction is that if

Policy doesn't get you. You can't be voting on things once a year. Cities can vote on things a lot more often, but the state can't usually and the feds can't write like these are things that take a long time. But cities can. A.I. policy. What's your position on this as it relates to Cincinnati?

Mark Jeffreys (34:22.18) Yeah, I would say we're not moving fast enough. mean, I've said that. We are, quote unquote, developing a policy, our administration is. But I think the real opportunity is just to deliver better. I mean, sure, some companies, obviously, you read the Wall Street Journal, I read this morning, Amazon laying people off. mean, people are laying people off. And obviously, there is opportunity for savings over time with that.

But I think the real opportunity for AI and government is just to deliver better services. As an example, how do we optimize our routes for Snowfleet or for garbage trucks where we're reducing cost? How do we optimize when our lights are on or off or in buildings and therefore we're reducing energy costs? So I think those are the real – that's where I think we should focus, because I think we need to understand use cases.

and take it from there, like what are the use cases that make sense. We have...

I mean, I've been engaged with a lot of forums. part of this group, New Deal Democrats in DC, which are kind of center left. So back in May, I was picked as like one of 19 rising Democrats in the country. And we go to these different forums, and we these forums on AI. And it's helpful to see what are other entities, states, and localities doing on AI, because obviously nobody's figured it out. And we have to figure out what a policy is. And to your point, once you establish that, it's probably outdated.

after you sign the ink on it and you got to start again. So I've been engaging local folks here. We funded a project to help shape what that looks like. And it can't be something that we roll out in a year or two because it's just moving so, fast.

Evan Meyer: 36:00.399 Exactly.

Evan Meyer (36:15.65) That's right. I find the RFP process to be very similar with that in this day and age. It's like by the time you get the RFP out and people reply and you get the technology implement for in the software sense, let's say like the needs you had two years ago are not the same needs you have today. And it's a very hard thing for

for governments to be agile. Fortunately, local governments have the ability to be agile when it comes to policy, if they want. Right?

Mark Jeffreys: 36:45.912 Yeah, no, we do. And I mean, I live this space outside of council. I own my own company called Forsyte and we have a partnership with a company that for years developed a platform to predict

emerging and identify early signals of new technology coming from China for the Pentagon. And we leverage the same platform to predict ingredients that might be of concern. You know, make America healthy, all these ingredients in different products where people are surprised, my God, this causes cancer or Alzheimer's or whatever. And our platform is predicting a lot of that. So I kind of live in this space of machine learning and AI every day on my other job. So it definitely provides

a different lens on how should we be approaching it with local government.

Evan Meyer: 37:34.351 You mentioned before that the council, the city leans left as cities do, almost all of them big cities in the country, other than a few exceptions. think Tulsa and Colorado Springs with the military base. There's a few exceptions, but cities lean left and areas outside the cities lean red. That's pretty much.

Mark Jeffreys: 38:00.815 Mm-hmm.

Evan Meyer: 38:02.316 the conversation people should be having is urban and rural, not versus, I don't want to say versus, but that's really the difference, right? Even Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin all vote blue, Texas, red, right? So it's very interesting. But you mentioned on the council, either you mentioned it or I researched it and found out that all the council leans left. Nine members?

Mark Jeffreys: 38:15.642 Yeah.

Mark Jeffreys: 38:28.238 Yeah, we're all exactly we nine members. We're all Democrats. I will tell you it's interesting. I am a executive vice president on what's called a metropolitan planning organization. Every, every city, every or every regional entity has a metropolitan planning organization, NPO. In our case, it's 11 different counties, including Indiana, Kentucky, way out in the middle of and I'm the only Democrat on the leadership team. And, you know, that is

We had this initiative we launched called More In Common. And a lot of it's just, we do these get togethers where we have a beer and get to know each other as people. I've reached out and had breakfast with a bunch of the fellow, you know, who are Republican missionaries. We don't talk about policy. We talk about policy just to get to know people. what, you know, why are you, what makes you tick? Why do you enter public service? And there's so much commonality there of like the satisfaction of solving people's problems.

And that's really important. also, have a place out in, it's about an hour and a half from here in Appalachia. It's in Adams County, voted 86 % for Trump. And so very different, but we go to the local coffee shop and we talk to the owner and just, we don't talk politics, but very, and I think that's what we need more of, right?

is just at a human level getting to reminding ourselves that we have very similar aspirations of making sure that our family does well and loving our family and contributing to our community in whatever way. We just have different ways of getting there. And so yes, answer your question. The city is very much, but as you go out, and I've had more opportunity to interact with folks out, and I think that's important and we find commonalities.

case in northern Kentucky, which is right over the river, because you think about Ohio – you've got the Ohio River. You have three judge executives who are Republican and working – we're working on things like building bus rapid transit to the airport, which is in Kentucky, other public – so where can we find commonalities on policy that benefit the region, especially in transportation? I think that's a common bipartisan issue. And so I think those have been real opportunities to build

Mark Jeffreys (40:51.42) which I think is important. You just have to do it little by little. And if everybody did level, then you would have, it would aggregate to something hopefully bigger.

Evan Meyer: 41:02.638 Well, I think that's the right, I agree, that's the right mentality in whether you lean left or right. It's acknowledging that everyone wants the same thing. I won't say everyone. Let's say most people really do, other than the extremes that are dominating the social media algorithms. And unfortunately,

these narratives end up living in people's heads, whether subtly or in an extreme sense, they live there and then they cast all of the other group to be evil, Democrats, Republicans, whatever. And it's parasitic and it's pathological. It's just, I'm wondering how, given that, and say the city is nine members lean left,

The state is red. Let's assume, I'm going to assume most people in the city council are trying to do what you've just said, which is build bridges regardless of your leaning. Right. I find Ohio to be, everyone's, feels very moderate in general, Ohio. it just, everyone I meet from Ohio, I really like, I won't say everyone again. I don't want to say that, but great state. How do you make sure,

Mark Jeffreys (42:10.01) Yes, probably.

Mark Jeffreys: 42:14.969 Mm-hmm.

Evan Meyer: 42:21.612 that I mean, I see what you're doing. Like the way that you're speaking about it is wonderful. Is there something that could be done at a larger level to ensure there's healthy debate, balance, accountability in these conversations so that people don't just do it to dominate algorithms or try to get one up on another person? How can the meetings be conducted to allow for this type of very, I'll call it warm, logical and

bridge-building type of attitude.

Mark Jeffreys: 42:53.944 Yeah, I mean, the real challenge, as we all know, is the incentive structure is by and large not there, right? Because you think about, for example, on Capitol Hill. Like when I came out of undergrad, went to the University of Chicago, I worked on Capitol Hill for a few years. At that time, the committees to be on were Appropriations, Ways and Means, the money committees, bring money back to your district. Now the committees to be on are what they call the TV committees, know, oversight judiciary where people can get a viral moment and they can send it out

Evan Meyer: 43:23.683 Bye.

Mark Jeffreys: 43:23.868 And so I think the answer to your question is, in a sense, I think we have to keep it off of social media. Because the moment people, they only see a half of a soundbite, and then they latch onto that, and then it spirals. And so to have real, genuine conversations, I think we need them in person, where people look somebody in the face. In social media, I mean, I get it all the time, you have these anonymous people who are keyboard warriors, and they don't even have their real name on there.

and just can attack away, and that's what really destroys a lot of this. And frankly, the attack is on both sides. I I get it from both sides. People are alleging I'm collaborating with ICE on the left, and we're Jewish. other thing is like, I'm a genocide lover because of Gaza. I haven't condemned it enough or something. So you get it on both sides. It's not a only one side. I I do think both sides in the online

Evan Meyer: 44:18.221 Yeah, right.

Mark Jeffreys: 44:23.644 So I think the answer to your question is I think we have to take them offline, the things like I mentioned, this more in common things where you start at the leader level, how can we as leaders get together and know each other a little bit more, and then through that, hopefully that brings the temperature down and we can disagree without being disrespectful and just show some respect, some politics of respect, which is – imagine that.

Evan Meyer: 44:49.888 Imagine that. Yeah. Well, well said. And I definitely appreciate that. That is what this podcast is all about. Trying to make that happen and showcase, you know, folks like yourself who identify with say left leaning, but still believe in the that we can come together, which is the most important thing. And public safety. So. Yeah, so last

Last question for today. What do you want to see from, it's called, a wide sweeping question, but whether from the federal government or from people, what do you want to see in terms of this productive collaboration that will help Cincinnati over the next years, say five to 10 years?

or whatever timeline you think, what can be done there in that productive collaboration to help grow and impact Cincinnati's well-being?

Mark Jeffreys: 46:01.786 I mean, I think it's first it is collaboration with our partners. I think it's focused on the end state of real impact. What are things gonna really impact people's lives back to public safety? How do we make sure people is this truly making people safer?

issues of, it's an overused word now, but affordability. You know, whether it's housing, as we talked, another issue I'm tackling is childcare. We have a huge childcare crisis. So we're trying to introduce, you know, making our rec centers able to use childcare as facilities, allow churches by right to have a childcare facility. So we need creative solutions on cost issues. And we bring down cost. Energy cost is a huge one for folks.

especially with data centers, Energy costs are rising for people. I think if we focus it back to how can we meaningfully improve people's lives and what does that look like, which is not in my mind culture wars and all those things, like that's a distraction. Let's focus on how do we meaningfully improve people's lives. And with that, we need partners. I always say, we all succeed through the help of others. I grew up janitor, laborer, in power,

and then eventually went on to business school and undergrad. And I did it through help of so many people. I called it the trifecta of support, family, community, and yes, the government at times. And we need that collaboration. We all need help, whether it is from family or other community members. And so in order to achieve that success of focusing on really meaningful change in people's lives, I think we need to do it together.

And that's my hope of that type of collaboration.

Evan Meyer (47:56.48) Excellent. Well, it sounds like you have a great sense of balance for how you see things. I guess I'm not surprised as an Ohioan, but it's nice to see that that kind of mindset is leading the future of Cincinnati. And I thank you for your service and all the hard work it took you to get here to be able to do this. I know it was quite a journey for you.

So thank you again and I wish you all of the best and welcome back anytime. It was great to chat.

Mark Jeffreys: 48:32.228 Yeah, likewise, I appreciate the opportunity. I mean, this has been quite enjoyable. So thank you.

Evan Meyer (48:37.57) My pleasure, take care.

Mark Jeffreys: 48:39.748 Bye bye.

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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity while preserving the authentic flow of conversation.